Ivan Fyodorovich Gorbunov (Russian: Иван ФÑ'дорович
Ð"орбунов, 22 September 1831 â€" 5 January 1896) was a Russian
writer and stage actor, considered to be a forefather for the
"literary theatre" subgenre in his county.Born in Ivanteyevka, Moscow
Governorate, Imperial Russia, as a writer, Gorbunov started out in
1853, as a contributor of stories and sketches to Moskvityanin, and
later Otechestvennye Zapiski. In 1854 he debuted on stage the Moscow
Maly Theatre in Moscow. Two years later he moved north to the
Alexandrinka with which he stayed till the end of his life. In the
course of forty years he played 54 parts, most of them in plays by
Alexander Ostrovsky (most memorably, Kudryash in The Storm, Pyotr in
The Forest and Afonya in Sin and Sorrow Are Common to All), his friend
for whom he occasionally worked as a secretary.In the 1850s Gorbunov
started to introduce the audiences with his own original repertoire of
dramatized short stories under the heading of Scenes from the People's
Life (Сцены из народного быта), satirizing all
strata of the Russian society, particularly petty state officials.
They earned him praise from Dostoyevsky, who found there "...a lot of
astute observations and the deep understanding of the nature of
Russian people."Famous across Russia, Gorbunov was equally loved by
peasants and the last of the three Russian Tsars. The humour of his
stories "spread all through the country in the form of proverbs, and
folk jokes," according to Alexey Pleshcheyev. Later in his life
Gorbunov acquired the reputation of a credible Russian theatre
historian. He was the founder of the first ever museum of theatre in
his country.
Ð"орбунов, 22 September 1831 â€" 5 January 1896) was a Russian
writer and stage actor, considered to be a forefather for the
"literary theatre" subgenre in his county.Born in Ivanteyevka, Moscow
Governorate, Imperial Russia, as a writer, Gorbunov started out in
1853, as a contributor of stories and sketches to Moskvityanin, and
later Otechestvennye Zapiski. In 1854 he debuted on stage the Moscow
Maly Theatre in Moscow. Two years later he moved north to the
Alexandrinka with which he stayed till the end of his life. In the
course of forty years he played 54 parts, most of them in plays by
Alexander Ostrovsky (most memorably, Kudryash in The Storm, Pyotr in
The Forest and Afonya in Sin and Sorrow Are Common to All), his friend
for whom he occasionally worked as a secretary.In the 1850s Gorbunov
started to introduce the audiences with his own original repertoire of
dramatized short stories under the heading of Scenes from the People's
Life (Сцены из народного быта), satirizing all
strata of the Russian society, particularly petty state officials.
They earned him praise from Dostoyevsky, who found there "...a lot of
astute observations and the deep understanding of the nature of
Russian people."Famous across Russia, Gorbunov was equally loved by
peasants and the last of the three Russian Tsars. The humour of his
stories "spread all through the country in the form of proverbs, and
folk jokes," according to Alexey Pleshcheyev. Later in his life
Gorbunov acquired the reputation of a credible Russian theatre
historian. He was the founder of the first ever museum of theatre in
his country.
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