“A nation without dramatic art is a dead nation”, once stated the Gagauz writer Dionis Tanasoglu, in whose memory the National Theatre from Ceadir-Lunga was named.
Founded in 1997, the theatre opened its doors to the first audiences many years before, in 1970, when Dionis Tanasoglu was organizing performances with the involvement of amateur actors. It was only at the end of the ’80s that Gagauz students started enrolling at the Institute of Arts, where certain key disciplines were taught in Gagauz, such as staging, acting, and rhetoric, and the rest of the disciplines were taught in Russian.
The first performance held in the National Theatre in Ceadir-Lunga was “Oglan and Leanca”, written by Dionis Tanasoglu, being an analogy of Shakespeare’s “Romeo and Juliet”. The performance hall seemed to be unable to fit all the spectators back then, and the inhabitants of the autonomy saw for the first time a dramatic performance presented by professional actors in the framework of a national theatre.
The troupe of the Gagauz theatre in Ceadir-Lunga currently consists of 12 actors and the majority of the performances are in the Gagauz language. Some performances are in Russian and “The Rooster and the Sun” is in Romanian.
In 2021, the Theatre from Ceadir-Lunga got the grand prix at the Gala UNITEM for the performance “Mozgoroi”, as the best performance for children.
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Scene performance in the Gagauz language was something new for our people. There was no theatre before, everything was organized at amateur level.
The mission of a theatre is not only culture preservation but also promotion of correct Gagauz language, which is the reason why we stage numerous performances for children.
Our Gagauz theatre presents during the international festivals not only our Gagauz people but also the entire Republic of Moldova.
Mihail Constantinov, disciple of Dionis Tanasoglu and the current director of the National Theatre “Dionis Tanasoglu”
This material was developed in the framework of the project “Supporting institutionalized and sustainable dialogue on Gagauzia Autonomy”, implemented by CMI – Martti Ahtisaari Peace Foundation and financed by Sweden. The opinions expressed in this material pertain to the authors and do not necessarily represent the position of CMI or of Sweden.