in the campaign “The Ems Ukaz and Total Censorship (1876–1887)”
The theater was banned not as repertoire but as an institution: the third point of the 1881 revision prescribed "to completely forbid the establishment of a specifically Little Russian theater and the formation of troupes for performing plays and scenes exclusively in the Little Russian dialect"[1]. Individual plays remained permissible - with administrative permission for each staging. The ban struck not at the text but at the very possibility of a permanent company existing: performing occasionally was allowed, being a Ukrainian theater was not. The report with this point was submitted by the minister of internal affairs Ignatiev; the emperor's assent followed on 8 October 1881[1].