Abstract
<jats:p>The article is devoted to the production of Pyotr Gnedich’s play The Decembrist at the Maly Theatre, which was first performed to the audience on April 2, 1918. The performance appeared to be a landmark: it was the first major premiere of the Maly Theatre after its destruction by the Red Guards in early November 1917, which was awaited by numerous admirers of the Shchepkin House. In addition, the play touched upon revolution events and had not previously been put on stage. However, despite the brilliant cast and significant public interest, not all the hopes of the directors were fulfilled. Gnedich’s play, despite being reworked by the author specifically for the play, was not appreciated by critics as a literary work: the author was reproached both for the length of the storyline over time (it covered the period of over forty years) and for commonplace characters. The very image of the Decembrists in the spring of 1917 (when the play was included in the repertoire) looked different than a year later, when the figures of the ‘heroes of December 14’ were viewed as their predecessors by both the Bolsheviks and their opponents. At the same time, the actors’ performance received mostly positive reviews, and M.N. Yermolova’s part of Princess Plavutina-Plavuntsova was noted in all reviews in the press as an outstanding achievement of the great actress. The story of the ‘semi-success’ of The Decembrist based on archival sources (including the documents from the Russian State Archive of Literature and Art, A.A. Bakhrushin State Central Theatre Museum, and St. Petersburg State Theatre Library that are introduced into scientific circulation for the first time), as well as periodical materials.</jats:p>