Re-thinking Ovid in the New Millennium: The Exile of the Latin Poet in a Play by Mikhail Berman-Tsikinovsky
Re-thinking Ovid in the New Millennium: The Exile of the Latin Poet in a Play by Mikhail Berman-Tsikinovsky

Summary/Abstract: The bimillenary of Ovid’s death is the occasion for a rethinking of his fortune, with a specialfocus on his condition as a poet in exile. The play The Land of Oblivion written by the Russian-American dramatist Mikhail Berman-Tsikinovsky in 2007, tries to analyze the mysterious reason thatcaused Ovid’s relegation on the Black Sea. His new hypothesis is very interesting, because isconnected to the exile of many Russian intellectuals under the Tsarist and the Soviet rule. The playunderlines the extreme cleverness of Ovid to live in Tomi: it was not a passive acceptance of apunishment, but a real metamorphosis – a dynamic adaptation with a constant attention for thecultural dimension of the everyday life. Only in this way Ovid’s life could assume a different, but stillpositive, form: this can be the great lesson of the Latin poet in the New Millennium.

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