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Ethel lilian voynich gadfly. Ethel Lilian Voynich - Gadfly Ethel Lilian Voynich Gadfly Summary

"The Gadfly" (E. L. Voinich) was a very famous work in the USSR. Khrushchev even issued a special prize to the author for reprinting the book multiple times. What attracts readers? For those who have not read "The Gadfly", a summary in parts will help to get an idea of ​​\u200b\u200bthe work.

The history of the novel in Russia and the USSR

The Gadfly (E. L. Voinich) was first published in the USA in 1897. The translation in Russia was published a little later - in 1898 as an appendix to the magazine, and 2 years later - as a separate book. The work was distributed by famous revolutionary figures, many people in the USSR said that the novel "The Gadfly" is their favorite work. In the Union, 3 film adaptations of the novel were filmed, a ballet and a rock musical based on the work were staged.

"Gadfly". Summary of the novel

The protagonist of the book is Arthur Burton, he is a student and member of the Young Italy secret organization. His secret is revealed by the confessor, and the young man is arrested, and with him his comrade. The organization considers Burton a traitor. It seems to Arthur that everyone has turned away from him, to top it all off, he quarrels with his girlfriend, and from a scandal with relatives he learns that his father is the rector of the Montanelli seminary. The young man fakes suicide and leaves for Buenos Aires.

After 13 years, Arthur returns to Italy and calls himself Rivares. He writes satirical pamphlets under the pseudonym "Gadfly". As a result of an armed clash, Burton ends up in prison, after the trial he is sentenced to death. Montanelli offers help in escaping, but Arthur does not agree and sets a condition: the cardinal must renounce his dignity and religion. As a result, the Gadfly is shot, and the priest dies after the sermon.

Arthur Burton is 19 years old, his mother died a year ago, and now he lives in Pisa with his brothers. The young man spends a lot of time with his mentor - the rector of the seminary and his confessor Lorenzo Montanelli. At one of the confessions, the young man confides his secret: he became a member of the Young Italy revolutionary group. Arthur wants to fight for the freedom of his native country. The mentor, anticipating trouble, opposes this venture, but he fails to dissuade Burton. In addition, Gemma Warren, with whom the young man is in love, is also a member of the organization.

After some time, Montanelli leaves for Rome, because he is offered a bishopric there. Instead of Lorenzo, a new rector is appointed. At confession, Arthur tells that he is jealous of Gemma for Bolle, a fellow party member. Soon the young man is taken to the police, but during interrogations he does not confess to anything and does not name the names of his comrades. Despite this, Bolla is also arrested, in "Young Italy" they think that it was Arthur who betrayed him.

Burton guesses that the priest has violated the secrecy of confession. Subsequently, he quarrels with Gemma, unable to explain himself. At home, during the scandal, the brother's wife tells Arthur that his real father is Montanelli. Then the young man decides to stage suicide, he writes and throws his hat into the river. He himself goes to Buenos Aires.

Part two

The action of the novel "The Gadfly", a summary of which is considered, continues after 13 years.

In Florence, the Gadfly meets Gemma Warren, now Ball's widow. She thinks that Rivares is Arthur Burton. At the same time, Montanelli, who became a cardinal, is in Florence.

Rivares falls ill, party members take care of him. He does not let Zita near him. During one of Gemma's shifts, she manages to talk to the Gadfly, who talks about the many difficulties of his life. She also shares her sorrows and says that a loved one died because of her. To test her guess, Gemma shows Rivarez a locket with Arthur's photo. But the Gadfly does not show that he is Burton. Rivares speaks very contemptuously about the boy in the photo.

After recovery, the Gadfly returns to revolutionary activities. Once he meets with Montanelli, during the conversation he wanted to open up to him, but did not dare.

Zita, offended, leaves with the camp and is going to marry a gypsy.

Part Three

"The Gadfly", a summary of which is given here, ends tragically.

It turns out that a weapons supplier has been detained, the Gadfly is going to help him. In one of the shootouts, he is arrested and placed in jail. A priest comes to the prisoner - Montanelli. However, the Gadfly insults him.

Friends help organize an escape, but it fails. The gadfly is again shackled in chains. He asks Montanelli to visit him. The priest arrives and Rivares confesses that Arthur is him. The Cardinal realizes that his son is alive and offers to help. But the Gadfly agrees only on the condition that Montanelli renounces dignity and religion in general, which he cannot do.

