Ivan Fyodorovich Gorbunov (, 22 September 1831 — 5 January 1896) was a

Russian Russian(s) may refer to: *Russians (), an ethnic group of the East Slavic peoples, primarily living in Russia and neighboring countries *A citizen of Russia *Russian language, the most widely spoken of the Slavic languages *''The Russians'', a b ...

writer and

stage actor An actor (masculine/gender-neutral), or actress (feminine), is a person who portrays a character in a production. The actor performs "in the flesh" in the traditional medium of the theatre or in modern media such as film, radio, and television. ...

, considered to be a forefather for the "literary theatre" subgenre in his county.Горбунов, Иван Федорович
at Brockhaus and Efron Encyclopedic Dictionary

Career

Born in Ivanteyevka in the

Moscow Governorate The Moscow Governorate was a province ('' guberniya'') of the Tsardom of Russia, and the Russian Empire. It was bordered by Tver Governorate to the north, Vladimir Governorate to the northeast, Ryazan Governorate to the southeast, Tula Gove ...

of the

Russian Empire The Russian Empire was an empire that spanned most of northern Eurasia from its establishment in November 1721 until the proclamation of the Russian Republic in September 1917. At its height in the late 19th century, it covered about , roughl ...

, as a writer, Gorbunov started out in 1853, as a contributor of stories and sketches to ''

Moskvityanin ''Moskvityanin'' (Москвитянин, "The Muscovite") was a monthly literary review published by Mikhail Pogodin in Moscow between 1841 and 1856., , , , It was the mouthpiece of the Official Nationality theory espoused by Count Sergey Uv ...

'', and later ''

Otechestvennye Zapiski ''Otechestvennye Zapiski'' ( rus, Отечественные записки, p=ɐˈtʲetɕɪstvʲɪnːɨjɪ zɐˈpʲiskʲɪ, variously translated as "Annals of the Fatherland", "Patriotic Notes", "Notes of the Fatherland", etc.) was a Russian lit ...

''. In 1854 he debuted on stage the Moscow Maly Theatre in Moscow. Two years later he moved north to the Alexandrinka with which he stayed till the end of his life. In the course of forty years he played 54 parts, most of them in plays by

Alexander Ostrovsky Alexander Nikolayevich Ostrovsky (; ) was a Russian playwright, generally considered the greatest representative of the Russian realistic period. The author of 47 original plays, Ostrovsky "almost single-handedly created a Russian national repe ...

(most memorably, Kudryash in '' The Storm'', Pyotr in '' The Forest'' and Afonya in '' Sin and Sorrow Are Common to All''), his friend for whom he occasionally worked as a secretary. In the 1850s Gorbunov started to introduce the audiences to his own original repertoire of dramatized short stories under the heading of ''Scenes from the People's Life'' (Сцены из народного быта), satirizing all strata of the Russian society, particularly petty state officials. They earned him praise from

Dostoyevsky Fyodor Mikhailovich Dostoevsky. () was a Russian novelist, short story writer, essayist and journalist. He is regarded as one of the greatest novelists in both Russian and world literature, and many of his works are considered highly influenti ...

, who found there "...a lot of astute observations and the deep understanding of the nature of Russian people." Famous across Russia, Gorbunov was equally loved by peasants and the last of the three Russian Tsars. The humour of his stories "spread all through the country in the form of proverbs, and folk jokes," according to

Alexey Pleshcheyev Aleksey Nikolayevich Pleshcheyev (; 8 October 1893) was a radical Russian poetry, Russian poet of the 19th century, once a member of the Petrashevsky Circle. Pleshcheyev's first book of poetry, published in 1846, made him famous: "Step forward! ...

. Later in his life Gorbunov acquired the reputation of a credible Russian theatre historian. He was the founder of the first ever museum of theatre in his country. Gorbunov, who attended art college and

Moscow University Moscow State University (MSU), officially M. V. Lomonosov Moscow State University,. is a public research university in Moscow, Russia. The university includes 15 research institutes, 43 faculties, more than 300 departments, and six branches. Al ...

(which he never graduated) and had the profound knowledge of Russian history, culture and folklore, was a self-taught folklore scholar. It was him who introduced Modest Musorgsky to the folk song "Iskhodila mladyuoshenka" (Исходила младёшенька) which the latter used in his ''

Khovanshchina ''Khovanshchina'' ( rus, Хованщина, , xɐˈvanʲɕːɪnə, Ru-Khovanshchina_version.ogg, sometimes rendered ''The Khovansky Affair'') is an opera (subtitled a 'national music drama') in five acts by Modest Mussorgsky. The work was writte ...

'' opera, as "Marfa's Song". Gorbunov died in

Saint Petersburg Saint Petersburg, formerly known as Petrograd and later Leningrad, is the List of cities and towns in Russia by population, second-largest city in Russia after Moscow. It is situated on the Neva, River Neva, at the head of the Gulf of Finland ...

on 5 January 1896. The Collected Works by I.F. Gorbunov in three volumes came out in 1902–1907.Alexander Kugel. Literary memoirs. Petrograd, 1924. Pp. 156—157.

Career

References

Further reading