Memorial plaque celebrating Nazar Stodolia will be installed in Lviv

This year, beside the 200th birth anniversary of Taras Shevchenko, Leopolitans will celebrate another important date, the 150th anniversary of the first professional theater in Galicia. Let us recall that it was created on March 29, 1864 at the Narodny Dim (a kind of community center), and held the premiere performance of Nazar Stodolia on May 5 in the same year. Accordingly, the memorial plaque, carved by Vasyl Yarych, will be installed on the former Narodny Dim building, now housing Kinopalats cinema, at 22 Teatralna Street. Funds for it have been raised at the Epiphany Apple Fir Tree feast, which has been held in Lviv for two decades. This charity event began in the 19th century in Husakiv, then a self-governing town, now a village of Mostyska district. It was Husakiv natives who revived the tradition in Lviv, including a former director of the Palace of Arts Roman Nakonechny, who now serves as head of the Museum of Taras Shevchenko in Lviv.

This year’s feast reminded Leopolitans of the 150th anniversary of the first professional theater in Galicia. As the famous actor of the Zankovetska Theater Bohdan Kozak noted, “this plaque honors those devoted theater figures who trained many generations of actors to unite Ukraine with their art. This stage saw legendary Mykola Sadovsky, Maria Zankovetska, Marko Kropyvnytsky, Hnat Yura and other great actors.” By the way, the Lviv company has been performing Shevchenko’s play Nazar Stodolia since late December, staged by Fedir Stryhun, artistic director of the Zankovetska Theater.