Russian Serf Theatre refers to

theatrical production A theatrical production is any work of theatre, such as a staged play, musical, comedy or drama produced from a written book or script. Theatrical productions also extend to other performance designations such as Dramatic and Nondramatic theatre, ...

s performed by

serfs Serfdom was the status of many peasants under feudalism, specifically relating to manorialism and similar systems. It was a condition of debt bondage and indentured servitude with similarities to and differences from slavery. It developed dur ...

for their owners.

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 ...

serf theaters dates back from the early to mid eighteenth century when the nobility began organizing their serfs to put on shows for each other. In 1795 the Russian population was 37 million, of whom the vast majority were serfs, owned by a mere 360,000 male nobles. The average

aristocrat The aristocracy (''from Greek'' ''ἀριστοκρατία'' ''aristokratía'', "rule of the best"; ''Latin: aristocratia'') is historically associated with a "hereditary" or a "ruling" social class. In many states, the aristocracy included the ...

owned just 60 serfs and only 11 per cent owned more than 1000 . In the late eighteenth century it became popular to employ serfs to mount productions of

opera Opera is a form of History of theatre#European theatre, Western theatre in which music is a fundamental component and dramatic roles are taken by Singing, singers. Such a "work" (the literal translation of the Italian word "opera") is typically ...

ballet Ballet () is a type of performance dance that originated during the Italian Renaissance in the fifteenth century and later developed into a concert dance form in France and Russia. It has since become a widespread and highly technical form of ...

s or plays. More than 2,000 of these slave-artists performed in more than 170 noble theaters and were bought and sold wholesale while at the same time becoming stars. For example,

Prince Potemkin Prince Grigory Aleksandrovich Potemkin-Tauricheski (A number of dates as late as 1742 have been found on record; the veracity of any one is unlikely to be proved. This is his "official" birth-date as given on his tombstone.) was a Russian mi ...

bought the whole serf orchestra of Count Kirill Razumovski for 40,000 rubles. As the popularity of drama grew in Russia, competition developed between the nobles as to who could host the most impressive performances. While the majority of nobles owned less than a thousand serfs, the wealthiest individuals owned many more. Nicholai Sheremetev, for instance, owned 210,000 serfs. His son, Peter Sheremetev, was fascinated by the theater and invested in his company. Upon gaining control of the estate, Peter Sheremetev built a theatre company widely recognized during Russia's golden age of nobility. Sheremetev fell in love with his star singer and actress whose stage name was “Pearl.” In 1801 Count Nicholas Sheremetev, aged 50 and the richest man in Russia, secretly married 32-year-old Praskovia Kovalyova in a ceremony that shocked the

Tsar Tsar (; also spelled ''czar'', ''tzar'', or ''csar''; ; ; sr-Cyrl-Latn, цар, car) is a title historically used by Slavic monarchs. The term is derived from the Latin word '' caesar'', which was intended to mean ''emperor'' in the Euro ...

and all of the nation's aristocrats. Sheremetev's love for theatre was exhibited by his long-term relationship with Kovalyova as well as the high professional quality of his theatre. By the early nineteenth century, there 170 serf theatres varying greatly in size and quality. Serf theatre companies provided the basis of public theatres in several Russian towns.Leach and Borovsky, p.64-5

Notes

References

*Great Soviet Encyclopedia. New York: MacMillan, 1975. Print. *Leach, R. and Borovsky, V. (ed.) ''A History of Russian Theatre'' Cambridge University Press *Schuler, Catherine. Theatre and Identity in Imperial Russia. Iowa City: University of Iowa, 2009. *Senelick, Laurence. Serf Actor: The Life and Art of Mikhail Shchepkin. Westport, CT: Greenwood, 1984. {{Authority control Theatre in Russia 18th century in the Russian Empire 19th century in the Russian Empire