Baby names from the 30s: Most popular baby names in 1930 for boys and girls

Posted on 7 июля, 2023 by alexxlab

16 Jewish Baby Names That Were Popular in the 1930s – St Annes Hebrew Congregation

27th August 202027th August 2020 By Glen Berd1 Comment

Boys

1. Joseph. Joseph is a Hebrew boy’s name that means “increase.”Joseph was one of the sons of Jacob and a leader of the Israelites in Egypt.

2. David. David is a Hebrew boy’s name that means “beloved.” David was the second king of Israel.

3. Harold. Harold is a non-Jewish name that was popular among Jewish people. It is Scandinavian and means “army ruler.” Hal or Harry are fun nicknames.

4. Michael. Michael is a Hebrew name meaning “who is like God. ” Michael is also the name of an angel in Jewish tradition.

5. Daniel. Daniel means “God is my judge” in Hebrew.

6. Samuel. Samuel is a Hebrew name meaning “God has heard.” Samuel the prophet anointed the first two kings of Israel.

7. Benjamin. Benjamin means “son of the right hand” in Hebrew. Benjamin, the youngest son of Jacob, was one of the 12 tribes of Israel.

Girls

8. Barbara. Barbara is a girl’s name that means “stranger.” While it’s not a Hebrew name, it was popular among Jewish immigrants who came to the U.S.

9. Ruth. Ruth is a Hebrew name that means “friendship.” Ruth is the heroine of the Book of Ruth, who cares for Naomi, marries Boaz, and becomes an ancestor of King David.

10. Elizabeth. Elizabeth means “God is my oath” in Hebrew.

11. Martha/Matya. Martha is an Aramaic name that means “the lady.” Matya is a similar sounding name in Hebrew that means “God’s gift.”

12. Judith. Judith is a Hebrew name meaning “praised.”

13. Edna. Edna is Hebrew meaning “pleasure.” The Garden of Eden is the setting for the creation story.

14. Sarah/Sara. Sarah is a Hebrew name meaning “princess.” In the Bible, Sarah, the first matriarch, was the wife of Abraham and mother of Isaac.

15. Sharon. Sharon is a Hebrew girl’s name meaning “the coastal plain of Israel.”

16. Alma. Alma is a Hebrew name meaning “young woman.”

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Most popular baby names of the decade: Emma and Noah top the list

December 18, 2019

Virginia Streva

PhillyVoice Staff

Lists
Baby Names

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Noah and Emma have been crowned the top baby names of the 2010s. There were over 163,000 babies named Noah while over 177,000 babies were named Emma.

Noah and Emma take the cake for the 2010s, according to the U.S. Social Security Administration’s recently released top baby names for the decade.

More than 163,000 baby boys were named Noah this decade, which moved the biblical name up 19 spots from the previous decade. The name Emma already was wildly popular in the 2000s when it was the third most popular girls’ name. More than 177,000 girls born in since 2010 have been named Emma.

The remainder of the top-5, most-popular boys’ names are Liam, Jacob, Mason, and William. Among girls, Sophia, Olivia, Isabella, and Ava round out the five most popular.

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On the boys’ names list, William has never left the Top 20 since 1900. Liam jumped in popularity this decade, starting at No. 30 in 2010 before reaching the top spot in 2017 and 2018. Mason is another 2010s success story, positioned at No. 48 in the 2000s before reaching the No. 2 spot in 2011 and 2012. The name has stayed in the Top 10 throughout the decade.

Emma’ popularity has risen since the 1990s, taking the top spot for the second half of the decade, from 2014-2018. Growing in popularity in the 2000s, Sophia was most popular from 2011-2013, while Olivia, Isabella, and Ava have held positions in the top 10 since the mid-2000s.

The administration reported 18.1 million male babies and 17.3 female babies were born this decade. Compare that to the 2000s when 21.3 million male babies and 20.3 million female babies were born.

This is inline with U.S. birthrate statistics. The number of births in the U.S. dropped for the fourth year in a row in 2018, falling to a 32-year low, according the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. In 2018, 3.8 million babies were born, which was a 2% drop from 2017.

