Tatars and Russian theater in nineteenth century Kazan.

Abstract

The article examines the history of the Tatars’ first visits to the Russian theater in Kazan. Naqi Isanbet was the first among Tatar researchers to raise this issue in his article published in 1962 in the Kazakhstan newspaper “The Kazakh Literature”. This article introduces into circulation two new sources on the history of Tatar theater, belonging to the encyclopedist: “Tatar theatry 25 el echende” (“Tatar Theater over a Period of 25 Years”, 1946/1947?); “On the National Identity of Tatar Theater” (1956?). When exploring the topic “The Tatars and Russian Theater in the 19th Century”, N. Isanbet referred to the work of Nikolay Bazhenov “The History of Kazan” (1847), and the literary and fictional collection “The First Step” (1876). In this article, the range of sources on this topic is significantly expanded due to newspaper publications in “Kazanskie gubernskie vedomosti” (“The Kazan Provincial Gazette”, 1838–1917) and “Kamsko-Volzhskaya Gazeta” (“The Gazette of the Kama and Volga Region”, 1872–1874), the works of Nikolay Rybushkin, Fhilipp Vigel and Mikhail Pylyaev. These sources indicate that as early as in the first decade of the 19th century, the Kazan Province landowner Pavel Esipov created special covered boxes for the Tatars at the expense of box office fees in his public theater (1802–1814), the boxes were covered with curtains. The repertoire of his theater included several works on the Tatar theme, related to the fall of the Kazan Khanate in 1552 and the fate of the last Kazan tzarina Syuyumbike. The failure of the premiere of Voltaire’s tragedy “Mahomet” had a negative impact on the Tatars’ visits to the theater. The building of the Russian Theater in Kazan had special boxes for Muslims with wooden bars. These boxes disappeared in a new building restored after a fire in 1874, which gave reason to Russian ethnographers to conclude that the Tatars did not experience any discomfort from visiting the theater. This article systematizes a range of works on Tatar themes, written in the first half of the 19th century by Russian writers.