The cardinal agrees to a military court, Arthur is shot.

At the sermon, the cardinal imagines that there is blood everywhere.

Gemma receives a posthumous letter from Rivares, where he reveals that he is Arthur. A woman laments that she has lost her beloved again.

Montanelli dies of a heart attack.

I express my deepest gratitude to all those in Italy who helped me to collect materials for this novel. I remember with special gratitude the courtesy and benevolence of the employees of the Maruccellian Library in Florence, as well as the State Archives and Civic Museum in Bologna.

- "On the Healing of a Leper" - here it is!

Arthur approached Montanelli with the soft, inaudible steps that always irritated his family so much. Small in stature, fragile, he looked more like an Italian from a portrait of the 16th century than a young man of the 30s from an English bourgeois family. Everything in him was too elegant, as if carved, long arrows of eyebrows, thin lips, small arms, legs. When he sat quietly, he could be mistaken for a pretty girl dressed in a man's dress; but with flexible movements it resembled a tamed panther, though without claws.

- Did you find it? What would I do without you, Arthur? I would lose everything forever ... No, enough writing. Let's go to the garden, I'll help you sort out your work. What didn't you understand there?

They went out into the quiet, shady monastery garden. The seminary occupied the building of an old Dominican monastery, and two hundred years ago its square courtyard was kept in perfect order. Smooth borders of boxwood bordered neatly trimmed rosemary and lavender. The white-robed monks who once cared for these plants were long buried and forgotten, but the fragrant herbs were still fragrant here on mild summer evenings, although no one had collected them for medicinal purposes. Now tendrils of wild parsley and columbine made their way between the stone slabs of the paths. The well in the courtyard is overgrown with ferns. The neglected roses have run wild; their long tangled branches stretched along all the paths. Large red poppies gleamed among the bushes. Tall shoots of foxglove leaned over the grass, and barren vines swayed from the boughs of the hawthorn, which nodded dejectedly from its leafy top.

In one corner of the garden rose a branching magnolia tree, its dark foliage sprinkled here and there with a spray of milky white flowers. There was a rough wooden bench by the trunk of the magnolia tree. Montanelli sank down on her.

Arthur studied philosophy at the university. On that day, he encountered a difficult passage in the book and turned to the padre for clarification. He did not study at the seminary, but Montanelli was a true encyclopedia for him.

“Well, I guess I'll go,” said Arthur, when the incomprehensible lines were explained. “But perhaps you need me?”

“No, I have finished work for today, but I would like you to stay with me for a while if you have time.

- Of course have!

Arthur leaned against the trunk of a tree and looked through the dark foliage at the first stars twinkling faintly in the depths of the calm sky. His dreamy, mysterious blue eyes, fringed with black eyelashes, he inherited from his mother, a native of Cornwall. Montanelli turned away so as not to see them.

“You look tired, carino,” he said.

“You shouldn’t have been in a hurry to get started. Mother's illness, sleepless nights - all this exhausted you. I should have insisted that you get a good rest before leaving. Livorno.

- What are you, padre, why? I still couldn't stay in this house after my mother died. Julie would drive me crazy.

Julie was the wife of Arthur's older half-brother, an old enemy of his.

“I didn't want you to stay with your relatives,” Montanelli said softly. “That would be the worst thing imaginable. But you could accept the invitation of your friend, the English doctor. I would spend a month with him, and then return to classes again.

- No, padre! The Warrens are good, warm-hearted people, but they don't understand a lot and feel sorry for me - I can see it in their faces. They would console her, talk about her mother... Gemma, of course, is not like that. She always had a sense of what not to touch, even when we were children. Others are not so smart. And not only that...

What else, my son?

Arthur plucked a flower from a drooping foxglove stalk and squeezed it nervously in his hand.

“I can't live in this city,” he began after a moment's pause. – I can’t see the shops where she once bought me toys; embankment, where I walked with her until she took to her bed. Wherever I go, it's the same. Every flower girl in the market still comes up to me and offers flowers. Like I need them now! And then ... a cemetery ... No, I could not help but leave! It's hard for me to see all this.

