Published on: 2026-04-06
Source: St. Petersburg State Polytechnic University of Peter the Great –
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On April 4, the People’s University Theater “Glagol” of SPbPU celebrated its 55th anniversary. The theater marked this milestone together with its friends and admirers in the White Hall of the Polytechnic — in the very place where it first came into being. On April 4, 1971, on the stage of the hall, which was then simply called the assembly hall, students of the future theater of the metallurgical faculty, later known as “Glagol”, performed their first play “The Adventures of Robinson in LPI.”
For 49 out of 55 years, the theater’s permanent director was Alexander Maksimovich Borshchevskiy, an honored cultural worker of the Russian Federation. He passed away in December 2020, but he remains the foundation of “Glagol,” its cornerstone, on which the university theater stands and will continue to stand. Congratulating “Glagol” on the anniversary, the guests this evening approached the portrait of Alexander Maksimovich on the stage, and everyone mentioned his name aloud.
Over 55 years, the history of the theater “Glagol” has been filled with many legends, traditions, and symbols. One of them is the famous song “What does theater mean,” which precedes every performance. No matter how many times you listen to it, every time you still get goosebumps. One can imagine the feelings of the guests at the anniversary evening “Territory of Life — ‘Glagol'” when that very performer and one of the authors of this unofficial anthem, Vadim Mendelsky, came on stage and sang it live!A graduate of the Department of Metallurgy of the Physico-Metallurgical Faculty in 1990 flew in specially from abroad to participate in the celebration, which is very expensive nowadays. By the way, it should be noted that Vadim Mendelsky himself holds the title “Legend of the Verb” (officially!) — he received it in 2007.
At the holiday, the spectators were waiting for one more surprise — a meeting with another legend. Namely — the 1973 LPI graduate Mikhail Budnevich, whose accidental conversation with teacher Alexander Borshchevskiy in 1971 during an exam radically changed the fate of Alexander Maksimovich himself and opened a new page in the history of Politechnic. After 55 years Mikhail told how it all actually happened:“I was studying then in the fourth year. Every spring in Polite every year they held festival evenings, and every faculty prepared a performance. In our group, there was a person responsible for culture in the Komsomol committee. And he said: something needs to be done. So then Mishka Kogan and I wrote a script about Robinson and performed the play for the audience. The next day I had to take a colloquium in electrical engineering from Borshchevsky. I was close to failing, and Alexander Maksimovich somehow distracted me. And then he himself asks: “And what was that for you yesterday?” And I gladly switched to this Robinson, to the idea with the theater.”Alexander Maksimovich said that he was in TUTe(Theater of Youth Creativity — editor’s note).I say: what happiness, will you help us? And here we began to perform it in the cinema, in auditorium 61-63. We found stories of the young Zhvanetsky and made sketches from them, Alexander Maksimovich directed it. Someone showed it, they liked it, and we were sent on tour to the Arkhangelsk region. Then people began to come to us, taking anyone and everyone, then there appeared guys who could sing, play guitar, there appeared our own music, songs. Theater gave me the opportunity to reveal myself, taught me how to be free. Quite probably, someday this will even become part of the curriculum for students, to help them reveal themselves.
From 1981 to 1989, the theatre of the Metallurgical Faculty performed as an agitbrigade. In 1983, it became an institute troupe. In 1984, in memory of the play based on the novel by the Polytechnic alumnus Alexander Zhitinsky “Glagol ‘Engineer'”, the theatre was named “Glagol”. In 1985, the Leningrad House of Artistic Amateur Performances awarded it the title of People’s. Since September 1987 and to this day, the artistic director of the theatre is —Honored Cultural Worker of the Russian Federation Konstantin Gershov.
“Glagol” is the only amateur theatrical group listed in the encyclopedic reference book “Theatres of Russia.”
Over 55 years, 270,900 viewers have watched 2048 performances of “Glagol.” The troupe went on tour 36 times, playing 230 performances both in Russia and abroad: in Germany, Poland, France, Ukraine, Belarus, Belgium.
A total of 75 performances have been staged at the theater. Currently, there are 13 in the repertoire. Some of them have been performed on stage for more than a dozen years, and several generations of actors have participated. For example, the productions “Lieutenant Kijé” and “The Three Musketeers, or Sorry, But I Don’t Speak French” turned 30 years old, “Funny in 2000” — 25 years, and “Crime Prevention Against the Socialist Way of Life During the Period of Building Communism” marked 10 years. Among the newcomers to the repertoire are “Anything Goes” and “Approximately — Towards the Sun.”
At the jubilee evening, scenes from several performances were shown, and of course, there were many songs and dances.
The head of the administrative office of the rector of SPbPU, Vladimir Glukhov, and the head of the Directorate of Cultural Programs and Youth Creativity, Boris Kondin, addressed the audience from the stage of the White Hall with congratulations to the “Glagol” team.
