Professor Dr. Natalia Skorokhod

Senior Fellow, October 2025 to September 2026
Free University in exile/Berlin

  • Professor of Theater and Dramaturgy at the Russian State Institute of Theater Arts (RGISI) in St. Petersburg until August 2023; two dissertations in theater studies, author of numerous contributions and articles, and several books – including How to Adapt Prose (2010), Leonid Andreev: A Biography (2013), and Postdrama Analysis (2015).
  • Currently holds the status of "Scholar at Risk" in Berlin and teaches at institutions including the Free University in exile in Latvia.
  • Her research focuses on the history of Russian dramaturgy, drama theory, and contemporary Russian-language theater texts; she is also a theater critic and curator of cultural projects.

Fellow project: „War and Displacement in Russophone Drama of 2022-2024“

My current research, along with my intention to apply for a Senior Fellowship at Krupp College, University of Greifswald, is centered on a monograph about Russian-language contemporary drama. This interdisciplinary study aims to investigate the phenomenon of 21st-century Russian-language plays. The working title of my monograph is "Performing Social Collapse: Russian-Language Plays of the 21st Century," and I have been diligently working on it since 2023, with plans for completion by 2027. The monograph will consist of four chapters, and during the project, I will be working on and completing the second chapter.
The research will specifically examine the evolution of Russian-language drama during the first three years of the Russian-Ukraine war (2022-2024). In this section, I will analyze the social and political challenges faced by playwrights from Russia, Ukraine, and Belarus in the wake of the full-scale Russian invasion of Ukraine. Additionally, I intend to explore the transformation of Russophone playwrights' festivals, particularly focusing on the unique historical event of the Lubimovka Russophone drama festival's complete emigration from Moscow to the West. My research will include a comparative analysis of how Russian-speaking authors from totalitarian regimes reflect the current war in their works, contrasting their expressions with those of writers residing in free countries. I will assess how the narratives of their plays have evolved during the war's first, second, and third years. Furthermore, an important aspect of my study will be the adaptation processes undertaken by Russian-language playwrights and theater makers now based outside of Russia, particularly exemplified by developments in the Baltic states. Additionally, the project will investigate how the digital age has impacted the tools of dramaturgy, allowing for a more rapid reflection of historical events such as wars or waves of displacement. 
The corpus of texts I plan to study will include plays by eminent authors such as M. Durnenkov, E. Bol (Asya Voloshina) , and Sv. Petrijtchuk (Russia), P. Pryazhko, K. Steshik, and M. Belkovich (Belarus), as well as M. Kurochkin, N. Vorozhbit, I. Serebyakova, V. Chensky (Ukraine), and M. Ivashkyavichus (Lithuania). I will also examine works by emerging millennial authors whose names are yet to gain recognition. Most of these texts are housed in electronic libraries on festival websites, alongside a video archive of performances, including readings by actors, which will serve as valuable resources for my research.
I am confident that my project not only aligns with the research program "Baltic Peripetes" at the Slavic Institute of the University of Greifswald but also enriches the program by delving into the complexities of contemporary Russian-language drama.