The Ukrayinska Besida Theatre (until 1914: Ruska Besida Theater) – was the first Ukrainian professional theater in operation from 1864 to 1924. Its first performance took place in the premises of The Ukrainian National Home (Народний Дім) building in Lviv. The theater was subsidized by the Ruska Besida Society in Lviv and occasionally supported by the Galician Diet.

Beginnings

The first company of the Ruska Besida Theatre in 1864

"Руська бесіда" was a society, which arranged literary, musical and dance evenings, concerts, balls and lectures. One of its tasks became the organization of a theater. In 1861, Yuliian Lavrivsky (Юліан Григорович Лаврівський) wrote in a newspaper article: "If we want our language to thrive… we must see that it will be more involved in public use and…we think that the best help here could be to establish a theater in

Lviv Lviv ( uk, Львів) is the largest city in western Ukraine, and the seventh-largest in Ukraine, with a population of . It serves as the administrative centre of Lviv Oblast and Lviv Raion, and is one of the main cultural centres of Ukraine ...

,…the theater will enlighten us of our history, will define the past, and will help us to love this great land, by stirring up admiration for our poetry and art." In January 1864, the director of the newly created theater became Omelian Bachynsky (Омелян Васильович Бачинський) who had been director of a theatre in

Zhytomyr Zhytomyr ( uk, Жито́мир, translit=Zhytomyr ; russian: Жито́мир, Zhitomir ; pl, Żytomierz ; yi, זשיטאָמיר, Zhitomir; german: Schytomyr ) is a city in the north of the western half of Ukraine. It is the Capital city, a ...

. On March 29, 1864, in The Ukrainian National Home (Народний Дім) in Lviv, the opening of the first Ukrainian professional theater took place. It premiered with the play "Marusya" (Маруся) based on the novel by Kvitka-Osnovianenko (Григорія Квітки-Основ'яненка).

Growth

Kostya Levytsky (Кость Левицький) wrote: "Actors of rank and students hurried to join the theatre, to devote themselves to the development of their native drama." There was great excitement, for the then-

Rusyns Rusyns (), also known as Carpatho-Rusyns (), or Rusnaks (), are an East Slavs, East Slavic ethnic group from the Carpathian Rus', Eastern Carpathians in Central Europe. They speak Rusyn language, Rusyn, an East Slavic languages, East Slavi ...

realized that their language, which was pushed aside publicly, would lead to a revival of the spirit of the people. The theater sent troupes beyond

, to tour

Kolomyia Kolomyia, formerly known as Kolomea ( ua, Коломия, Kolomyja, ; pl, Kołomyja; german: Kolomea; ro, Colomeea; yi, ), is a city located on the Prut River in Ivano-Frankivsk Oblast (province), in western Ukraine. It serves as the admi ...

, Stanyslaviv, and

Chernivtsi Chernivtsi ( uk, Чернівці́}, ; ro, Cernăuți, ; see also other names) is a city in the historical region of Bukovina, which is now divided along the borders of Romania and Ukraine, including this city, which is situated on the upp ...

. At the end of 1864 the company toured through

Sambir Sambir ( uk, Самбір, pl, Sambor, yi, סאמבאָר, Sambor) is a city in Sambir Raion, Lviv Oblast, Ukraine. It serves as the administrative center of Sambir Raion (district) and is located close to the border with Poland. Sambir hosts t ...

and

Przemyśl Przemyśl (; yi, פשעמישל, Pshemishl; uk, Перемишль, Peremyshl; german: Premissel) is a city in southeastern Poland with 58,721 inhabitants, as of December 2021. In 1999, it became part of the Subcarpathian Voivodeship; it was pr ...

. Their repertoire was replenished with new pieces, and translations. Some actors of the theater also performed on the Polish stage, and this exchange of stage experiences caused the artistic level of the domestic repertoire on the Galician scene to rise.

