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The victory of the October Revolution marked the beginning of decisive changes in all areas of Russian life. A huge mass of working people who greedily reached out for knowledge, culture, and art. Under these conditions, the natural course of events in the first place among other forms of art came to the theater. Since he appealed to a large mass of viewers and, unlike literature, did not require literacy, and yet at that time millions of people could neither write nor read. In addition, the ideas that the theater introduced to the masses took the form of a bright and fascinating spectacle, and this made the performing arts understandable, accessible and desirable for everyone.

From the first days of the revolution, the young public of the Soviets has shown concern for the preservation and development of theatrical art. On November 22, 1917, the government issued a decree on the transfer of all the theaters of the country, the introduction of public education bodies. In 1918, a theater department was organized, under the name (TEO of the People's Commissariat for Education), which was entrusted with general leadership. To appreciate the historical significance of these events. Enough to remember. That in tsarist Russia the provincial and private theaters were introduced by the Ministry of the Interior. In other words, the police were in full control, and the imperial theaters, along with the stables and other court services, were subordinate to the ministry of the court. Now the theaters were put on a par with schools, universities and other institutions created for the enlightenment and education of the people.

The amateur art movement gained grandiose scope. All over the country, from Moscow, Petrograd to the smallest, most distant cities, villages, in military units at the front and in the rear, in factories and factories, thousands of amateur theaters and drama circles are springing up in the club, in which millions of working people were first introduced to artistic culture, developed their creativity. Many theater figures have left the ranks of amateur performances. The doors of theaters opened wide for all segments of the population - the performances were declared free, most of the tickets were distributed through public organizations. The theater organs begin to clear the boulevard of parlor, tabloid, anti-artistic plays. Their place is occupied by classical dramaturgy. Plays: Griboedov, Gorky, Ostrovsky, Shakespeare, Schiller, etc.

A real event was the play "Sheep Spring" by Lope de Vega, staged by director Mardanov, staged on May 1, 1919 in Kyiv. The main character of this performance was the people. Peace-loving, cheerful, but terrible in a just anger, which could crush everything in its path. And when the atrocity of the commander overflows the cup of patience, when the fearless, Spanish girl Laurencia (V. Yureneva) calls on the people to revolt, armed peasants storm the castle and kill the hated oppressor. In the finale, with a triumphant cry, the victorious peasants approached the ramp, and the audience, having risen from their seats, went to meet them with the singing of the Internationale. This was repeated 42 nights in a row.

In 1919, the Bolshoi Drama Theater was opened in the city of Petrograd, which was later named after the remarkable writer Maxim Gorky. In its creation took an active part: Gorky, Lunacharsky. Block. The theater was opened by Schiller's Don Carlos with great success. Often. Before the start of the performance, A. Blok, who was the chairman of the director's board of this theater, spoke. The Moscow Art Theater and the Maly Theater enjoyed great success among the workers, and in these years they received a high title - "Academic".

One of the types of new art was the agitational theater, combining militant political activity behind the then-important efficiency and visibility. The first PROFESSIONAL work of Soviet dramaturgy was "Mystery - Buff". A play that expresses the heroic pathos of the revolution and kills its enemies with satirical laughter.

The October Revolution radically changed all spheres of the country's life - social, political, economic, cultural. The first Soviet government attached great importance to the development of a multinational culture. In 1918, the theatrical department of the People's Commissariat of Education, headed by A. V. Lunacharsky, issued an appeal "To all the nationalities of Russia"; under the People's Commissariat of Education of the republics, theater departments were created, whose activities were aimed at reviving and developing the theatrical art of the peoples of the country (see Theater of the Peoples of Russia in the pre-revolutionary period). In 1919, V. I. Lenin signed a decree "On the unification of theatrical business." The government, despite the difficult economic situation, the civil war and military intervention, took the theaters for state support. The theater became one of the active forms of education, agitation, aesthetic education of the people.

"Jubilee" by A.P. Chekhov directed by V.E. Meyerhold. 1935



A scene from the play "Running" based on the play by M. A. Bulgakov. Leningrad Academic Drama Theater named after A. S. Pushkin. In the role of Khludov - N.K. Cherkasov. 1958



A scene from the play "Cavalry" by I. E. Babel. Theater named after Evg. Vakhtangov. Moscow. 1966



Traveling actors - buffoons - funny characters of folk fair theaters.

A. M. Buchma in the play "Makar Dubrava" by A. E. Korneichuk. Kyiv Ukrainian Theatre of Drama named after I. Franko. 1948



L. S. Kurbas.



V. K. Papazyan as Othello in the tragedy of the same name by W. Shakespeare. Armenian Drama Theater named after G. Sundukyan. Yerevan.



Actress of the Kyiv Russian Drama Theater named after Lesya Ukrainka A. N. Rogovtseva.



V. I. Anjaparidze in the play "The Exile" by V. Pshavela. Georgian Drama Theater named after K. A. Marjanishvili.



A scene from the play "I played, I danced" by J. Rainis. J. Rainis Latvian Art Theatre. Riga.



A scene from the tragedy "King Lear" by W. Shakespeare staged by the Tbilisi Theater named after Shota Rustaveli. Directed by R. R. Sturua. Cast: Lear - R. Chkhikvadze, Jester - Zh. Lolashvili, Goneril - T. Dolidze.



A scene from the play "And the day lasts longer than a century" by Ch. Aitmatov. Vilnius Youth Theatre.



Tour in Moscow of the State Republican Uighur Theater of the Kazakh SSR. A scene from the play "The Wrath of Odysseus".



A scene from the play "The Star of Ulugbek" by M. Sheikhzade. Uzbek Academic Drama Theater named after Khamza. Tashkent.

Theatrical life of the first post-revolutionary years was formed in several directions: traditional, i.e. professional, theaters of the pre-revolutionary formation; studio groups adjoining traditional theaters; left theaters that were looking for forms of consonance of the revolution in a break with the traditions of the past; propaganda theaters (most often of the Red Army amateur performance) and mass festivals that arose during this period as one of the most common forms of propaganda theater (see Mass theatrical performances). All of them existed in the capital cities, and in the provinces, and in the national republics, where agitation theaters relied on the traditions of square shows.

The process of restructuring in traditional theaters was difficult. The autonomy granted in 1918 by the government to traditional theaters gave them the right to independently solve their own creative problems, provided that their activities were not of a counter-revolutionary or anti-state nature. Theater figures got the opportunity to reflect on the great events, realize their significance and find their place in the cultural life of revolutionary Russia. V. I. Lenin emphasized that “hurriedness and sweeping in matters of culture is the most harmful thing”; he considered the main task in the field of theater to be the need to preserve traditions, "so that the main pillars of our culture do not fall."

Of particular importance are the new spectacular forms characteristic of the era of the civil war, reflecting the turbulent times of rallies, open agitation, and class battles. An important role in the formation and practical implementation of them was played by the Proletkult (Proletarian cultural and educational organization, established in September 1917). Many agitation plays were staged on the stage of the theaters of Proletkult, for example: "Red Truth" by A. A. Vermishev, "Maryana" by A. S. Serafimovich. In the activities of the Proletcult, fruitful methods were combined with extreme leftist theoretical views that denied the heritage of the past as a product of the bourgeois era. These mistakes were justly criticized by V. I. Lenin.

The first years of the revolution were the time when "the whole of Russia played." The spontaneous creative energy of the masses was looking for an outlet. In mass festivities, or mass actions in which a huge number of people took part, the events of world history, the October Revolution, were reflected in allegorical form. So, in Petrograd, "The Taking of the Bastille", "The Taking of Winter Palace”, “Pantomime of the Great Revolution”, “Action about the Third International”, “The Mystery of Emancipated Labor”, “Toward a World Commune”; in Voronezh - "Praise of the Revolution"; in Irkutsk - "The struggle of labor and capital." In this production, N. P. Okhlopkov (1900-1967) declared himself as an actor and director. Mass actions are spreading in Kharkov, Kyiv, Tbilisi; one of the forms of front-line amateur performances was theatrical courts. Satirical theaters of miniatures, "live newspaper", TRAMs (theaters of working youth), "Blue Blouse" arose throughout Russia, in Central Asia, in the Caucasus, in Karelia.

In the first years of Soviet power, the old theaters took the first steps towards rapprochement with the people's audience. They turned to classic romantic plays, in which motives sounded close in spirit to the revolutionary moods of the time. These performances were called "consonant with the revolution." Among them - "Fuente Ovehuna" by Lope de Vega, staged by K. A. Mardzhanishvili in Kyiv in 1919; "Posadnik" by A. K. Tolstoy - at the Maly Theater (director A. A. Sanin, 1918); "Don Carlos" by F. Schiller - at the Bolshoi Drama Theater in Petrograd (founded in 1919; see the Bolshoi Drama Theater named after G. A. Tovstonogov). Not successful in everything, these performances were important as a search for a philosophical understanding of modernity, new ways, new means of expression, contacts with a new audience.

The studio movement, which began in the 1910s, acquired a new meaning and significance after the revolution (see Theater Studios, Moscow Art Academic Theater). The 1st Studio of the Moscow Art Theater (since 1924 - the Moscow Art Theater 2nd) produces "Eric XIV" by A. Strindberg with M. A. Chekhov in the title role. The anti-monarchist pathos of the performance, staged by E. B. Vakhtangov in a vivid theatrical form, was in tune with the times. The 2nd Studio of the Moscow Art Theater continued to educate the actor, not attaching much importance to the completeness and alignment of the performance. The 3rd Studio (since 1926 - the Vakhtangov Theatre), directed by Vakhtangov, shows "Princess Turandot" by K. Gozzi (1922). Vakhtangov turned Gozzi's fairy tale into a festive performance that is deeply modern in its attitude, imbued with bright cheerfulness, poetry and humor. He was highly appreciated by K.S. Stanislavsky and Vl. I. Nemirovich-Danchenko. Newly emerging studios are looking for new theatrical forms, staging performances that reflect the time. Their repertoire was based mainly on world classics.

In parallel, the genre of musical performance, traditional in the Tatar theater, is developing. The representative of the romantic trend in acting was M. Mutin, the creator of the images of Othello, Hamlet, Karl Moor. The strong tragic talent of M. Sh. Absalyamov was revealed in the images of Grozny (“The Death of Ivan the Terrible” by A. K. Tolstoy), Gaypetdin (“Resettlement” by N. Isanbet).

In the 1920s professional theaters are being created among peoples who previously did not have national stages. These are the Kazakh Theater in Kzyl-Orda, the Uzbek Theater named after Khamza in Tashkent, the Tajik Theater in Dushanbe, the Turkmen Theater in Ashgabat, the Bashkir Theater in Ufa, the Chuvash Theater in Cheboksary, the Mordovian Theater in Saransk, the Udmurt Theater in Izhevsk, the Mari Theater in Yoshkar- Ole, Yakutsky - in Yakutsk. A huge role in the formation of these young groups was played by Russian actors and directors who taught national personnel the basics of theatrical professions. An all-Union system of theater education is also taking shape. Entire national studios are being prepared in Moscow and Leningrad; they will then become the core of many young theatres. Theater schools and studios are being created in the republics.

If the first post-revolutionary years were a time of searching for the art of agitation, propaganda, politically sharpened in relation to the legacy of the past, then already in the first half of the 20s. there is an urgent need for a return to traditional theatrical forms. In 1923, A. V. Lunacharsky put forward the slogan "Back to Ostrovsky." Plays by A. N. Ostrovsky, which were rejected by representatives of the left front as sharply inappropriate to the era, become the basis of the repertoire: "Hot Heart" - in the Moscow Art Theater, "Profitable Place" - in the Theater of the Revolution, "Thunderstorm" - in the Chamber Theater, "Sage" - in the Proletkult studio staged by S. M. Eisenstein. The Soviet dramaturgy also declares itself. The plays are becoming much more diverse in terms of themes and aesthetic searches: "Days of the Turbins" and "Zoykin's apartment" by M. A. Bulgakov, "Mandate" by N. R. Erdman, "Lake Lyul" and "Teacher Bubus" by A. M. Faiko, "Bedbug" and "Bath" by V. V. Mayakovsky.

In the late 1920s N. F. Pogodin comes to the theater. His plays Tempo, Poem about the Axe, My Friend, After the Ball open up a new direction in the Soviet "industrial" drama, where modernity was comprehended in new aesthetic forms. Pogodin's meeting with A. D. Popov (1892-1961), who at that time headed the Theater of the Revolution (now the Vl. Mayakovsky Theater), led to the creation of vivid performances that marked a significant stage in the development of the Soviet theater. The unexpectedness of the dramatic construction led to a change in directing techniques, the system of acting existence. Dynamic picture modern life embodied in the characters of reliable and convincing: M. I. Babanova - Anka, D. N. Orlov - Stepan in "The Poem of the Ax", M. F. Astangov - Guy in "My Friend".

In the 20-30s. there is a wide network of children's theaters. The Soviet Union was the only country where such great attention was paid to art for children. The Leningrad Youth Theater under the direction of A. A. Bryantsev, the Moscow Theater for Children under the direction of N. I. Sats, created in 1921 and then becoming the Central Children's Theater, the Moscow Theater of Young Spectators, the Saratov Theater of Young Spectators named after Lenin Komsomol played a huge role in education of many generations of children and youth (see Children's theater and dramaturgy).

The 1930s was a time of active development of Soviet drama, which is extremely important for the theater as a whole, since only an artistically complete play provided material for creating bright and aesthetically harmonious performances. It is no coincidence that in the 1930s there is a controversy between playwrights of different directions, such as Vs. V. Vishnevsky, N. F. Pogodin, V. M. Kirshon, A. N. Afinogenov. The problem of the hero-personality and the hero-mass, the need to depict the era through "domain processes" or the psychology of a typical character come to the fore.

A significant phenomenon in the history of the Soviet theater was the dramatic and stage Leniniana. In 1937, the performances “Pravda” by A.E. Korneichuk appeared at the Theater of the Revolution with M. M. Strauch in the role of V.I. Lenin, “The Man with a Gun” by Pogodin at the Theater named after Evg. Vakhtangov, where the role of V. I. Lenin was played with great vitality by B. V. Shchukin. The image of the leader was created by A. M. Buchma and M. M. Krushelnitsky in Ukraine, V. B. Vagarshyan in Armenia, P. S. Molchanov in Belarus (see Leninian in the theater).