Birthrates fell across almost all racial and age groups — except for women in their late 30s and early 40s, where there was a rise in birth rates. Women are also having babies later, in general. In 2017, for the first time ever, the number of women giving birth in their early 30s surpassed the number who had children in their 20s, and that margin widened in 2018.

Below are the Top 20 baby names, for boys and girls for the 2010s, according the Social Security Administration.

Russians in Hollywood in the 1930s

Archival project «Radio Liberty this week 20 years ago». The most interesting and significant of the Radio Liberty broadcast twenty years ago. Unfinished story. Still living hope. Could Russia have gone the other way?

Difficulties, successes, failures of Russian silent film stars in the West in the 1930-40s, the fashion for Russian and the influence of Russian style on European and American cinema. First aired February 6, 1997.

Ivan Tolstoy : My interlocutor is Natalya Nusinova, a Moscow historian of cinema, who is familiar to our listeners from a number of programs on the history of Russian cinema. The topic of today’s conversation is Russians in Hollywood. On our waves, Natalya Nusinova has already talked about Russian actors and filmmakers in pre-war Europe, mostly in the 1920s. Now the scene will move across the ocean and will be devoted to the next decade, the years of the 1930s. Many of the Russian filmmakers who first emigrated to Europe then moved to America. And when did this process begin and what pulled them across the ocean?

Natalya Nusinova : In most cases, America was like a second stage of emigration for filmmakers. You can even say that it was re-emigration from Europe. Like a new search for happiness. For Mozzhukhin, for example, this happened in 1925. He just starred in the film «Casanova» by Alexander Volkov and immediately went to America to try his hand there. True, he starred in only one film, in 1927, directed by Edward Sloman, the film was called «Hostage», was not very successful. Mozzhukhin tried in every possible way to adapt to Hollywood stereotypes, he underwent plastic surgery, his famous long nose was cut off, but he did not become a Hollywood hero. They also shortened his last name, from Mozzhukhin he became Moskin. True, by the way it is spelled (I found his brother’s letters in the archive), I realized that, rather, he called himself Moskvin, because this surname is spelled through «u», but no one there understood it. Around the same time, Victor Turzhansky arrived, who worked in Paris and Berlin, who also changed his name and became short Victor from long Vyacheslav.

Mozzhukhin tried to adapt to Hollywood stereotypes, he underwent plastic surgery, his famous long nose was cut off, but he did not become a Hollywood hero

Maybe even in this name change there was a desire to encode the idea of victory — Victor. Dmitry Bukhovetsky came from Germany. Fedor Otsup, who in general was such a cinematic cosmopolitan, our Soviet Max Ophuls, he made films all over the world, in the late 40s he came to America. But the basis of the American film emigration was Olga Baklanova, Alona Azimova, Vladimir Sokolov, Maria Uspenskaya, Richard Boleslavsky, Akim Tamirov, the famous actor, Mikhail Arshansky and many others. Mikhail Chekhov already belongs to the second wave — he came to America at 1943 year.

Ivan Tolstoy : Did the position of filmmakers in America differ from their position in Europe?

Natalya Nusinova : In this regard, it is best to recall the words of Nina Berberova. In her book of memoirs, she writes about the difference in the position of emigrants in France and in America from a cultural and ethical point of view. Nina Berberova writes: «France demanded more obedience to itself, often forcibly changed people, reborn them — whether you like it or not — so that they sometimes did not notice this process. There were many reasons for this: there was a tradition of Russian Europeans who lived in Paris when something; there was French literature, one way or another entered the consciousness of even a semi-intellectual back in his school years; emigrant children growing up in France and bringing the skills of a new country to their families; and even some, a few, have some memories of their fathers and grandfathers , who traveled here, brought from here to Russia something that for some reason was not in Penza.In America, the situation was different: there was never a tradition of coming here; America could not exist; literature (painting and music) was almost unfamiliar to the newcomers; emigrant children not only did not bring new skills to the family, but, thanks to the principles of the American school, went further and further in their protest against the first generation. The circle of Russians in New York, both old and new, consisted mostly of provincials. In Paris, it was the opposite, and the preservation of the Penza psychology was among them in great force. «To the words of Nina Berberova, one can add that with regard to cinema, it was the other way around. In everyday life, as she writes, in America, national identity was preserved more than in France when it comes to cinema, Hollywood was very hard on the rules.0003

Ivan Tolstoy : Well, well, the Hollywood myth is usually a fairy tale about success and fabulous enrichment, but in relation to Russian filmmakers of the first wave, did this myth justify itself in general?

