Deze trilogie portretteert dramatisch het turbulente intellectuele en politieke klimaat van Rusland in de cruciale periode van de vroege jaren 1830 tot de late jaren 1860. Het volgt de levens en ideologische strijd van sleutelfiguren in het hart van de radicale oppositiebeweging, met name rond de Europese revoluties van 1848. De werken duiken diep in fundamentele vragen over vrijheid, identiteit en de rol van het individu in de samenleving. Het biedt een boeiende verkenning van de vorming van de moderne Russische intelligentsia.
This play is one of three sequential, self-contained plays which tell the story of some of the main actors in the drama of Russian radical opposition in the years pivoted on the European revolutions of 1848. The trilogy spans the early 1830s and the late 1860s.
and it was here, in the intoxicating anticipation and the dashed hopes of the 1848 revolution - when the loss of his political illusions were overshadowed by a series of personal calamities - that Herzen found his greatness, seeking the way forward for Russia, the just society and the good life.
Set against the backdrop of Tsarist autocracy, this trilogy delves into the lives of influential figures like anarchist Michael Bakunin and writer Ivan Turgenev, who embody the Russian intelligentsia. The narrative weaves themes of politics, love, and betrayal, focusing on Alexander Herzen, the first self-proclaimed socialist in Russia. Stoppard intricately explores the tensions between romantic anarchy, utopian ideals, and the quest for political freedom, capturing the fervor of a generation of revolutionaries striving for change.
The Coast of Utopia is an epic but also intimate drama of romantics and revolutionaries in an age of emperors. The three sequential, self-contained plays, Voyage, Shipwreck and Salvage, span the lives and loves of a group of Russian friends at home and abroad in the tumultuous years between 1833 and 1866.