The staff of the Voronezh Chamber Theater wrote a letter in defense of the dismissed artistic director

The staff of the Voronezh Chamber Theater wrote a letter in defense of the dismissed artistic director and founder of the theater, Mikhail Bychkov. The letter was sent to the governor of the Voronezh region, Alexander Gusev, to the Ministry of Culture, as well as to the administration of President Vladimir Putin. The letter was signed by 63 theater employees, including cooks and ticket clerks.

IN document it is said that the team learned about the dismissal of Mikhail Bychkov on November 21. On the same day, the Minister of Culture of the Voronezh Region, Maria Mazur, signed the order and informed the ex-artistic director of the theater about it “two hours before the end of his last working day.”

“We are stunned that its creator, its author, was fired from the theater, that this decision was made in the thirtieth anniversary season for the theatre. We lost our director, our artistic director in the middle of the theater season,” the text of the letter says.

In the letter, the employees admit that they “don’t know how to continue working.” They call the decision to fire the artistic director “a mistake that will bring nothing but destruction to the theater.” The theater troupe also asked to meet with Maria Mazur. The actors believe that they “deserved an explanation for such a sudden decision, which obviously goes against the interests of the Chamber Theater and its audience.”

IN message The regional Ministry of Culture says that the department is “surprised” at the “direction” in which the letter was written. “We understand the concerns of the theater staff, but we assure you that the personnel changes should have the least impact on the creative component of the institution or not at all,” the department said in a statement. They promised to hold a meeting with Maria Mazur.

The report also notes that the theater is not the private property of any of its ex-employees, therefore the department assessed the demand to “certainly return” Mikhail Bychkov as “not entirely correct.”

According to “Vesti Voronezh”, the reason for the dismissal of Mikhail Bychkov was his anti-war position. In March 2022, Mikhail Bychkov signed a collective letter from Russian cultural figures who opposed the military operation on Ukrainian territory. The authors of the appeal called for the withdrawal of troops and negotiations.

“Bychkov did not lose the desire to write open condemning letters, and the theater made no attempts to support the participants of the SVO and members of their families with discounted tickets. The authorities accepted this position of the cultural figure, but did not support him and parted with him in a civilized manner,” said the interlocutor of Vesti Voronezh. According to the publication, theater director Oleg Tkachenko has been temporarily appointed acting artistic director. His signature in the letter in defense of the ex-artistic director is the last. Vesti Voronezh notes that the appointment of a new artistic director is planned before the beginning of 2024, and communication with applicants is currently underway.

Polina Motyzlevskaya