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Abstract: The article discusses the role of the theatrical culture of the Smolny Institute in the pedagogical discourse of the 1770s–1780s, when the very artistic education of the people of the Enlightenment was unthinkable without the help of the theater. On the example of the “Melpomene Theater” and “Thalia Theater”, the author analyzes the specificity of the theatrical education of Smolny students, many of whose principles are reflected in the correspondence between Empress Catherine II and Voltaire. The author of the article emphasizes the didactic-pedagogical importance of the theatrical component of the education of Smolny students, which concerns not only the genre of tragedy (“Semira” by A. Sumarokov, “Zaire” by Voltaire), but also the genre of comic opera (“Zemira and Azor” by G. Marmontel, “Nanina, or Defeated Prejudice” by Voltaire, “Servant-Mistress” by D. Pergolesi). In both cases, the theatrical culture contributed to the formation of an independent and self-sufficient character in Smolny actresses. It might be realized both in a tragic way (the fate of E. Rubanovskaya), and in the traditions of a comic opera, where the type of an active, self-confident, flirtatious, but self-respecting girl was cultivated, who, thanks to her own efforts, manages to change her fate and achieve happiness (E. Nelidova). An important aspect of the article is the analysis of the fate of the graduates of the Smolny Institute in the ego-documents of the era, for example, in the ego-documentary prose of I. M. Dolgoruky, who was one of the first in Russian literature to show the formation of the social type of a “lady”-companion, a graduate of the Smolny Institute, whose main advantage in the eyes of her “benefactors” was the ability to play on an amateur stage. The formation of this image in memoir prose takes place three decades earlier than it happened in the literary tradition of the “natural school”, for example, in “Ours, drawn from life by Russians” (1841). At the end of the article, the author analyzes the reasons why the utopian pedagogical goals of the Smolny Institute were not fully implemented. The theatrical culture of the Smolny Institute itself gave way to a more prosaic, but personally oriented Biedermeier culture, while the comic opera was replaced by the vaudeville genre, which did not set itself any tasks related to pedagogical discourse.

About the author(s) :

Elena E. Prikazchikova

Ural Federal University named after the first President of Russia B. N. Yeltsin

(Ekaterinburg, Russia)
ORCID ID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-9018-6213

Publication Timeline:

Date of receipt: 27.07.2022; date of publication: 31.10.2022.

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