Golden Age

For the director Teofila Romanovych (Теофіла Федорівна Романович), the theater was driven by a good acting structure and the increase of the repertoire. She prepared the ground for Ivan Biberovych (Іван Біберович ) and Ivan Hrynevetsky (Іван Миколайович Гриневецький), whose period of directorship was called the "Golden Age of the Galician theater". They introduced Ukrainian historical drama by Pavel Barvinsky (Павло Якович Барвінський), household drama by

Mykhailo Starytsky Mykhailo Petrovych Starytsky ( uk, Михайло Петрович Старицький; 14 December 1840 – 27 April 1904), in English Michael Starycky, was a Ukrainian writer, poet, and playwright.Mykola Lysenko Mykola Vitaliyovych Lysenko ( uk, Мико́ла Віта́лійович Ли́сенко; 22 March 1842 – 6 November 1912) was a List of Ukrainian composers, Ukrainian composer, pianist, conductor and ethnomusicologist of the late Romantic mus ...

and

Semen Hulak-Artemovsky Semen Stepanovych Hulak-Artemovsky ( uk, Семен Степанович Гулак-Артемовський, also referred to as Semyon Gulak-Artemovsky and Artemovs’kyj) ( – ), was a Ukrainians, Ukrainian opera composer, singer (baritone), ...

; and added the Western European dramas of

Friedrich Schiller Johann Christoph Friedrich von Schiller (, short: ; 10 November 17599 May 1805) was a German playwright, poet, and philosopher. During the last seventeen years of his life (1788–1805), Schiller developed a productive, if complicated, friends ...

Eugène Scribe Augustin Eugène Scribe (; 24 December 179120 February 1861) was a French dramatist and librettist. He is known for writing "well-made plays" ("pièces bien faites"), a mainstay of popular theatre for over 100 years, and as the librettist of man ...

Heinrich von Kleist Bernd Heinrich Wilhelm von Kleist (18 October 177721 November 1811) was a German poet, dramatist, novelist, short story writer and journalist. His best known works are the theatre plays ''Das Käthchen von Heilbronn'', ''The Broken Jug'', ''Amphit ...

Carlo Goldoni Carlo is a given name. It is an Italian form of Charles. It can refer to: *Carlo (name) *Monte Carlo *Carlingford, New South Wales, a suburb in north-west Sydney, New South Wales, Australia *A satirical song written by Dafydd Iwan about Prince Char ...

, as well as operettas by

Jacques Offenbach Jacques Offenbach (, also , , ; 20 June 18195 October 1880) was a German-born French composer, cellist and impresario of the Romantic period. He is remembered for his nearly 100 operettas of the 1850s to the 1870s, and his uncompleted opera '' ...

and

Johann Strauss II Johann Baptist Strauss II (25 October 1825 – 3 June 1899), also known as Johann Strauss Jr., the Younger or the Son (german: links=no, Sohn), was an Austrian composer of light music, particularly dance music and operettas. He composed ov ...

The Theater in 1908

The Ruska Besida Theater 1908, Lviv, Ukraine

After a certain decline, the theater again rose with the directorship of Joseph Stadnik (Йосип Дмитрович Стадник), mainly due to the spread of Western European opera repertoire and European drama. The Theater put on vaudeville, melodrama, operetta, translated pieces of Western European playwrights, and performed their own Ukrainian dramatists. German writers

Hermann Sudermann Hermann Sudermann (30 September 1857 – 21 November 1928) was a German dramatist and novelist. Life Early career Sudermann was born at Matzicken, a village to the east of Heydekrug in the Province of Prussia (now Macikai and Šilutė, i ...

Gotthold Ephraim Lessing Gotthold Ephraim Lessing (, ; 22 January 1729 – 15 February 1781) was a philosopher, dramatist, publicist and art critic, and a representative of the Enlightenment era. His plays and theoretical writings substantially influenced the developmen ...

Gerhart Hauptmann Gerhart Johann Robert Hauptmann (; 15 November 1862 – 6 June 1946) was a German dramatist and novelist. He is counted among the most important promoters of literary naturalism, though he integrated other styles into his work as well. He recei ...