The Moscow Art Theatre, continuing its tradition of staging works of Russian classical prose. An interesting experience was the stage implementation of the works of L. N. Tolstoy "Resurrection" and "Anna Karenina", undertaken by Vl. I. Nemirovich-Danchenko. The drama of Anna's fate was conveyed by A. K. Tarasova with great tragic force. In 1935, Nemirovich-Danchenko staged Gorky's Enemies. Magnificent MAT actors performed brilliantly in this performance: N. P. Khmelev, V. I. Kachalov, O. L. Knipper-Chekhova, M. M. Tarkhanov, A. N. Gribov.

In general, the dramaturgy of M. Gorky is experiencing a rebirth in the Soviet theater. The question of "summer residents" and "philistines", "enemies" is filled with a new political meaning. Gorky's plays revealed the creative individualities of many masters: A. M. Buchma, V. I. Vladomirsky, S. G. Birman, Hasmik, V. B. Vagarshyan.

Meyerhold, after N. V. Gogol's "Inspector General" and A. S. Griboedov's "Woe from Wit", turns to Soviet drama in search of forms of tragic performance: "Commander 2" by I. L. Selvinsky, "The Last Resolute" Vishnevsky, "Introduction" Yu. P. German, "List of good deeds" by Olesha and others.

In the early 30s. the creative direction of many republican theaters was determined, the flourishing of acting schools and directorial searches is associated with them. Plays by M. Gorky, world and national classics were successfully staged on the Armenian, Ukrainian, Belarusian and Tatar stages. Of particular importance in the Georgian, Armenian, Uzbek, Tajik and Ossetian theaters is the work on Shakespeare's tragedies, the performances of which are full of humanistic pathos. They permeate the image of Othello performed by the Armenian actor V. K. Papazyan (1888-1968), the Ossetian actor V. V. Tkhapsaev (1910-1981).

Early 30s. distinguishes the active and creative interaction of national theaters. The practice of international tours was expanding, in 1930 the Olympics of national theaters were held in Moscow for the first time. From now on, reviews of republican theaters at the decades of national arts in the capital are becoming traditional. New theaters are being opened: in 1939 there were 900 theaters in our country that played in 50 languages ​​of the peoples of the USSR. In the late 30s - early 40s. groups from the Baltic States, Moldova, Western Ukraine and Western Belarus are joining the family of the Soviet multinational theater. The network of theater education is expanding.

However, the authoritarian methods of art management and the distortion of the Leninist principles of national policy have a detrimental effect on the development of theater and drama. The most daring artistic pursuits of theatrical figures provoke accusations of nationalism and formalism. As a result, such major artists, like Meyerhold, Kurbas, Akhmeteli, Kulish and many others, are subjected to unjustified repressions, which undermines the further development of the Soviet theater.

The Great Patriotic War tragically disrupted the peaceful life of the Soviet people. "Everything for the front, everything for victory" - the theater also worked under this slogan. Front brigades (there were about 4 thousand), which included best actors, departed from concert programs to the front (see Front theaters). About 700 one-act plays were written for them. Stable front-line theaters arose in the front line. Theaters continued to operate in besieged Leningrad - the theater of the people's militia, the city ("besieged") theater.

The Leninist theme sounded especially powerful in the difficult years of the war. In 1942, in Saratov, the Moscow Art Theater showed Pogodin's play "Kremlin Chimes" staged by Nemirovich-Danchenko. The role of Lenin was played by A.N. Gribov.

The tragic events of the war contributed to the strengthening of even closer creative ties that already existed in the Soviet multinational theater. The troupes evacuated from Belarus and Ukraine, together with the teams of Moscow, Leningrad and other Russian theaters, worked in the rear cities. "Front" by A. E. Korneichuk, "Russian people" by K. M. Simonov, "Invasion" by L. M. Leonov were on the stages of the Ukrainian theaters named after I. Franko and named after T. G. Shevchenko, the Belarusian Theater named after Y. Kupala , the Armenian Theater named after G. Sundukyan, the Bashkir Drama Theater, embodying the international essence of Soviet patriotism. Plays and performances devoted to military events were created on the basis of national material: “Guard of Honor” by A. Auezov in Kazakhstan, “Mother” by Uygun in Uzbekistan, “Deer Gorge” by S. D. Kldiashvili in Georgia, etc.

The joy of Victory, the pathos of peaceful construction are reflected in the dramaturgy. However, optimism often turned out to be too straightforward, and the difficulties of the post-war period were artificially ignored. Many plays were written at a very low artistic level. All this reflected the social processes taking place throughout the country. This period is again characterized by violations of the Leninist principles of party life and democracy. In a number of documents, unfair and unjustifiably harsh assessments of the work of a number of talented artists appear. The “theory” of non-conflict is gaining ground, containing the assertion that in a socialist society there can only be a struggle between the “good” and the “excellent”. There is a process of embellishment, "lacquering" of reality. Art ceases to reflect true life processes. In addition, the trend of leveling all theaters under the Moscow Art Theater, leveling artistic trends and creative individuals was harmful. All this sharply slowed down the natural logic of the development of culture and art, led to their impoverishment. So, in 1949, A. Ya. Tairov (Chamber Theater) and N. P. Akimov (Leningrad Comedy Theater) were dismissed from their posts, in 1950 the Jewish and Chamber Theaters were closed.

Since the mid 50s. processes of internal improvement begin in the country. The 20th Congress of the CPSU, held in 1956, restored social justice and realistically assessed the historical situation. There is also an update in the field of culture. The theater strives to bridge the gap between life and the stage, truthful reflection of the phenomena of reality, the height and diversity of aesthetic searches. A new stage begins in the development of the heritage of the luminaries of the Soviet theater. Dogmatism and canonization are being cleared, the traditions of Stanislavsky, Nemirovich-Danchenko, Vakhtangov, Tairov, Meyerhold, Kurbas, Akhmeteli are being rethought.

Directing becomes an active effective force. The theater is fruitful. three generations of directors work. Wonderful performances are created by masters whose work began in the late 20s - 30s: N. P. Okhlopkov, N. P. Akimov, A. D. Popov, V. N. Pluchek, V. M. Adzhemyan, K. K. Ird, E. Ya. Smilgis, Yu. I. Miltinis. Next to them are directors who began their journey in the late 30s - early 40s: L. V. Varpakhovsky, A. A. Goncharov, B. I. Ravenskikh, G. A. Tovstonogov, A. F. Amtman - Briedith, G. Vancevicius. Young directors declare themselves: O. N. Efremov, A. V. Efros, V. Kh. Panso, M. I. Tumanishvili, T. Kyazimov, A. M. Mambetov, R. N. Kaplanyan.

New theater groups strive to update the expressive means of performance in acting. The core of the troupe of the Sovremennik Theater (1957) was made up of graduates of the Moscow Art Theater School (headed by O. N. Efremov). The main task of the theater, which opened with the play "Forever Alive" by V. S. Rozov, is the development of a modern theme. The team was united by the unity of aesthetic preferences, high ethical principles. In 1964, the Taganka Drama and Comedy Theater was opened (headed by Yu. P. Lyubimov), which included graduates of the B. V. Shchukin School.

One of the leading theaters in the country is the Leningrad Bolshoi Drama Theater named after M. Gorky. In the performances of G. A. Tovstonogov, the traditions of psychological realism were organically combined with vivid forms of theatrical expressiveness. The productions of The Idiot by F. M. Dostoevsky and Gorky's Barbarians have become an example of a deep, innovative reading of the classics. In Prince Myshkin (“Idiot”) performed by I. M. Smoktunovsky, the audience felt the “spring of light”, eternally alive, human in a person.

In 1963, A. V. Efros headed the Moscow Theater named after Lenin Komsomol, where he staged a series of performances marked by intense spiritual search: “104 pages about love” and “A movie is being made” by E. S. Radzinsky, “My poor Marat” by A. N Arbuzova, "On the wedding day" by V. S. Rozov, "The Seagull" by A. P. Chekhov, "Molière" by M. A. Bulgakov and others. In 1967, together with a group of like-minded actors (O. M. Yakovleva , A. A. Shirvindt, L. K. Durov, A. I. Dmitrieva and others), he moves to the Moscow Drama Theater on Malaya Bronnaya.

In the 60s. the range of interaction between national cultures is expanding. Translations and staging of plays by authors from the Union and Autonomous Republics, All-Union reviews of national dramaturgy are included in everyday practice. Plays by A. E. Korneichuk, A. E. Makayonok, M. Karim, I. P. Druta, N. V. Dumbadze, Yu. Aitmatov.

Interest in the contemporary theme, characteristic of this period, is combined with close attention to the history of our country. For the first time, M. F. Shatrov's play "The Sixth of July" is staged, continuing the traditions of Soviet Leniniana. In 1965, the Taganka Theater hosted the premiere of the play "Ten Days That Shook the World" based on the book by D. Reed, who resurrected the elements of the post-revolutionary propaganda theater. A powerful epic narrative about the difficult times of collectivization was the staging of “Virgin Soil Upturned” by M. A. Sholokhov on the stage of the Bolshoi Theater named after M. Gorky in 1965, carried out by G. A. Tovstonogov. At the Maly Theatre, L. V. Varpakhovsky staged The Optimistic Tragedy with a brilliant duet duel between the Commissar (R. D. Nifontov) and the Leader (M. I. Tsarev). The Sovremennik Theater spoke about milestones of our revolutionary history in the stage trilogy: “Decembrists” by L. G. Zorin, “People’s Volunteers” by A. M. Svobodin and “Bolsheviks” by M. F. Shatrov, staged by O. N. Efremov in the style of a documentary journalistic narrative. The jubilee poster of the multinational theater in the year of the 50th anniversary of October again presented the audience with “Days of the Turbins” and “Running” by M. A. Bulgakov, “Love Yarovaya” by K. A. Trenev, “Storm” by V. N. Bill-Belotserkovsky, “Breaking " B. A. Lavreneva, "Armored train 14-69" Sun. V. Ivanova.

The 60s became a time of cleansing the classics from common stage clichés. The directors were looking for a modern sound, a living breath of the past in the classical heritage. The innovative reading of the classics was sometimes marked by the frank polemicism of the director's interpretation and sometimes the artistic costs associated with it. However, in the best productions, the theater rose to genuine stage discoveries. The performances "Masquerade" by M. Yu. Lermontov and "Petersburg Dreams" (after F. M. Dostoevsky) by Yu. A. Zavadsky on the stage of the Mossovet Theater; "Woe from Wit" by Griboyedov, "Three Sisters" by Chekhov and "Petty Bourgeois" by Gorky staged by G. A. Tovstonogov at the Bolshoi Theater named after M. Gorky; The Death of Ivan the Terrible by A. K. Tolstoy directed by L. E. Kheifits on the stage of the Central Theater of the Soviet Army in Moscow; “Profitable Place” by A. N. Ostrovsky directed by M. A. Zakharov; Crazy Day, or The Marriage of Figaro by P. Beaumarchais, directed by V. N. Pluchek at the Satire Theater; Gorky's "Summer Residents" on the stage of the Maly Theater directed by B. A. Babochkin; "Three Sisters" by A. V. Efros at the Theater on Malaya Bronnaya; “An Ordinary Story” by I. A. Goncharov (a play by V. S. Rozov) and “At the Bottom” by Gorky, staged by G. B. Volchek in Sovremennik, are far from a complete list of classical drama productions on stage.

Russian, Soviet and foreign classics are widely played on the stages of Ukrainian theaters. Among the numerous Shakespearean performances, the production of King Lear at the I. Franko Theater (1959, director V. Ogloblin) stands out. M. Krushelnitsky superbly played the sharp, impetuous, intelligent Lear. Of fundamental importance for the further development of the Ukrainian theater was the play Antigone by Sophocles (1965), performed by a Georgian production group: director D. Aleksidze, artist P. Lapiashvili, composer O. Taktakishvili. Here, the high traditions of the romantic scale of vision, inherent in these two rational cultures, merged together.

A milestone in the history of Georgian theater was the production of Sophocles' Oedipus Rex (1956) on the stage of the Sh. Rustaveli Theatre. A. A. Khorava played Oedipus as a truly perfect, deep and wise man. Other leading Georgian actors also played this role: A. A. Vasadze, S. A. Zakariadze, who offered a deep and original interpretation of the image. The folk choir, echoing Oedipus, was along with him the hero of the play. Its organic existence was reminiscent of the solution of mass scenes by A. V. Akhmeteli. In contrast to the monumental productions of the classics that were characteristic of the Georgian stage at that time, the play “The Spanish Priest” by J. Fletcher directed by M. I. Tumanishvili was cheerful, dynamic, sparkling with amusing improvisations.

A significant event in the life of the Azerbaijani theater was the performance of the Theater named after M. Azizbekov "Vassa Zheleznova" (1954) staged by T. Kazimov. Actress M. Davudova played Vassa, enslaved by a passion for profit, but smart and strong. Innovative, although not indisputable, was the directorial decision by T. Kazimov of the play "Antony and Cleopatra" by Shakespeare (1964), where the right to love, free from cynicism and calculation, was affirmed.

In V. M. Adzhemyan’s directorial works on the stage of the G. Sundukyan Theater, the theme “Man and Society” was especially prominent. It was traced in the productions of national classics, individual plays by foreign authors. R. N. Kaplanyan discovered the maturity of the director's style in Shakespeare's productions. Artists Kh. Abrahamyan and S. Sargsyan became worthy heirs of the masters of the older generation.

Leading director of the Latvian theater of the 60s. remained E. Ya. Smilgis (1886-1966). Clarity and philosophical depth of conception, expressiveness of the stage form are inherent in his works on the stage of the J. Rainis Theater - Ilya Muromets, I Played, Danced by J. Rainis, Shakespeare's Hamlet, Schiller's Mary Stuart. Smilgis brought up a galaxy of wonderful actors, among them - L. Priede-Berzin, V. Artmane. The innovative development of directorial principles of Smilgis was continued by A. Liensh. The process of updating traditions was also going on in the A. Upita Drama Theater, where the directors A. F. Amtman-Briedit and A. I. Jaunushan worked.

