The Production of Nikolay Stavrogin (1913) at the Moscow Art Theater

The review examines the 2023 collection “Nikolay Stavrogin” on the Stage of the Art Theater, 1913, in which a research team (E.A. Kesler, O.V. Egoshina, S.V. Vasilyeva) presents the first complete publication of the script for Vladimir Nemirovich-Danchenko and Vasily Luzhsky’s landmark 1913 production Nikolay Stavrogin. The edition includes extensive critical commentary, an analytical preface and afterword, as well as a selection of contemporary reviews and polemical texts by prominent thinkers (D.S. Merezhkovsky, S.N. Bulgakov, N.A. Berdyaev et al.) concerning both the theatrical adaptation and the broader cultural debate it ignited. Particular attention is given to Maxim Gorky’s polemical open letter More About “Karamazovshchina” (1913), which articulated a fundamental critique of theatrical adaptations of Dostoevsky’s works generally and specifically condemned the Moscow Art Theater’s Nikolay Stavrogin production and Dostoevsky’s novel Demons.