History of a great temple of art in the Presidential Library

On the eve of the International Day of Theatre celebrated March 27, the Presidential Library presented a photo chronicle of the Bolshoi Theater.

Unique photos and drawings, digitized owing to modern technology, demonstrate the life and changes in the main theater of the country, which consistently remained the pillar of Russian scene.The preface of the People's Artist of the USSR Ivan Kozlovsky to a series of drawings, issued in 1976 on the 200th anniversary of the theater marks the distinguished history of the Bolshoi and its mission: "The State Bolshoi Theatre of the USSR is a great temple of art. Many names of great artists who have brought glory to Russian and Soviet art should be remembered with gratitude. These are the names of composers, singers, dancers and artists who, like invisible columns, carry the burden of high skill, and time truly highlights their work in the art."

It is practically the only address of the outstanding singer about the Bolshoi Theater, which he left in 1954 at the peak of popularity without any evident reason.

The drawings timed to the 200th anniversary depict the facade and the colonnade, the lobby, the main foyer, side boxes and the scene. Photos of 1940-1950's also show the country's main theater; among them - the card depicting the Bolshoi Theater as a symbol of the capital issued in time for the World Festival of Youth and Students in 1957. There are pictures of the 1990s, and the earliest photo dates back to August 1917. It did not capture a theatrical event but the participants of the state meeting, headed by Minister of Foreign Affairs of the Provisional Government Paul Milyukov on the background of the Bolshoi Theater.

Totally, the collections of the Presidential Library with more than 300,000 items include a few dozen images of the Bolshoi Theater. Materials will be enriched through the archives and collections of photos of artists who worked at the Bolshoi Theatre in different years - Feodor Chaliapin and Antonina Nezhdanova, Leonid Sobinov and Nadezhda Obukhova, Sergey Lemeshev and Galina Ulanova, Maya Plisetskaya and Vladimir Vasiliev, as well as other artists, whose names are inscribed in the history of Russian and world culture.