Arthur paused, tearing the foxglove bells. The silence was so long and deep that he glanced at the padre, wondering why he was not answering him. Twilight was already gathering under the magnolia branches. Everything blurred in them, taking on indistinct outlines, but there was enough light to see the deathly pallor that spread over Montanelli's face. He sat with his head bowed low and his right hand grasping the edge of the bench. Arthur turned away with a feeling of reverent amazement, as if he had accidentally touched a shrine.

“Oh God,” he thought, “how petty and selfish I am compared to him! If my grief were his grief, he could not feel it deeper.

Montanelli lifted his head and looked around.

“Very well, I will not insist that you go back there, at least now,” he said kindly. “But promise me that you will have a real rest during the summer holidays. Perhaps you'd better spend them somewhere far away from Livorno. I can't let you get completely sick.

– Padre, where will you yourself go when the seminary closes?

- As always, I will take the pupils to the mountains, arrange them there. In mid-August, my assistant will return from vacation. Then I'll go wandering in the Alps. Maybe you will come with me? We will make long walks in the mountains, and you will get acquainted on the spot with alpine mosses and lichens. I'm just afraid you'll be bored with me.

- Padre! Arthur clenched his hands. Julie attributed this habitual gesture to "a demeanor peculiar only to foreigners." I am ready to give everything in the world to go with you! Only... I'm not sure...

Voynich's novel "The Gadfly" was written in 1897. The work describes the activities of members of an underground revolutionary organization in the first half of the 19th century. Christianity is especially sharply criticized in the book.

main characters

Gadfly (Arthur Burton, Felice Riviers)- a principled, resolute young man, a revolutionary who has experienced a lot of grief in his lifetime.

Lorenzo Montanelli- priest, cardinal, Arthur's confessor, his real father.

Gemma- Arthur's beloved, a participant in the revolutionary movement.

Other characters

Giovanni Bolla- Arthur's comrade, his love rival, later Gemma's husband.

Riccardo- Professor, doctor.

Zita Reni- Gadfly's lover, gypsy, dancer.

Part one

Short, frail, nineteen-year-old Arthur Burton "looked more like an Italian in a 16th-century portrait than a 1930s youth from an English bourgeois family." He spent a lot of time with his confessor Lorenzo Montanelli, whom he idolized and respectfully called padre. After the death of his mother, the young man moved to Pisa, where he lived with his half-brothers.

The young man was unusually good-looking. When he sat quietly, he could easily be mistaken for "a pretty girl dressed in a man's dress." However, in movement, Arthur more resembled a strong, graceful panther, "albeit without claws."

Arthur entrusted his confessor with his secret - the student became a member of the secret organization "Young Italy" in order to fight for the freedom of his native country. It was "a political society that publishes a newspaper in Marseille and distributes it in Italy with the aim of preparing the people for an uprising and driving the Austrian army out of the country". The mentor tried to dissuade Arthur from a dangerous undertaking, but to no avail. In addition, Arthur's childhood friend, Gemma Warren, with whom he was in love, was also a member of the organization.

Meanwhile, Montanelli was offered the bishopric and left for Rome for several months. At confession, Arthur told the new priest about his love for Gemma, whom he was jealous of his fellow party member Bolle. Soon Arthur was arrested, but during interrogations he did not betray his comrades. He was already aware of numerous arrests, and this information caused the young man "feverish anxiety for the fate of Gemma and other friends." Soon Artur was released, and he learned that members of the "Young Italy" accused him of Bolla's arrest.

Arthur guessed that he had been betrayed by a priest who violated the secrecy of confession. He quarreled with Gemma, and never had time to explain himself to her. Arthur's brother was furious that the young man was associated with "violators of the law, with rebels, with people of dubious reputation." During the ensuing scandal, the brother's wife told the young man that his real father was the priest Montanelli. Arthur wrote a farewell note, faked suicide, and traveled to Buenos Aires.

Part two. Thirteen years later

1846 In Florence, members of Mazzini's party discussed ways to deal with the current government. Dr. Riccardo offered to use the services of the Gadfly, the witty political satirist Felice Rivares. His pamphlets could have dealt precise and very painful blows. The Gadfly had special signs: “He limps on his right leg, his left hand is twisted, two fingers are missing. Scar on the face. Stutters."

