Abstract
<jats:p>The article is dedicated to the book series “Library of World Dramaturgy”, published by the Iskusstvo Publishing House between 1936 and 1941. The research aims to determine the significance of this series in the history of the Soviet reception and assimilation of global dramatic heritage. The article outlines the state of translated drama publication in the USSR by the mid-1930s; provides a quantitative and qualitative analysis of the “Library of World Dramaturgy” series as a whole; and examines transformations in the approach to publishing foreign classics during the periods of 1936-1937 and 1938-1941. The scientific novelty of the study lies not only in the fact that this series is being subjected to bibliological analysis for the first time, but also in the specific attention paid to the publisher’s approach to the mass publication of plays as works of a “dual nature”, belonging simultaneously to literature and theater. The study concludes that while the series initially reproduced an already established canon of “foreign dramatic classics”, it subsequently began to actively shape this canon, predetermining the publisher’s future trajectory in this field. The article is supplemented by a bibliographic index of all editions published within the “Library of World Dramaturgy” series.</jats:p>