The Alexandrinsky Theater in St. Petersburg informed Boris Akunin (Grigory Chkhartishvili) that his play “1881” is a “compilation of historical materials”, and therefore the theater stops paying the writer, despite the continuation of the performance of the same name. Akunin wrote about this in his telegram channel.
The corresponding letter to Akunin was sent by the theater’s deputy director for economics and finance, Roman Medvedev. It says the play «1881» consists of «a compilation of historical materials, dialogues based on archival materials.» The text of the work heard in the play “belongs to the creative team of the theater production and the director.”
In this regard, the theater decided to stop “paying performance remuneration” to the writer. Akunin himself added that the theater had not previously sent the money it was due. “It’s funny about the fact that “payments of remuneration per performance have been stopped” — they didn’t pay them anyway, but now they’ve created something,” the writer added.
At the Alexandrinsky Theater the play “1881”, based on Akunin's play has been shown since September 2022. Its director was artistic director Valery Fokin. On the theater’s website, as Meduza noted, there is no mention of any connection between “1881” and Akunin.
Previously, the LDM Theater, also located in St. Petersburg, remade the musical based on Akunin’s book “The Diamond Chariot” without notifying the author. Representatives of the theater said that they decided to rewrite the libretto of the musical due to the prospect of touring in China. According to the innovations, the action of the musical was moved from Japan to China, and the main character Erast Fandorin was replaced by a diplomat named Marco Polo.
On January 26, Akunin was added to the wanted list of the Ministry of Internal Affairs, before which he was recognized as a “foreign agent.” In December, a criminal case was opened against a writer who condemned the war in Ukraine under articles on justifying terrorism (205.2 of the Criminal Code) and disseminating “fakes” about the Russian army (207.3 of the Criminal Code). As part of the proceedings in the case, security forces came to search the Moscow publishing house «Zakharov», which publishes Akunin's books. At the same time, the largest book chain of stores “Read-Gorod” and the service “Liters” refused to sell his works as a writer, and several large theaters removed performances based on his works from their repertoire.