; Scandinavian writers

Henrik Ibsen Henrik Johan Ibsen (; ; 20 March 1828 – 23 May 1906) was a Norwegian playwright and theatre director. As one of the founders of modernism in theatre, Ibsen is often referred to as "the father of realism" and one of the most influential playw ...

August Strindberg Johan August Strindberg (, ; 22 January 184914 May 1912) was a Swedish playwright, novelist, poet, essayist and painter.Lane (1998), 1040. A prolific writer who often drew directly on his personal experience, Strindberg wrote more than sixty p ...

; French writers

Edmond Rostand Edmond Eugène Alexis Rostand (, , ; 1 April 1868 – 2 December 1918) was a French poet and dramatist. He is associated with neo-romanticism and is known best for his 1897 play ''Cyrano de Bergerac''. Rostand's romantic plays contrasted with t ...

Pierre Beaumarchais Pierre-Augustin Caron de Beaumarchais (; 24 January 1732 – 18 May 1799) was a French polymath. At various times in his life, he was a watchmaker, inventor, playwright, musician, diplomat, spy, publisher, horticulturist, arms dealer, satirist ...

Molière Jean-Baptiste Poquelin (, ; 15 January 1622 (baptised) – 17 February 1673), known by his stage name Molière (, , ), was a French playwright, actor, and poet, widely regarded as one of the greatest writers in the French language and world ...

; English writers

Oscar Wilde Oscar Fingal O'Flahertie Wills Wilde (16 October 185430 November 1900) was an Irish poet and playwright. After writing in different forms throughout the 1880s, he became one of the most popular playwrights in London in the early 1890s. He is ...

George Bernard Shaw George Bernard Shaw (26 July 1856 – 2 November 1950), known at his insistence simply as Bernard Shaw, was an Irish playwright, critic, polemicist and political activist. His influence on Western theatre, culture and politics extended from ...

, and

William Shakespeare William Shakespeare ( 26 April 1564 – 23 April 1616) was an English playwright, poet and actor. He is widely regarded as the greatest writer in the English language and the world's pre-eminent dramatist. He is often called England's nation ...

(translated by Ivan Franko) could be seen on their stage. The writings of

Nikolai Gogol Nikolai Vasilyevich Gogol; uk, link=no, Мико́ла Васи́льович Го́голь, translit=Mykola Vasyliovych Hohol; (russian: Яновский; uk, Яновський, translit=Yanovskyi) ( – ) was a Russian novelist, ...

were performed, as well as of the Russian writers

Leo Tolstoy Count Lev Nikolayevich TolstoyTolstoy pronounced his first name as , which corresponds to the romanization ''Lyov''. () (; russian: link=no, Лев Николаевич Толстой,In Tolstoy's day, his name was written as in pre-refor ...

and

Anton Chekhov Anton Pavlovich Chekhov (; 29 January 1860 Old Style date 17 January. – 15 July 1904 Old Style date 2 July.) was a Russian playwright and short-story writer who is considered to be one of the greatest writers of all time. His career ...

; the work of Polish playwrights

Aleksander Fredro Aleksander Fredro (20 June 1793 – 15 July 1876) was a Polish poet, playwright and author active during Polish Romanticism in the period of partitions by neighboring empires. His works including plays written in the octosyllabic verse ('' Zemst ...

and

Stanisław Przybyszewski Stanisław Przybyszewski (; 7 May 1868 – 23 November 1927) was a Polish novelist, dramatist, and poet of the decadent naturalistic school. His drama is associated with the Symbolist movement. He wrote both in German and in Polish. Life Stanis� ...

also graced their stage. Besides the Ukrainian operas of

Mykola Lysenko Mykola Vitaliyovych Lysenko ( uk, Мико́ла Віта́лійович Ли́сенко; 22 March 1842 – 6 November 1912) was a List of Ukrainian composers, Ukrainian composer, pianist, conductor and ethnomusicologist of the late Romantic mus ...

and

Mykola Arkas Mykola ( uk, Мико́ла, Mykóla, ) is a Slavic name, Slavic variant, more specifically a Ukrainian name, Ukrainian variant, of the masculine name "Nicholas", meaning "victory of the people". It may refer to: People *Mykola Arkas (1853–190 ...

