“I laughed like a madman at the music alone…” Borodin’s operetta heroic warriors in Victor Krylov's letters to Nikolay Savitsky

The article is the first publication of 22 letters by playwright Viktor Krylov to Nikolay Savitsky, Stage Director of the Moscow Opera Сompany. The letters were discovered in 2020 in the State Historical Museum. The preparation of the article included dating and commenting on the letters. All the letters date from 1866 to 1867. Most of them are devoted to Heroic Warriors (1867), an operetta by Alexander Borodin based on the libretto by Krylov. The discovered documents allow to trace back how the operetta was composed, beginning with the emergence of Krylov's idea. The article clarifies the chronology of Krylov's work on the libretto as well as Borodin's work on the music of Heroic Warriors. It also reveals some previously unknown details of the composer's concept. Krylov writes in detail about passing two stages of theatrical censorship. It allows to establish the correct date of the final approval by the Theater and Literature Committee: July 29, not June 29 as previously thought. This fact explains why Borodin did not have enough time to compose fully original music for the operetta as well as why he was so often forced to parody works of other composers

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