Natalya Nusinova : The fates were, of course, different, and one cannot generalize, but it seems to me that, in general, the story of the Evreinov family’s trip to Hollywood is quite typical. The wife of Nikolai Nikolaevich Evreinov, playwright, director, theorist and theater historian, Anna Alexandrovna Kashina-Evreinova, recalled in her memoirs how, at the very beginning of their life in exile, in a difficult period for them financially, on May 1925 years in Paris, she posed for a portrait of the artist Sorin. And in the studio of Sorin, she accidentally met an American land dealer Philip Meiner, as she writes, «a man who was aiming at patrons.» Already in November of the same year, from New York, Meiner began to persistently invite the Evreinovs to move to America. Anna Alexandrovna writes: “In January 1926, we left for America. On this significant occasion, I gave a ball, renting a large studio in Montparnasse. Sineast Miklashevsky, our great friend, now deceased, photographed us at this ball, and therefore it is easy for me to remember many of my many, about sixty guests. Here is the artist Savely Sorin (now deceased), and his imitator, the artist Verbov (now in America), flirting with the notorious Salome Andronikova. And next to it, the artist Bilibin is discussing something with Quil and his wife Tishchenko «Quil. Which of the Russian artists did not know the open house of Quills in Paris of that era. Here I am with Professor Speransky, my teacher at the Bestuzhev courses. Behind me is the unfortunate Marina Tsvetaeva with her husband Efron. And here is my husband with the American journalist Sonya Tamar and the writer Budkovskaya, also now deceased. Near them is the teacher of the gymnasium Popich, familiar to all Russian Paris. There were also a lot of Frenchmen. The journey to America aboard the Leviathan was adorned with an event that seemed almost prophetic to the Evreinovs. «We went to the America of childhood dreams, to America, where concern for daily bread, and even more so about money, is unknown. Where any enterprise inevitably brings income. In a word, we went to America of the myth we created. Our dining room neighbor turned out to be Rudolf Valentino «In those years — the most famous cinematic artist. Isn’t it a mythical meeting? Every day several times to meet and talk with Valentinino himself, who seemed to have descended from the screen to introduce us to the realm of mythical America.» Immediately upon arrival, however, it turned out that the contract, which the «philanthropist» Meyner tried to impose on Evreinov, was draconian, and the living conditions were unbearable. The rescue came unexpectedly. The directorate of the Guild Theater, which decided to stage Evreinov’s play The Most Important, invited him to watch the production. The Evreinovs got the opportunity to come to New York from Cleveland, where they were kept almost in prison, to enter the local artistic environment. However, already at 1927 year they had to return to Paris.

Advertising representing Russian silent film actors in America. 1917

This, of course, is such an extremely sad story of the American experience of the Evreinovs, but it cannot be said that America turned out to be manna from heaven for Russian emigrants in general.

Ivan Tolstoy : Tell me, please, by the beginning of the 1930s, when the main wave of Russian emigrants moved to America, cinema was already sound. How did this affect the position of Russian filmmakers? And, first of all, the actors?

Natalya Nusinova : You are absolutely right when you link these two topics, because the problems of Russians in America, of course, were to a very large extent connected with the arrival of sound in cinema, with the problem of language. It was not only an American problem, it was a problem for Russian actors all over the world. At one time, Jean Renoir wrote about the Albatross studio in France that the arrival of sound was a real Waterloo for these actors. Mozzhukhin spoke several languages with difficulty and with an accent, for example, he did not know how to grind, in France they even tried to write roles for him without the letter “r”, but in any case he had to play the roles of legionnaires, Russians, and so on.

