Storming of the Winter Palace (1920), which involved five hundred musicians, eight thousand performers, and over one hundred thousand spectators.
As Communist Party controls tightened in the 1930s, theater and all arts were expected to follow the guidelines of socialist realism, which called for upholding Communist Party policies in an easily understandable realist style. This highly didactic formula presented “positive heroes” for the public to emulate, and plays always pointed toward an optimistic socialist future. Experimentation in text and technique ended. In this environment playwrights such as Nikolai Pogodin (1900-1962), Alexander Afinogenov (1904-1941), Vsevolod Vishnevsky (1900- 1951), and Alexei Arbuzov (1908-1986) managed to create meaningful dramas in spite of the limitations. A new generation of directors also attempted to offer interesting but safe productions: Nikolai Okhlopkov (1900-1967), Yuri Zavadsky (1894-1977), and Nikolai Akimov (1901-1968). Others suffered. Accused of “formalism,” a euphemism for nonconformity, Meyerhold was executed in 1940. Playwrights Tretyakov and Vladimir Kirshon (1902-1938) met a similar fate. Tairov struggled to stage permissible plays. TRAM theaters came under state control as professional Komsomol theaters.
Although many professional troupes performed for frontline troops and new plays supported the war effort during World War II from 1941 to 1945, strict controls were reestablished after the war until Josef Stalin’s death in 1953. Tairov was removed as director of his Kamerny Theater in 1949. As part of the rootless cosmopolitan campaign predominantly against Jews, Solomon Mikhoels (1890-1948), a famous actor and head of the Jewish Anti-Fascist Committee, was killed. Dramatists were expected to adopt the no-conflict theory that corresponded to the supposedly new level of socialist achievement in the Soviet Union: no longer was society divided into bad opponents of the system and good supporters. Now socialism and drama reflected struggles between the good and the better. Without meaningful conflict, the quality of drama declined. Theater attendance fell, and the party renounced the theory in 1952.
The period following Stalin’s death is considered the Thaw in Soviet society and culture. In the theatrical realm Glavrepertkom was abolished, and
ENCYCLOPEDIA OF RUSSIAN HISTORY
the Ministry of Culture assumed responsibility for censorship. Although socialist realism continued, theaters increasingly staged productions with non-realist sets and pessimistic or ambiguous endings. Productions also began to breach the “fourth wall” by incorporating the audience in the action. Two important theaters emerged: the newly created Sovremennik under the leadership of Oleg Efremov (1927-2000) and the Taganka led by Yuri Lyubi-mov (b. 1917), whose group of recent theater school graduates performed Bertolt Brecht’s Good Person of Sechuan and revived the moribund troupe. Its later productions included adaptations of Yuri Trifonov’s (1925-1981) prose works and recent poetry by An-drey Voznesensky (b. 1933) and Yevgeny Yev-tushenko (b. 1933). The Sovremennik emphasized new playwrights such as Viktor Rozov (b. 1913) and Vasily Aksenov (b. 1932). At the same time, talented directors Anatoly Efros (1925-1987) and Georgy Tovstonogov (1915-1989) took the helm at reputable theaters. Arbuzov and young dramatists, such as Alexander Vampilov (1937-1972), Alexander Volodin (b. 1919), and Eduard Radzinsky (b. 1936), explored the dilemmas of everyday life. Many recent foreign dramatists were published in translation. Student theaters thrived.
After Nikita Khrushchev’s fall from power in 1964, a more conservative approach to the arts ensued, but innovation continued. Although important directors continued to work, Efros and Lyubi-mov repeatedly had their productions banned or censured by the press. While socialist realism represented official policy, synthetic theater, which emphasized the use of music and lighting to augment the emotions and messages of a production, allowed greater flexibility in staging. By the early 1980s most professional theaters in Leningrad and Moscow created “second stages” that allowed for further experimentation. In this venue promising directors, such as Lev Dodin (b. 1944), Kama Ginkas (b. 1941), and Peter Fomenko (b. 1932), could stage new works, and young actors gained valuable experience because important roles on the main stage were reserved for senior performers. On the Taganka’s small stage, Anatoly Vasilev (b. 1942) staged Viktor Slavkin’s Cerceau, considered one of the most innovative productions of the 1980s. Ludmilla Petru-shevskaya’s (b. 1938) plays, whose language has been described as “tape recorder” for its ability to copy natural speech, were first performed by amateurs. Both playwrights addressed the elusive nature of a meaningful life in modern Soviet society. Amateur stages provided rich alternatives for both proENCYCLOPEDIA OF RUSSIAN HISTORY fessional and amateur directors as well as spectators who were seeking new approaches to theater.
