"It is theatre-minus-text, it is a density of signs and sensations built up on stage starting from the written argument…" — this is how Roland Barthes defined the notion of theatricality. The proposed course is a study of this complex concept, its multiple definitions and possible applications to Cultural Studies in Russia and the West. Students will explore what place was occupied by the Public Spectacle, on the one hand, and Theatrical Event, on the other, in the history of Russian culture, traditionally considered performative as such. The study of public spectacles will go from the court celebrations of the 18th century, modelled after Early Modern Spectacles in Europe, through the Revolutionary festivals of the 1920s — all the way to the celebration of the 300 years of Saint-Petersburg and, most recently, the opening ceremony of 2014 Winter Olympics, with its contradictory ideological message. The close reading of the key texts of the 19th-century Russian Drama ("Woe from Wit," "The Inspector General," "The Forest," "The Seagull") will be followed by the study of the most important productions of these plays in the early 20th century.