The action “White Nights in the Museum” was held in the Kirillo-Belozersky museum-reserve over the last weekend. It was timed to the Day of the Town the celebrations of which lasted from morning till late evening. One of the events included into the program of the holiday was a performance titled “The Tale of Peter and Fevronia”. It was presented by the historical theatre “Ryad (Row)” from Kostroma in the open air.
The play was based on the well-known story of Peter and Fevronia, canonized by the Russian Orthodox Church. “The Tale of Peter and Fevronia” itself is a monument of Old Russian literature of the 16th century.
The ancient tale says that Duke Peter became seriously ill and nobody could cure him. Once he had a vision at night that he could be healed by Fevronia, daughter of the forest bee-keeper. Fevronia said that she would cure the duke if he married her. Peter promised to do it, but didn’t keep his word because Fevronia was just a peasant girl. The duke got ill again. And when the girl cured him once again, Peter got married to Fevronia.
When Peter inherited the throne, the boyars rebelled against the duchess because of her humble origin. They demanded that he should part with the wife or leave Murom. The duke didn’t want to part with Fevronia and they left the city together. Soon the unrest began in Murom and the nobles asked Peter and his spouse to come back. The duke and the duchess returned and later Fevronia managed to earn love of city dwellers. In their declining years, Peter and Fevronia took the vows in different monasteries and asked God to give them a chance to die on one day. They willed to bury them in one specially prepared coffin with a thin partition in the middle. They died on one day, but people considered it to be inappropriate to bury them in one coffin, and placed their bodies in different monasteries. But they turned out to be together a day later.
People who came to the museum in that summer evening could see this story not on the scene, but in the open air. It was certainly interesting, especially taking into account that the story about the Russian saints was presented on the grounds of the ancient monastery. At the end of the event, spectators thanked the organizers and the participants and had their pictures taken with the actors.