, Ukrainians were introduced for the first time to such operas as:

La Juive ''La Juive'' () (''The Jewess'') is a grand opera in five acts by Fromental Halévy to an original French libretto by Eugène Scribe; it was first performed at the Opéra, Paris, on 23 February 1835. Composition history ''La Juive'' was one of t ...

Fromental Halévy Jacques-François-Fromental-Élie Halévy, usually known as Fromental Halévy (; 27 May 179917 March 1862), was a French composer. He is known today largely for his opera '' La Juive''. Early career Halévy was born in Paris, son of the cantor ...

, Madama Butterfly by

Giacomo Puccini Giacomo Puccini (Lucca, 22 December 1858Bruxelles, 29 November 1924) was an Italian composer known primarily for his operas. Regarded as the greatest and most successful proponent of Italian opera after Verdi, he was descended from a long li ...

Carmen ''Carmen'' () is an opera in four acts by the French composer Georges Bizet. The libretto was written by Henri Meilhac and Ludovic Halévy, based on the Carmen (novella), novella of the same title by Prosper Mérimée. The opera was first perfo ...

Georges Bizet Georges Bizet (; 25 October 18383 June 1875) was a French composer of the Romantic music, Romantic era. Best known for his operas in a career cut short by his early death, Bizet achieved few successes before his final work, ''Carmen'', whi ...

La traviata ''La traviata'' (; ''The Fallen Woman'') is an opera in three acts by Giuseppe Verdi set to an Italian libretto by Francesco Maria Piave. It is based on ''La Dame aux camélias'' (1852), a play by Alexandre Dumas ''fils'' adapted from his own 18 ...

Giuseppe Verdi Giuseppe Fortunino Francesco Verdi (; 9 or 10 October 1813 – 27 January 1901) was an Italian composer best known for his operas. He was born near Busseto to a provincial family of moderate means, receiving a musical education with the h ...

Faust Faust is the protagonist of a classic German legend based on the historical Johann Georg Faust ( 1480–1540). The erudite Faust is highly successful yet dissatisfied with his life, which leads him to make a pact with the Devil at a crossroads ...

Charles Gounod Charles-François Gounod (; ; 17 June 181818 October 1893), usually known as Charles Gounod, was a French composer. He wrote twelve operas, of which the most popular has always been ''Faust (opera), Faust'' (1859); his ''Roméo et Juliette'' (18 ...

The Tales of Hoffmann ''The Tales of Hoffmann'' (French: ) is an by Jacques Offenbach. The French libretto was written by Jules Barbier, based on three short stories by E. T. A. Hoffmann, who is the protagonist of the story. It was Offenbach's final work; he died ...

Cavalleria rusticana ''Cavalleria rusticana'' (; Italian for "rustic chivalry") is an opera in one act by Pietro Mascagni to an Italian libretto by Giovanni Targioni-Tozzetti and Guido Menasci, adapted from an 1880 short story of the same name and subsequent play b ...

Pietro Mascagni Pietro Mascagni (7 December 1863 – 2 August 1945) was an Italian composer primarily known for his operas. His 1890 masterpiece ''Cavalleria rusticana'' caused one of the greatest sensations in opera history and single-handedly ushered in the ' ...

The Bartered Bride ''The Bartered Bride'' ( cz, Prodaná nevěsta, links=no, ''The Sold Bride'') is a comic opera in three acts by the Czech composer Bedřich Smetana, to a libretto by Karel Sabina. The work is generally regarded as a major contribution towards the ...

Bedřich Smetana Bedřich Smetana ( , ; 2 March 1824 – 12 May 1884) was a Czech composer who pioneered the development of a musical style that became closely identified with his people's aspirations to a cultural and political "revival." He has been regarded i ...

