The Theme of Freedom in Maria Arbatova’s Drama

Аннотация

This article is an attempt to analyze Maria Arbatova’s earlier works, in particular, her dramas in the period between 1979 and 1994. The special emphasis in those works is given to the topic of internal freedom. Reading her texts, we can track the evolution of the writer’s ideology. Her first plays are dedicated to the issue of women achieving their internal freedom, which perfectly matches the feminist ideology emerging in the USSR. In her further works, Arbatova expands her sphere of consideration, looking into the issues of freedom and emigrants’ identity, along with different takings on the issue of freedom after disintegration of the Soviet Union as seen by different generations. Multi-faceted representation of freedom in Arbatova’s drama gravitates towards humanistic personalism. This is why the leitmotif of the article is reflection on the heroes’ identity in the context of their quest for a stable baseline and an ever-present perspective in the so-called “liquid modernity”.