Tartu Vanemuine Theater showed the audience both dramatic and musical performances. Its leader K. K. Ird (1909-1989) combined national identity with the experience of world culture. In the performances “The Life of Galileo” by B. Brecht, “Coriolanus” by Shakespeare, “The Tailor Ykh and His Happy Lot” by A. Kitsberg, “Yegor Bulychov and Others” by Gorky, he revealed the most important social processes through the fate of people, human characters. In the V. Kingisepp Tallinn Drama Theatre, director V. H. Panso sought to comprehend the philosophical essence of human character by means of metaphorical stage language (Brecht's "Mr. Puntilla and his servant Matti", dramatizations of A. Tammsaare's novels). On the stage of this theater, the versatile talent of the remarkable Soviet actor Yu. E. Yarvet was revealed.

The Lithuanian theater gravitated toward poetry and subtle psychologism. Yu. I. Miltinis (1907–1994), who directed the Panevėžys Theater, built its work on the principles of studio work. "Macbeth" by Shakespeare, "Death of a Salesman" by A. Miller, "Dance of Death" by A. Strindberg were notable for their high directorial culture, freedom of imaginative thinking, and the accuracy of the ratio of conception and implementation. Miltinis paid great attention to the education of the actor. Under his leadership, such remarkable masters as D. Banionis (in 1981-1988 the artistic director of the Panevezys Theater), B. Babkauskas and others began their creative path. G. Vantsevičius, who directed the Kaunas and then Vilnius Drama Theatre, affirmed the principles of philosophical poetic tragedy in the production of the trilogy Mindaugas, Cathedral, Mažvydas by J. Marcinkevičius. The roles of Mindaugas and Mazhvydas were played by R. Adomaitis with dramatic force and heightened psychologism.

The art of directing in Moldova, in the republics of Central Asia, is undergoing a period of formation, national schools continue to take shape.

The 70s, marked by the undeniable creative growth of the Soviet theater, were meanwhile quite contradictory. The stagnant phenomena affected the direction of art, so it was difficult for new dramaturgy to find its way onto the stage, and the director's experiment was also infringed. The urgent need to update the techniques of actor's stage realism gave rise to such a phenomenon as small scenes. The interest of young playwrights in the inner world of an ordinary person in everyday life, the problems of true and imaginary spirituality are reflected in such productions of small scenes as N.A. Corners” by S. B. Kokovkin, “Premier” by L. G. Roseba at the Mossovet Theatre.

There was a complex process of the birth of a new director's generation. A. A. Vasiliev, L. A. Dodin, Yu. I. Eremin, K. M. Ginkas, G. D. Chernyakhovsky, R. G. Viktyuk, R. R. Sturua, T. N. Chkheidze, J. Vaitkus, D. Tamulyavichute, M. Mikkiver, K. Komissarov, J. Tooming, E. Nyakroshyus, I. Ryskulov, A. Khandikyan.

The dynamics of the theatrical process of the 70s. determined primarily by the work of directors of the older generation. The renewal of the Moscow Art Theater is connected with the arrival of O. N. Efremov, who revived the traditions of Stanislavsky and Nemirovich-Danchenko that had died out in this team. He staged a cycle of Chekhov’s performances (“Ivanov”, “The Seagull”, “Uncle Vanya”), returned to the Moscow Art Theater stage an acutely social vision of modernity in the performances “Meeting of the Party Committee”, “Feedback”, “We, the undersigned ...”, “Alone with everyone” by A. I. Gelman and “Steelworkers” by G. K. Bokarev; continued to work on the stage Leniniana, staging a play by M. F. Shatrov “So we will win!”, Where the image of V. I. Lenin was created by A. A. Kalyagin.

Still organic and alive was the art of the Leningrad BDT named after M. Gorky, led by G. A. Tovstonogov. His performances, whether they are performances of the classics (The Inspector General by N. V. Gogol, The History of the Horse by L. N. Tolstoy, Khanuma by A. Tsagareli) or modern drama (Last Summer in Chulimsk by A. V. Vampilov ) or an appeal to Leniniana (the composition “Rereading Again”), were distinguished by the depth of psychological analysis, the scale of historical vision and indisputable artistic merit. The success of the performances among the audience was facilitated by a wonderful creative team - E. A. Lebedev, K. Yu. Lavrov, E. Z. Kopelyan, O. V. Basilashvili and others.

Thanks to talented directing (A. Yu. Khaikin, P. L. Monastyrsky, N. Yu. Orlov) and original artists, productions of drama theaters in Omsk, Kuibyshev, and Chelyabinsk enjoyed steady audience interest.

Unusually fruitful and mature precisely in the 70s. became the directorial activity of A. V. Efros. One of the most impressive "production" performances was "A Man from the Outside" based on the play by I. M. Dvoretsky. However, by the middle of the decade, Efros moves away from modern themes and focuses on the interpretation of the classics (“Three Sisters” by Chekhov, “Romeo and Juliet” by Shakespeare, “A Month in the Country” by I. S. Turgenev, “Don Giovanni” by J. B. Molière).

In 1973, the Moscow Theater named after Lenin Komsomol was headed by M. A. Zakharov (see Lenin Komsomol theaters). Performances filled with music, dances, complex directorial constructions appeared in the repertoire. But along with spectacular performances (“Til”, “Juno” and “Avos”), the theater offered the youth audience a serious reading of the classics (“Ivanov”, “Optimistic Tragedy”), introduced them to the new dramaturgy (“Cruel Intentions” by A. N. Arbuzova, “Three Girls in Blue” by L. S. Petrushevskaya), turned to the Leninist theme (“Blue horses on red grass”, “Dictatorship of conscience”). The Leningrad Theater named after Lenin Komsomol rather gravitated towards psychological drama. Director G. Oporkov worked on the dramaturgy of Chekhov, Volodin, Vampilov, introducing young people to the comprehension of acute social conflicts.

In the productions of the Sovremennik Theater (it was headed by G. B. Volchek in 1972), the audience was attracted by an interesting ensemble of actors. The young director V. Fokin began his work here. The Drama and Comedy Theater on Taganka turned to the best works of modern prose and classics. The audience fell in love with the art of V. Vysotsky, A. Demidova, Z. Slavina, V. Zolotukhin, L. Filatov and his other actors (since 1987 the artistic director of the theater is N. N. Gubenko). The diversity of the repertoire and the attraction to a bright stage form distinguished the performances of the Theater named after Vl. Mayakovsky, headed by A. A. Goncharov. The names of the theater actors - B. M. Tenin, L. P. Sukharevskaya, V. Ya. Samoilov, A. B. Dzhigarkhanyan, S. V. Nemolyaeva and others are well known to the audience. Among the productions of recent years are “The Fruits of Enlightenment” (1984) by L. N. Tolstoy, “Sunset” (1987) based on I. E. Babel and others.

In the best productions of the Satire Theater (headed by V. N. Pluchek), the audience was attracted by the skill of the artists A. D. Papanov, G. P. Menglet, A. A. Mironov, O. A. Aroseva and others. Creative search marked the work of the Mossovet Theatre, known for the names of remarkable actors - V.P. Maretskaya, F.G. Ranevskaya, R.Ya. Plyatt and others.

Moscow theaters of plastic drama, facial expressions and gestures, shadow theater, etc., also work interestingly.

The Leningrad Maly Drama Theater attracts attention, the troupe of which, led by the chief director L. A. Dodin, staged such productions as “The House” (1980) and “Brothers and Sisters” (1985) based on F. A. Abramov, “Stars in the morning sky” (1987) A. I. Galina and others.

At the turn of the 1970s and 1980s, despite a number of difficulties and contradictions, creative interaction and mutual influence of national theatrical cultures intensified. Numerous tours, festivals introduced the audience to the achievements of theatrical groups of the RSFSR, the Baltic states, and Transcaucasia. The performances staged by R. Sturua on the stage of the Sh. Rustaveli Theater - Brecht's "Caucasian Chalk Circle", Shakespeare's "Richard III", "King Lear" have gained world fame due to the sharpness of the director's thought, vivid theatricality, areal grotesque and the brilliant play of the performer of the main roles R. Chkhikvadze. T. Chkheidze's productions at the K. Mardzhanishvili Theater - "Othello", "Collapse" and others - are saturated with subtle psychologism, deep metaphor. The productions of E. Nyakroshyus "The Square", "And the Day Lasts Longer than a Century", "Pirosmani", "Uncle Vanya" at the Lithuanian Youth Theater became a new word in theatrical art.

The mid-1980s marked the beginning of a process of broad democratization of the entire life of Soviet society. Freedom in solving creative problems, choosing a repertoire, rejecting administrative methods of leadership have already yielded results. "Silver Wedding" at the Moscow Art Theater, "Wall" in "Sovremennik", "Article" in TsATSA, "Speak!" in the Theater named after M. N. Yermolova, "Quote" and "Braking in Heaven" in the Theater named after the Moscow City Council, etc. - these acutely social performances reflected the changes in the life of the country. A serious fact of enriching the repertoire of theaters was the return to the stage of the works of Soviet classics withdrawn from the cultural heritage of the country. Many theaters staged The Suicide by N. R. Erdman, The Heart of a Dog after Bulgakov; A.P. Platonov’s play “14 Red Huts” received a stage birth on the stage of the Saratov Drama Theater named after K. Marx. The desire to restore unfairly forgotten names, to return to the viewer the values ​​that make up the golden fund of our culture, is the most important feature of theatrical life in the 80s.

Masters of the Soviet multinational stage united in unions of theatrical figures (see Creative unions of theatrical figures). A theatrical experiment was widely carried out, designed to renew the outdated system of organizational and creative forms of our theater for its fruitful development. Conditions were created for a broad studio movement that covered many regions of the Soviet Union. The Friendship of Peoples Theater organized in Moscow (artistic director E. R. Simonov) regularly introduces the audience to the best performances of the Soviet multinational theater. So, during the festival "Theatre 88", organized by the USSR Union of Theater Workers, performances were shown: the Moscow Drama and Comedy Theater on Taganka ("Boris Godunov" by A. S. Pushkin), the Lithuanian Youth Theater ("Square" by V. Eliseeva), Saratov Drama Theater named after K. Marx (“Crimson Island” by Bulgakov), Kaunas Drama Theater (“Golgotha” according to Aitmatov), ​​Estonian Puppet Theater (“A Midsummer Night’s Dream” by Shakespeare), Kiev Theater named after I. Franko (“Visit of the Old Lady » F. Durrenmatt), the Uzbek Drama Theater "Yesh Guard" ("Tricks of Maysara" by Khamza), etc.

The Soviet multinational theater played a significant role in the spiritual life of society, developing the humanistic traditions of culture, bringing together the creativity of nations and nationalities.

Introduction

Chapter 1. The main milestones in the history of the Soviet theater in the post-revolutionary period

1 Leading creative trends in the development of the Soviet theater in the 1920s-1930s.

2 Theatrical innovation and its role in the development of Soviet art

3 A new viewer of the Soviet theater: the problems of adapting the old and preparing a new repertoire

Chapter 2

1 Soviet theater in the ideological system of the new government: role and tasks

2 A. V. Lunacharsky as a theorist and ideologist of the Soviet theater

3 Political censorship of theatrical repertoire

Conclusion

List of sources used

List of used literature

Introduction

The first post-revolutionary decades became a very important period for the formation of the new Soviet theater. The social and political structure of society has changed radically. Culture and art - theater, literature, painting, architecture - sensitively responded to changes in the social structure. New trends, styles and directions appeared. The avant-garde flourished in the 1920s. Outstanding directors V. E. Meyerhold, A. Ya. Tairov, E. B. Vakhtangov made their creative discoveries on the new stages of St. Petersburg and Moscow. The Alexandrinsky and Maly theaters continued the traditions of Russian drama. Searches in line with the psychological theater went to the Moscow Art Theater under the direction of K. S. Stanislavsky. By the end of 1920 - the beginning of the 1930s. this period has come to an end. There was an era of totalitarianism with its ideological press and total censorship. However, in the 1930s theater in the Soviet Union continued an active creative life, talented directors and actors appeared, interesting original performances were staged on important, modern and classical subjects.

Relevance. Studying the cultural life of society, one can get an idea of ​​the general historical background of the period under study, trace the social and political changes that took place in the first decades of the formation of the new Soviet power. Theater under the influence of revolutionary events is undergoing significant changes. Theatrical art begins to serve the interests and needs of the new government, turns into another tool of mass ideological education. IN modern society similar situations can occur when the government subjugates the elements of spiritual culture, through which it propagates the ideology it needs, and tries to create the social views it needs. Consequently, the processes of the relationship between politics and culture have not lost their relevance until now.

The purpose of the final qualifying work: to consider the first decades of the existence and development of the Soviet theater in a historical perspective.

To achieve this goal, it is necessary to solve the following tasks:

to present the development of the Soviet theater in the 1920s-1930s. within the framework of the general historical process and socio-political phenomena that took place in the specified period in our country;

note the features of the 1920s as a period of serious upsurge in theatrical art;

consider and characterize the figure of A. Lunacharsky as a leading figure and theorist of culture of this era;

trace the relationship between art and ideology, as well as find out what trends appeared in the history of the theater in the 1930s in connection with the censorship and political press.

Object of study: Soviet theater as one of the key components of Russian culture of this period.

Subject of study: the development of Soviet theatrical art in the first post-revolutionary decades under the conditions of a new political system, under the influence of ideology and censorship.

The methodological basis of the work is the principle of historicism, historical-comparative and historical-systemic approaches, as well as the principle of objectivity, which allow us to analyze and take into account all possible factors influencing the development of the Soviet theater in this period, and to consider the situation in a specific historical situation. In this work, we use not only methods characteristic of historical science, but also an interdisciplinary approach that allows us to apply the methods and approaches of studying a number of other humanities, namely cultural studies, art history, theater studies, historical and cultural anthropology, political science, social psychology.

The scientific novelty of the study is determined by the need to analyze and summarize a wide range of publications on the history of the Soviet theater published in recent decades in Russia and abroad.

The chronological framework of the study covers the period from 1917 to the present. to 1941 The lower limit is determined by turning, revolutionary events. In November 1917 a decree was issued on the transfer of theaters to the department of arts of the People's Commissariat of Education, from that moment a new stage in the development of Soviet theatrical art began. We define the upper limit as a turning point for Russian history in 1941.

