Written in 1927/28, the eccentric opera based on the short story of the same name by N. V. Gogol marked an excellent debut for the young composer in the operatic genre. The libretto belongs to Shostakovich himself, who included the scenes and dramatic storylines from other works by Gogol (the play Marriage, the short stories The Overcoat, Diary of a Madman and others), as well as Smerdyakov’s song from The Brothers Karamazov by Dostoevsky. Writers and dramaturgs, such as Yevgeny Zamyatin (The Awakening of Major Kovalyov), Alexander Preys and Georgy Ionin (the fragments from Act III) were involved in the work on certain scenes.

The world premiere was supposed to take place at the Bolshoi Theatre. It was expected that Vsevolod Meyerhold would stage the production. However, that plan was not destined to be realised because of the master’s extreme pressure of work. The first performance was held in 1930 on the stage of the Maly Opera Theatre in Leningrad, the legendary MALEGOT that was then considered the “laboratory of Soviet opera”.