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The Academic Theaters and the Fate of Soviet Artistic Pluralism, 1919-1928

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  27 January 2017

Richard G. Thorpe
Richard G. Thorpe*
Affiliation:
Department of History, University of Houston
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Extract

While many studies of the early Soviet theater have focused upon its proletarian or revolutionary stages, in the polemics of that era a central topic of dispute was the so-called academic stage. The academic theaters of Moscow and Petrograd, which included the former imperial theaters as well as select representatives of the pre-revolutionary private stage, most notably the Arts and Kamernyi theaters, had no lack of critics or enemies in the years after October. The former court theaters were attacked as politically dangerous relics of the old regime, their artists were envied for their material privileges and status, their large budgets were coveted by less generously funded workers' and avant-garde stages, their art was condemned as conservative and out of harmony with the revolution and socialism. For Commissar of Education Anatolii Lunacharskii, however, these theaters were academies which would both preserve the best of the pre-revolutionary cultural heritage and provide standards of technical excellence against which more innovative theaters could be measured.

Type
Articles
Information
Slavic Review , Volume 51 , Issue 3 , Fall 1992 , pp. 389 - 410
Copyright
Copyright © Association for Slavic, East European, and Eurasian Studies. 1992

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References

Support for the research upon which this article is based was provided by the International Research and Exchanges Board (with funds from the National Endowinent for the Humanities, the US Department of State and the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation), by the Joint Committee on Soviet Studies of the Social Science Research Council, by the Department of History of Princeton University and by the Research Initiation Grant program of the University of Houston. Special thanks are owed to Richard Brody, Paul Christensen, Iurii Orlov and Sergei Tsakunov for their invaluable assistance.

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11. Literally “one-boss,” a director responsible not to collegial bodies within their institution but only to his or her superiors.

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30. TsGALI, f. 648, op. 2, d. 218, 1. 77.

31. TsGALI, f. 648, op. 2, d. 218, 1. 78; “Kri/.is akademicheskikh teatrov,” Zhizn’ iskusstva, 28 November 1922.

32. TsGALI, f. 648, op. 2, d. 218, 11. 79 & ob.

33. TsGALI, f. 648, op. 2, d. 218, 1. 80; Ibid., d. 118, 1. 34 & ob.

34. Central State Archive of the Russian Republic (henceforth TsGA RSKSR), f. 2306 (Narkompros), op. 1, d. 3377, 1. 137.

35. Ibid., 1. 137 ob.

36. TsGA RSFSR, f. 2306, op. 1, d. 3377, 1. 160.

37. TsGALI, f. 648, op. 2, d. 187, 1. 15; Central State Archive of the October Revolution (henceforth TsGAOR), f. 5508 (Union of Workers of Art), op.I, d. 293, 1. 54; Teatr i muzyka, 19 (13 February 1923): 644.

38. The weekly Petrograd artistic journal Teatr i iskusstvo provided a platform for many of these opponents of the former imperial theaters during 1917. See, for ex ample, Teatr i iskusstvo 10-11 (12 March 1917): 189; 12(19 March 1917): 213-14; 23 (4 June 1917): 396; 39 (24 September 1917): 680.

39. On the non-artistic collectives, see TsGALI, f. 878 (A. I. Iuzhin-Sumbatov), op. 1, ed. khr.99, 11. 29-30; also see Zosimovskii, V., “Professional'nye soiuzy teatral'nykh rabotnikov v period Velikoi Oktiabr'skoi revoliutsii i grazhdanskoi voiny (1917-1921 gg.),” Uchenye zapiski Vysshei shkoly profdvizheniia VTsSPS (Moscow: Izd. VTsSPS, 1968), 37 and passimGoogle Scholar. On the pre-revolutionary status and resentment of the chorus, see Teliakovskii, V., Imperatorskie teatry v 1905 godu (Leningrad: Academia, 1926), 61–69 Google Scholar; on its identification with the Union of Workers of Art, see below, note 43.

40. For example, Malinovskaia approached contract negotiations with the Union of Workers of Art with little or no willingness to bargain on any issues of significance, often dragging out negotiations or simply ignoring the need to conclude contracts. TsGAOR, f. 5508, op. 1, d. 192, 1.10; TsGALI, f. 648, op. 2, ed. khr.218, 11. 37-39; TsGAOR, f. 5508, op. 1, d. 192, 11.33, 36.

41. TsGA RSFSR, f. 2307 (Glavnauka), op. 7, d. 4, 1. 38 & ob.; TsGA RSFSR, f. 2306, op. 1, d. 3397, 1. 84.

42. Literaturnoe nasledstvo 80: 282.

43. TsGAOR, f. 5508, op. 1, d. 142, 1. 13, 15.

44. TsGALI, f. 648, op. 2, d. 187, 1. 38. This followed an abortive attempt to fire many of the same members of the Bolshoi chorus in mid-1922, forestalled at that time by pressure from the union. TsGALI, f. 648, op. 2, ed. khr.230, 1. 13; ibid., ed. khr. 128, 1. 5.