The territorial scope of this work covers the borders of the RSFSR within the 1920-30s.

Source review. The following types of sources were used in the work: legislative (decrees, etc.) acts, journalism, sources of personal origin, periodicals.

The most important historical document of any society is legislation that fully regulates the activities of state and public organizations. Legislative acts require a thorough and objective analysis, their study requires certain techniques in order to most fully reveal the content, meaning and features. The scheme of analysis in general looks like this: firstly, it is necessary to try to reconstruct the process of creating this act; secondly, to analyze the content of the act; third, view the practical application, the implementation of the act.

During this period, the number of official documentation especially increased. The Bolsheviks, paying tribute to the French Revolution, in their manner began to call documents issued by the supreme power, declarations, decrees. But declarations soon ceased to be issued, and decrees became the main legislative document of the Soviet government. Decrees of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks and the Central Committee of the CPSU also belong to this period.

Of paramount importance for us are the published documents under the direction of A. Z. Yufit, which contain the most significant sources on the history of the Soviet theater. A valuable source is also a collection of documents on Soviet political censorship.

Journalism, as we know, expresses the opinion of a certain social group. There is a rather conditional classification of journalistic works: author's journalistic works; journalism of mass popular movements; projects of state reforms and constitutions. We will attribute the works of A. V. Lunacharsky to the author's works, but it must be borne in mind that he, being a representative of the authorities, could not bypass matters relating to state reforms. A. V. Lunacharsky, giving public lectures to the people and publishing numerous articles, explained the cultural policy of Narompros, of which he was a representative.

It should be noted that A. V. Lunacharsky left a very significant literary legacy, writing a large number of articles, essays and books on various issues of the development of Soviet culture and art. We will use some of them in our study. The publication of such articles, memoirs, lectures, and theoretical studies is an invaluable source that allows one to delve into the essence of Anatoly Vasilyevich's views and trace the formation of his ideas about the development of the theatrical process in Soviet Russia. In the works devoted to the theater, A. V. Lunacharsky appears as a true connoisseur and connoisseur of theatrical art. He did everything to preserve and pass on to his descendants the achievements of world culture.

The works of theater workers of that period constitute an extensive material for study. Sources of personal origin help to establish interpersonal, communicative connections. These include diaries, private correspondence (epistolary sources), memoirs-autobiographies, memoirs - "modern stories", essays, confessions. When studying such sources, one must keep in mind that they are very subjective, focused on the future, so their authors tend to give importance to their figure, embellish their activities, often selecting only profitable information. To such works we will refer the memoirs of the Soviet theater critic and theorist P. A. Markov, actor and director E. B.

The periodical press serves to form public opinion and provide feedback, and the means to achieve the goal is the dissemination of information. There are three varieties of this genre: newspapers, magazines, time-based publications of scientific societies. In this work, we will mainly use logs. In 1921-1927. happened sharp increase amount of theater journalism. Never before in the history of our country have there been so many periodicals dedicated to the performing arts. It should be noted that the theatrical press abandoned the newspaper form of publication. Since 1923 only magazines were published, but they also served as newspapers. The published material in one issue of the journal was not inferior in terms of informativeness to the weekly volume of newspaper materials. The magazines were divided into publications of Soviet institutions managing theaters (a group of official periodicals), intra-theater, trade union and private publications.

The use of this material allows you to more fully immerse yourself in the topic and consider it in more detail, because. each article is usually devoted to a narrow aspect of creativity, a separate production or connection of a creative person with contemporary trends in art or other cultural figures.

Here it is necessary to mention the journal "Bulletin of the Theater" (1919-1921, the official organ of the TEO), on the pages of which questions of the theory of performing arts, as well as state issues on the management of theaters, were discussed.

Historiographic review. Historiography of works on the formation of the Soviet theater in the 1920-1930s. very extensive. It includes a number of studies by famous historians, theater critics, biographers, as well as a significant amount of memoirs and art history literature. In this work, we will divide historiography into Soviet, modern Russian and foreign.

It must be borne in mind that Soviet historiography, devoted to the cultural aspect of the post-revolutionary period, is partly politicized, which requires the reader to be careful when perceiving the assessments of the facts presented and the significance of the events of theatrical life. But, of course, we will consider and analyze the rich material accumulated by Soviet researchers. Much attention in Soviet historiography was paid to productions, personalities, and the main events of the theatrical world, through which researchers showed the social life of that time. By studying such works, one can get a fairly vivid idea of ​​how people lived in the newly formed state, what worried them, what they were interested in. Gradually, in Soviet historiography, there is an interest in the relationship between ideology and culture. A special place is occupied by works showing how power, with the help of economic and political mechanisms, influenced the way of thinking and views of the most intelligent and educated people, who were always forced to “look back” at the “party line” and take it into account in their writings, here we can name the works of a prominent figure Soviet theater critic A. Z. Yufit and theater critic D. I. Zolotnitsky. As a result, we can say that the works published in the Soviet period on the development of the theater and its interaction with the authorities are very numerous and are of paramount importance for researchers of this issue. They reflect the theatrical realities of the 1920-1930s as accurately and in detail as possible.

In recent decades, there has been a great interest in national history and culture. Modern historical science is distinguished by a variety of approaches and assessments, the use of a pluralistic methodological basis. At this stage, there is a very wide range of research problems. It should be noted that some features of Soviet historiography are preserved, with great emphasis on the political aspect of the problem and economic development. The theatrical process must be analyzed in the context of the development of culture and art in general. When studying the era of the formation of the Soviet theater, one must take into account the significance of the concepts and trends that were fundamental to the era. Therefore, much attention is paid to key historical and cultural events and trends of the period under review. In the post-Soviet era, the study of the influence of politics and ideology on art has become widespread. The fundamental work that continues this topic was the work of the modern theater historian V. S. Zhidkov. Questions of the power of culture are raised in the work of B.I. Kolonitsky. The author focuses on the political culture of Russia during the period of revolutionary processes in 1917. Kolonitsky shows the process of the formation of new state symbols and paraphernalia, the influence of culture on the formation of Soviet political consciousness. In general, the works written by modern Russian researchers are characterized by the use of a wide source base based on official documents, periodicals and memoirs, which made it possible to expand empirical knowledge about early Soviet history. These works are quite objective and consider a broad aspect of the cultural life of Soviet society.

Of course, we cannot ignore foreign historiography. Foreign researchers showed great interest in the development of our country in the post-revolutionary decades. In his work, Professor of the University of Marburg S. Plaggenborg considers not economic and political changes, but the worldview and way of life of people. The German researcher M. Rolfa studies the formation of Soviet cultural standards through mass holidays. He interprets them as conduits of powerful ideas, as a way of manipulating people's minds and, at the same time, as a form of communication, the development of which was facilitated by the activities of experts, the first of whom was A.V. Lunacharsky.

The American historian S. Fitzpatrick reveals the nature of the Soviet system, the problems of public sentiment in various social strata of the population. The cultural and political conditions of the 20s, the attitude of power to cultural figures are analyzed in the works of K. Aimermacher, R. Pipes, N. Tumarkin. Basically, these works are complex, here in general the revolutionary history, culture, public mood and worldview of Soviet society are considered. Foreign historiography had a significant impact on the further development of domestic science.

Summing up the historiographic review presented in the study, it is worth noting that the problem of the development of the Soviet theater at the moment has been studied in sufficient detail in the works of Soviet, modern Russian and foreign researchers. It is also necessary to pay attention to a wide range of works on various aspects of cultural life. In the works of most authors, the socio-cultural and political interaction of art and power is considered, where culture is a form of agitation and propaganda. In other studies, questions of an art history nature are studied, and there are also a lot of works devoted to individuals whose activities are directly related to the Soviet theater.

This work consists of two chapters, introduction, conclusion, list of references and scientific literature.

In the first chapter, in chronological order, a general overview of the development of the Soviet theater in this era is given, key names and events are named, innovative theatrical trends are considered and creative directions developed by directors and theater workers are described, and the differences between the new Soviet audience and its requirements for art are revealed. .

In the second chapter, we pay attention to the historically most important topic of the influence of ideology on Soviet culture in general and on the theater in particular. Here we turn to the iconic figure of the era, A. V. Lunacharsky, and consider the issue of political censorship of the theatrical repertoire.

soviet theater lunacharsky

Chapter 1. The main milestones in the history of the Soviet theater in the post-revolutionary period 1.1. Leading creative trends in the development of the Soviet theater in the 1920s-1930s.

The revolution of 1917 completely changed the whole way of life in Russia, completely different trends appeared in the development of art in general and, of course, in the theater too. Without exaggeration, this time was the beginning of a new stage in the theatrical life of our country.

The political leaders of the Soviet state realized the importance cultural development in a newly formed country. As for the theatrical sphere, everything was organized here immediately after the Revolution: on November 9, 1917, a decree was issued by the Council of People's Commissars on the transfer of all Russian theaters to the art department of the State Commission for Education, which soon became the People's Commissariat for Education. The Soviet government chose "the path of organizational, purposeful influence on the art of the theater by state bodies of public education." The Decree determined the importance of theatrical art as one of the critical factors"Communist Education and Enlightenment of the People". Note that after October 1917, V.I. Lenin repeatedly visited the Bolshoi, Maly and Art Theaters.

In January 1918, the Theater Department of the People's Commissariat of Education was established, which was responsible for the general management of theater in the RSFSR.

Two years later, on August 26, 1919, V.I. Lenin signed another decree - "On the unification of theatrical business", which announced the complete nationalization of theaters. Such actions were in line with global plans to transfer all enterprises in the country, including those involved in the field of culture and leisure, to state ownership. For the first time in the history of our country, private theaters ceased to exist. There were pros and cons to this phenomenon. The main disadvantage was the dependence of the creative thought of the directors and the repertoire on the decision of the leadership and on the ideological attitudes that largely regulated art. True, this trend became apparent a little later, while in the 1920s the theater was still developing quite freely, innovative searches were taking place, completely original productions were being carried out, and various trends in art - realism - found their place on different stages in the work of directors. , constructivism, symbolism, etc.

After the Revolution, the largest, leading theaters received the status of academic theaters (the Bolshoi and Maly theaters, the Moscow Art Theater, Alexandria Theater and etc.). Now they reported directly to the people's commissar of education, enjoyed extensive artistic rights and an advantage in financing, although, according to the people's commissar of education, very little was spent on academic theaters, only 1/5 of what was spent under the tsar. In 1919, the Maly Theater in Moscow became academic, in 1920 - the Moscow Art Theater (MKhT) and Alexandrinsky, which was renamed the Petrograd State Academic Drama Theater. In the 1920s, despite the difficult period of the formation of the state, the most difficult economic and political situation in the country, new theaters began to open, which indicates creative activity in the theater world. “The theater turned out to be the most stable element of Russian cultural life. The theaters remained in their premises, and no one robbed or destroyed them. Artists used to get together and work there, and they continued to do so; the tradition of government subsidies remained in place. “Astonishing as it may seem, Russian dramatic and operatic art has passed unscathed through all the storms and upheavals and is alive to this day. It turned out that over forty performances are given every day in Petrograd, we found about the same thing in Moscow, ”wrote the English science fiction writer G. Wells, who visited our country at that time. So, only in Moscow over the years appeared the 3rd Studio of the Moscow Art Theater (1920), which was later renamed the Theater. Vakhtangov; Theater of the Revolution (1922), which then became the Theater. Mayakovsky; Theatre. MGSPS (1922), now - Theater. Moscow City Council. The Bolshoi Drama Theater (1919) and the Theater of Young Spectators (1922), which still exist today, were opened in Petrograd. On December 22, 1917, the Belarusian Soviet Theater was opened in Minsk, at the end of 1917 the first Uzbek theater was created in Ferghana, and this happened throughout the country. Theaters were created in autonomous republics and regions. On November 7, 1918, the first children's theater. Its organizer and leader was Natalia Sats, who later received the title of People's Artist of the RSFSR. She was the chief director of a unique children's musical theater that still exists today.

In addition to professional theaters, amateur theaters began to develop actively. So, in 1923, a theater called the Blue Blouse was opened in Moscow, the founder was Boris Yuzhanin, a journalist and cultural figure. This theater was distinguished by the fact that the artists did not change into costumes for each performance, but performed all the time in the same blue blouses. In addition, they themselves wrote the lyrics for the skits and songs they performed. This style has gained immense popularity. By the end of the 1920s, there were about a thousand such groups in Soviet Russia. Many of them employed non-professional actors. Basically, they devoted their activities to the creation of performances and programs dedicated to the theme of building a young Soviet state. Also in the second half of the 1920s, the first theaters of working youth appeared - "trams", on the basis of which the Theaters of the Lenin Komsomol were born.

At the Third Congress of the RCP(b) in 1923, it was decided to "raise in practical form the question of using the theater for the systematic mass propaganda of the struggle for communism." Cultural and theatrical figures, fulfilling the "state order" and acting in the spirit of the times, actively developed the direction of the areal mass theater with elements of agitation and mystery style. The theater workers who accepted the revolution were looking for new forms of theatrical spectacle. Thus was born the theater of mass action.

The new theatrical art required a completely different approach to staging a performance, updated imagery and expressive means. At this time, productions began to appear that were shown not on ordinary stages, but on the streets, stadiums, which made it possible to make the audience much more massive. Also, the new style made it possible to involve the audience themselves in action, to captivate them with what is happening, to make them empathize with ideas and events.

A vivid example of such spectacles is "The Capture of the Winter Palace" - a performance that took place on the third anniversary of the Revolution on November 7, 1920 in Petrograd. It was a grandiose large-scale performance that told about very recent revolutionary days that have already gone down in history (dir. A. Kugel, N. Petrov, N. Evreinov). This spectacle did not just play historical events in a theatrical form, it was intended to evoke a response and completely specific emotions in the audience - an inner uplift, empathy, a surge of patriotism and faith in the beautiful future of the new Soviet Russia. It is interesting that the performance was shown on the Palace Square, where the events of 1917 actually took place. An unusual number of artists, extras, musicians took part in the performance - only ten thousand people, and a hundred thousand spectators, a record for that era, saw it. It was the time of the civil war, and “the propaganda and political theater actively participated in the common struggle of the people for a new, happy life.