Boris Igorevich expressed gratitude to the rector of SPbPU Andrey Rudskoy on behalf of the team of the “Glagol” theater. And Vladimir Viktorovich shared a memory:“We met Alexander Maksimovich Borshchevsky in 1970, I was a young assistant, and he was an active young associate professor, who had just defended his candidate thesis on a super-topic. But many things in our life are determined by chance. When Alexander Maksimovich went to meet a group of students with the theater, he came to the rector’s attention. And the party committee needed a person who would engage in creative work at the institute. And Vasily Sergeevich Smirnov, a metallurgist himself, immediately remembered a colleague from his faculty. And since 1972, Alexander Maksimovich was already a member of the party committee and was responsible for creative work at the institute.”Ahead were two parallel paths: one — to continue working as an associate professor, the other — theater. As someone from Veliky said: choose your favorite job, and you will never work a day in your life. Almost every evening, Saturdays and Sundays became Alexander Maksimovich’s favorite work. And the second coincidence — that first group of students formed a community that did not lose touch after graduating from the institute.From the first participants of “Glagol”, many became directors, leaders, and they were ready to spend their time and resources to maintain these contacts, and through them new generations came, and the foundation of what we have today was formed — on the planet Politest there is its own handmade satellite “Glagol”. I sincerely wish everyone who devotes their strength to “Glagol” health, well-being, success, and an atmosphere of harmony inside the theater that accompanies you throughout your life.
There are now more than 90 people in “Glagol,” almost all of whom are either students, employees, or alumni of the Polytechnic Institute. The actors of “Glagol” perform not only on stage but also act in films and TV series thanks to the Druzh Theatre and the Lenfilm director Gale Kapitskaya. She was also among the guests at the anniversary evening and delivered several heartfelt words from the stage.
Many kind and warm wishes were expressed this evening. Anastasia Petropavlovskaya, an actress from the Union of Theater Workers and the Saint Petersburg Actor’s House, delivered congratulations from Sergey Parshin, chairman of the Saint Petersburg branch of the STD.
The first professional director of “Glagol”, Nikolai Belyak, showed the historical connection between generations of directors and people devoted to the theatre:Many years ago, through the efforts of a giant like Konstantin Sergeyevich Stanislavski, who began his biography in amateur theater and set himself the goal and task of turning amateur theater into genuine art, this special activity arose, which gave birth to such a number of amazing enthusiasts, carriers of the infectious idea of theater. I think that the Russian intelligentsia is largely indebted to these amateur groups, which arose in various cities of the country, where their leaders instilled in young people a love for literature, art, moral values, culture, and intelligence.Aleksandr Maksimovich Borshchevskiy was the continuer of this great cause, which was once started by Konstantin Sergeyevich Stanislavsky.
From the Russian State Institute of Performing Arts, the deputy first vice-rector Elena Rainskaya and the head of the acting department, Professor Veniamin Filshchinsky, congratulated. He laid flowers at the portrait of Alexander Maksimovich Borshchevsky.
“The biggest shortage we have now in the world, on stage, in the hall, everywhere — is a shortage of love. And now people need to be pitied. And I want us to hold on.”“A,” said Veniamin Mirailovich with feeling.
The artistic director of the Youth Creativity Theater of the Saint Petersburg City Palace of Youth Creativity, Evgeny Sazonov, recorded a video message:“Glagol” was the beloved creation of my childhood and youth friend, a friend for life, Aleksandr Maksimovich Borshchevsky, simply Sasha to me. I used to visit your theater quite often. And visiting the small but very cozy and beautiful office of Aleksandr Maksimovich, I understood how much love is invested in “Glagol,” how much soul is here. The Glagol members have always been kind, wise, honest; stay that way for many more years. I know that you will continue this work; you are already continuing it. I wish you a rewarding road ahead and upwards..
From the theater stage, representatives of the trade union committee of the Polytechnic and the Student Club of the Polytechnic congratulated. And many video greetings arrived from glagolites scattered around the world: from Belgium, Germany, Luxembourg, Serbia, Spain, France, the USA, Finland, China, Israel, Japan.
Konstantin Gershov, who usually speaks before the start of performances, this time delivered his signature monologue at the end of the presentation:“The ancient Greeks said that everything happening in this world is either a reward, or a punishment, or a warning, or a predestination. And this chain with time turns out to be a fatal regularity. A chance meeting of docent Borshchevsky with student Budnevich at an exam led to the creation of the Institute, later the university theater ‘Glagol’.”The civil feat of Alexander Maksimovich Borshchevsky has not been fully appreciated. For 50 years, he, a candidate of chemical sciences, having not specifically studied directing or pedagogy, built and rebuilt his theater like the biblical Noah his ark, rushing in the evenings from the chemical laboratory to the Glagol laboratory for the study and cultivation of the soul, where the territory of life was created first of the TMF theater, and then the “Glagol” theater. Is it possible to live a life without theater? For the majority of the planet’s population, yes, it is possible. But for two or three percent of people, life without theater is impossible.And “Glagol” is a small territory of our life and the life of our viewers.
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