Webinar dedicated to the Year of Theater took place in the Presidential Library

Webinar dedicated to the Year of Theater was held in the Presidential Library. The decree “On holding the Year of Theater in the Russian Federation” signed by the President of the Russian Federation, like many other legal acts, is represented in the Presidential Library’s collections.

The main stage of the development of dramatic art in Russia is devoted to a number of works of the institution. This, for example, is the fundamental edition The History of the Russian Theater (1914) edited by V. Kallash and N. Efros, in which the fundamental difference between the Russian theater and others is noted: “There is no other country where theater has played such a role as in Russia. If for the "quietest tsar" theatrical performances were only court fun, "pitiful" or "cool", then for his son, the great Reformer, they had already become a powerful means of holding European enlightenment in an uncivilized Russian environment". The theater in Russian in its highest manifestation is a theater-school, a theater-chair.

The book by V. Vsevolodsky-Gerngross “Short Course of the History of the Russian Theater” (1936), which is available on the Presidential Library’s portal, covers the first “professional” actors - skomorokhs. The book reflects the influence of Byzantine, Polish, German, Italian, French theater on the development of dramatic art in Russia. The author identifies such stages in the development of the theater as the theater of the family-tribal community, the theater of the era of feudalism, bourgeois theater, court-aristocratic and noble.

The work of the historian of Russian literature and theater, the Doctor of Russian Literature of A. Arkhangelsky “Theater of Pre-Peter Rus’” (1884) is dedicated to an early period in the history of the Russian theater. The author tells about the emergence in 1672 of the court theater of Tsar Alexei Mikhailovich, theatrical repertoire, which was limited mainly to spiritual South Russian dramas and Anglo-German comedies, as well as about the preparation of actors and stage design.

The same period was in the center of attention of the historian of Russian literature and theater critic P. Morozov, who left the research work “History of Russian Theater until the middle of the 18th century” (1889). In his work, the author analyzes the stories of Russian travelers of the Middle Ages about the Western European theater, church activities in Byzantium, about school drama in Europe, the emergence of the Moscow court theater under Tsar Alexei Mikhailovich. Special chapters are devoted to the theater and spiritual drama under Peter I and the South Russian school drama of the first half of the XVIII century.

The books “Boyar Artamon Sergeevich Matveev and His Time (1625–1682)”, “Tsarevna Natalia Alekseevna and Theater of Her Time”, “The First Public Theater in Russia”, “F. G. Volkov: his life in connection with the history of Russian theatrical antiquity” (the last two editions can be “looked through” in the electronic reading room of the Presidential Library) and other rarities devoted to the history of Russian theater are presented.

Among the variety of postcards and photographs of the foundation there is Tamara Karsavina while performing a role in the ballet “Giselle” or a postcard depicting the famous ballerina Galina Ulanova. The set of postcards "Soviet Ballet" of 1970 collects photographs of artists captured during the dance: for example, padede from the ballet "Sleeping Beauty" performed by Maya Plisetskaya and Nikolai Fadeyechev.

Elena Fedyakhina, head of the sector of the St. Petersburg Theater Library, in turn, developed the theme of the creation and establishment of a book depository, originally called the “Library of Russian Drama”. The unique library’s collections feature plays in Russian, French and German, which became the repertoire basis of the Russian theater during its inception, sketches of costumes and scenery by Golovin, Bakst, Korovin and modern artists such as Kochergin, Yanovich…

The webinar was attended by students from Tyumen, Saratov, Moscow Regions, Khakassia, Altai Territory and other regions.