First Public Performance of A Bengali Play - on 27th Nov. 1795 at Ezra St. Calcutta.

जी हां, आज ही के दिन कलकत्ते के एजरा स्ट्रीट में  बांगला नाटक की पहली 
जन प्रस्तुति की गई। इसके प्रस्तोता Gerasim Stepanovich Lebedev को 
हमारा सलाम।

Gerasim Stepanovich Lebedev, a Russian adventurer, linguist, pioneer of 

Bengali theatre (founded Hindu Theatre in 1795), translator, musician and 

writer. Lebedev was born in Yaroslavl, Russia, to a family of a church 

choirmaster. Gerasim was the oldest son in the family. He had two brothers:

Afanasy and Trefil and sister Antonida. The family later moved to Saint 

Petersburg where Lebedev's father worked in a church. Lebedev learned 

English, French and German by his own effort. In Saint Petersburg Lebedev 

became acquainted with Fyodor Volkov, the founder of the first permanent 

Russian theater. Lebedev was a singer in the court choir and participated in 

the performances of Volkov's theater as well.

He was a self-taught violinist and accompanied Andreas Razumovsky, the 

ambassador designate from Russia to Vienna, as a member of a musical group. 

He fled the entourage and travelled across Europe, earning his livelihood as a 

violinist. He soon joined an English military band that was being sent to India. 

Lebedev lived in Calcutta (now Kolkata), then the capital of British India, for 

about ten years. During his stay, he started to learn Hindi, Sanskrit and 

Bengali from a local schoolteacher named Golokhnath Das. In exchange, 

Lebedev had to teach Das violin and European music. With the support of a 

Russian doctor, then practicing in Calcutta, he was soon established as a 

musician. Tickets for his musical programmes were priced at Rs. 12. Lebedev 

was the first person to use Indian tunes on Western musical instruments.

With assistance from local intellectuals, Lebedev founded the first European-

style proscenium drama theatre in India. This theatre opened in Calcutta in 

1795. Lebedev translated two plays, The Disguise and Love is the Best Doctor, 

into Bengali. These two were the first performances in the theatre, with music 

composed by Lebedev himself and lyrics borrowed from the Bengali poet 

Bharatchandra Ray.

The theatre Lebedev established at Domtala (Ezra Street) used for the first 

time Bengali actors and actresses. The show held on 27 November 1795 is 

considered the first performance of the modern Indian theatre.

Apart from his work in the theatre, Lebedev established a press, financed by 

the Czar, for printing Bengali books. He also compiled a short Bangla 

dictionary, wrote a book in Bengali on arithmetic and translated a portion of 

Bharatchandra's Annadamangal into Russian. His dictionary was published in 

1801. He wrote to the Russian ambassador in London about publishing 

Bharatchandra Ray’s works in Russia.

However, the British administration was not supportive of Lebedev‘s activities 

and was annoyed by his sympathetic stance towards the Indians. He also lost 

a court case against an employee, theatre decorator Joseph Batsh and was 

broken financially. Finally, the British authorities expelled him from India in 

1797. He was virtually bankrupt, possessing only a small bag of belongings 

valued at Rs. 295. He was forced to stay a few months in Cape Town to earn 

money for the ticket to Europe.

Lebedev stopped in London on his way back to Russia. In London he published 

Grammar of the Pure and Mixed East Indian Languages which was based on his 

studies of the character of some of the Indian languages, their sources of 

origin and affinity with Asian and European languages.

On his return to Russia, he was employed by the Foreign Ministry. He 

established in St. Petersburg a printing house equipped with Devanāgarī and 

Bengali scripts, the first of its kind in Europe. He published his second book 

Unbiased observations on Brahmin customs , and prepared two other books but 

could not finish those due to illness. Lebedev died in his printing house on 15 

July 1817 and was interred in the Gergiev Cemetery of Bolshaya Okhta in Saint  

Petersburg.