…the problems of Russians in America, of course, were connected to a very large extent with the arrival of sound in cinema, with the problem of language. It was not only an American problem, it was a problem for Russian actors all over the world

In Hollywood it was a problem for all foreign stars, with the rare exception of a foreign star fitting into the Hollywood sky. Greta Garbo, Marlene Dietrich, Ingrid Bergman — these are perhaps a few names that can be listed in this regard. Researcher John Russell Taylor in his book on immigrants in Hollywood writes that all European accents seemed the same to Hollywood filmmakers, so European actors, accustomed to a variety of roles in their homeland, had to switch to the role of a person of some, not necessarily their own, but someone else’s nationality . The author of a book about Mikhail Chekhov, his biographer, Finnish researcher Lisa Bückling, describes in detail the difficulties that Mikhail Chekhov faced in Hollywood due to his accent. «We all know for ourselves how funny and strange a foreign accent sounds in Russian when we occasionally hear it in a foreign film. Cinema has the ability to exaggerate the sound, and the accent of the hero in the film is more noticeable than the accent of our interlocutor in life.»

Ivan Tolstoy : Have Russian filmmakers in America ever tried to set up their own Russian studio?

Natalia Nusinova : Vladimir Ivanovich Nemirovich-Danchenko had such an idea, who visited Hollywood in 1926 and proposed the creation of a Russian film studio, where, as he wrote, «Russian art, those techniques, the spirit that constitutes the features of the Russian theater, Russian music, Russian literature, which has worldwide success. Nemirovich-Danchenko wrote a blueprint for a Russian script that he was going to offer to American studios. But his colleague director Vladimir Turzhansky, more experienced in relation to the tastes of the American audience, objected. First, that the play is too long and will take too many meters. Secondly, from the point of view of public Puritan morality, a lover with a husband is unacceptable. Third, two suicides and one death are unacceptable. Fourthly, a hero is unacceptable who renounces a million-dollar fortune and goes into a life of deprivation and suffering. This will not meet with the sympathy of the public. Apparently, there was a clash of two national psychologies, and it was impossible to impose on the American audience, with the power of Hollywood canons, the features of Russian dramaturgy. The requirement for a happy ending in Hollywood was stronger than in Europe, so very often filmmakers introduced into their films, for example, the motive of sleep, because it was the easiest way to save the hero from all misfortunes — he woke up, and everything terrible turned out to be a dream. This was done in Protazanov’s first émigré film, A Terrible Adventure, but it was very often used, in particular, in films that were staged by Russians in America. So the secretary of Nemirovich-Danchenko Bertenson left an entry in his diary 1925 years old: «In the MGM studio, director Bukhovetsky prepared the film» Anna Karenina «. There is an assumption to stage it in such a way that the fact that Anna throws herself under the train turns out to be only her dream, but in fact she eventually marries Vronsky» .

Photo by Nemirovich-Danchenko with a dedication to Evgeny Vakhtangov, 1922

Ivan Tolstoy : Please tell me, is the idea of creating a Russian studio in America, was it up in the air or did it rely on some kind of American interest in Russia?

Natalya Nusinova : Of course, there was interest, and even very great. Somewhere since the late 1920s, many Russian émigré publications in Europe have noted the fascination of American filmmakers with the realities of Russian life. So, for example, in the newspaper «Illustrated Russia» there was an article by the critic Alexander Morsky «Fashion for Russian». He writes: «We found an inexhaustible source of irresponsible inspiration — old Russia and its transitional revolutionary period. Now pictures of «Russian» content in America are pouring in like from a cornucopia, and one another is more shameless and ignorant of our morals, our culture and society. Whatever picture , then a masterpiece of spreading cranberries, every release is an evil, rude mockery of our past.The Americans, and after them the entire European public, like these films, they have a lot of color, exoticism, a lot of new, popularly presented information about this strange land of ice , polar bears and the Grand Dukes. No one will dare to raise his authoritative voice in defense of our history, literature, civilization, even if he could, because, and this is the most painful, the most terrible for us, these films are staged not only with the participation of many Russian filmmakers , but under the guidance of Russian observers.

Ivan Tolstoy : Has Hollywood’s interest in this «land of ice and polar bears» changed over time? Has it turned into an interest in the Soviet Union?

