Professional Actors in Russia - Late 18C

Confronted with the plight of serf actors, one might think, if only they had been free their lives would have been different, so much easier and less degrading. In fact, the lives of all actors, serf and free alike, were remarkably similar. Most professional actors in Russia during this period started out as orphans in foundling homes, where, from around the middle of the eighteenth century, they were given acting lessons and then farmed out for more training (often for a price) either directly to the imperial theaters or to a theater school. All of them were at the mercy of the authorities--first, the men in charge of the foundling homes, then the masters at the theater schools, and finally the theater directors themselves--who controlled every aspect of their personal and professional lives. Actresses could not marry without their permission, nor could thye quit the stage unless they first purchased their retirement for an exorbitant sum (that is, paid their own ransom), which few actresses could ever afford. Performers who disobeyed were beaten with rods or, in extreme cases, sent off to the army for a life sentence. In 1816, a female dancer in the Imperial Theater was arrested simply for refusing to perform in an opera. Punishments like these were common well into the 1840s, after serf theater had largely disappeared.

The Pearl: A true Tale of Forbidden Love in Catherine the Great's Russia by Douglas Smith. 2008. Page 107-8.