GRIBOEDOV AND WITTINESS IN THE USA: UM, RAZUM AND ZAUM’

In 2020 Columbia University Press in the United States published a new translation of A. S. Griboedov’s play Woe from Wit into English. In the article are discussed the experience of teaching the play in a classroom of non-specialist college students and the particular complications of the play for such readers. Examples from student papers are used and the problem of vocabulary in English is discussed. The author concludes that even though the new translation conveys the content of Griboedov’s play, gives American students an opportunity to expand their knowledge about 19th century Russia, and in parts remains a comedy, certain nuances of the playwright’s poetic inventions are not yet visible. In conjunction with A. S. Pushkin’s Eugene Onegin, Woe from Wit illustrates specific political and moral qualities of society in the first quarter of the century, but the idea of wit remains unclear for students. Teachers of Russian literature in institutions of higher education in the United States and other English-speaking countries, through wittiness, along with the concepts of wit, beyond sense, and reason, help students learn about Russia. The new edition of Griboedov is yet another instrument in this effort.