In addition, in this genre were staged in Petrograd "Action about the Third International" (1919), "The Mystery of Emancipated Labor", "Towards the World Commune" (all - 1920); in Moscow - "Pantomime of the Great Revolution" (1918); in Voronezh - "Praise of the Revolution" (1918); in Irkutsk - "The Struggle of Labor and Capital" (1921) and others. Even the titles of these mass theatrical performances speak of their timely content, innovative content, plot basis and form.

Among the new original spectacular forms, one should also mention "the theaters of Proletkult, soldiers' theatres, propaganda theaters, Live Newspaper - this is not a complete list of theatrical groups that arose in those years."

D. I. Zolotnitsky wrote: “...such theaters formed important common features of the mass art of their time. Here, improvisation experiments, self-preparation of plays and entire programs, prompt responses to questions and events of the day, deliberate directness of influence, bordering on primitiveness, a tribute to the street “game”, stage, and circus meant a lot. The theater of the times of "war communism" willingly drew expressive means in the stream folk art and with a broad hand returned what had been created to the people.

It should be noted that not only the organizational structure of the theaters and their state subordination has changed. A whole new audience has emerged. Theatrical performances began to be attended by those who had previously seen only street performances and fair booths. These were ordinary workers, peasants who settled in cities, soldiers and sailors. In addition, even during the Civil War, entire theater groups and some of the largest actors traveled to workers' clubs, to villages, to the fronts, popularizing this art among the common population, which a few years ago was elitist.

In general, this period in art and in the theater in particular was very difficult. Despite the appearance that art has completely embarked on a “new track”, began to actively perform the functions of a political and social mouthpiece, operating with completely new, relevant topics that are interesting to the mass audience, there were also retrograde moods. This view of things was actively supported by theatrical literature of the Soviet era. Unsuitable themes and plots were forgotten, art took a new path. But in fact, both the audience, and the directors, and the ideologists of the theater of those years were the same people who lived in the Russian Empire before 1917, and they could not all change their views, interests and beliefs at the same time. Artists (as, indeed, the entire population of the country) took opposite positions of supporters and opponents of the revolution. Not all those who remained in the Soviet Union immediately and unconditionally accepted the changed state structure and the updated concept of cultural development. Many of them aspired to continue on the traditional path. They were not ready to give up their views and concepts. On the other hand, "the excitement of a social experiment aimed at building a new society was accompanied by the artistic excitement of experimental art, the rejection of the cultural experience of the past."

D. I. Zolotnitsky notes: “Not immediately and not suddenly, overcoming the skills of the past and the difficulties of the external conditions of life, people of creativity, old and young, recognized and unrecognized, went over to the side of the Soviet government. They determined their place in the new life not by speeches and declarations, but above all by creativity. Blok's The Twelve, Mayakovsky's and Meyerhold's Mystery Buff, Altman's portrait Leniniana were among the first real values ​​of revolutionary art.

V. E. Meyerhold belonged to the figures of the Soviet theater who enthusiastically accepted the change in the socio-political situation and saw in it ways to renew art. In 1920, the First Theater of the RSFSR was opened in Moscow, which was directed by this director. One of the best performances of this theater was "Mystery Buff" based on the play by V. Mayakovsky, which embodied both the current revolutionary theme and the aesthetic search for a new theatrical art. Heading the "left front" of art, V. E. Meyerhold published a whole program called "Theatrical October", in which he proclaimed "the complete destruction of the old art and the creation of a new art on its ruins." The theatrical figure P. A. Markov wrote about this: “The announced “Theatrical October” had an exciting and irresistible effect on us. In it we found an outlet for all our vague searches. For all the inconsistency of this slogan, it contained a lot that corresponded to the time, era, heroism of people who overcame hunger, cold, devastation with their work, and we almost did not notice the simplification of the complexity of tasks contained in this slogan.

It is rather paradoxical that it was Meyerhold who became the ideologist of this direction, because before the Revolution he was focused on studying the traditions of the past and on classical theater in general. At the same time, he became an exemplary figure from the point of view of how a new historical era “gave birth” to new artists who were ready for all kinds of creative experiments and changes, it was after the October Revolution that he created his best innovative productions.

The director's innovative ideas found stage expression within the framework of the activities of the Theater of the RSFSR 1st, created by him. On this famous stage, various new plays were staged on topical issues, including in the fashionable and topical genre of the “performance-rally”. Meyerhold was also interested in such classical works of literature, drama such as N. Gogol's The Inspector General and others. An experimenter by nature, he worked with completely diverse expressive means. In his productions, there was a place for stage conventions, grotesque, eccentricity, biomechanics, and, at the same time, classical theatrical techniques. Destroying the boundaries between the viewer and the stage, the audience and the actors, he often transferred part of the action directly to the auditorium. In addition, Meyerhold belonged to the opponents of the traditional "scene-box". In addition to the means of scenography and costumes, the director used film frames that were completely unusual for those times, which were shown on the "backdrop", as well as unusual constructivist elements.

In the mid-20s, the formation of a new Soviet drama began, which had a very serious impact on the development of all theatrical art as a whole. Among the major events of this period, we can mention the premiere of the play "Storm" based on the play by V. N. Bill-Belotserkovsky at the Theater. MGSPS, the production of "Lyubov Yarovaya" by K. A. Trenev at the Maly Theater, as well as "The Break" by playwright B. A. Lavrenev at the Theater. E. B. Vakhtangov and at the Bolshoi Drama Theater. Also, the play “Armored Train 14-69” by V.V. Ivanov on the stage of the Moscow Art Theater became resonant. At the same time, despite numerous recent trends, an important place in the repertoire of theaters was given to the classics. In academic theaters, leading directors made interesting attempts at a new reading of pre-revolutionary plays (for example, A. N. Ostrovsky’s “Hot Heart” at the Moscow Art Theater). Supporters of the "left" art also turned to classical subjects (we note "The Forest" by A. N. Ostrovsky and "The Government Inspector" by N. V. Gogol at the Meyerhold Theater).

One of the most talented directors of the era A. Ya. Tairov advocated for

refraction of topical themes in the staging of plays by the great classics

In February 1922, the theater-studio began its existence under the direction of E. B. Vakhtangov. In the era of the NEP, theaters, in an effort to attract a new audience (the so-called "Nepmen"), sought to stage plays of the "light genre" - fairy tales and vaudeville. In this vein, Vakhtangov staged a performance based on Gozzi's fairy tale "Princess Turandot", which has become immortal, where sharp social satire was hidden behind the outward lightness and comedy of situations. Actor and director Yu. A. Zavadsky recalled: “According to Vakhtangov’s plan, the play “Princess Turandot” was first of all addressed to the deep human essence of the viewer. He had great life-affirming power. That is why all those who saw the Turandot performances for the first time will keep them in their memory as a vital event, as something after which a person looks at himself and others differently, lives differently.

“If an artist wants to create the ‘new’, to create after it, the Revolution, has come, then he must create ‘together’ with the People,” Vakhtangov said.

In 1926, the premiere of Trenev's play Love Yarovaya took place at the Moscow Maly Theater, which became very popular in the following decades. This performance told about one of the episodes of the recently ended civil war, about the courage and heroism of the people.

In October 1926, the premiere of M. A. Bulgakov’s play “Days of the Turbins” took place at the Art Theater. The director of the production was K. S. Stanislavsky, the director was I. Ya. Sudakov. The play aroused the indignation of critics, who saw in it the justification of the Whites. “The sharpness and intransigence of most of the then reviews of the Days of the Turbins is partly due to the fact that the Artistic Theater was generally considered by the critics of the “left front” as a theater “bourgeois”, “alien to revolution”.

In the first post-revolutionary decade, the main rule that determined the success of both the audience and the authorities was precisely experimentation, the path of innovation and the embodiment of the most original ideas. At the same time, it was a time (the only decade in the entire existence of the USSR) when completely different styles and directions coexisted on the stages. For example, it was only during this period that one could see on different stages Meyerhold’s “futuristic politicized “performances-rallies”, Tairov’s refined, emphatically asocial psychologism, Vakhtangov’s “fantastic realism”, and young N. Sats’ experiments with performances for children, and the poetic biblical theater of Habima and the eccentric FEKS. It was a truly wonderful time for figures of theatrical art.

In parallel, there was also a traditional direction, which was broadcast by the Moscow Art Theater, the Maly Theater, Alexandrinsky. By the mid-1920s, the Moscow Art Theater became the most influential theater with its psychologism of the stage play (“Hot Heart” by A.N. Ostrovsky, “Days of the Turbins” by M.A. Bulgakov, 1926, “Crazy Day, or The Marriage of Figaro” by Beaumarchais, 1927) . The second generation of actors of the Moscow Art Theater announced itself loudly: A.K. Tarasova, O.N. Androvskaya, K.N.

Elanskaya, A.P. Zueva, N.P. Batalov, N.P. Khmelev, B.G. Dobronravov, B.N. Livanov, A.N. Gribov, M.M. Yashin and others. Developing on the basis of the method of socialist realism, the Soviet theater continued the best traditions of pre-revolutionary realistic art. But these theaters also developed in the spirit of modernity and staged performances in popular new styles - revolutionary and satirical - into their repertoire, but it was more difficult for these theaters during the period of emphasis on innovation than before the Revolution. An important role in the development of Soviet theatrical art continued to be played by the Stanislavsky system, created before 1917, designed to completely immerse the actor in what was happening, to achieve psychological authenticity.

The next period in the history of the Russian Soviet theater began in 1932. It was opened by the resolution of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks "On the restructuring of literary and artistic organizations." The time of creative searches and artistic experiments seemed to be in the past. But at the same time, talented directors and artists continued to work in Soviet theaters, who, despite censorship and political control over art, continued to create interesting productions and develop theatrical art. The problem now was that the ideology had significantly narrowed the boundaries of what was “allowed”—themes, images, works that could be used, and options for interpreting them. The approval of artistic councils and authorities received mainly performances of a realistic direction. What a few years ago was perceived with a bang by both critics and spectators - symbolism, constructivism, minimalism - was now condemned for tendentiousness, formalism. Nevertheless, the theater of the first half of the 30s impresses with its artistic diversity, the courage of director's decisions, the true flowering of acting, in which famous masters and young, very diverse artists competed.

In the 1930s, the Soviet theater significantly enriched its repertoire by including dramatic works of Russian and Western European classics. It was then that performances were created that brought fame to the Soviet theater as the deepest interpreter of the work of the great English writer Shakespeare: Romeo and Juliet at the Revolution Theater (1934), Othello at the Maly Theater, King Lear at GOSET (1935), Macbeth ". Also, this period was marked by a mass appeal of theaters to the figure of M. Gorky, who was not so interesting to directors before the Revolution. The combination of socio - political and personally - emotional themes was simply doomed to success. At the same time, they possessed, in addition to the qualities necessary from the point of view of ideology, remarkable artistic merits. Such plays are "Egor Bulychov and Others", "Vassa Zheleznova", "Enemies".

It is important to understand that during this period, a criterion that did not exist before for evaluating any work of art appeared: ideological-thematic. In this regard, we can recall such a phenomenon in the Soviet theater of the 1930s as the performances of the "Leninians", in which V. Lenin appeared not as a real person, but as some kind of epic historical character. Such productions performed rather social and political functions, although they could be interesting, filled and creatively. These include “A Man with a Gun” (Vakhtangov Theatre), where the wonderful actor B. Shchukin played the role of Lenin, as well as “Pravda” in the Theater of the Revolution, M. Strauch played the role of Lenin.

Still the 1930s. somewhat tragically reflected in Russian culture. Many talented people, including the figures of the Russian theater, were repressed. But the development of the theater did not stop, new talents appeared who, unlike the representatives of the older generation, knew how to live in new political conditions and managed to “manoeuvre”, embodying their own creative ideas and acting within the framework of censorship. New director names appeared on the leading theater stages of Leningrad and Moscow in the 1930s: A. Popov, Yu. Zavadsky, R. Simonov, B. Zakhava, A. Dikiy, N. Okhlopkov, L. Vivien, N. Akimov, N. Gerchakov, M. Knebel, and others.

In addition, talented, educated, original directors worked in other cities of the Soviet Union. Here it is necessary to note an important fact connected with the development of culture in the Soviet era. If before the revolution the province lived quite simply, there were practically no cultural centers outside of St. Petersburg and Moscow (the exception was Nizhny Novgorod and several other cities), then in the post-revolutionary period, the country's leadership set the task of bringing the entire population of the country to a new cultural level. The level of education grew everywhere, public libraries, schools, and, of course, theaters began to appear.

The 1930s gave the country a new generation of actors. These were the artists already new formation, who were educated in the Soviet era. They had no need to relearn from the old stereotypes, they organically felt themselves in the performances of the new, modern repertoire. In the Moscow Art Theater, along with such luminaries as O. Knipper-Chekhova, V. Kachalov, L. Leonidov, I. Moskvin, M. Tarkhanov, N. Khmelev, B. Dobronravov, O. Androvskaya, A. Tarasova, K. Elanskaya, M. Prudkin and others. Actors and directors of the Moscow Art Theater School - I. Bersenev, S. Birman, S. Giatsintova - worked with great success at the Moscow Theater of the Lenin Komsomol (former TRAM). Artists of the older generation A. Yablochkina, V. Massalitinova, V. Ryzhova, A. Ostuzhev, P. Sadovsky continued their creative activity in the Maly Theater; young actors took a prominent place next to them: V. Pashennaya, E. Gogoleva, M. Zharov, N. Annenkov, M. Tsarev, I. Ilyinsky (one of the most popular actors this period, which began with Meyerhold).

In the former Alexandrinsky Theatre, which in 1937 was named after A. Pushkin, the highest creative level was still maintained thanks to such famous old masters as E. Korchagina-Aleksandrovskaya, B. Gorin-Goryainov, Yu. Yuriev, I. Pevtsov. Together with them, new talents appeared on the stage - N. Rashevskaya, E. Karyakina, E. Wolf-Israel, N. Cherkasov. On the stage of the Vakhtangov Theater one could see such talented actors as B. Shchukin, A. Orochko, Ts. Mansurova. They were not inferior to them in terms of the creative level of the theater troupes. Moscow City Council (former MGSPS and MOSPS), where V. Maretskaya, N. Mordvinov, O. Abdulov played, Theater of the Revolution, Theater. Meyerhold (M. Babanova, M. Astangov, D. Orlov, Yu. Glizer, S. Martinson, E. Garin worked here). Most of these names are inscribed in the history of the theater today and are included in encyclopedias.