The final decade of the Soviet era began with severe censorship, but the twentieth century ended with almost complete freedom. In 1982 Yuri Andropov became General Secretary of the party, and initiated a strict anti-Western policy that adversely affected theatrical repertoires. Under his successor, Konstantin Chernenko, Yuri Lyubimov was forced into exile in 1984. Mikhail Gorbachev’s glasnost policy reversed this trend, and by 1989 theaters operated without political censorship. Theaters attempted to operate under self-financing, which removed governmental subsidies. Lenin Komsomol Theater director Mark Zakharov (b. 1933) led the effort to establish independence for troupes. The number of theaters mushroomed when the government allowed the formation of theaters without official supervision. However, the success of some troupes depended on those earlier conflicts with the state, and Lyubimov’s return to the Taganka in 1989 could not revive its former glory. The Moscow Art Theater split into two companies: Chekhov MAT, led by Oleg Efremov, who had led the combined troupe since 1970; and Gorky MAT, led by Tatyana Doronina (b. 1933). In the 1990s Vasilev and Fomenko formed their own troupes to accommodate their unorthodox approaches to rehearsals and performances. Like many troupes desperate for funds, Dodin’s theater toured abroad extensively and was awarded the Europe Theater prize in 2000. However, most troupes, including former amateur companies, discovered the near impossibility of surviving without some government subsidy and sought to receive some support while retaining repertory freedom. Since the end of the Soviet Union in 1991, Russian theater has operated under an economic censor, as in the West. See also: ANDREYEV, LEONID NIKOLAYEVICH; BOLSHOI THEATER; CHEKHOV, ANTON PAVLOVICH; GOGOL, NIKOLAI VASILYEVICH; GORKY, MAXIM; GRIBOEDOV, ALEXANDER SERGEYEVICH; MEYERKHOLD, VSEVOLOD YEMILIEVICH; PUSHKIN, ALEXANDER SERGEYEVICH; SHCHEPKIN, MIKHAIL SEMEONOVICH; SUMAROKOV, ALEXANDER PETROVICH; TAGANKA; THAW, THE; TOLSTOY, LEO NIKOLAYEVICH; TURGENEV, IVAN SERGEYEVICH
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Braun, E. (1995). Meyerhold: A Revolution in Theatre. Iowa City: University of Iowa Press.
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Gorchakov, Nikolai A. (1957). The Theater in Soviet Russia., tr. Edgar Lehrman. New York: Columbia University Press. Karlinsky, Simon. (1985). Russian Drama from its Beginnings to the Age of Pushkin. Berkeley: University of California Press. Leach, Robert, and Borovsky, Viktor, eds. (1999). A History of the Russian Theatre. Cambridge and New York: Cambridge University Press. Mally, Lynn. (2000). Revolutionary Acts: Amateur Theater and the Soviet State 1917-1938. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press. Segel, Harold B. (1993). Twentieth-Century Russian Drama from Gorky to the Present, updated ed. Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press. Slonim, Mark. (1962). Russian Theater from the Empire to the Soviets. New York: Collier Books. Smeliansky, Anatoly. (1999). The Russian Theatre after Stalin, tr. Patrick Miles. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press. Warner, Elizabeth. (1977). The Russian Folk Theatre. The Hague: Mouton. Worrall, Nick. (1989). Modernism to Realism on the Soviet Stage: Tairov-Vakhtangov-Okhlopkov. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.
SUSAN COSTANZO
Vladimir Andreevich. The most important surviving projects in Moscow are the main icons (1405) for the iconostasis of the Annunciation Cathedral, Cathedral Square, and the Moscow Kremlin. Here he was assisted by the Elder Prokhor of Gorodets and Andrei Rublev, according to the Troica Chronicle. Another separate icon attributed to him is the Bogomater Donskaya (Virgin of the Don) and on the back, the Dormition of the Virgin, 1380s (Tretyakov Gallery). A very expressive early fifteenth-century Transfiguration of Christ icon (Tretyakov Gallery) has been attributed to Theophanes as well. His figures tended to be very tall and severe, with dark faces and long, thin arms. Mystical elements in his paintings are believed to reflect the influence of Hesychasm. Theophanes was truly one of
