Theatre preformances took place in restaurants and hotels until a first theatre was built in Chernivtsi in 1877 in the lower parts of town. In 1905 a new theatre was opened in the city center on todays Theater Square (Elisabethplatz, also known as Fischplatz), designed by the Viennese architects Ferdinand Fellner and Hermann Helmer. It was a house for stage plays and operas for 800 visitors, famous actors and singers from all over Europe performed here. Until 1922 the performances took place mainly in German, then the theatre was violently taken over by a Romanian administration. In 1907 a statue of the poet Friedrich Schiller was erected right in front of the theatre, the little place around it was named Schiller Platz. In 1922 the monument was transfered to the courtyard of the German People's House (Deutsches Haus) and later disappeared. Nowadays it is occupied by a statue of the Ukrainian poet Olga Kobyljanska. Helmut Kusdat
