Studia Litterarum Studia Litterarum 2500-4247 IWL RAS https://doi.org/10.22455/2500-4247-2025-10-3-62-85 Research Article Articles Bernard Shaw’s Devil’s Disciple in Post-Revolutionary Russia Skalnaya Yulia A. red@studlit.ru September 25, 2025 2025 September 15, 2024 The paper focuses on the presence of Bernard Shaw’s play The Devil’s Disciple (1897) on the literary and theatrical stage in Russia after the 1917 revolution. The research considers the Russian version of the text created by A. Deytch and M. Moraf (1932–1934) for Zavadsky’s Theatre-Studio, and E. Kalashnikova’s translation that entered the Complete Bernard Shaw’s Works edition of 1979. The last part of the article studies, two rival productions made in Moscow and Leningrad in the mid-1950s. The research aims to analyze the reasons behind translators’ enduring interest in Shaw’s play, and to trace the evolution in the interpretation of the drama by directors, actors, and critics, using archival materials (RGALI) and reviews in the Soviet press. The methodological basis of the study was the cultural and comparative approaches, as well as the method of close reading. The article concludes on the nature of the influence of the historical and cultural context on the printed and stage fate of The Devil’s Disciple in post-revolutionary Russia. Bernard Shaw The Devil’s Disciple 20th-century drama post-revolutionary Russian theatre Soviet-Western literary contacts literary translation theatre and literary criticism Zavadsky’s Theatre-Studio Copyright © 2026, IWL RAS 2026 1. 1 Azov, A. “K istorii teorii perevoda v Sovetskom Soiuze. Problema realisticheskogo perevoda” [“To the History of Translation in the Soviet Union. The Issue of Realistic Translation”]. Logos, no. 3 (87), 2012, pp. 131–152. (In Russ.) 2. 2 Barinova, I.A., and N.M. Nesterova. “Perevod: ʽpoverzhennyi / nepoverzhennyi’ bukvalizm” [“ʽDefeated / Undefeated’ Literal Translation”]. Vestnik Cherepovetskogo gosudarstvennogo universiteta, no. 6 (87), 2018, pp. 66–77. https://doi.org/10.23859/1994-0637-2018-6-87-7 (In Russ.) 3. 3 Venediktova, T.D. “Tomu, o kom ia seichas i ne dumaiu...” [“To Someone Who I Am not Even Thinking About…”]. Inostrannaia literatura, no. 5, 2008, pp. 270–274. (In Russ.) 4. 4 Baskina, M.E., editor. Khudozhestvenno-filologicheskii perevod 1920–1930-kh godov [Literary-Philological Translation in the 1920s–1930s]. St. Petersburg, Nestor-Istoriia Publ., 2021. 720 p. (In Russ.) 5. 5 Chernikova, E.D. “Protsess opisaniia deiatel’nosti perevodchika v metapoetike perevoda I.A. Kashkina” [“The Description Process of a Translator’s Work in I.A. Kashkin’s Metapoetics of Translation”]. Vestnik LGU imeni A.S. Pushkina, no. 4, 2014, pp. 226–234. (In Russ.) 6. 6 Chernyshova, Ia.K., and A.A. Kal’nichenko. “Vliianie istoricheskikh vzgliadov v obshchestve na perevod (na primere russkikh perevodov 1920–30-kh godov)” [“The Influence of Historic Opinions in Society on Translation (On the Material of Russian Translations of the 1920s–1930s”]. In Statu Nascendi. Teoretichnі ta pragmatichnі problemi perekladoznavstva: zbіrnik students’kikh statei [In Statu Nascendi. Theoretical and Pragmatic Problems of Transaltion: Collection of Student Articles], issue 15. Kharkiv, NTMT Publ., 2014, pp. 219–225. (In Russ.) 7. 7 Wisenthal, Jonathan L. “ʽPlease Remember, This Is Italian Opera’: Shaw’s Plays as Music- Drama.” Innes, Christopher, editor. The Cambridge Companion to George Bernard Shaw. Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1998, pp. 283–308. (In English)