Amateur Actors Who - Partnered with Dostoevsky in the Production of Gogol’s Comedy “The Inspector” (From the Additions to the Dictionary “F. M. Dostoevsky and His Entourage”) Cover Image

Актеры-любители - партнеры Достоевского в постановке комедии Гоголя «Ревизор» (Из дополнений к словарю «Ф. М. Достоевский и его окружение»)
Amateur Actors Who - Partnered with Dostoevsky in the Production of Gogol’s Comedy “The Inspector” (From the Additions to the Dictionary “F. M. Dostoevsky and His Entourage”)

Author(s): Boris Nikolaevich Tikhomirov
Subject(s): Theatre, Dance, Performing Arts, Cultural history, Russian Literature, 19th Century, History of Art
Published by: Петрозаводский государственный университет
Keywords: F. M. Dostoevsky; N. V. Gogol; comedy “The Inspector”; postmaster Shpekin; charity performance; showbill; Ruadze Hall; P. I. Weinberg; amateur actors;

Summary/Abstract: The article is devoted to Dostoevsky’s participation as postmaster Shpekin in a charity performance of the comedy by N. V. Gogol “The Inspector,” staged on April 14, 1860 by amateurs in the hall of Maria Ruadze’s house on the Moika embankment near the Polizeisky Bridge. Along with Dostoevsky, 25 amateur actors were engaged in the performance. Their names are known from the showbill published as an appendix to P. I. Weinberg’s memoirs of this event. Dostoevsky interacted with the participants of this production during several rehearsals that began on March 31, 1860, and directly during the performance. However, fewer than half of the participants of this performance are registered in S. V. Belov’s encyclopedic dictionary “F. M. Dostoevsky and his entourage,” and most of them are engaged in stage episodes without Shpekin-Dostoevsky. The article contains biographical data about amateur actors who participated in the production of “The Inspector,” who interacted with Dostoevsky in the collective creative process, went on stage together with him, but who have not been previously mentioned in the biographical literature about the writer.

  • Issue Year: 9/2022
  • Issue No: 1
  • Page Range: 61-79
  • Page Count: 19
  • Language: Russian