ABSTRACT
Frustrated at first by Imperial officialdom alone, and later by private commercial enterprise as well, the metropolitan theatres had small hope of improvement. Conditions were adverse. The little band of improvers at the Maly had not made their name through Europe; indeed, the Russian theatre had fallen behind the rest of the Continent. Rejected as a class by society, they joined the Bohemians, living irregularly from hand to mouth, on a low, simple level, to-day gone to-morrow, light of heart, attractive. It was what many artists were doing at this period all over the world. The word “art” was often on their lips. In the second half of the nineteenth century the view of the landscape alters. There is much more movement, though still retained by the rampart of the Volga, over which no one crosses. There were many like Selivanov, able, clear-thinking men, who because of their independent thought were kept on the fringes of their profession.
