Russian comedy: don't forget the "satiriki" and other stage humorists

[Timothy D. Sergay]

No one seems to have mentioned the tradition of 20th-century 
artisty-satiriki: Zadornov, Khazanov, Zhvanetskii, Petrosian, Vinokur et al. 
Classical sketch comedy by Arkadii Raikin, of which a great deal has been 
preserved in audio recordings and films. Recorded performances of Iraklii 
Andronikov (his story about the musicologist Ivan Sollertinskii is 
sidesplittingly funny, even if you've never heard of Ivan Sollertinskii). 
Zadornov's impressions of Gorbachev (voice, accent, intonations, grammatical 
errors, syntactical morass) are a thing of beauty and a joy forever.

I can't imagine an "objective" top ten list not including some of these 
figures. For lifetime achievement: Raikin at the very least. My personal top 
ten includes Andronikov and Zadornov.

Tim Sergay

>>> Dear SEELANGers,
>>>
>>> A friend has asked me to suggest the best examples of Russian comedy
>>> for
>>> a course sequence she is proposing.  I immediately thought of Gogol
>>> and
>>> Zoshchenko but thought I would ask my fellow SEELANGers what
>>> authors/texts/films would make their top ten list.
>>>
>>> Thank you very much.
>>>
>>> Mike O'Donnell

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