Protestant theater of the 16–17th centuries as a historical and cultural phenomenon

• Main Author: Lurie Zinaida Andreevna
• Format: Article
• Language: deu
• Published: Theological Institute of the Evangelical Lutheran Church of Ingria (Saint-Petersburg, Russia), 2014-12-01
• Series: Религия, церковь, общество
• Subjects: sixt birk; joachim greff; cornelius crocus; martin luther; melanchthon; reformation; humanism
• Online Access: http://rcs-almanac.ru/wp-content/uploads/2017/09/2014_%D0%9B%D1%83%D1%80%D1%8C%D0%B5.pdf

The article discusses the phenomenon of the 16–17th centuries Protestant theater as a unique feature of the age. The author discusses the main characteristic of drama and performances and features out several steps of development of the Protestant scene. She makes an attempt to speak about the theater from the angle of its social role and its cultural relevance with same respect to its printed versions (Protestant drama) and visual and scene components. Protestant theater was an original phenomenon only in the first half of the 16th century, later dealing the stage with the Jesuits. Existed mainly as forms of public school theater (teachers were responsible for organization of city performances) both phenomena were invariants of confessional theater based on the humanist tradition. Since the second half of the 16th century such half-professional institutions were overshadowed by professional English and Italian troupes and Court Theater as well. However, in German lands with their sets of provincial cities school theater was an important social structure for a long time. Relevance of the article is in examination of the theatrical practice from various angels (its content and esthetics, occupation in propaganda, author’s social role and professional level). The researcher tries to avoid generalizations that are inherent to formal or instrumentalist approaches.