ABSTRACT
Newspapers across the country were full of enthusiasm for Mr. Alekseev First Guild Theatre. The press ridiculed the organizers, who seemed to treat the theater as a temple within which the actors were given priestly status. Compared to The Seagull by the humorist Anton Pavlovich Chekhov, panned in St. Petersburg as not only bad, but absolutely atrocious, this is a non-starter. New trends in art, new aesthetic programs fueled by new ideas were being born. Their appearance was due to the intensification of the whole of Russian life. In the early 1890s D. Merezhkovsky tried to establish symbolism as a means of counteracting and discrediting contemporary materialistic literature. At the end of the 19th century the proletarian liberation movement began to have an impact on imperialism and thus brought about a huge change in Russian politics and the arts. Maquettes, sketches and photos are the sole witnesses to the set designer’s creative thoughts.