Natalya Nusinova : I would rather say that the Soviet myth replaced the Russian myth. There was an attempt to mythologize Soviet Russia in the same way as pre-revolutionary Russia was mythologised. It’s just that the «land of ice and polar bears» was replaced by the country of the Kremlin and Lenin’s portraits. There were such films as «Moscow mission» by Curtis or «Song about Russia» by Grigory Ratov with Mikhail Chekhov as the father of the heroine. The most famous film about the Soviet Union was made by non-immigrants. It was «Ninochka» by Lyubich. But the difference is that «Ninochka», which in our USSR for a long time was considered an anti-Soviet evil film, is a deliberate satire, and «Song of Russia» is a spontaneous parody, conceived as a love melodrama. The closest thing in terms of genre to «Song of Russia» and similar films is the operetta.

In «Ninochka» Greta Garbo in a pioneer tie is marching on Red Square on the day of the parade, and this is a parody. And in the «Song of Russia» the heroine-collective farmer performs a concerto for pianoforte by Tchaikovsky at the conservatory, and after that drives around the village on her tractor , are made with sympathy for an ally, and therefore this is an awkward attempt to adopt a formation that looks like a parody. The representation of Soviet life in a film that glorifies the USSR and parodies the Soviet of Deputies is no different from each other. In Ninotchka, Greta Garbo, wearing a pioneer tie, marches through Red Square on the day of the parade, and this is a parody. And in The Song of Russia, the heroine-collective farmer performs Tchaikovsky’s piano concerto at the conservatory, and after that she drives around the village on her tractor, which she herself drives, and this is without ridicule. Most likely, the genre of such films as «Song of Russia» can be defined as pro-Soviet kitsch.

Ivan Tolstoy : What did the idea of creating émigré cinema in America degenerate into, or I will formulate my question this way: what is the fate of Russian filmmakers in the West as a whole?

Natalya Nusinova : Perhaps, summing up the results of our conversation with you both in that part of it that concerned Europe and that part of it that concerned Hollywood, we can say that gradually the idea of creating Russian cinema in the West resulted in what was quite naturally, into the assimilation of Russian filmmakers in Western cinema. In Europe, this process was slower, America subjugated filmmakers almost immediately. But in both cases, the unexpected result was that a Russian myth was created, which the filmmakers brought with them, a myth was created about Russia in cinema, whether it be a myth about pre-revolutionary Russia, or a myth about Soviet Russia. And the Russian style, in addition to the will of the filmmakers themselves, began to influence the development of Western cinema. Only now do we understand that French poetic realism absorbed many elements of the Russian style, coming from Russian pre-revolutionary cinema. And, probably, if we take a closer look at the classic American melodrama, we can find in it traces of the melodrama over which Russian audiences cried at the beginning of the century in Russia.

MARIINSKY THEATER

Over more than two centuries of its history, the Mariinsky Theater has given the world many great artists: the outstanding bass, the founder of the Russian performing opera school, Osip Petrov, served here, such great singers as Fyodor Chaliapin, Ivan honed their skills and reached the heights of fame Ershov, Medea and Nikolai Figner, Sofia Preobrazhenskaya. Ballet dancers shone on the stage: Matilda Kshesinskaya, Anna Pavlova, Vatslav Nijinsky, Galina Ulanova, Rudolf Nureyev, Mikhail Baryshnikov. George Balanchine began his journey into art. The theater witnessed the flourishing of the talent of brilliant decorators such as Konstantin Korovin, Alexander Golovin, Alexander Benois, Simon Virsaladze, Fedor Fedorovsky. And many, many others.

It has long been customary that the Mariinsky Theater keeps a lineage, counting the century from 1783, when on July 12 a decree was issued on the approval of the theatrical committee «to manage spectacles and music», and on October 5 the Bolshoi Kamenny Theater on Carousel Square was solemnly opened. The theater gave a new name to the square — it has survived to this day as Teatralnaya.

Built according to the design of Antonio Rinaldi, the Bolshoi Theater amazed the imagination with its size, majestic architecture, and a stage equipped with the latest theatrical technology of that time. At its opening, the opera Giovanni Paisiello Il Mondo della luna («Lunar World»). The Russian troupe performed here alternately with the Italian and French ones, dramatic performances were staged, vocal and instrumental concerts were also arranged.

