The Presidential Library highlights the history of the Russian theater

World Theater Day is celebrated on March 27. The Presidential Library provides rare materials presented on the institution's portal in the collection The Year of Theater in Russia. Among the most fundamental are the Theater of Pre-Petrine Rus' by the writer Alexander Arkhangelsky (1884), The History of Russian Theater until the Half of the 18th Century (1889) by the theater expert Pyotr Morozov, the four-volume History of Dances by the playwright and ballet historian Sergei Khudekov (1913-1918) and others.

Since the time of buffoonery, Russian theater, as a synthetic art, has absorbed all the variety of genres, becoming not only mass entertainment. The citizenship, morality, spirituality and other values ​​of our people began to be affirmed as it developed from its stage. The most prominent personalities who stood at the base of the magnificent building of the national theater are illustrated in the collection of the Presidential Library.

Peter I made a significant contribution to the development of the theater. According to the emperor's plan, the theater was to become a mass theater, a general class theater and serve as an instrument of enlightenment; Pyotr Alekseevich put a lot of effort into this. This is described in the publication The History of the Russian Theater: “In no country has the theater played such a role as in Russia. If for the "tishayshy tsar" theatrical performances were only court fun ... then for his son, the great Transformer, they have already become a powerful means of bringing European enlightenment to the uncultured Russian environment".  

Catherine II not only supported the theater, but also wrote plays herself: “She owns the experience of combining the tragic genre with a new, realistic direction. She ... turns to Shakespeare, in imitation of whose historical chronicles she writes a number of "historical representations": "From the life of Rurik", "Initial management of Oleg" and "Igor" ... <...> "Rurik" is used to some extent by the author to express programs of enlightened absolutism”. Most of the playwrights of Catherine's era idealized the existing order, and if they dared to play a trick on hypocrisy, superstition or Gallomania, they did it in a mild form.

But Fonvizin was not like that, who conquered the audience with his play "Brigadier", written in fresh, free from archaism linguistic traditions. However, in general, "the power of laughter and exciting thoughts" was still constrained ... When the comedy "The Minor" appeared on the stage, "the theater was honored with such a stunning picture of the dark sides of modern life, which no stage figure has yet dared to endure in front of Russian society". Before Fonvizin, "such a decisive call for peasant liberation, which came almost a hundred years after ..."The Minor" had not yet sounded, - we read in the book The History of the Russian Theater (1914).

“From the dirty gloom of the old chancellery, the “sub-chancellor” Krylov, through the theater and only thanks to the theater, gets into the first rows of literature. The superficial, light “theatricality” of the young Griboyedov eventually made him the author of “Woe from Wit”, the collection The History of the Russian Theater lists the playwrights of the new formation.

At the beginning of the 19th century, it was time to comprehend the experience gained on the Russian stage. It fell to Ivan Dmitrevsky to consolidate the methodology of the “school” with the “successively transmitted principles of the game”. Actor, playwright, translator, he also did a lot to strengthen the repertoire of the Russian theater. His services to society were marked by his election to the members of the Russian Academy.

According to The History of the Russian Theater, the ignited and gradually kindled spark of the theater ”left its mark on the entire spiritual life of our society. The theater touched the most intimate depths of the Russian soul and only here it has grown into a great social phenomenon, from “fun” it has become a school and a temple... he history of the Russian theater is one of the most important and brilliant sides in the history of Russian culture...”.