Article

Name: Isaac Babel’s Short Story “Di Grasso”: Sources of the Plot and Problems of Commenting

Authors: Pogorelskaya E. I.

А. M. Gorky Institute of World Literature of the Russian Academy of Sciences, Moscow, Russian Federation

In the section The Plot in Literature and Folklore

Abstract:

The article is devoted to the publishing problems of I. Babel’s short story “Di Grasso”, namely historical, literary and real commentary on this work. It turns out which events served as a source for both the entire story and its central episode — the performance of the Sicilian tragedian and his troupe on the stage of the City Theater in Odessa. Newspaper reports and testimonies of contemporaries are given, in which descriptions of the seemingly fantastic the-atrical technique used by Giovanni Grasso in this play. “Di Grasso” can be attributed to the writer’s conditionally autobiographical stories about childhood. Like the hero-narrator of the story, Babel was 14 years old during Giovanni Grasso’s tour in Odessa. Pages from his notebook of this period have been preserved, where he recorded, among other things, infor-mation about theatrical performances that he attended. On December 1, 1908, young Babel at-tended the play “The Curse” based on the play by Luigi Capuana, on December 5 - at the play “Civil Death” by Paolo Giacometti (“The Family of a Criminal” translated into Russian by A. N. Ostrovsky). The di Grasso jump depicted in the story is based on a scene from the play “Feudalism” based on the play “Valley” by Angel Guimera. However, in general, the plot of Babel’s play does not coincide with “Feudalism”. Having also partly used the plot of the “Curse” and, possibly, the “Rural Honor” of Giovanni Verga, everything else, except for jumping and “snacking” the opponent’s throat, the writer, most likely, just came up with. The story gives a review of the newspaper “Odessa News” about Grasso as the most amazing actor of the century. December 2, 1908 “Odessa News”, covering the tour of the Italian troupe, published a report on the first performance of “The Curse”, which really contained a very high assessment of Grasso’s performance. The touring repertoire of Italians in Odessa does not coincide with the one named in Babel’s story: “King Lear” and “Othello” by Shake¬speare, “Civil Death” by Giacometti and “Freeloader” by Turgenev. Of those listed in Grasso’s repertoire, there were only “Othello” and “Civil Death”, but “Othello” was not performed in Odessa. Thanks to the publications in the newspaper “Odessa Leaf”, the per¬formances performed in Odessa are known: “The Curse” (December 1), “Feudalism” (December 2), “An Eye for an Eye” (December 3), “Civil Death” (December 5).

Keywords: Isaac Babel, Giovanni Grasso, short story, plot, real commentary, theater, repertoire, stage technique

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