At a party with a party member, Gemma, the widow of Giovanni Bolla, saw the Gadfly for the first time. The young man behaved very boldly and defiantly. In addition, he came to the salon with his gypsy mistress, dancer Zita Reni, which deeply offended all the ladies present here.

Montanelli, who by that time had become a cardinal, came to Florence. Gemma decided to take a look at the priest she had last seen since Arthur's suicide. Until now, she was sure that she had caused the death of "her best friend", and this thought haunted her. When Gemma saw the Gadfly on the bridge, she turned deathly pale. She felt as if Arthur had returned to her from another world.

Rivares became seriously ill, and the party members began to look after him. As the doctor said, his nerves were not in order, but the main cause of the disease was an old, neglected wound. During one of the shifts, Gemma managed to get the Gadfly to talk. He shared with her the misadventures that befell him. In response, Gemma spoke about her grief: many years ago, she caused the death of a man " whom she loved more than anyone in the world." The obsessive thought that the Gadfly is Arthur did not leave her. To test her guess, she showed him a portrait of ten-year-old Arthur Burton. However, the Gadfly did not give himself away.

After recovery, the Gadfly returned to revolutionary activities. Once, having met Cardinal Montanelli, he wanted to open up to him, but did not dare to take this step. Zita, whom the Gadfly cruelly ignored during her illness, took offense at him. She left with the camp, and was going to become the wife of a gypsy.

Part Three

Gadfly went to the aid of a weapons supplier who was arrested. During the shootout, he lost his temper and was arrested. Since the Gadfly is "a very influential member of one of the most pernicious secret societies", he was threatened with a military court. Thanks to the influence of Montanelli, this was avoided. The cardinal visited a prisoner who severely insulted him.

Friends of the Gadfly tried to organize his escape, but he failed. Providence itself intervened - the old disease aggravated, "the seizure began suddenly, when Rivares was already close to the goal." The prisoner was shackled and fastened with belts - they "were tightened so tightly that with every movement they crashed into the body." Such a precaution by the prison authorities further intensified the suffering of the Gadfly "from bouts of excruciating illness". Despite the doctor's persuasion, the patient was denied the life-saving opium.

Gadfly asked for a date with Montanelli, where he confessed that he was Arthur. The cardinal could not believe that he did not recognize his own son in the Gadfly. Arthur accused his father of indifference, and that it was “much more important for him to ingratiate himself” with God than to save his own son. He put the cardinal before a difficult choice - either he or God. In frustrated feelings, Montanelli left the prison. He gave permission for a military court.

On the day of execution, the first attempt to shoot the Gadfly was unsuccessful - "each carabinieri aimed to the side, in the secret hope that the deadly bullet would be fired by the hand of a neighbor, and not by his own." The prisoner was only wounded, and the execution turned into "unnecessary torture." Gadfly cheered up the confused soldiers - he "himself commanded his execution." As he fell, bleeding, the cardinal appeared. Gadfly addressed his last words to his father: “Padre ... is your god ... satisfied?”.

During the festive service, Montanelli became ill. The Cardinal saw blood everywhere. In his sermon, he accused the parishioners of the death of his only son, whom he was forced to sacrifice, as the Lord once sacrificed Christ for the sake of mankind.

Gemma received a letter from the Gadfly, in which he confirmed her hunch. The woman realized with bitterness that she had lost a loved one twice. At that moment, the sound of a bell was heard - "His Eminence Cardinal Monseigneur Lorenzo Montanelli died suddenly in Ravenna from a broken heart."

Conclusion

The Voynich story describes the plight of a young, naive youth who had to go through a lot on his way. He desperately fights for truth and freedom, but is forced to accept death.

After reading a brief retelling of the Gadfly, we recommend that you read the work in its full version.

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Italy, 30s of the 19th century. Arthur Burton is still very young, he is only 19 years old, he does not yet have any real life experience. The young man devotes a lot of time to communicating with his confessor Lorenzo Montanelli, trusting him in everything and considering him to be perhaps the best of people. In addition, Arthur sees Montanelli as his only friend, because his mother Gladys passed away about a year ago, and his half-brothers, who are much older than the young man, always treated him coldly and indifferently.

The guy informs the priest that he joined a revolutionary organization called "Young Italy", from now on he, like his comrades, intends to devote his life to the struggle for the freedom and happiness of his homeland. Montanelli anticipates that this activity may lead Arthur to real trouble in the future, but he does not know how to dissuade the ward from his plans, because young Burton is firmly convinced of the correctness and nobility of his goals.

