SOURCE: Louria, Yvette. “Molière and Griboiedov.” In Molière and the Commonwealth of Letters: Patrimony and Posterity, edited by Roger Johnson, Jr., Editha S. Neumann, and Guy T. Trail, pp. 379-82. Jackson: University Press of Mississippi, 1975.

In the following essay, Louria discusses the influence of Molière's The Misanthrope on Griboedov's Woe from Wit and the failure of many critics to acknowledge that influence.

The year 1672 is generally considered the official beginning of the Russian theater. The first play to be performed was The Comedy of Artaxerxes by Johann Gottfried Gregorii, an Esther play written at the behest of Tsar Alexei, who had a theater built in Moscow especially for this performance. Subsequently, in addition to the original Russian plays, both German and Italian comedies and tragedies found their way to the Moscow stage. After a while its repertory included also several of Molière's plays: Amphitryon...