A story of love. Forbidden, scandalous, strong, inevitable, headless, passionate, boundless, lifelong, unreasonable, brave, all-pervading, crazy, painful, liberating, destructive, fatal… A story of love. Anna Karenina.

TOLSTOY AND ANNA KARENINA ON THE NIS THEATER VENUE

(…) The first thoughts about the novel arose in Tolstoy at the beginning of 1870. The following note was preserved in his wife’s diary: “Last night he told me that he was thinking about the type of married woman, from a higher society, who was ruined. He said that his task was to make this woman an innocent poor thing. ” (…) Nevertheless, three years passed before the plan of the novel became clear to the writer: it was not until March 1873 that Tolstoy began working on “Anna Karenina”. He devoted about five years of forced labor to the novel. He wrote it, leaving, in his words, “pieces of meat in an inkwell” (…) Soon after the publication of the novel, Dostoevsky wrote in the press: “Anna Karenina is a perfect work of art, to which nothing similar from the European literature of the present era can compare. ”(…)

Tolstoy’s inspiration for the legendary lover Vronsky was the Russian colonel Nikolai Rajevski, a volunteer and participant in the Serbian-Turkish war. After Karenina threw herself under the train, Count Vronsky volunteered and went to war in Serbia. Tolstoy thus ends the story, while the life of Nikolai Rajevski ended with his death in a battle with the Turks in 1876 near the village of Gornji Adrovac, not far from Aleksinac. According to the legend, before the battle, Rajevski had lunch, drank wine and, a parting for the post, said: “If I die, leave my heart in Serbia, and transfer my body to Russia.” At the place where he died, the Church of the Holy Trinity was built, known as the colorful or church of love. Countess Marija, Colonel Rajevski’s daughter-in-law, paid for the construction of the temple, and Bishop Nikanor Ružičić of Niš also played a major role in the construction of the church.

During the 134 years of the Nis’ theater scene, from the very beginnings of “Sindjelics” until today, Tolstoy’s plays have had twelve premieres.

The Nis audience cried for Ana for the first time back in 1913, during the performance by the theater troupe “Kosta Trifković”, led by Simo Bunić.

In 1930, the Moravian Banovina Theater also hosted the premiere of “Anna Karenina”, which was directed by Radivoj Dinulović, the theater’s general manager. The play was performed as a drama in seven pictures.

The regional national state theater premiered “Anna Karenina” in front of the Nis audience for the last time in the season 1940/41. Borivoje Stojković, the general manager directed it.

After a full eighty years of absence from the Nis stage, looking at this play through the historical prism of the development of the theater in Nis, we can say that this will be the first premiere of Tolstoy’s “Anna Karenina” under the name of the National Theater in Nis.

Tamara Milosavljević, librarian of the National Theater in Niš