Arthur's old friend Gemma, to whom the young man is not indifferent, also joins the same organization. Burton's confessor goes to Rome for some time, having received the title of bishop, and Arthur himself tells another clergyman in confession that he is in love with Gemma and is jealous of a party comrade named Ball, who is also courting this girl.

Soon Arthur is under arrest. During interrogations, the guy keeps steadfastly, not betraying his comrades in the organization, but after his release, he finds out that he is the one who is accused of betraying Bolle. The young man understands with horror that the priest has allowed himself to betray the confession of the confessor. Burton receives a slap from Gemma, who believed that he really committed a betrayal, Arthur does not have time to explain to the girl how everything really happened. Upon arrival home, his brother's wife Julie, losing her temper, tells the young man that in reality Montanelli is his own father. Deeply shocked and disappointed in the person closest to him, Arthur sails illegally to South America, hiding on a ship, leaving a note about his intention to drown himself.

13 years have passed since these events. Members of a revolutionary organization in Florence decide to recruit a certain Felice Rivares, nicknamed the Gadfly, who is successful in political satire and is known for his sharp, merciless language. Gemma Bolla, who over the years became the wife and then widow of a member of Bolla's party, first sees this man at one of the social evenings, paying attention to his limp, a long scar on his face and some stuttering. Montanelli, who managed to become a cardinal, also arrives in the same city.

Gemma and a high-ranking minister of the church are connected by a tragedy experienced earlier. More than ten years ago, the girl, like everyone else, considered Arthur drowned and blamed herself for his death, but Montanelli claimed that the young man committed suicide because of his many years of lies that became known to Arthur. Nevertheless, the woman continues throughout all these years to mercilessly reproach herself for what happened.

During further communication with the Gadfly, Gemma accidentally recognizes in this man the beloved of youth, and this discovery horrifies her. Shortly thereafter, Rivares begins to have attacks of severe pain, and his party comrades are forced to take turns by his side, trying to alleviate the unbearable suffering. At the same time, the Gadfly forbids his mistress, the gypsy Zita, at least to enter his room, which is very painful for a woman, because she sincerely loves Felice.

When Gadfly becomes a little easier, he tells Gemma a little about how terrible, full of hunger and humiliation his existence on the South American continent was. A certain sailor severely beat him with a poker, Rivares was forced to work as a clown in a traveling circus, regularly being subjected not only to insults and bullying, but also to beatings. According to him, in his youth he committed a very rash act, leaving his home. At the same time, Gemma does not hide her feelings about the death of a loved one through her fault, the woman speaks frankly about how she continues to suffer daily because of what happened in her younger years.

Signora Bolla suspects that in fact her allegedly deceased childhood friend Arthur is now the Gadfly, but she is not completely sure of this, and Rivares keeps impenetrable and does not give himself away even when looking at the portrait of little Burton at the age of ten. At the same time, Gadfly and Gemma decide to organize the transportation of weapons necessary for revolutionary activities to the Papal States.

The dancer Zita reproaches Rivares with the fact that he does not love her at all, and only Cardinal Montanelli is truly dear to him, and the Gadfly does not deny her rightness. By coincidence, a revolutionary in the guise of a beggar is talking to his real father, he sees that his spiritual wound has not healed. He has a desire to open up to Montanelli and confess everything to him, but the Gadfly restrains himself, realizing that he will still never be able to forget his monstrous past in South America and forgive the cardinal.

After some time, Rivares is forced to leave for Brisigella to replace a comrade who was under arrest. At the sight of Montanelli, he loses his vigilance, and he is also captured. The cardinal insists on a meeting with this prisoner, but the Gadfly at the meeting is not only defiant, but also frankly rude, without ceasing to offend the clergyman.

The comrades are trying to arrange an escape for Rivarez. But due to a new attack of his illness, he loses consciousness in the courtyard of the prison, and the head of the fortress does not allow him to be given an anesthetic, despite the insistent requests of the local doctor. Montanelli again comes to the Gadfly, seeing his condition and the conditions in which the revolutionary is kept, the cardinal comes to sincere horror and indignation. It is at this moment that the son nevertheless tells him about who he really is. Rivarez insists that Montanelli choose either him or Jesus, but the clergyman is unable to reject God and religion, in deep despair he leaves the cell.

