Sztuki Mikołaja Gogola na scenie lubelskiej w latach 1869–1939 – realizacje polskie i w języku oryginału

This article is the first scholarly comprehensive study of the stage history and critical reception of Nikolai Gogol on the Lublin Stage (Poland) from 1869 up to 1939. The work fills a gap in theatrical research. The author describes unknown facts, Gogol’s unpublished stage history on the example of Lublin, within a historical and cultural context (the time of the Russian Partition of Poland), and then in the post-independence period in Poland (1918-1939). The study was based on source materials (press and archival materials). The following aspects are studied: artistic creations, the means of artistic expressions, audience reactions and critics’ opinions. The Government Inspector (Revisor) was mostly staged in The Lublin Theatre, although views on the work’s meaning changed. The subject of attention is both the stagings of Gogol’ plays in Polish (from the Lublin’s première of The Government Inspector in 1890) and performances in the original language: the same play by Russian amateurs (1869), of Imperial drama troupes (e.g., The Government Inspector directed by N. Arbenin in the late 19th century), and of the Stanislavsky Theatre (1931). Among Gogol’s plays and adaptations performed on the Lublin stage were The Marriage (at the School Theatre, 1900; a guest première of the Zelwerowicz ensemble, in Polish, 1909 and the Stanislavsky Theatre, in Russian, in 1931), Dead Souls (1897, in the original), as well as: Taras Bulba (1897), The Viy with supernatural elements (1901, 1902), A May Night (1902) staged as a guest performance by Ukrainian theatre companies.