Halka ''Halka'' is an opera by Polish composer Stanisław Moniuszko to a libretto written by Włodzimierz Wolski, a young Warsaw poet with radical social views. It is part of the canon of Polish national operas. Performance history The first perf ...

Stanisław Moniuszko Stanisław Moniuszko (; May 5, 1819 – June 4, 1872) was a Polish composer, conductor and teacher. He wrote many popular art songs and operas, and his music is filled with patriotic folk themes of the peoples of the former Polish–Lithuania ...

, and others.

Awakening of National Consciousness

The theater became part of an awakening of a national consciousness for Ukrainians and acquired not only a lasting place in the history of the Galician rebirth, but also greatly contributed to the rise of the modern Ukrainian theater in Central and Eastern Ukraine.

Theater directors

In July 1924, because of the lack of funds, the theater ceased to exist.

Notable alumni

* Amvrosy Buchma (1891 – 1957), Ukrainian actor and director *

Ivan Franko Ivan Yakovych Franko (Ukrainian: Іван Якович Франко, pronounced ˈwɑn ˈjɑkowɪtʃ frɐnˈkɔ 27 August 1856 – 28 May 1916) was a Ukrainian poet, writer, social and literary critic, journalist, interpreter, economist, ...

, (1856 –1916), Ukrainian poet, writer, social and literary critic, journalist, translator *

Marko Kropyvnytskyi Mark Lukych Kropyvnytskii ( uk, Марко Лукич Кропивницький; russian: Марк Лукич Кропивницкий, translit=Mark Lukich Kropivnitsky; 7 May 1840 – 21 April 1910), commonly known as Marko Kropyvnytskyi, w ...

, (1840 – 1910), Ukrainian writer, dramaturge, composer, theatre actor and director *

Les Kurbas Oleksandr-Zenon Stepanovych Kurbas ( ua , Олександр-Зенон Степанович Курбас; 24 February 1887– 30 November 1937), was a Ukrainian Ukrainian may refer to: * Something of, from, or related to Ukraine * Something rel ...

, (1887–1937), considered by many to be the most important Ukrainian theater director of the 20th century *

Irena Turkevycz-Martynec Irena Turkevycz-Martynec (1899-1983) was born in Brody, Kingdom of Galicia and Lodomeria, and came to Canada, to Winnipeg, in 1949. She was a Prima donna in the Lviv Theatre of Opera and Ballet, and performed in Paris, Vienna, Berlin, Prague, an ...

, (1899 – 1983), a Prima donna in the Lviv Theatre of Opera and Ballet * Mykola Voronyi, (1871 –1938), Ukrainian writer, poet, actor, director, and political activist * Alexander Zagarov, (1877 – 1941), Russian and Ukrainian, Soviet actor and theatre director, better known under his stage name Zagarov (Загаров)

References

Notes

External links

ONTAKT TV: Tania Stech, Eye on Culture, Les Kurbas; Лесь Курбас
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Bibliography

* ''Чарнецький С.'' Нарис історії українського театру в Галичині. Львів, 1934. * ''Лужницький Г.'' З історії українського театру. — Київ, ч. 2 — 4 і 2. Філадельфія 1953. — С. 54. * ''Лужницький Г.'' Зах.-євр. репертуар в українському театрі. * Львівський театр товариства «Українська Бесіда». 1915—1924 / О. О. Боньковська; Наук. т-во ім. Шевченка в Америці, НАН України. Ін-т народознав., Ін-т мистецтвознав., фольклористики та етнології ім. М. Т. Рильського. — Л. : Літопис, 2003. — 340 c. — (Мистец. театру). — Бібліогр.: с. 310—325. * Альманах «Гомону України» на 1959. — Торонто, 1958. * ''Проскуряков В., Ямаш Ю.'' Архітектура українських театрів. Простір і дія. — Друге видання, виправлене і доповнене. — Львів: Видавництво Львівської політехніки; Видавництво «Срібне слово», 2004. — 584 с. {{Portal bar, Theatre, Ukraine Theatres in Lviv Theatre in Ukraine History of Lviv Theatres completed in 1864 1864 establishments in Ukraine