GITIS

State Institute for Theatre Arts (GITIS; currently RATI – Российский университет театрального искусства, Russian University of Theatre Arts), famous Russian theatre school, one of the most important institutes of theatre education in the country. It has its foundations in the Musico-Dramatic School of the Moscow Philharmonic Society, founded at the end of the nineteenth century, with which Vladimir Nemirovich-Danchenko collaborated as a teacher of dramatic acting. During the Soviet period, as well as students from Russia and the Soviet Socialist Republics, selected young artists from the socialist bloc, including Poland, were invited to study at GITIS (Polish students included Jerzy Jarocki and Alina Obidniak). Jerzy Grotowski studied at the Institute from late August 1955 to early April 1956. His greatest discovery during his time in Moscow was the tradition of its greatest graduates – Vsevolod E. Meyerhold and Yevgeny B. Vakhtangov – whose legacy was at the time still condemned to oblivion. He learned of the achievements and ideas of Meyerhold during time spent in the GITIS archives, where Grotowski explored in particular Meyerhold’s work on Gogol’s The Government Inspector (apparently, an elderly female archivist who had sympathetic feelings for Poles allowed him to enter the rooms containing the forbidden materials at night). He became acquainted, meanwhile, with the traditions of Vakhtangov almost first-hand thanks to Yuri Alexandrovich Zavadsky who taught Grotowski directing.