Lady Macbeth of The Mtsensk District (novel)

Lady Macbeth Of The Mtsensk District (novel)

Lady Macbeth of the Mtsensk District (Russian: Леди Макбет Мценского уезда) is an 1865 novel by Nikolai Leskov. It was originally published in Fyodor Dostoyevsky's magazine Epoch.

Among its themes are the subordinate role expected from women in 19th century European society, adultery, provincial life (thus drawing comparison with Flaubert's Madame Bovary) and the planning of murder by a woman, hence the title inspired by the Shakespearean character Lady Macbeth from his play Macbeth. The title also echoes the title of Turgenev's story Hamlet of the Shchigrovsky District (1859).

Leskov's story inspired an opera of the same name by Dmitri Shostakovich, and the 1962 Polish film by Andrzej Wajda, Sibirska Ledi Magbet (Siberian Lady Macbeth).

Read more about Lady Macbeth Of The Mtsensk District (novel):  Plot Summary

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