Petersburg was being built, its appearance was constantly changing. In 1802-1803, Thomas de Thomon, a brilliant architect and draftsman, carried out a major reorganization of the interior layout and decoration of the theater, noticeably changed its appearance and proportions. The new, ceremonial and festive look, the Bolshoi Theater became one of the architectural sights of the Neva capital, along with the Admiralty, the Stock Exchange, and the Kazan Cathedral. However, on the night of January 1, 1811, a huge fire broke out in the Bolshoi Theater. For two days, the rich interior decoration of the theater was destroyed in the fire, and its facade was seriously damaged. Thomas de Thomon, who drew up a project for the restoration of his beloved brainchild, did not live to see its implementation. On February 3, 1818, the reopened Bolshoi Theater reopened with the prologue Apollo and Pallas in the North and Charles Didelot’s ballet Zephyr and Flora to music by composer Katarino Cavos.

We are approaching the «golden age» of the Bolshoi Theatre. The repertoire of the «post-fire» era includes The Magic Flute, The Abduction from the Seraglio, Mozart’s Mercy of Titus. The Russian public is captivated by Cinderella, Semiramide, The Thieving Magpie, and The Barber of Seville by Rossini. In May 1824, the premiere of Weber’s The Free Gunner took place, a work that meant so much for the birth of Russian romantic opera. Vaudevilles by Alyabyev and Verstovsky are played; One of the most beloved and repertoire operas is Ivan Susanin by Kavos, which went until the appearance of Glinka’s opera on the same plot. The legendary figure of Charles Didelot is associated with the birth of the world fame of Russian ballet. It was during these years that Pushkin was a frequenter of the St. Petersburg Bolshoi, capturing the theater in immortal poems.

In 1836, in order to improve the acoustics, the architect Alberto Cavos, the son of the composer and bandmaster, replaced the domed ceiling of the theater hall with a flat one, and an art workshop and a room for decorating were placed above it. Alberto Cavos removes the columns in the auditorium that obstructed the view and distorted the acoustics, gives the hall the usual shape of a horseshoe, increases its length and height, bringing the number of spectators to two thousand.

November 27, 1836, the first performance of Glinka’s opera «A Life for the Tsar» resumed performances of the rebuilt theater. By chance, or perhaps not without good intentions, the premiere of Ruslan and Lyudmila, Glinka’s second opera, took place exactly six years later, on November 27, 1842. These two dates would be enough for the St. Petersburg Bolshoi Theater to forever enter the history of Russian culture. But, of course, there were also masterpieces of European music: operas by Mozart, Rossini, Bellini, Donizetti, Verdi, Meyerbeer, Gounod, Aubert, Thomas…

Over time, the performances of the Russian opera troupe were transferred to the stage of the Alexandrinsky Theater and the so-called Circus Theatre, located opposite the Bolshoi (where the performances of the ballet troupe, as well as the Italian opera, continued).

When the Circus Theater burned down in 1859, a new theater was built in its place by the same architect Alberto Cavos. It was he who received the name Mariinsky in honor of the reigning Empress Maria Alexandrovna, wife of Alexander II. The first theatrical season in the new building opened on October 2, 1860 with Glinka’s A Life for the Tsar under the direction of Konstantin Lyadov, chief bandmaster of the Russian Opera, father of the future famous composer Anatoly Lyadov.

The Mariinsky Theater has strengthened and developed the great traditions of the first Russian musical stage. With the advent of Eduard Napravnik in 1863, who replaced Konstantin Lyadov as chief bandmaster, a glorious era in the history of the theater began. The half-century given by Napravnik to the Mariinsky Theater is marked by the premieres of the most significant operas in the history of Russian music. To name just a few of them — Mussorgsky’s Boris Godunov, The Maid of Pskov, May Night, Rimsky-Korsakov’s The Snow Maiden, Borodin’s Prince Igor, The Maid of Orleans, The Enchantress, The Queen of Spades, Iolanta «Tchaikovsky, Rubinstein’s «Demon», Taneyev’s «Oresteia» … At the beginning of the 20th century, in the repertoire of the Wagner Opera Theater (among them the tetralogy «The Ring of the Nibelungen»), «Electra» by Richard Strauss, «The Legend of the Invisible City of Kitezh» by Rimsky-Korsakov, » Khovanshchina” by Mussorgsky…

