Aleksey V. Belov

PhD in History, Senior Researcher at The Institute of Russian History of the Russian Academy of Sciences (IRH RAS)

The Institute of Russian History of the Russian Academy of Sciences (IRH RAS)

(Moscow, Russia)

DOI: https://doi.org/10.22405/2712-8407-2021-2-6

Abstract. TThis article covers the process of formation and development of the permanent national theater in Moscow in the second half of the 18th – 19th centuries. A long and difficult path preceded this phenomenon. The author describes the main stages of the path: successive theater entrepreneurs; their good decisions and miscalculations; the principle of "privilege"; various stage venues; formation of the troupe of the future Bolshoi and Maly theaters of Moscow. The turn of the 18th – 19th centuries is extremely important because at that time the interest in Western European theater stage action brought to Russia during the reforms of Peter the Great, which at first were not accepted by wide sections of the Russian audience, became an indispensable and demanded part of the city's metropolitan culture. At the same time, in the first decades of the 19th century all social strata of the urban society of Russia had a genuine interest in the stage play. The transitional nature of the era reflected notable issues associated with the processes of "rooting" the culture of the theater in the urban environment. This is clearly seen in the example of Moscow as the second, more conservative and less bureaucratic capital, connected, moreover, with broad strata of the provincial Russian nobility and their entourage. The high cost of organizing performances and the cost of the performances themselves, as well as the principle of recoupment of performances created additional difficulties. In this regard, at this stage the issue of the relationship between the administration and the audience played a big part. This forces the administration of the Moscow theater to attract and retain spectators. Therefore, the problem of the relationship between the administration and the audience played a special role. As a result, the work pays much attention to the issues of the life of the auditorium, the peculiarities of the behavior of theater visitors, the tasks facing the administration of the Moscow Imperial Theater, the ways and methods of their solution; the organization of the theater work process; the fight against violations (forgery of tickets, and others). Consideration of this topic allows us to see the peculiarities of the passage and organization of the process of establishing the Western stage tradition in Russia, its transformation into an integral part of the urban cultural space of both Moscow and the entire country, its transformation into an integral part of the national Russian culture.
Keywords:Theater policy, Directorate of the Imperial Theaters, metropolitan theater, spectators, Moscow, Lokatelli, Petrovsky Theater, Arbat Theater.

Full text of the article (PDF)

For citation: Belov, AV 2021, ‘Spectator of the Russian Theater during the period of stage art formation in Moscow at the turn of the 18th – 19th centuries’, Tula Scientific Bulletin. History. Linguistics, issue 2 (6), pp. 6–14, https://doi.org/10.22405/2712-8407-2021-2-6. (in Russ.)

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