“HAMLET: Denmark’s a prison. ROSENCRANTZ: Then is the world one. HAMLET: A goodly one; in which there are many confines, wards and dungeons, Denmark being one o ' the worst.” (ACT II, SC II, 249-53) The image of Denmark as an obdurate prison started to fire the imagination of intellectual dissidents from nineteenth century onwards. They identified their irate spirit in Hamlet’s belligerent stance against an all-conquering system threatening to pervade individuality. Eastern Europe, especially Soviet Russia, became the hotbed for such experimentations because it regarded Hamlet as a reflection of its own essence and historical fortunes. The pandemic predicament of Hamlet left an enthralling charm on Russia’s greatest …show more content…
At the peak of Stalinism in Poland, Witold Chwalewik wrote his controversial monograph Polska w Hamlecie (Poland in Hamlet), a profound textual analysis of echoes of the Polish Renaissance apparently present in Shakespeare 's Hamlet And he himself was aware that it "surely is a wild fancy", but "at the time of heavy censorship and social-realism, he promoted the history of the Polish 'Golden Age, ' and in this way he made his readers look with nostalgia upon the times of Polish independence and greatness in the international political, artistic and literary spheres" (Kujawinska Courtney, 2001: …show more content…
The hapless Polish audience identified themselves with the prince tragically caught and destroyed in the grindstone of the crazy history. Zawistowski reduced the play’s length from five hours to three hours and crammed the production with political innuendoes. He created a morbid world on the stage where primordial crime of fratricide was incarnated, a wife sullied her nuptial bed for debauchery, a garrulous father spied over his son and righteous friends turned to state apparatus in the crude game of power. This production of Hamlet at the Stary Teatr in Krakow, according to famous Polish theatre critic Jan Kott, was infected with contemporary political veracity. "Only one thing is important: to reach through the Shakespeare 's text into the contemporary experience, into our anxiety, our sensitivity", Kott wrote in Hamlet of Mid-century. And, in his opinion, Zawistowski gave his thoughts a remarkable