Woe from Wit
Shchepkin was born in the village of Krasnoe, in the Kursk Province of the Russian Empire, to a serf family owned by Count G. S. Volkenshtein. Shchepkin's freedom had to be bought by his admirers in 1821. Three years later, he joined the Maly Theatre in Moscow, which he would dominate for the next 40 years—it became known as the 'House of Shchepkin'. Shchepkin was the first to play Famusov in the "Woe from Wit" (1831) and the Mayor in "The Government Inspector" (1836). His acting was acclaimed by Alexander Pushkin, Nikolai Gogol, Alexander Herzen, and Ivan Turgenev for its subtlety, with much attention given to realistic detail and understatement.