Let us note one quantitative indicator: by the mid-1930s, the number of actors in the USSR had increased fivefold compared to 1918. This fact suggests that the number of theaters (and professional educational institutions) grew steadily, new drama and musical theaters were opened in all cities of the country, which were very popular among all segments of the country's population. The theater developed, enriched with new forms and ideas. Outstanding directors staged grandiose performances, talented actors era.

2 Theatrical innovation and its role in the development of Soviet art

The October Revolution evoked inspiration and faith in a real future, removing social barriers to education, culture, and creative self-expression. Art was filled with new ideals and new subjects. The revolutionary struggle, the civil war, the change in the social structure, public life, the beginning of a completely different historical stage, the formation of the "Soviet" type of personality became the main themes in art.

The creative intelligentsia of Russia, for the most part, perceived the events of 1917 as the beginning of a new era not only in the history of the country, but also in art: “Lenin turned the whole country upside down - just like I do in my paintings,” Marc Chagall wrote then also a commissar for art at the Lunacharsky People's Commissariat of Education.

How did those who created it see the path of the new theatrical art? For example, so enthusiastically, but quite in the spirit of the time - the director and theorist Zavadsky spoke about this: “We look around us - life is rapidly developing, beautiful features of a new, Soviet person are emerging. But next to this beauty lives the ugly: rudeness, arrogance, bribery, dudes, speculators, thieves, townsfolk and vulgar people who insult our lives. And we do not want to put up with their existence! Our devotion to the great super-task obliges us to be irreconcilable. Raise and praise the light, castigate the dark, fall upon it with Gogol's passion. Remember his words about our great satirists? "The fire of lyrical indignation ignited the merciless power of their mockery." Yes, rage, fire, inspiration - all these manifestations of classical Russian creativity - should be our strength today, our military weapon.

Today these words seem to us pretentious, too agitational, exaggeratedly ardent. But in reality, the art of the theater of the 1920s - early 1930s. was truly imbued with this ardor, the desire to create new ideals, to demonstrate how life in the country is changing for the better, to show on stage a renewed, more morally perfect person.

From a conceptual point of view, this was undoubtedly an innovation, because. pre-revolutionary theater (as well as literature) was much more focused on the inner world of a person, the sphere of personal relationships and gravitated towards everyday and family topics. At the same time, and within the framework of such topics, it was possible to touch upon the highest and global life issues, but the Soviet theater needed a slightly different selection of plots and an approach to their implementation.

What was it about? The ideology broadcast new values ​​that were actively (including through theatrical productions) introduced into society and "inculcated" in Soviet people. The personal began to be considered secondary and insignificant in comparison with the collective. A person had to give all his strength to the construction of a new state. And the theatre, first based on the sincere belief in this idea of ​​cultural figures, and then on a strict political setting, offered the viewer this idea in different styles and productions. Without a doubt, “the workers' and peasants' state considered the theater an important area for the education of the people. The Bolshevik Party saw the theater as a conductor of its influence on the masses. The construction of a new culture became a matter of national concern.”

In addition, the changing life of the state and society, all political and social realities also required a new approach to staging classical works, which was enthusiastically received by modern directors.

It is obvious that after the Revolution, the theater went in many ways along a different path than its previous development suggested. However, it is important to understand that the transition “to the new rails” took place gradually, although there were such irreconcilable experimenters and innovators among the directors who perceived this period as a real breath of fresh air, which allowed them to create performances in hitherto unseen styles and forms.

But this was not always the case. Many figures did not immediately, but gradually came to the understanding that new themes, plots should be embodied in the theater, new genres should appear. Examining the early history of the Soviet theater, Zolotnitsky wrote: “It would be a departure from historical truth to present the matter as if every single theater, every single theatrical figure accepted the revolution enthusiastically, instantly understood and realized that the auditorium had become different and already different requirements for he brings art with him. The path of the old theaters in the revolution was tortuous; these theaters were imbued with the ideas of socialism only under the influence of difficult experience life, only in the final analysis, and not immediately and not suddenly.

At the same time, it is important to understand (which did not always resonate with the “builders” of the revolutionary theater) that traditionalism should not be opposed to innovation, as something outdated, alien to the new Soviet art and not having the right to stage life. In fact, the traditions of the past, created over more than two centuries of the existence of a professional Russian theater, had to be preserved, acquiring some other features and style. This was understood by such leading figures of the era as K. Stanislavsky and A. Lunacharsky and their most perspicacious contemporaries. The total destruction of the old was unacceptable for art, in which all innovations always grow on the foundation of experience and traditions. “We are working systematically, we are working in such a way that the proletariat will not throw us a reproach later that we have ruined and destroyed enormous values ​​without asking it at a moment when, under all the conditions of its life, it could not pronounce its own judgment about them. We work in such a way as not to compromise the coming proletarian art, by means of official patronage, uplifting it and giving it too large dimensions to the detriment of it, while it has only just begun to grope for its content and basic forms of its expression "- this position was taken by the People's Commissar of Education .

In the first post-revolutionary years, A. Lunacharsky did a lot to preserve the imperial theaters - the Moscow Art Theater, Alexandrinsky, Bolshoi, Mariinsky, although many believed that everything old should be destroyed, because. The "salon" art that was shown on these stages will not be able to find a place for itself in the new reality. The extraordinary intellect, education and authority of A. Lunacharsky helped to avoid this irreversible development of events. He quite convincingly and, as the history of the whole subsequent century showed, absolutely correctly explained why in the brave new world it is necessary to find a place for theaters that existed before 1917. “Representatives of workers often come to me with various theatrical demands. Tov. Bukharin would probably be surprised at the fact that not once did the workers demand from me to increase access to them for the revolutionary theater, but on the other hand, endlessly often they demand opera and ... ballet. Maybe comrade. Would Bukharin be upset by this? This upsets me a little. I know that propaganda and agitation go on as usual, but if you take your whole life with propaganda and agitation, then it will get boring. I know that then the ominous cries that can be heard sometimes will become more frequent: "heard, tired, talk."

Also in his thoughts, which relate directly to the period of interest to us, A. Lunacharsky wrote: theaters with their old craftsmanship; untimely, firstly, because the position on the need to build a further proletarian culture on the basis of the assimilation of the cultural achievements of the past has now been accepted by everyone; secondly, because, as will be seen from what follows, theaters in general are beginning to turn towards social realism, which makes many recognize how important it was to preserve the best centers of theatrical realism until our time; and thirdly, and finally, because I myself, who fought a lot for the preservation of these theaters, find that now there is already too little preservation, and that the time has come when these academic theaters must move forward.

Zavadsky thought in the same vein: “Guided by the tasks of the future, we must overcome the imaginary, false opposition of genuine traditions and innovation. There are traditions and traditions. There are traditions that have become handicraft borrowing from year to year, repeating stereotyped, stage decisions, techniques, clichés that have lost touch with life, and there are traditions that we protect and honor as a sacred relay race. Traditions are, as it were, yesterday of our art, innovation is movement into its tomorrow. The yesterday of the Soviet theater is not only Stanislavsky, it is Pushkin and Gogol, it is Shchepkin and Ostrovsky, it is Tolstoy, Chekhov and Gorky. This is everything advanced, the best in our literature, music, theatre, this is the great Russian art.

As a result, the traditional theater has retained its position (although it has suffered many attacks from adherents of "breaking the old world"). At the same time, innovative ideas in the 1920s were more actively developed than ever. As a result, if we talk about the theatrical art of the 1920s-1930s, and, more globally, about the artistic culture of that era, two leading trends can be distinguished: traditionalism and avant-garde.

In the history of culture, this time (not only in our country) is perceived precisely as an era of various creative searches, the embodiment in painting, music, theater of the most unexpected and seemingly absurd ideas and an extraordinary flowering of original ideas and fantasy. In addition, the 1920s were marked by a real struggle of various theatrical styles and trends, each of which achieved serious artistic achievements and presented a number of talented productions.

From a generalized point of view, the name "avant-garde" was given to a number of artistic movements that combined the ideas, aspirations and creative methods of many artists of the first quarter of the twentieth century. For these artists, the key was the desire for total renewal. artistic practice, as well as the break of the new art with its traditional patterns and with all the traditions and principles that seemed unshakable. There was a search for completely original both in form and content of expressive means, as well as concepts of works (whether it be painting, sculpture, literature or theater), which would convey a new type of relationship between a person and the outside world.

The main trends that independently existed within the avant-garde include cubism, fauvism, suprematism, abstract art, expressionism, futurism, dadaism, constructivism, as well as "metaphysical" painting, surrealism, " naive art". Most of these trends, one way or another, came into contact with the theater and manifested themselves in innovative productions of these years.

It should be noted that the beginning of the 20th century was an era that is mainly reflected in historical literature as a time of extraordinary development of literature and painting, but other areas, including the theater, were fruitfully developing at that time on the general “wave” of the new avant-garde art.

The theater rightfully occupies a special place in the culture of the Russian avant-garde. The crossroads of all the arts, the theater accumulated the experiences of the avant-garde in various types of artistic activity and, for its part, had a strong influence on them. The history of the Russian avant-garde would look much poorer if it did not contain many works generated by one or another stage direction - dramaturgy, opera and ballet music, scenography, theater architecture. The first thing that characterizes the art of the avant-garde is a pronounced experimental principle and the assertion of innovation as an end in itself of creativity. It cannot be said that the aesthetic experiment was completely absent in the art of previous eras, but it did not have the same significance that it received in the 20th century.

The attitude towards the “invention of creativity” can be traced in one way or another in all the artists of the Russian avant-garde. Experimental poetry and prose of the Symbolists (Vyacheslav Ivanov, Andrey Bely, Alexei Remizov and others), experimental word-creation of the Futurists (Velimir Khlebnikov, Alexei Kruchenykh), Meyerhold's "theatre of quest". In the Russian avant-garde of the second period, which began after 1917, the aesthetic experiment naturally merged with the social experiment. The early experiences of the theatrical avant-garde coincided with the emergence of a new type of theatre, the director's theatre, which gave the director broad artistic powers. Unbound by stage traditions and school, which had not yet been developed in relation to the art of directing, the director had the greatest freedom of aesthetic choice and was more open to artistic experiment than other people in the theater. Therefore, the director became a key figure in the theatrical avant-garde. If it weren't for him, if he didn't appear on stage as the creator of the performance, the innovations of the avant-garde could bypass the theater. In the initial period of the director's theater, several directions of its development were determined. One of them, connected with K. S. Stanislavsky and the Art Theater, relied on the realistic school of acting, inherited from the 19th century. The theatrical avant-garde claimed an alternative direction.

An important moment for the art of theater has taken place: the directors (and, more broadly, all the creators of the performance) have ceased to perceive the performance as their own property, a kind of intimate act of creativity that speaks only about what is important and interesting to its creator. Now the performance was seen as a kind of social event that speaks of what matters to everyone around, and in which the masses themselves, for whom it is intended, can be involved. Accordingly, there was an increased interest in actions, public events, rallies, etc., and the status of the spectator also changed a lot - from an observer, he often became an active participant in the action.

Also, the artists of the era experienced a craving for the fusion of various types of art. For example, in the scenery design of V. Meyerhold's performances, there was a place for constructivism, which, it would seem, was a self-sufficient phenomenon in art, quite far from the theatrical stage.

On the third anniversary of the Revolution in Petrograd, the drama "Dawns" staged by V. Meyerhold and V. Bebutov was shown, which became one of the significant events in the history of the theater of the 1920s. It embodied in reality the experience of transforming the canons of theatricality, there was an interweaving of stage art with the dynamics of real post-revolutionary life.

Another trend was embodied in the work of the association of real art - OBERIU, which advocated the rejection of the integrity of the play (and any work for the theater) and the search for non-traditional forms interaction between director and playwright. D. Kharms, I. Bekhterev, A. Vvedensky belonged to this direction. They were the first to use alogisms and the poetics of the absurd, which became a common phenomenon in European drama in the mid-twentieth century.

An interesting genre of literary compilation became popular at that time. It consisted in independent comprehension by the authors of the performance and an expressive combination of various materials within the framework of a certain idea: newspaper clippings, news reports, fragments of texts of works of art. The director Yakhontov worked in this genre, he staged the one-man show "On the Death of Lenin" (1924) and the historical composition "War" (1929).

In 1922, the famous performance "The Magnanimous Cuckold" by the Belgian writer F. Krommelink appeared. In it, V. Meyerhold took the path of innovative decoration. He abandoned the wings and various props that specified the situation (only those objects that the playwright himself prescribed in his play were involved), opened the grate, i.e. strove to create a conditional atmosphere, to reach some other expressive level. As you know, Lunacharsky sharply criticized this production in Izvestia, he placed a brief criticism. “I already consider the play itself a mockery of a man, a woman, love and jealousy, a mockery, excuse me, vilely underlined theater.” However, despite such a surge of anger, Lunacharsky had no doubt that life would correct the mistakes of the talented director Meyerhold and force him to return to artistic realism.

In his next performance, The Death of Tarelkin, together with the artist V. Stepanova, V. Meyerhold, with great invention and his own vision, embodied a new artistic solution, which was based on the effect of using objects of the same color scheme and matching in shape with interior items. So constructivism and the new avant-garde art found their place in theatrical reality.

In The Earth on End, Meyerhold brought a crane and real mechanisms and tools onto the stage. In addition, a special screen was used, on which phrases and slogans from the performance were displayed, which was a real innovation.

Theater figures actively collaborated with the world of avant-garde painting. For example, director A. Tairov made a number of joint productions with the Stenberg brothers, G. Yakulov. Many painters worked with interest as theater artists.