Marius Petipa, who led the theater’s ballet company in 1869, continued the tradition of his predecessors Jules Perrot and Arthur Saint-Leon. Petipa zealously preserved such classical performances as Giselle, Esmeralda, Le Corsaire, subjecting them to only careful editing. The La Bayadère staged by him first brought the breath of a large choreographic composition to the ballet stage, in which «the dance became like music.» Petipa’s happy meeting with Tchaikovsky, who claimed that «the ballet is the same symphony,» led to the birth of The Sleeping Beauty, a genuine musical and choreographic poem. The choreography of The Nutcracker originated in the collaboration of Petipa and Lev Ivanov. Already after the death of Tchaikovsky, Swan Lake found a second life on the stage of the Mariinsky Theater — and again in the joint choreography of Petipa and Ivanov. Petipa strengthened his reputation as a choreographer and symphonist by staging Glazunov’s ballet Raymonda. His innovative ideas were picked up by the young Mikhail Fokin, who staged at the Mariinsky Theater Tcherepnin’s Armide Pavilion, Saint-Saens’ The Swan, Chopiniana to Chopin’s music, as well as ballets created in Paris — Scheherazade to Rimsky-Korsakov’s music, The Firebird and Petrushka by Stravinsky.

The Mariinsky Theater has been reconstructed several times. In 1885, when most of the performances were transferred to the stage of the Mariinsky before the closing of the Bolshoi Theater, the chief architect of the imperial theaters, Viktor Schreter, added a three-story building to the left wing of the building for theater workshops, rehearsal rooms, a power station and a boiler room. In 1894, under the leadership of Schroeter, the wooden rafters were replaced with steel and reinforced concrete, side wings were built on, and the spectator foyers were expanded. The main façade was also reconstructed and acquired monumental forms.

In 1886, ballet performances, which until that time had continued to be staged at the Bolshoi Kamenny Theatre, were transferred to the Mariinsky Theatre. And on the site of Bolshoy Kamenny, the building of the St. Petersburg Conservatory was erected.

By a government decree on November 9, 1917, the Mariinsky Theater was declared State and transferred to the People’s Commissariat of Education. In 1920, it began to be called the State Academic Opera and Ballet Theater (GATOB), and since 1935 it was named after S. M. Kirov. Along with the classics of the last century, modern operas appeared on the theater stage in the 1920s and early 1930s: The Love for Three Oranges by Sergei Prokofiev, Wozzeck by Alban Berg, Salome and Der Rosenkavalier by Richard Strauss; ballets are born that establish a new choreographic direction popular for decades, the so-called drama ballet — The Red Poppy by Reinhold Gliere, The Flames of Paris and The Fountain of Bakhchisarai by Boris Asafiev, Laurencia by Alexander Crane, Romeo and Juliet by Sergei Prokofiev, etc. .

The last pre-war opera premiere at the Kirov Theater was Wagner’s Lohengrin, the second performance of which ended late in the evening of June 21, 1941, but the performances scheduled for June 24 and 27 were replaced by Ivan Susanin. During the Great Patriotic War, the theater was evacuated to Perm, where the premieres of several performances took place, including the premiere of Aram Khachaturian’s ballet Gayane. Upon returning to Leningrad, the theater opened the season on September 1, 1944 with Glinka’s opera Ivan Susanin.

In the 1950s and 1970s the theater staged such famous ballets as Shurale by Farid Yarullin, Spartacus by Aram Khachaturian and The Twelve by Boris Tishchenko choreographed by Leonid Yakobson, The Stone Flower by Sergei Prokofiev and Legend of Love by Arif Melikov choreographed by Yuri Grigorovich, The Leningrad Symphony by Dmitry Shostakovich in the choreography of Igor Belsky, along with the production of new ballets, ballet classics were carefully preserved in the theater’s repertoire. Along with Tchaikovsky, Rimsky-Korsakov, Mussorgsky, Verdi, Bizet, operas by Prokofiev, Dzerzhinsky, Shaporin, Khrennikov appeared in the operatic repertoire.

1968–1970 A general reconstruction of the theater was carried out according to the project of Salome Gelfer, as a result of which the left wing of the building was «stretched» and acquired its current form.

An important stage in the history of the theater in the 80s was the production of Tchaikovsky’s operas Eugene Onegin and The Queen of Spades, staged by Yury Temirkanov, who headed the theater in 1976.