20.02.2026 A talk on the world around Pushkin and Onegin at the Theatre
Half an hour before the performance of Eugene Onegin, audiences at the Hvorostovsky Krasnoyarsk Opera and Ballet Theatre are invited to a pre-show talk with Dmitri Zadnepryanov, Head of Literary Affairs at the theatre. The lecture is titled The World Around Pushkin and Onegin, will take place on February 25, and will explore the historical and cultural context of Eugene Onegin.
Guests will be invited to look at this familiar story from an unexpected angle. The conversation will focus on the era in which the characters lived: what it meant to be a nobleman in the age of the Holy Alliance, when Europe was weary of wars and revolutions and its main enemy, Napoleon Bonaparte, had already been defeated. Why, in such a world, was there no longer room for heroism — and what, then, was left to live for?
The speaker will also compare two aristocratic ways of life — the metropolitan world of Saint Petersburg and the provincial, almost free rural existence made possible by the Edict on the Freedom of the Nobility. And perhaps the most intriguing topic of all will be the dark side of Decembrism: why “superfluous men” like Onegin found themselves drawn into conspiracies — and what they were really risking.
The theatre invites audiences to gather in the second-floor foyer at 5:25 PM on February 25 for a chance to hear about Eugene Onegin what you were never told at school.
