Yevgeny Shvarts

Life of Yevgeny Shvarts

Yevgeny Shvarts was born in Kazan in 1896 into a physician's family. His father was Jewish, his mother Russian. At the end of the 1910s he studied law at Moscow State University, but was drafted into the army in the spring of 1917. He served in the White regiment of general Kornilov, and suffered shell-shock during the storming of Yekaterinodar in 1918. As a result of this he lost several teeth and acquired a tremor of the hands that plagued him for the rest of his life.

In 1919 decided to devote his life to dramatic art and literature. From 1924 on he lived in Leningrad and worked in Gosizdat under the guidance of Samuil Marshak; during that time he also became close with members of the avant-garde literary group OBERIU.

In 1929 Shvarts began writing plays, the best known of which are the modern retellings of fairy tales: «Golyi korol'» ("The Emperor's New Clothes") (1934), «Krasnaya Shapochka» ("Little Red Riding Hood") (1936), «Zolushka» ("Cinderella") (1938), «Snezhnaya Koroleva» ("The Snow Queen", after Hans Christian Andersen) (1938), «Tyen'» ("The Shadow", after Hans Christian Andersen) (1940), «Drakon» ("The Dragon", an original) (1944), and «Obyknovennoye Chudo» ("An Ordinary Miracle") (1956). Most of these plays were subsequently turned into films, sometimes more than once.

“The Dragon”

This play, the most "adult" of Shvarts' plays, is a political satire aimed at totalitarianism in all forms. The plot is based on the attempt of the hero, Lancelot, to liberate people in a land suffering under Dragon's brutal rule. But his efforts meet with resistance, since most of the people have gotten used to the Dragon and considered his methods, though harsh, the only possible way; their souls become, in a way, crippled with this inability and unwillingness to resist. Says the Dragon in the play: "You see, the human soul is very resilient. Cut the body in half — and the man croaks. But tear the soul apart — and it only becomes more pliable, that's all. No, really, you couldn't pick a finer assortment of souls anywhere. Only in my town. Souls with no hands. Souls with no legs. Mute souls, deaf souls, chained souls, snitch souls, damned souls."

Lancelot killing the Dragon in a fight did not free the people; all that changed was the Burgomaster acceding to the position formerly occupied by the Dragon and demanding that Elsa, the same girl who was destined to be sacrificed to the Dragon, become his wife. When Lancelot returns to the town a year later, he realizes that his task is much more complex: "This is going to be a very meticulous job... We have to kill the dragon in each one of them."

Famous Quotations

from "The Dragon"

Heinrich: "It's not my fault, I was taught that way."

Lancelot: "Everyone was, but why did you have to be first in class?"