45. TsGALI, f. 648, op. 2, d. 3, 11. 32 & ob.; TsGALI, f. 648, op. 2, d. 187, 11. 89 ob., 90-91, 106 & ob.; TsGALI, f. 648, op. 2, d. 265, 1. 47; TsGALI, f. 648, op. 2, d. 271, 1. 8.

46. Zrelishche 63 (20-25 November 1923): 12.

47. TsGALI, f. 648, op. 2, d. 187, 1. 90 ob.

48. TsGA RSFSR, f. 2306, op. 1, d. 2246, 1. 20.

49. Ibid., 1. 21.

50. TsGA RSFSR f. 2306, op. 1, d. 2246, 11. 31-42.

51. TsGAOR, f. 5508, op. 1, d. 245, 1. 94.

52. Ibid., 1. 53.

53. TsGALI, f. 648, op. 2, d. 176, 1. 21. In line with this support, there was an abortive attempt in late 1923 to transfer the academic theaters to the direct supervision of TslK SSSR, in the hopes that subordination to an all-Union body would provide some measure of protection against their critics who now made up the majority of the Narkompros collegium (the Commissariat being a republic level agency). TsGA RSFSR, f. 2306, op. 7, d. 4, 1. 51.

54. TsGA RSFSR, f. 2306, op. 1, d. 3397, 11. 84 ob.-85.

55. TsGA RSFSR, f. 2306, op. 1, d. 2945, 11. 68-69.

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57. TsGA RSFSR, f. 2306, op. 1, d. 2700, 11. 7-11.

58. Ibid., 1. 28.

59. TsGA RSFSR, f. 2306, op. 1, d. .'5397, 1. 126.

60. TsGA RSFSR, f. 2306, op. 1, d. 3397, II. 127 & ob.

61. TsGA RSFSR, f. 2306, op. 1, d. 3397, 11. 242-43.

62. Literaturnoe nasledstvo, t. 82, A. V. Lunacharskii. Neizdannye materialy (Moscow: Nauka, 1970), 408.Google Scholar

63. TsGALI, f. 878, op. 1, d. 117, 1. 8.

64. TsGALI, f. 648, op. 2, ed. khr. 334, 1. 20, 28; Zrelishche 83-84 (28 April-4 May 1924): 16; Rabochii zritel’ 19 (14 September 1924): 11.

65. Zrelishche 85 (6-11 May 1924): 13.

66. “Puti i zadachi Bol'shogo teatra. Beseda s direktorom Bol'shogo teatra A. A. Burdukovym,” Programmy gosudarstvennykh akademicheskikh teatrov 2(11-17 January 1927): 14.

67. Lunacharskaia-Rozenel', N., Pamiat’ sertsa: vospominaniia (Moscow: Iskusstvo, 1965), 141–43Google Scholar. Rozenel''s chronology of events cannot be accepted, as it conflicts with other documents; her characterization of the administrative relations of lakovleva and Lunacharskii is, however, consistent with other evidence.

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74. N. Sh., “Ekonomicheskie itogi sezona v gosudarstvennykh akademicheskikh teatrakh,” Sovelskoe iskusstvo 2 (May 1925): 50-51; TsGALI, f. 648, op. 2, ed. khr. 416, I. 20; Iskusstvo trudiashchimsia 2 (9-14 December 1924): 23; “O rabote Bol'shogo teatra (beseda s G. A. Koloskovym),” Programmy gosudarstvennykh akademicheskhikh teatrov 17 (13-19 January 1926): 9-10.

75. Iskusstvo trudiashchimsia 40 (1 September 1925): 12; TsGALI, f. 648, op. 2, ed. khr. 377, 1. 55; ibid., ed. khr. 29, 1. 54 ob.; ibid., ed. khr. 520, 1.1 and ob.

76. Ibid., 1. 1 & ob.; “Plenum TsK Rabisa,” Trud, 2 December 1926.

77. Programmy gosudarstvennyh akademicheskikh teatrov 6 (8-15 February 1927): 3.

78. TsGALI, f. 649, op. 1, ed. khr. 308, 11.26 & ob.

79. TsGALI, f. 648, op. 2, ed. khr. 421, 11.51 ob.-52.

80. TsGALI, f. 649, op. 1, ed. khr. 308, 1. 67; Sh., “Ekonomicheskie perspektivy sezona v gosakteatrakh,” Sovetskoe iskusstvo 9 (December 1925): 41.

81. Read, 142-44.