Faculty of the Institute of Philology, Foreign Languages and Media Communications (IPFLMC) of Irkutsk State University together with students from China are preparing a festival-competition of theatrical performances in Russian “Life and Other Jokes of Anton Pavlovich” dedicated to the 165th anniversary of A.P. Chekhov. The festival will be held for the first time.
The project of the Department of Russian as a Foreign Language of ISU IPFLMC, has been supported by a grant from the Russkiy Mir Foundation. The festival will take place among students of Russian studies from universities in the northeastern provinces of China from May 22 to 30, 2026, on the basis of Northeast Normal University, Changchun.
As noted by Yulia Arskaya, Candidate of Philological Sciences, Head of the Department of Russian as a Foreign Language, Deputy Director for Continued Education and International Relations of ISU IPFLMC, Chekhov was chosen because he is a world-famous writer and playwright, the most prolific author of short stories in Russian literature. Moreover, his stories can be adapted for the stage well. Other authors well known in China are A.S. Pushkin, L.N. Tolstoy, M.A. Gorky, and N.A. Ostrovsky.
The event will be held in the format of a theatre laboratory: performances based on the short stories of A.P. Chekhov. In April, readings and rehearsals are being held online; in May, students will take part in workshops and rehearsals at the festival venue in-person.
Ten teams from eight universities submitted applications for the festival: Northeast Normal University, Heilongjiang University, Liaoning Normal University, Dalian University of Foreign Languages, Tourism College of Changchun University, Harbin Institute of Petroleum, Harbin Normal University and Guanghua University.
Within the framework of the event, theatre workshops will be held for students studying Russian as a foreign language, professional development courses for Chinese Russian language teachers, and educational events introducing the works of A.P. Chekhov.
The festival will end with a competition of student dramatizations of A.P. Chekhov’s works, which will be judged by a jury chaired by head of the “Russian House” in Beijing Tatiana Urzhumtseva.
Preparations are currently in full swing: participating groups are rehearsing their performances online with ISU faculty; professional development programme for teachers from Chinese universities is prepared for approval; a textbook on dramatization in Russian as a foreign language classes has been written. Not only faculty of the Department of Russian as a Foreign Language are involved in the preparation, but also Evgenia Sezko, an actress and teacher of stage speech at the Irkutsk College of Culture, as well as students of the Faculty of Theoretical and Applied Philology, and Chinese colleagues.
Yulia Arskaya:
Our institute has many years of diverse experience in working with theatre. We also introduce foreign students to theatrical culture: in recent years, we have held a competition of theatrical performances based on the works of V.V. Mayakovsky, a competition of stage adaptations of fairy tales, and prepared a production based on “Eugene Onegin” with students from China. Our exchange students always participate with joy in such events, but personally, I have long wanted to introduce the Russian language departments of our partner universities to this side of our academic life as well. I am very grateful to the Russkiy Mir Foundation for supporting our project. I believe that this creative work will elevate our interaction with partners to a new level and expand our expertise in teaching foreign students. Not to mention the immense pleasure of engaging with the literary word, which we enjoy no less than the participating students.
