Funfair Booths

Categories / Population/Urban Living
FUNFAIR BOOTHS (Russian balagan, der. from Persian bala?ane - balcony, upper room), makeshift buildings for giving performances during popular carnivals. The first mentions of comedy sheds in St. Petersburg date back to the mid-18th century, while their name dates from the 1820s. The greatest number of funfair booths usually appeared on Shrovetide (see Shrovetide carnivals) and on Easter. These booths represented wooden buildings, decorated on the outside with flags, posters, signs, and the interior was upholstered with coloured cloth. As a rule, a stage was also constructed. In the late 18th - early 19th century mixed programmes of acrobats, jugglers, animal trainers etc. were shown there. From the early 19th century the principal genres for performances were mime harlequinade (buffoonery), plays and acts based on ordinary life of Russian folk. In this period the most popular were C. Lehmann's and Legat brothers’ funfair theatres. The funfair booths show included panoramas with moving pictures, menageries, puppet shows etc. Public was entertained by a funfair man (balaganny ded), joker and barker, who stood on the balcony of a merry-go-round. By the end of the 19th century the melodrama had become the main rival of the harlequinade. Show programmes also included concert parts. In the 1890s one could see in funfair booths animal trainer A.L. Durov, M.E. Pyatnitsky's choir, V.V. Andreev's orchestra and others. The most prominent impresarios of the second half of the 19th century and the beginning of the 20th century were V.N. Egarev, V.M. Malafeev, V. Berg, A.P. Leifert. The latter in 1878 together with stage director and actor A.Y. Yakovlev opened a funfair booth under the name Amusement and Advantage, where the classical plays were staged. In the end of the 19th century popular funfair theatres began to appear. In 1898, after the transfer of carnivals to Semenovsky place, funfair booths gradually ceased to exist; some unsuccessful attempts to revive them were made in the 1910-20s.

References: Некрылова А. Ф. Русские народные городские праздники, увеселения и зрелища, конец XVIII - нач. XX в. 2-е изд., доп. Л., 1988; Петербургские балаганы / Сост., вступ. ст., коммент. А. М. Конечного. СПб., 2000.

Y. N. Kruzhnov. Alexeev-Yakovlev Alexey Yakovlevich
Andreev Vasily Vasilievich
Berg Vasily Karlovich
Durov Anatoly Leonidovich
Egarev Vasily Nikitich
Legat Nikolay Gustavovich
Legat Sergey Gustavovich
Lehmann Christian
Leifert Abram Petrovich
Malafeev Vasily Malafeevich
Pyatnitsky Mitrofan Efimovich
Некрылова А. Ф. Русские народные городские праздники, увеселения и зрелища, конец XVIII - нач. XX в. 2-е изд., доп. Л., 1988
Петербургские балаганы / Сост., вступ. ст., коммент. А. М. Конечного. СПб., 2000 Shrovetide carnivals
1872