Serfs Theatres in Poltava at the End of XVIII – Early XIX Century

The purpose of the article is to consider the activities of serf theaters in Poltava region in the context of amateur theatrical art development in the late XVIII – early XIX century; to highlight the actors’ influence, with V. Gogol-Yanovsky and I. Kotlyarevsky’s works are related and on Ukrainian professional theater formation. Methodology of investigation consists in an organic set of basic principles in research: objectivity, historicism, multifactoriality, systematic, complexity, development, and pluralism. The problem-chronological, concrete historical, statistical, descriptive, logical-analytical methods of scientific knowledge have been used, which allowed to highlight the process of the origin and development of the serf theater and determine its influence on the Ukrainian professional theater formation. Scientific novelty of work consists in the analysis of the serf theaters’ activity in Poltava region at the end of the 18th and the beginning of the nineteenth century and revealing their influence on the development in Ukrainian culture. Conclusions. It has been proved that serf theaters in Poltava region at the end of XVIII - beginning of the XIX century have contributed to the dissemination at Ukrainian themes and new genres of Ukrainian classical drama, the growth actors-performers’ skills who made a significant contribution to the Ukrainian professional theater activities of the second half of the nineteenth century