A Bitter Fate

A Bitter Fate
Ilya Repin's portrait of Polina Strepetova as Lizaveta, the protagonist of A Bitter Fate.
Original titleRussian: Горькая судьбина
Written byAleksey Pisemsky
Original languageRussian
SubjectSerfdom in Russia
GenreRealistic tragedy

A Bitter Fate (Russian: Горькая судьбина, Gorkaya sudbina), also translated as A Bitter Lot, is an 1859 realistic play by Aleksey Pisemsky. It is a story of a peasant woman, who, while her husband was away for quitrent works, had been seduced by a young pomeshchik and had brought him a child. The four-act play tackles Russian serfdom and the social and moral divisions that it creates.

It was started in early 1859 in St. Petersburg, finished on 19 August and first published by Biblioteka Dlya Chteniya in November that year, It was not put on stage for several years.

The play is available in English translation in Masterpieces of the Russian Drama, Volume 1, edited by George Rapall Noyes, Dover Publications, 1961.

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