Korolevsky Theater

Evgraf Ivanovich Korolev

The theater was built in 1884-1885 at the beginning of the Moscow highway by the merchant Evgraf Korolev , and was named after him. The theater building, designed for 1000 seats, was built according to the project of the Tomsk architect P.P. Naranovich . According to contemporaries, the interior of the theater was very comfortable - the corridors and foyers, restrooms and cloakrooms are so spacious that even with a large crowd of crowds the crowding and crowding that so often occur in many provincial theaters are eliminated. The project of the theater was so successful that in 1891 the governor of Akmola asked the Tomsk governor to help build the theater in Omsk “of the same size and type as in Tomsk”. The construction cost Korolev 150,000 rubles, but he hoped to cover the costs - with the establishment of the University in Tomsk , one could count on a constant interest in the theater of an intelligent audience.

Initially overlooking Novosobornaya Square , the theater, with its proximity to the main cathedral of Tomsk, the Trinity Cathedral, provoked the discontent of the Tomsk church authorities and was fenced off from the square first by a fence and then by the railway administration building.

The opening of the theater took place on September 19, 1885. Initially, the theater’s entrepreneur was Evgraf Korolev himself, then he ceded this activity to the artist N. A. Korsakov (who paid Korolev a rent of 8,000-9,000 rubles per season) ^[1] . On the stage of the theater were the plays of classics - Gogol , Ostrovsky , A.K. Tolstoy , Sukhovo-Kobylin , Schiller , Shakespeare . There were "one-day" Averkiev , Shpazhinsky . The artists Gorbunov, Korsakov, Kostyakovskaya, Nemirova, Skuratov, Strogova, Tikhomirov, Toporkov (very talented, according to contemporaries, G. Vyatkin in the essay "Theater in Tomsk" - an artist, a native of Siberia, committed suicide in the prime of his life, became famous), Felonov, Kherson, Stolz-Tumanova. The most successful actors got benefits . Performances were also given at the theater by opera groups, the opera by A. N. Verstovsky "Askold's Grave", etc.

With the laying of the railway in Tomsk , the audience of the theater changed, therefore, as well as in connection with a change in the tastes of the audience for other reasons (the authors of the album “The Great Way” state: “ For many Tomsk citizens, the belief that drama, in most cases, concerns such aspects of life that, according to bitter experience, they themselves are well aware of, and they demand the theater to give fun entertainment that does not excite the special work of thought, they look at the theater as a spectacle that gives rest and at least momentarily closes its gray, everyday, life full of worries ”) operettas are staged on the stage of the theater, and the buffet is becoming increasingly important in the financial well-being of the establishment. After the first unsuccessful season, N. A. Korsakov sold the enterprise to the artist Krylov, who quickly received the nickname "barman". Concluding contracts with actresses, that special clause of the contract obliged them to have dinner with the gentlemen at the suggestion of the latter at the end of the performance, which provided his buffet with a really big income.

In the last years of the 19th century, P. Struysky was an entrepreneur at the Korolevsky Theater - one of the most talented theater organizers in Russia, who later worked at the Zamoskvoretsky Theater in Moscow.

On October 20 (November 2), 1905, the most terrible terrorist attack in the history of the city took place in the theater. Three days before the tragic events, Emperor Nicholas II issued a manifesto “On the improvement of public order”, but its content was interpreted in the society in the opposite way - people were afraid of mass arrests. The Tomsk Committee of the RSDLP appointed a rally in the building of the Korolevsky Theater, 3000 people gathered.

The Black Hundreds attacked the protesters, began to threaten them and beat them. Then the activists of the “ Union of Russian People ^{[ specify ]} »set fire to the building of the theater and the nearby management of the Siberian Railway . Those who tried to get out of the flame were shot point blank, finished off with hooks and axes. The death toll ranged according to various sources from 54-55 ^[2] to 300 ^[3] .

According to the Sibirskaya Zhizn newspaper ^[4] , the troupe of Zbrozhek-Pashkovskaya and Getmanov, particularly small employees — choristers and musicians — suffered greatly from the fire at the Korolevsky Theater. The decorations, props and costumes burnt out at the enterprises. ” In addition, the newspaper points out, at the band-master S. A. Aprelsky, the opera and operetta library, which had been collected for 25 years, burned down. Its value was then estimated at 8 thousand rubles.

It should be noted that the newspaper "Siberian Life", owned by the brother of the mayor Alexei Makushin, Peter , did not report about the terrorist attack in the Korolevsky Theater. However, according to the publication, as a result of all the pogroms in Tomsk on October 20-23, at least 36 people were killed, not counting those who died in the fire.

• Shilovsky M.V. Tomsk pogrom October 20-22, 1905: chronicle, commentary, interpretation . - Tomsk: publishing house of Tomsk University, 2010. - 150 p.
• Rassokhin G. S. Events in Tomsk in October 1905 . - Tomsk: Typographic lithography of the Tomsk Railway, 1917. - 30 p.
• Stepnoy N.A. Tomsk bonfire: 1905: memories . - Moscow: State Publishing House, 1926. - 16 p.
• Tomsk Stone Theater E.I. Koroleva. Lithography
• Korolevsky Theater in Toviki