‘Дзяди/Dziady’ by Maja Kleczewska from Ivano-Frankivsk at the Shakespeare Theatre

The work of leading Polish director Maja Kleczewska, based on Adam Mickiewicz's play Dziady (Forefathers' Eve), with actors from the Frankowski Dramatic Theatre, has an anti-Russian discourse and a clear, irrevocable message for those who are still looking for the “charo russkie”. Performances will take place on 31 October at 5 and 9 pm and on 2 November at 4 and 8 pm at the Gdansk Shakespeare Theatre.

The director recreates the scene at last year's Cannes Film Festival, when a bloodied Ukrainian woman caused moral discomfort among the celebrities present, with some of them merely saying in surprise, ‘This is not our war. I am a pacifist’.

Maja Kleczewska is convinced that Ukrainians are defending the whole of Europe. She responds to them with her work: ‘This is your war. And we will win it all together! Because the Ukrainians are defending each and every one of us’.

‘In my opinion, these Polish-Ukrainian ‘Dziady’ are universal, because they are about the fundamental experience of a human being whose freedom is violated. And this is the experience not only of Poland or Ukraine or Mickiewicz, it can be the experience of anyone.’ - Maja Kleczewska

In this courageous interpretation of the Polish classic, Ukrainian servicemen from Azovstal, who were captured by the Russians, speak to the conscience of the audience. The idea of staging ‘Dziady’ in Ukraine, right now, during the war with Russia, is no accident.

The director believes that there is no other such anti-Russian dramatic work in Polish literature and, in this sense, it can provide a common basis for understanding between the two countries. The drama ‘Dziady’ features the Russian language and the aria of Lenski from Pushkin's poem ‘Eugene Onegin’, and this technique has a clear task - to mark our common enemies.