THE PENITENT SINNER BY DIMITRY OF ROSTOV

Abstract

The existence of the play The Penitent Sinner, as well as its attribution to Dimitry of Rostov, have long been questioned. In the manuscript from the Russian State Library, col. A. I. Khludov, No. 25 we have discovered, among the works of the Metropolitan of Rostov, a copy of the drama God’s Judgment of the Penitent Sinner. This fact proves that the play was indeed created by Dimitry of Rostov and performed at his Rostov school. The play was intended to be a separate declamation, and almost fully corresponds to Scenes 1–4 of the Second Act of Dimitry’s Dormition Drama. In the 1750s, during the reign of Elizabeth I, when this play was performed at F. G. Volkov’s Theater in Yaroslavl, The Penitent Sinner seems to have been supplemented with new characters and new scenes, thereby becoming a new stage edition of the previously existing play.