Background
The main people behind the establishment of the theater were Maxim Gorky, Maria Andreeva, Alexander Blok and Anatoly Lunacharsky.
Already by 1914, before the October Revolution, actress Maria Andreeva —common law wife of Gorky from 1903 and Commissar for Theatres and Public Spectacles in Petrograd from 1918 to 1921— had participated in a theater initiative, including actor Yury Yuryev, with the aim of returning to the "classics". In 1918 Yuryev staged some works in Leningrad.
Gorky, Blok, Adreeva and Lunacharsky —who was People's Commissar of Enlightenment after the revolution— had similarly worked towards the aim of staging the classics for the masses. Eventually they merged with Andreeva's other endeavor.
In January 1919, the government sponsored the staging of Nikolai Gogol's The Government Inspector.
Read more about this topic: Tovstonogov Bolshoi Drama Theater
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