The period of the late 1920s - early 1930s in the history of the national theater arouses great interest in the professional theater stage. At that time, there was a struggle of trends, each of which presented serious artistic achievements, in its own way reflecting how the views of artists and society on the ways of artistic expression in the performing arts were polarized. Classical dramaturgy was often saturated with sharp and topical political allusions and themes, the action could be transferred to the auditorium and had to be close and understandable to those sitting in it. But at the same time, a number of creative figures tried to abandon the politicization of art, to ignore the influence of ideology and historical events, trying to keep the existing theatrical traditions unchanged. This time was a turning point, when the old and the new collided in many ways and the active search new themes and forms of theatrical art that would meet the realities of the new era. In parallel with the creative searches of apolitical artists and in spite of their desire, the theater gradually turned into an agitational means of agitation and began to work as a key link in the propaganda system.

Of great interest is not only what fundamental internal trends were traced in the theater art, but also how theatrical management and regulation developed, which we will discuss in detail in the next chapter. The new style of cultural management also affected the theatrical sphere, being regulated by current political realities. In the management of the theatrical process, serious attention was now paid not only to their administration, financing and general management. The new government monitored the observance of political guidelines, the correct reflection of revolutionary events, as well as the correctness of productions on classical subjects. Artistic directors and chief directors needed to look back at the politics and ideology of power. Decree of the Council of People's Commissars of the RSFSR "On the improvement of theatrical business" of October 17, 1930 states that the theaters no longer meet the increased demands of the working masses, do not fulfill the tasks of socialist construction. In this regard, it is necessary to change “the existing practice of theatrical work. Theaters should direct their work towards serving the working areas in cities and industrial centers, as well as the socialized sector. Agriculture". It also spoke about the need for the growth of Soviet drama and its approximation to the requirements of socialist construction.

It is necessary to show considerable interest in all these questions and pay attention to them in order to correctly understand the course of the historical process in the Soviet theater of the era under study.

The 1930s did not support the pioneering pursuits of the previous decade. Art "leaned" towards the path of traditionalism and socialist realism, as the most reliable direction from an ideological point of view, which did not give as many reasons for controversy as the extraordinary searches and ideas that found their embodiment in the 1920s. Nevertheless, everything that E. Vakhtangov, V. Meyerhold, A. Tairov and others did did not disappear along with the departure of these figures from the historical stage and left its mark on the entire subsequent development of theatrical art.

Art historian N. Vasyuchenko writes: “The origins of what was later called the method of socialist realism already existed in the 1920s, but this was just one of many existing views on the new art. The metamorphosis of the 1930s is that this particular method became not only the leading one, but the only one possible in Soviet art.”

The formulation of the concept of "socialist realism" and its principles were not the fruit of the work of creative people, but were born among the officials of the Soviet party apparatus, who were tasked with creating the style of the new Soviet art. Then the approved concepts were brought to the attention of a select part of the creative intelligentsia at closed meetings, meetings, briefings, and then went to print. As a result, the features of the style, abbreviated as social realism, took shape, the purpose of which was to create a wonderful myth about the “bright path” of the new society and the new person. For the first time the term "socialist realism" itself appeared on May 29, 1932 on the pages of Literaturnaya Gazeta. In the editorial "Get to work!" wrote: "The masses demand sincerity from artists, revolutionary socialist realism in the depiction of the proletarian revolution."

In the early 1930s, a decisive turn took place that determined the further development of Soviet art. During these years, the state apparatus for managing art and all its directions was structured and formalized. In 1936 a number of performances were banned. For example, "Bogatyrs" based on the play by Demyan Bedny in the Chamber Theater of A. Tairov. The ardent Bolshevik P. Kerzhentsev, who headed the Committee on Art Affairs, lashed out with sharp criticism, calling the work "... pseudo-folk, anti-people, distorting the folk epic, distorting the history of the people, false in its political tendencies" . The plays by M. Bulgakov "Moliere" at the Art Theater, "The Death of Tarelkin" staged by A. Diky at the Maly Theater were unreasonably filmed.

The relationship between politics, party power and new attitudes in the field of art logically leads to the main principle of Soviet artistic ideology - the principle of "party" art, "which required the artist to look at reality through the eyes of the party and depict reality not in its flat empiricism, but in the ideal its "revolutionary" (according to Zhdanov) development towards the great goal.

In the field of art in the 1930s. the authorities monitored signs of dissent and free-thinking. Literature was heavily attacked, the writers were accused of not writing for the masses, unnaturally and with very intricate plots. The theater was required to show real stories on the stage, to avoid allegories and any symbols that could be interpreted in two ways and thereby confuse the minds of the audience. The design of the productions had to be specific, reproduce the everyday atmosphere, and not go into the field of futuristic or constructivist experiments. “The theater of the first half of the 1930s impresses with its artistic diversity, the boldness of directorial decisions, the true flowering of acting, in which renowned masters and young, very diverse artists competed. The richness and diversity of the Soviet theater of that time was especially noticeable, because different styles, genres, the art of the brightest creative individuals were embodied in diverse and organic national forms.

Theatrical art sought to embody the new ideals that were promoted in the socialist society. Art was imbued with the desire to create new demanded forms. This was a period of bright creative experiments, and the upholding of the classical repertoire.

3 A new viewer of the Soviet theater: the problems of adapting the old and preparing a new repertoire

The specificity of the performing arts determines the existence of the performance only by the moment when it takes place directly in front of the viewer's eyes. Therefore, the “living” world of the theater is so important to interact with the audience, the mood and composition of which each time influences both a specific performance and, more broadly, the development of this type of art. For the actors and the director, it is absolutely not indifferent what audience comes to their performances, how they react to what is happening on the stage and what kind of spectacle they crave.

The thesis about the formation of a certain “new spectator” became widespread in the history of the Russian theater after the revolutionary events of 1917: “Of all the many elements that make up the complex body of modern professional theater, only one has changed in connection with the revolution: the spectator.” At first glance, this statement may seem too categorical, but it was true, and later many cultural figures and theater observers drew attention to this phenomenon.

The public thought of the Soviet period unequivocally asserted that after 1917 the theater halls were filled with the “popular masses”, full of a thirst for beauty, who finally got the opportunity to come into contact with high art. However, a lot of evidence has also been preserved that shows that the situation was not so unambiguous and at first did not always positively influence the theatrical process. There have been many cases where new audiences, simple and unprepared in the aesthetic sense, have indeed fallen under the enchanting power of theatrical art, but the opposite has also happened. From mouth to mouth, in various interpretations, the standard phrase migrated: "After October, theaters that previously belonged only to the elite opened their doors wide to the people." At the same time, there is no metaphor in this maxim, it is a simple statement of fact. In tsarist Russia, not all performances and not all theaters could be accessed by an ordinary spectator by buying a ticket at the box office. And even more so, such an audience was not allowed in the stalls or boxes. Today's concept of "face control" was extremely successfully used in pre-revolutionary practice. In the Soviet Union, a completely different attitude appeared - art for the masses. In addition, for a while, entrance to theaters was even made free of charge in order to attract as many people as possible. There was a practice of allocating seats in academic theaters among the workers.

So gradually interested people and those who were looking for opportunities to somehow spend their leisure time began to go to theaters. Many years later, one of the closest acquaintances of V. Meyerhold wrote about his Theater of the RSFSR 1st: “The doors of this theater did not know the ushers. They were wide open, and the winter blizzard sometimes climbed into the foyer and corridors of the theater, forcing visitors to turn up the collars of their coats.

Many years later, Konstantin Sergeevich Stanislavsky recalled: “... we found ourselves in a helpless state at the sight of the hulk that swept over the theater. But the heart beat anxiously and joyfully at the realization of the enormous importance of the mission that fell to our lot.<...>The first time after the revolution, the audience in the theater was mixed: rich and poor, intelligent and non-intelligent. Teachers, students, female students, cab drivers, janitors, petty employees of various institutions, sweepers, drivers, conductors, workers, maids, military men. That is, the audience became more motley, and non-workers dominated the hall, judging by their place in the director's list.

Unaccustomed to theatrical spectacles and unfamiliar with classical literature, the public with great interest (but not always with understanding) joined the riches of world drama, among which were plays by Lope de Vega, W. Shakespeare, J. Molière, F. Schiller, A. Griboedov, N. Gogol, A. Ostrovsky, A. Chekhov, M. Gorky. However, interest and enthusiasm alone was not always enough; many cultural experiences required a significant foundation of knowledge and previous spectator experience, which new Soviet theatergoers most often did not have. These audiences were not always ready for serious dramaturgy, for the themes raised by the directors, as well as for the conventions of theatrical reality and atmosphere and ways of presenting the material.

The most understandable and congenial for the public at that moment were topical and topical performances in which the heroes of the past acted, rebelling against tyranny. The slogans and texts sounded from the stage, romanticized, imbued with the spirit of the liberation struggle, received enthusiastic support from the audience, who felt their involvement in such topics and in the new socio-political process. In 1919, on the initiative of M. Gorky and A. Blok, the Bolshoi Drama Theater was opened in Petrograd, which they called "the theater of tragedy, romantic drama and high comedy." The bold monologues of the Marquis Posa, who raised his voice of protest against the bloody king of medieval Spain, Philip II (Schiller's Don Carlos), sounded from its stage in the academic performance of Yuryev. Unexpectedly, this historical performance aroused great enthusiasm among the public and was watched with real understanding. At the same time, the hero of A. Tolstoy's tragedy "The Posadnik", a wise and staunch defender of the people's freemen of Novgorod, surrounded by enemies, proudly appeared on the stage of the country's oldest Moscow Maly Theater.

Immediately after the White Guards were expelled from Kiev in 1919, the famous director K. Mardzhanov staged Lope de Vega's heroic drama The Spring of Sheep (Fuente Ovehuna) on the stage of the Kyiv Russian Theater. This performance was very in tune with the era, because. in it, as an echo of the recently ended battles of the civil war, the theme of the people's struggle for freedom was raised. It is not surprising that the audience - the common people and the soldiers of the Red Army who were preparing to leave for the front - were so enthusiastic that they began to sing the "Internationale". “... it seemed to us that we were ready to go to fight against Europe all the way to Spain. For us soldiers, it was an absolutely extraordinary sight. We saw that in the performance all difficulties are overcome and covered with a great sense of civic duty, great civic thought, and when we left the theater we knew that this performance had renewed us, we were dirty, it had washed us, we were hungry, it he fed us, and we knew that we were ready to fight and would fight, ”this wonderful production made such an impression on the playwright V.V. Vishnevsky.

The stage turned into a political tribune, captured by "the stormy, beating spring flood, coming out of all its banks with the meeting democracy of the working masses." These words sound pretentious, but the era of the total destruction of the old world and the way of thinking really contained such pathos. In addition, among the creators of the first, often creatively and literary immature plays about the revolution and the new world order, there were many people who had no direct relation to the theater and art in general - among them there were soldiers fascinated by revolutionary ideas, as well as employees of the agitation "front" and political workers. Already in the early years of the Soviet era, the political leaders of the country understood the possibilities of the theater in the field of influencing the public consciousness and used plays on the necessary plots for agitation. The most talented of them included, for example, V. Bill-Belotserkovsky, V. Vishnevsky, who later became the largest Soviet playwrights. However, most of them remained unknown.

Often the propaganda theater staged its productions right on the city squares, its performers, along with the actors, were Red Army soldiers. Created by the people themselves, largely imperfect, propaganda performances were the origins of the Soviet professional theater, its "combat" youth. However, not everything was so simple. A simple spectator often readily chose the circus between the theater and the circus. Or he was interested in an amateur theater, where the level of performances was simpler and closer to a simple layman.

It should be noted that in the drama theater the unprepared audience showed unexpected reactions. In his memoirs, K. Stanislavsky noted that in the first years after the Revolution, despite the fact that the social level and status of the public had significantly decreased, “the performances were held in a crowded hall, with intense attention of the viewer, with deathly silence of those present and noisy applause at the end of the performance. .<...>The essence of the plays in our repertoire was unconsciously perceived by the new audience. But after some time, the theater staff had to get used to the unconventional behavior of the new audience both in the hall, where it showed unexpected reactions during the most artistic action, and in off-stage circumstances - in the foyer, buffet, wardrobe.

A lot of historical evidence has been preserved, which, saying that the audience - "neophytes" could burst out laughing in completely seemingly inappropriate episodes of the action. Or they could not react at all where the playwright and director were counting on certain spectator emotions - approval, gaiety or indignation. Stanislavsky recalled: “... Our performances were held with<... >intense attention of the viewer.<...>True, for some reason some places did not reach, did not evoke the usual responses and laughter from the audience, but others, quite unexpectedly for us, were accepted by the new audience, and its laughter suggested to the actor the comedy hidden under the text, which for some reason had eluded us before.<...>We didn't know why the new viewer didn't accept certain parts of the play and how we could adapt to get them to his feelings." The situation was similar both in the capitals and on the periphery. For example, in Murom at the Theater. Lunacharsky's performance based on the play by E. Verhaarn "Dawns" paradoxically evoked in the audience not a rise in revolutionary enthusiasm, but absolutely unthinkable laughter. And at the Bolshoi Drama Theater in Petrograd, in the scene of the death of the protagonist Franz in F. Schiller's play The Robbers, the audience laughed, not plunged into sadness. And these are by no means the only examples.

Undoubtedly, the concepts of interaction between the stage and the hall, formed over two centuries and which seemed very stable, have undergone significant deformations. The new audience offered sometimes illogical, but almost always unexpected, incomprehensible to many theater workers and therefore frightening reactions and a look at classical plots and themes. As a result of such spontaneous viewer reactions, society was informed about the emergence of a new audience and that it had completely new needs and ideas about the simplest topics and things than the viewer had some ten years ago. It was a challenge for theater workers. They needed to bridge the gap between old values ​​and new realities. It was necessary to overcome oneself and look for new ways in art so that the stage and the renovated hall would speak the same language. Both in plasticity and in the psychology of the actor, who belongs to the former realistic school and relies on high classical examples.

The theater workers had to not only realize the value of this new theatrical audience, but also develop a new scheme and methods for the ideas and thoughts expressed from the stage to resonate. For this, new actual stage vocabulary and ways of presenting the material were needed. Those theater workers who felt better than others what tasks the new art faced, participated in the work of various commissions, symposiums and government organizations, who formulated and "lowered" for general use theoretical and practical guidelines, according to which all the theaters of the country, without exception, should exist, in order to be attractive and understandable to the public. Theorists and methodologists of art from the theatrical section of the State Academy of Artistic Sciences (GAKhN) actively helped the theater workers in this matter. “Within the framework of the Theater Section, a special Commission for the Study of the Spectator was allocated, at whose meetings from 1922 to 1928 directors, sociologists, critics, and theater experts read about two dozen reports in which they tried to answer the burning questions of modern theatrical business.” The desires of the public were studied with the help of various questionnaires, behind-the-scenes excursions, which were given great importance, and discussions of performances were held, where each viewer could express their opinion about what they saw.

