Russian absurd theatre

Based on the idea of the meaninglessness of existence and life, absurd theater treats the incompatibility of the person with the world in a way that reveals this incompatibility in terms of form and content. Martin Esslin, who coined the term absurd theater to the contemporary theater, sees what happened during and after World War II as the driving force in the emergence of this theatre. However, a similar theatrical practice begins to be observed in the Soviet Union before the World War II. The initiators of this theatrical practice were Daniil Harms with his play Yelizaveta Bam of 1928 and Aleksandr Vvedenskiy with his play Christmas Tree at the Ivanovs of 1938. The plays, both of which show nonconventional theatrical features, are characterized as absurd theater by researchers such as Yakov Druskin, George Gibian, Mihail Meylah and Jan-Filipp Jakkar. In this context, the aim of our study is to determine the characteristics of plays Yelizaveta Bam and Christmas Tree at the Ivanovs, which we will call the Russian absurd theater from now on, and to reveal the aspects that they share and differ with Esslin's absurd theater practice. For this purpose, in the First Chapter of our study, Martin Esslin's theory of absurd theater will be discussed, and the characteristics of this theatrical practice will be revealed. In the Second Chapter, the factors that paved the way for the emergence of the Russian theater of the absurd will be identified and in the Third Chapter, these will be used to evaluate the aforementioned plays in their own originality.