Misteri d’Elx et Mystère de la Dormition de la Mère de Dieu de Dimitri de Rostov: Entre représentation et présentation

Abstract

While mystery plays recalling the Assumption of Mary were commonplace throughout medieval Europe, they appear to have been far less usual in a Russian context, where such plays were frowned on by the Orthodox religion. It is therefore surprising that a Russian play of this sort survives, one produced in the seventeenth century by a high-ranking cleric, the Metropolitan Dimitri of Rostov. This article explores Dimitri of Rostov’s work by comparing it to a well-known mystery play from Elx (Elche) in Spain, written in the fifteenth-century (or possibly even earlier), examining the source material underpinning these two different plays and the ways in which the mystery genre appears to have diverged between Western Europe and Russia.