| Men Above the Law | |
| Setting: | 1797. The estate of Platon Imshin |
| Orig Lang: | Russian |
| Subject: | Domestic violence, unlawfulness in Russia in the times of serfdom |
| Genre: | Tragedy |
Men Above the Law (Russian: Самоуправцы|translit=Samoupravtsy) is a tragedy in five acts by Alexey Pisemsky first published in the No.2, February 1867 issue of Vsemirny Trud magazine.[1]
The play was written during the summer and autumn of 1865 and completed on 31 October. Its plotline was based upon the real story of a sadist landowner N.F. Katenin who in the mid-1790s in the basements of his Zanino estate in Kostroma Governorate habitually tortured peasants.[2] [3]
In November Pisemsky started the procedures necessary for the play to be produced on stage, giving it the provisional title The Yekayerinisk Eagles (Екатерининские орлы). The censorship committee's permission was received in the early 1866, but only after the author agreed to remove several scenes which were deemed exceedingly violent.[1]
In late 1865 Pisemsky nominated the play for that year's Uvarov Prize. Among the playwrights taking part in the competition were Alexander Ostrovsky (with Voyevoda or the Volga Dream) and Alexey K. Tolstoy (The Death of Ivan the Terrible). In the end it was decided that the Prize that year should not be awarded at all.[1]
The academician Alexander Nikitenko who reviewed the play for the Uvarov Prize committee left a negative response. "The play is depressing, and leaves one with a heavy heart... burdened with outrages, which the author never even tries to alleviate with an attempt to provide reason or rational understanding of [all these horrors]," he wrote.[4]
All the descriptions of the characters provided by Pisemsky himself
Set in 1797, at the estate of Platon Illarionovich Imshin[1]
The elderly Prince Platon Imshin, tormented by jealousy, finds out about his young wife Nastassya's unfaithfulness. In a fit of righteous rage he imprisons her in a sepulcher, throws her lover, the Army officer Rykov into a basement and apportions some more 'vengeful' deeds along the way, which also includes injuring his brother Sergey in a duel (for having made passes for the young Princess, too). The ever drunk Nastassya's dad arrives with a gang of local bandits. Equally full of righteousness, he frees his daughter along with other captives, and brings havoc to (now also injured) Prince Platon's estate, burning half of it down. Finally, a local Governor, a sad and gentle man arrives with a small army unit to bring peace and order. In a bizarre 'happy-ending' the dying Prince Platon pardons everybody, blesses his (soon to be) widow to marry her lover (whom he now greatly admires for having fought the Devochkin's louts heroically); everybody's in tears of compunction, gratitude and joy.
Men Above the Law premiered at the Moscow Maly Theatre on 17 January 1866 to great public and critical acclaim. Equally successful it was in Saint Petersburg, produced on stage the Alexandrinsky Theatre.[5]
The greatest success though enjoyed the 1898 Moscow Art Theatre production. The cast there included Konstantin Stanislavsky as Prince Platon Imshin, Maria Andreyeva as Nastassya Pterovna, Alexander Artyom as Devochkin, Ivan Moskvin as Podyachy, Serafim Sudbinin as police captain, Vsevolod Meyerhold as the butler, Vasily Luzhsky as Sergey Imshin.[1]