An Insomniac and the Tyrant of Florence
Which Movie Should You Have Watched in Almaty in 1911?
Poster of the cinema «20th century». 1911/from open access
As the nineteenth century gave way to the twentieth, a great wave of awakening surged through Kazakh intellectuals, sparking a passionate quest for knowledge. This outpouring of intellectual zeal led to an explosion of new magazines and newspapers being published in Kazakh, heralding the dawn of a new era in sharing culture.
However, what these intellectuals wrote went beyond only spreading knowledge. Soon, a variety of publications emerged, covering topics like business, society, politics, art, and humor. Qalam invites you to explore snippets from Kazakh publishing culture and history, offering a glimpse into the important issues of the past.
Let’s continue our journey into Kazakh newspapers from the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries to explore what life in Kazakhstan was like a century ago. Today, let’s take a look at what the residents of Almaty watched at the city's first movie theater.
In early 1911, not long after the terrible earthquakei
On January 4, 1911, at 4:25 a.m., a catastrophic earthquake with a magnitude of 8.2 heavily destroyed the city in Verny (Almaty), the city’s first private movie theater was opened by a private entrepreneur named A.R. Seifullin under the promising name ‘The Twentieth Century’, which was most likely meant to reflect the technological endeavors of the new century. This electrotheaterian old name for a movie theater was located at the crossroad of the current Pushkin and Gogol streets until it was destroyed by a fire in 1918.
Cinema «20th century». Verniy, 1910s/from open access
The movie schedule was published in the special section of the Semirechesnskie Oblastnye Vedomosti (Semirechye Regional Newspaper). Here is the poster published in Issue No. 49 (1911):
«Verny. ‘The 20th Century’ Electrotheater by A. R. Seifulin
March 2, 3, and 4, 1911
A new, grandiose program will be presented, consisting of three large sections.
Section 1. An exemplary dairy farm in Sweden. The rapids of the Adda River (A wonderful depiction of the nature), A White Black Man (A hilarious farce)
Section 2. Fridolin (Based on Schiller's ballad), A Sufferer from Insomnia (Comic)
Section 3. Lim Fjord in Denmark. The Tyrant of Florence (An interesting melodrama), Robinet is on City Duty (Comic)»
Poster of the cinema «20th century». 1911/from open access
The movies that were screened were silent. The soundtrack was provided by the grand piano, which was located behind the screen, even as the visitors were entertained by the symphonium music boxi‘Symphonion’ was a mechanical device for playing music that appeared in the 1880s. during the breaks.
The Semirechesnskie Oblastnye Vedomosti was launched in 1870 in Almaty. The publication frequently covered world and national news, local events, crime reports, and advertisements, being printed in both Russian and Kazakh. In the early 1920s, the newspaper was led by Franz Kratschmer, an ethnic Czech.
