State National Theater of the Udmurt Republic Celebrates Its 80th Anniversary

Ignatiy Gavrilov, Mikhail Petrov, Stepan Shirobokov, classics of the Udmurt literature who laid down the foundations of the Udmurt drama, were among its founders. In the years of the Great Patriotic War the theater gave over 600 performances and concerts in hospitals and villages.

Among actors who developed and matured on the Udmurt stage were People's Artists of the RSFSR Veronika Alekseyevna Sadayeva, Kuzma Alekseyevich Lozhkin, Honored Art Workers of the RSFSR Ignatiy Gavrilovich Gavrilov, Gennadiy Vasilyevich Veretennikov, Georgiy Efimovich Vekshin, Leonid Grigoryevich Romanov, Honored Artists of Russia Anastasiya Vasilyevna Shklyayeva, Nina Petrovna Bakisheva, Valentina Aleksandrovna Zagulyayeva, Boris Aleksandrovich Bezumov, Vasiliy Yakovlevich Perevoshchikov, Petr Mikhaylovich Romanov.

Today traditions laid down by the founders of the Udmurt drama and the theater live on in plays by Yegor Zagrebin, Anatoliy Grigoryev, Petr Zakharov and other contemporary Udmurt authors; the theater's troupe comprises seven generations of graduates from the Leningrad Ostrovskiy State Theater School, Shchukin Theater School (Moscow), Ufa Arts Institute, Lunacharskiy State Institute of Theater Arts (Moscow), Shchepkin Theater School (Moscow).

President of the Udmurt Republic Aleksandr Volkov, Chairman of the State Council of the Udmurt Republic Aleksandr Solovyev, Minister of Culture of the Udmurt Republic Dmitriy Ivanov congratulated the theater on its anniversary.

Aleksandr Volkov noted in his address: "A theater can truly live and develop only in a constant dialogue with its spectators. And the principal subjects of this dialogue have been invariable: beauty, goodness, truth, patriotism, and honest work for the good of all people as a criterion of a person's worth. For 80 years now the State National Theater of the Udmurt Republic has never interrupted this dialogue. That's why it has always enjoyed spectators' love, theatricologists' respect, and the attention of authorities."