SOURCE: Baehr, Stephen. “Is Moscow Burning? Fire in Griboedov's Woe from Wit.” In Russian Subjects: Empire, Nation, and the Culture of the Golden Age, edited by Monika Greenleaf and Stephen Moeller-Sally, pp. 229-42. Evanston, Ill. : Northwestern University Press, 1998.

In the following essay, Baehr explores the importance of fire imagery in the events and themes of Woe from Wit.

And Moscow is burning up. The black smoke spreads and curls. And, behold, the brilliant head of Moscow Stops gleaming. Poor Moscow is ablaze, Moscow has been burning for 12 days … 

—N. M. Shatrov, “The Fire of Moscow: To the Year 1812”

In A. S. Griboedov's comedy Woe from Wit (Gore ot uma, completed 1824),¹ fire imagery plays a central structural role. Fire is polysemous in the play, summarizing many essential themes and conflicts, connecting and capsuling major events and themes, and serving as a “master image” for the play as a whole...