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Theatre Administration at the Court of Catherine II: The Reforms of Ivan Elagin

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  23 January 2009

Victor Borovsky
Victor Borovsky
Affiliation:
Victor Borovsky is Lecturer in Russian in the School of Slavonic and East European Studies, University of London
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Extract

At the beginning of October 1777, Sumarokov, dramatist and first director of the first Russian professional theatre, died in Moscow alone, poverty-stricken and deserted by all. A few actors carried the deceased to the cemetery of the Donskoy Monastery and buried him at their own expense. A week later Catherine II received a communication from Prince Volkonsky: ‘In the last few days Aleksandr Sumarokov, being afflicted with a violent illness, has died, but otherwise all here goes well; having nothing more at present worthy of report to Your Imperial Majesty, I commit myself to Your Imperial Grace’.

Type
Articles
Information
Theatre Research International , Volume 24 , Issue 1 , Spring 1999 , pp. 42 - 53
Copyright
Copyright © International Federation for Theatre Research 1999

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References

Notes

1. Gosudarstvennaya Publichnaya biblioteka im. M. E. Saltykova-Shchedrina. St Petersburg. Rukopisny otdel, fond 227 (Grot), ed. khr. 69.

2. Letopis' russkoy literatury i drevnosti. Moscow, 1862, vol. 4, p. 34

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10. Zhurnal Kamer-fur'ersky (undated) p. 211. The music and choreography for this work were by Gasparo Angiolini.

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21. On the conflicts between Elagin and Catherine 11, see Russkaya starina, 1898, vol. LXXX, pp. 127–9, ‘Pis'ma zar-ubezhnykh myzykantov’ Iz russkikh Arkhivov, Leningrad, 1967, pp. 28–30; and Baron N. V. Drizen, ‘Ivan Perfil'evich Elagin’, Russkaya starina, 1893, No. 10, p. 128.

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27. Higher payments to foreigners was general practice, and not confined to the arts. The system had its origin in the difference in qualifications of specialists from abroad and those of local cadres. Comparisons, especially in the eighteenth and the first half of the nineteenth century, were often not to the advantage of the Russians. Thus, for example, German and Dutch typesetters would be paid 200 to 250 roubles a year, whereas Russians received just 10 to 18 roubles.

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34. Personal note from Catherine II to I. P. Elagin, 22 April 1777, on the building work in Tsaritsyn. See Sbornik russkogo istoricheskogo obshchestva, 1860, vol. XXVII, p. 126.

35. Personal note from Catherine II to I. P. Elagin. Undated. See Sbornik russkogo istoricheskogo obshchestva, 1885, vol. XLII, p. 305.

36. On the role of Elagin in the building of Yamburg, see Tsentral'ny gosudarstvenny istorichesky arkhiv, fond 1339, opis' 1, No. 710, and Tsentral'ny gosudarstvenny arkhiv Voenno-Morskogo Flota, fond 3, opis' 23, No. 937, listy 65–66, No. 958, listy 53–54.

37. Quoted in Drizen, Baron N. V., ‘Ivan Perfil'evich Elagin’, Russkaya starina, 1893, No. 10, p. 129.Google Scholar

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43. Gosudarstvenny istorichesky aikhiv, fond 468, opis' 36, ed. khr. 39

44. Sbornik Imperatorskogo russogo istoricheskogo obshchestva, St Petersburg, 1878.

45. Aikhiv Diiektsii Imperatoiskikh teatiov, section 2, p. 104.

46. Bibliograficheskie zapiski, St Petersburg, 1858, N 14, stolbets 425.

47. Russky arkhiv, St Petersburg, vol. 3, p. 208.

48. Krugly, A. R., ‘Ivan Perfil'evich Elagin. Biografichesky ocherk’. Otdel'ny ottisk iz Ezhegodnika Imperatorskikh Teatrov, sezon 1893–4, St Petersburg, 1895.Google Scholar