Square of Poetry (Kharkov)

In the second half of the XVIII century, this area ended the city. Behind it was a ditch, then - a shaft. At the end of the century, a store building was built here, which, by the way, has survived to the present day.

At the beginning of the 19th century, Kalinovsky and Stein's entrepreneurs built a wooden theater building on the square (now one of the houses on the corner of Pushkinskaya Street and Theatrical Descent is located at this place). Therefore, the area on which it was located was called Theatrical. The theater was quite large and together with the gallery had three tiers. There were no stoves in it, and the audience sat in winter in fur coats and galoshes. The hall and the stage were lit with greasy candles. The first director of the theater was the Ukrainian writer Grigory Fedorovich Kvitka-Osnovyanenko , it was he who invited the great Russian actor, Mikhail Semenovich Shchepkin, to work. .

According to the memoirs of Grigory Fedorovich Kvitka-Osnovyanenko, at that time 40 actors worked in the Kharkov theater, the ballet troupe consisted of 20 people, and the orchestra was “the first in all local provinces”. Students often used to go to the theater, but in 1818 Emperor Alexander I forbade them to attend the theater until further notice. The reason was the incident that occurred in November 1817, when students, when the city’s police chief Lavrov appeared in the theater, made a fuss and scattered leaflets demanding that the police should stop their rude treatment of students.

At the beginning of the 19th century, firewood was traded on the square, which is why it was also called Firewood.

And in the middle of the 19th century, the theater owner L. Mlotkovsky began the construction of a theater room, the project of which was made by architect A. Ton . The theater was built at the other end of the square, at its exit to Sumskaya street. The building compares favorably with the old one. In the hall there were 60 lodges located in three tiers, 150 armchairs of the stalls. In total, the hall could accommodate more than a thousand people. The auditorium was well heated and lit with kerosene lamps. According to reviews of contemporaries, the Kharkov theater was considered the best among provincial ones. It was solemnly opened in August 1842. Here such luminaries of the Ukrainian theater as Sadovsky, Saksagansky, Kropivnitsky and Zankovetskaya performed. Sara Bernard, Eleonora Duse and even the famous troupe of director Meyerhold came here from abroad.

At the beginning of the 20th century, innovation director Les Kurbas founded the Berezil Ukrainian Drama Theater here. Ambrosius Buchma, Valentina Chistyakova, Natalia Uzhviy played in his troupe. Vladimir Mayakovsky , Henri Barbusse , Theodor Dreiser performed in the theater building.

In the second half of the 19th century, Theater Square was laid on the square . In the first years of the 20th century, the first in Ukraine monument to Alexander Sergeevich Pushkin was installed. , and after five years on the opposite side - a monument to Nikolai Vasilyevich Gogol.

Another decoration of the theater square can be called the building of the State Bank . It was built according to the design of the Petersburg architect R. Golenishchev ^[1] at the turn of the XIX — XX centuries and at first it was two-storied. After 30 years, the State Bank's building was built on the design of architects Beketov and Peti, while maintaining the overall style of the building. Here, for the first time, the method of building walls under the roof was used, which was jacked up during the laying of walls. This building is still used for its intended purpose - now the Kharkiv Office of the National Bank of Ukraine is located here.

Now the Theater Square is one of the most favorite places for citizens to relax.

• Theater Square // History of streets and squares of Kharkov
• Description and photos on the site "Streets and Squares of Kharkov"