For example, Catherine the Great's son and heir Paul tried on this role - his father was assassinated and overthrown by his mother's lover to get her the throne.In the 20th century the story of Russian Hamlet continued. Therefore, Sumarokov wrote a happy end with Claudius and Polonius punished by death and Hamlet, Ophelia and Gertrude victorious and content.Although this version was rarely staged, the image of an outcast prince was often referred to. According to this pattern, the state could not be left without a legitimate ruler. Elizabeth's actions might be seen as avenging her father by returning power to his successors.Translated from French, Shakespeare in Sumarokov's version was also turned into a classist play, where people represented functions, such as order and chaos, good and evil, wisdom and stupidity. For the rest of his short life he lived in exile and, from the age of 16, in solitary confinement. Ivan VI was barely two months old when he became Russian Emperor and 'reigned' for eleven months. Elizabeth took the Russian throne as a result of a court coup against an infant great grandson of Peter's elder brother. The play was written in 1748 by the 31-year old ambitious statesman and poet.Some researchers suggest that this work was commissioned to legitimise the power of Peter the Great's daughter Elizabeth through cultural discourse. 'The first Russian adaptation of Shakespeare's 'Hamlet' was made by the founder of the Russian classical theatre Alexander Petrovich Sumarokov (1717-1777). It deeply penetrated Russian culture, and in many ways Sumarokov's 'Hamlet' came to epitomize the Russian spirit. The seminal first rendering of 'Hamlet' in Russian constitutes a milestone in Russian literature and cultural history. A second appearance, which is also of the utmost scarcity, came out in 1786, in a collection of plays in Russian. The first edition is incredibly scarce and deemed virtually unobtainable. Extremely rare first edition of the first Russian translation/adaptation of Shakespeare's Hamlet.

Internally generally nice and clean and on good paper, but 'Hamlet' - which has clearly been well red and presumably used for a stage set-up - has some light pencil-annotations and pencil-crossovers, occasional brownspotting, a few paper restorations - no loss of text, a tear to one leaf - no loss, and one leaf slighly loosening at the bottom. Bound with five other tragedies/dramas in a slightly later (late 18th century) full calf binding with gilt line-borders to boards and richly gilt spine with red and blue title- and tome-labels.

Hamlet book by william shakespeare