Eulogizing as part of the Petrine myth: A. Cherry’s drama “Peter the Great, or The Wooden Walls”

The paper analyses the play of the late eighteenth and early nineteenth-century English author A. Cherry “Peter the Great, or The Wooden Walls” (1807) in connection with the “Petrine text” of the national drama and in the aspect of the Petrine myth’s We define the constant features of the image of Peter the Great, common for the works of J. Cradock, J. O’Keeffe, and A. Cherry, in relation to the hetero-image of Russia. The analysis reveals the peculiarities of Peter’s characterization in Cherry’s operatic drama, determined by the author’s genre strategies combining elements of comedy, farce, and historical drama. The mixed drama provides a complex representation of the image of Peter the Great. The playwright displays private and public aspects in the protagonist’s character and presents him as a patriot, enlightener and the unifier of the country, the father of the nation, and, at the same time, as a common laborer and a devoted friend. Idealization of Peter I is also conveyed through the portrayal of his love for Catherine, which is determined by his equalitarian concept of love springing from the moral feeling. We highlight the role of the images of nature in the empathic representation of the images of Peter I and Russia, as well as the generalized image of Russian people, generous, patriotic and skilful, which, undoubtedly, runs counter to the traditional reception of Russia in the West in the eighteenth century. In connection with it, it is important to mark the idyllic mood of the play glorifying the czar who leads the country on the road of progress. A. Cherry, as well as his colleagues, contributed to transmitting the Petrine myth, a reduced and simplified image that excluded Peter’s contradictions and the tragic consequences of his reforms. In general, the drama “Peter the Great, or The Wooden Walls” aided valorization of the image of Russia in the artistic consciousness of England.

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