Montanelli is forced to agree to the verdict of a military court, and Gadfly is placed in the courtyard in front of the soldiers. True, they try to shoot past, because they are not indifferent to this courageous man, who tries to joke to the last, despite the torment he is experiencing. But at last he dies in front of his father.

Companions Rivarez in the party learn about his heroic death. During the service, the cardinal blames everyone for the death of his son, at which point he almost loses his mind from immeasurable grief. Gemma receives a letter from the Gadfly, written by him on the eve of the execution, and realizes that again, and now she has completely lost Arthur. At this point, her longtime friend and party mate Martini informs her that Montanelli has passed away after suffering a ruptured heart.

"The Gadfly" became her first and unconditional triumph not only at home, but also in other countries of Europe and the world. It is truly extraordinary and even unique for its poetic qualities. It would be a very obvious simplification to interpret it unequivocally as a hymn to revolutionary steadfastness, although, of course, this theme is present in it as one of the leitmotifs. Not everything is so unambiguously simple and with an anti-religious, or rather, with its anti-church orientation. His real pathos is richer, multifaceted, dialectical. In the novel, the passionate freedom-loving nature of the hero and his steadfastness as a revolutionary fighter with a whole range of personal feelings and relationships are woven into one tight ball.

The action of the novel takes place in Italy in the 30s and 40s of the 19th century, when a powerful national liberation movement was unfolding in the country against feudal fragmentation and Austrian oppression. It begins in Pisi in 1833. Its hero, young Arthur Burton, an Englishman by mother and Italian by father, a student of the local university, shares the warmth of his heart between his spiritual and actual father, Padre Montanelli, at that time a modest canon, rector of the theological seminary, his childhood friend Gemma (Jennifer) Warren and Italy, which he wants to see a free and flourishing republic. Having become a member of the Young Italy secret society and having found a comrade in the fight in Gemma, he dreams of attracting his padre to her. But Montanelli, despite his kindness and gentleness, is boundlessly devoted to his faith. Under other circumstances, Arthur, who inherited this trait of his character, could become his follower. But Arthur the Gadfly and the padre find themselves at different poles in a real confrontation between social forces.

The beginning of their common drama is betrayal by the church, the victim of which was Arthur. Raising the secret of confession, the priest Carde, who replaced Montanelli, who was recalled by the Vatican and himself asked to become Arthur's confessor, reveals him and his police comrades. After the arrest, imprisonment, interrogations and release, he will be neglected by his friends - considering him a traitor, Gemma slapped him. All this creates a storm in Arthur's soul that crushes former moral values. He leaves Montanelli a note in which he declares with youthful maximalism: “I believed in you as in God. But God is an idol that can be smashed with a hammer, and you lied to me all the way. After staging a suicide after this, he, having hired a ship, sailed to South America to reappear in Italy 13 years later, a crippled, but spiritually unbroken person.

The action of the main part of the novel takes place in Florence and Brisighelli in 1846. Reliably recreating the historical realities of the era, naming the real organizers and participants in the liberation struggle, Voynich leaves the leading role to his fictional characters. Arthur Burton, zealously guarding the secret of his past, speaks here under the name of Felice Rivares, a well-known publicist, and also under the pseudonym Gadfly. The former Padre Montanelli, now an influential cardinal and bishop of Brisigelli, is the greatest ideological enemy for the Gadfly.

He cherishes hatred for him in his soul, while continuing to love him as a mentor and friend of his youth. Arrested in Brisigelli during an operation to deliver weapons to the rebels, Gadfly ends up in prison. Montanelli, on whom the fate of the prisoner depends, tries to save his life, urging him to give up further struggle, but the Gadfly remains unshakable. theirs lies in the impossibility of everyone to betray their faith. Gadfly is shot, and Montanelli soon dies.

The extreme emotional tension of the novel, in which the writer's youth is displayed, her passion for the ideas of the liberation struggle, the nobility of the characters' feelings, a romantic halo over their present and past, constant secrecy - these are the qualities that make it so attractive to readers. From the time of its release, it has repeatedly been published in different languages ​​of the world, it has been staged several times. Based on it, an opera by A. E. Spadavecchia was written.

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