Maly Theater

Though much less well-known today than either the Bolshoi or the MKhAT, the Maly gained renown during the nineteenth-century as a venue for social and political satires. The plays of Alexander Griboyedov (1795-1829), Nikolai Gogol (1809-52), and Alexander Ostrovskiy (1823-86) gained their first performances here, making the Maly an early center for a culture of intellectual opposition to the Tsarist state.