The article analyses the aesthetic context of the first and only stage production of A. K. Tolstoy’s play Tsar Fyodor Ioannovich on the stage of the National Theatre. The spectacle was produced in 1927 by the director Nikolay Masalitinov. The basic parameters of stage production are analysed from the perspective of the cultural situation in the time it occurred. When reconstructing the spectacle, theatre reviews of the time were involved as well as pictures, provided by the archives of the Ivan Vazov National Theatre. The main thesis of the article refers to the influence of the artistic practice of the Moscow Art Theatre under the direction of K. S. Stanislavski and V. I. Nemirovich-Danchenko on Massalitinov’s dramaturgical choice and direction approach.