Chapter 2

1 Soviet theater in the ideological system of the new government: role and tasks

The new art of the Soviet theater was intended to serve as an additional tool for propagating the party ideology. Naturally, the development of this art form in the first decades could not take place without significant changes in the organizational structure and content.

At the same time, art sought to preserve its original tasks, i.e. to be a means of broadcasting certain artistic concepts and a platform for artists (directors, directors, actors) to implement their creative ideas. However, under the new political conditions, this activity ceased to be completely independent and determined only by the aspirations and desires of theater workers and spectators. Now it had to develop in parallel with the interests of the authorities and the ideological restrictions they built.

A small period of “relaxation” in this sense was the era of the NEP, which on the whole does not quite fit into the concept of the Soviet state, at which time capitalist elements appeared. Theaters had to be converted to self-sufficiency, they passed into the hands of entrepreneurs. The stage was actively developing (cabaret, cafe-shantany, etc.), relative freedom was possible creative expression in all forms of art and in the theater, including. The 1925/26 season was a kind of cultural upsurge, the use of accumulated experience played a role. There were premieres of The End of Krivorylsk by B. S. Romashov at the Theater of Revolution, Pugachevshchina by K. A. Trenev, Poison by A. V. Lunacharsky at the Leningrad Academic Drama Theater, Mutiny by B. A. Lavrenev at the Bolshoi Drama Theater, as well as "Storm" by N. V. Bill-Belotserkovsky at the Theater. MGSPI and "Hot Heart" by A. N. Ostrovsky in the Moscow Art Theater.

But by the end of the 1920s, art was enslaved by various regulations and controlling organizations, and to a large extent became a means of propaganda. By 1927, the situation in the theater in the country had noticeably stabilized, and the party began to discuss the problem of performing arts. XIII All-Russian The Congress of Soviets stated "Gradual increase in art of social content and social and educational elements" . In 1929, after the adoption of the first five-year plan, the task was to make cultural construction "a means of attracting the broad masses of the people to the practical construction of socialism."

By studying and analyzing such a serious means of influencing mass consciousness as the art of theater, we get the opportunity not only to penetrate the history of culture, but also to better understand the complex and not always obvious social processes that were associated with the total breaking of the old foundations and the reorganization of all components. the spiritual life of our country during the formation of Soviet Russia up to the formation and consolidation of the totalitarian system of the 1930s-1950s.

Historian A. Zudin writes about the Soviet ideology in the field of culture: “the worldview system underlying the new culture was not intended to answer “eternal”, “existential” questions (“about the meaning of life”, “life and death ”, “good and evil”, about the ratio of “beautiful” and “good”). No serious dialogue with total ideology is possible.<...> Classic version Soviet culture had a certain set of "vital receptors", but was unable to develop adequate responses when faced with new questions.

Real creative personalities, such as A. Tairov, K. Stanislavsky, N. Okhlopkov, fought with all their might to express certain universal truths in their performances, ask important philosophical questions, raise eternal topics, but they could not help but experience the influence of the "party line" and ideology. Various commissions and artistic councils scrupulously studied how this or that director approached the topic, even if classical plays by N. Ostrovsky or A. Chekhov were staged. Any ambiguity, indirect reference or allusion to prohibited topics was immediately eliminated. The production could be removed or the authors could be recommended to reconsider their views on its interpretation and implementation. Of course, in such conditions it was simply impossible to remain an absolutely free artist. And far from every master could veil his ideas and present them under the “sauce” that was necessary and pleasing to the authorities. It is natural that revolutionary plots often came to the fore, which, as we wrote above, really inspired many theater workers. Here the aspirations of the authorities and the interests of the directors coincided and sometimes gave unusual and extremely impressive creative results. But more often, dependence on the “state order” led to a crisis in creative thought and the “emasculation” of theatrical art.

In connection with the revolutionary transformation that took place in the state and public structures, specific processes naturally began to occur in the sphere of culture, which gave rise to new organizational forms and ways of artistic expression. Having acquired a new look under these conditions, theatrical art opened up new opportunities for the participation of the individual in social and cultural life. This was expressed, first of all, in the flourishing of amateur theatrical creativity, which became more and more massive. In addition, the professional theater was looking for ways out of the current situation of complete ideological control. New Soviet playwrights began to come to the fore, who created works that did not contradict the attitudes of the authorities and society, the production of which did not require any special ways of understanding and adapting to be transferred to the stage. But, nevertheless, an important place on the stages of the country remained for the classics, which were staged in a politically correct manner.

In general, the theater was given a very important place in social life new society. Zudin rightly asserts: “Totalitarian ideology does not just impose itself on society. The sacralization of secular values ​​is based on a special psychological mechanism. The collapse of the familiar social order accompanied by the collapse and devaluation of the historically established cultural hierarchy. A person experiences an urgent need to find guidelines that would make it possible to find meaning in what is happening. "Faith", i.e. turning off rational dialogue is often the only way to maintain internal balance. Imagine how important the ideas and slogans sounded from the stage acquired, which allowed ordinary people - the new audience - to find a foothold in life, build a certain conceptual view of the world, form their attitude to reality, being deprived of such habitual and unshakable 10 more 15 years ago life's landmarks were both monarchy and religion. Here the role of theater, like cinema, was almost indispensable.

Taking into account the educational value of various types of art, and the theater, including how they can affect the internal state of a person and his spiritual world, aesthetic and moral values, in any reform in the field of theatrical art, the emphasis should be on the accumulated over the years and sometimes centuries of historical experience. Only such an approach can allow the development of theatrical art to continue while maintaining its best traditions and openness to new artistic achievements.

The years opened the way for the total “Sovietization” of theaters, which was directly related to the advent and establishment of post-revolutionary literature and drama, which developed the canons and norms for a correct understanding and creative reflection of the trends and transformations that took place in the country.

In those transformations that the Bolsheviks carried out in the cultural sphere, there was not only a pronounced revolutionary character, but there was also a qualitative difference between what was happening in art (not only in the theater) from what was happening both in pre-revolutionary Russia and in other states. A real “cultural revolution” took place, a completely new type of politics conditioned by historical events took shape, thanks to which the conditions and content of the spiritual culture of Soviet society were predetermined. The main content of this cultural revolution"consisted in the approval of the ideology of socialism as the basis of the social life of the Soviet person, as well as in the global democratization of society and all areas of its social and cultural life. Both education and art were “democratized”, the possibilities of public education were widely promoted, which would allow each person to have a certain cultural level and corresponding cultural values, which were to be created with the direct participation of the citizens themselves.

Cultural policy of Soviet Russia in the 1920s. turned out to be significantly influenced by those theoretical ideas and ideas of the country's political leaders about how a new culture should be built, and what role and tasks it will have to perform. All this took place in an atmosphere of military and ideological confrontation during the Civil War, as well as in an atmosphere of social and cultural split that characterized Russian society in the pre-revolutionary years.

However, party leaders initially understood the importance of control over culture and art, so they devoted a lot of effort to improving the structure and system of leadership in this area. Thus, the Proletkult, organized after the Revolution, began to occupy the most important place since 1917, which became the prototype of all subsequent organizations that controlled culture in the Soviet Union. The greatest scope of the proletarian movement came in 1919, when almost half a million people participated in it, about 20 magazines were published.

Unfortunately, serious tension was observed in relations between the intelligentsia and the Soviet government. Most of the writers, artists, theater workers, who began their creative career before the Revolution, had difficulty accepting the new order, although among them there were a sufficient number of those who met these historical events with great enthusiasm, expecting democratic and social transformations that were important for the people.

In the mid-1920s, there was an understanding of what main tasks were assigned to the People's Commissariat for Education as a key conductor of state policy in the field of culture, art and all types of artistic creativity. These guidelines were formulated by A. Lunacharsky during a meeting with representatives of the All-Russian Union of Artists. He urged to preserve the aesthetic and creative developments and values ​​of the art of past eras, but at the same time to focus on the fact that they were critically mastered by the proletarian masses; to contribute fully to the formation of new experimental forms of Soviet art; use all available types and forms of art as a "mouthpiece" for the propaganda of communist ideas and for conveying them through the activities of artists to the broad masses; objectively perceive and relate to the diversity of existing artistic movements; promote the democratization of all cultural institutions and increase their accessibility and attractiveness to all segments of the population.

Despite the strong administrative pressure, the 1920s were still marked by the creative search of cultural figures. The central place in Soviet culture and themes of works of art was occupied by the so-called “heroic tribal time” (the time of the birth of the communist regime) and the events associated with it (the October Revolution and the Civil War). At the same time, the positive (as well as negative) characters of the "heroic time" corresponded to the strict official canon. The "white" officer was supposed to be an enemy of the people and an oppressor, the "red" soldier - a hero and a fighter for freedom. This example allows a good understanding of the concept of Soviet power in relation to culture: there can be no two views on the same object, idea, event. The Party sets the guidelines for what is right and worthy of chanting, what is wrong and worthy of only reproach. Dialectics in art became a real sin and crime.

A number of stable themes and plots appeared, which were positioned as the most relevant, recommended for disclosure in all types of art and most positively perceived by the authorities and official instances. These included everything related to demonstrating loyalty to the Communist Party and its leader, the theme of patriotism and love for the motherland, topics related to the opposition of the warm, sincere relationships of a Soviet person with family, close and emphasized ruthlessness to "class" and other enemies. Particular attention can be paid to the epithets that have acquired a special meaning and frequency of use - they included "fortitude", "fidelity", "loyalty", "inflexibility", etc. At the same time, on its own currently lost its independent value in the ideas of cultural ideologists, now it was perceived to a large extent as a continuation and reflection of the heroic times of the Revolution, the Civil War and the acute socio-political struggle.

Researcher Shalaeva N.V. notes: “A theatrical play acquired the character of a verbalized organization of reality, reflected in correctly chosen and pronounced words and in visual visualization of word-images. The theater contributed to the formation of the necessary model of the world, historical and revolutionary ownership and social identity. A. V. Lunacharsky wrote about the need to leave a picture of time through plays. These were the tasks of both professional and amateur, folk theater, through the activities of which the functions of didactics, communication, education, agitation and propaganda, which were so important for the Soviet government, were realized. One of the fundamental ideas was the prevalence of the public over the personal. At the official level, individual existence and personal desires were given the last place in the scale of values ​​of the Soviet person. The very concept of "individuality" was denied significance and justification within the framework of culture and art. The life of each individual was given meaning only if it was considered in context and in relation to common "generic" categories and values. This trend met one of the main goals of totalitarianism and the reconstruction of the state system - the creation of a socially, culturally and mentally unified society, because. such a society is easier to manage and easier to subordinate to the political goals of the communist regime. Nevertheless, despite the efforts of the authorities, it turned out to be fundamentally impossible to fully achieve this goal and eliminate the cultural differentiation of society. Actively working to overcome and eliminate the old values ​​and mentality that created social stratification, Soviet culture simultaneously created its own "castes" with different aesthetic preferences, tastes and values. The "sacralization" of revolutionary and communist values ​​and the education of society to worship them, should have helped form a homogeneous society, in fact, it only made it possible to simplify cultural stratification.

In addition, Soviet historical science for several decades positioned the point of view that, in principle, culture and spiritual development Societies are of secondary importance in the life of the state, and therefore much more attention in science was paid to the study of politics, economics, and social processes that took place in the country in the 20th century. As a result, many achievements of the culture and art of the 1920s-1930s, and, accordingly, the art of the theater, remained little studied, not always correctly assessed and noticed, and the development of spiritual culture was deliberately studied little and incompletely. It would seem that the unified scheme of allowed topics and the path of socialist realism, which is the same for all forms and types of art, relieved historians of the need to pay attention to the specific manifestations of these trends. However, today we see that any society without the necessary cultural layer ceases to develop correctly, which can lead to many social problems. Modern historical and art history science is doing a lot to study the theatrical process of the 1920-1930s and identify how it creative achievements, and weaknesses associated precisely with the dependence of the art of the era on politics and ideology.

Today we understand the importance of studying the processes that took place in the field of theater as one of the key components of Soviet culture and their relationship with the ideology of the state. Shalaeva N. V. described the essence of these phenomena in the following way: “the theatrical sphere was the most favorable, accessible and effective in terms of the power of influencing the consciousness of the masses, contributing to the formation of canons and models of a new life, the formation of revolutionary mythology and Soviet mentality. The synthetic nature of the theater contributed to the rapid perception of the ideas conveyed to the viewer. It was one of the most successful mechanisms for the representation of power, more often understandable and accessible to the viewer. That is why the authorities, on the one hand, actively contributed to the spread of theaters, and on the other hand, they sought to manage all processes in the theater business, demanding that they correspond to the tasks of the time in specific circumstances.

Development of the Soviet theater in 1920-1930s. It was determined by many factors, the main of which were revolutionary events and the prevailing importance of ideology in the Soviet state. The theater was given a very important place in the social life of the new society. Despite the regulation of the repertoire by the authorities, art sought to preserve its original tasks and best traditions, inspire deeds, give hope for a better future, and instill a sense of beauty.

2 A. V. Lunacharsky as a theorist and ideologist of the Soviet theater

A. V. Lunacharsky - the most prominent Russian publicist writer, art critic, playwright and public figure of the early twentieth century. He did a lot for the formation and development of the Soviet theater, in order to preserve its wonderful history and allow it to develop in new conditions. In addition, in the creative and social activities of Lunacharsky himself, theater and drama occupy an exceptional place. Already in his early youth, Anatoly Vasilyevich was fond of the theater. At the same time, having an extraordinary outlook, a desire for self-education and an interest in culture, he wrote about architecture and sculpture, painting and drama, music and theater, paying equal attention to the great heritage of the past and contemporary art.

Lunacharsky possessed the most valuable ability - using live, concrete examples to reveal large, generalizing problems, and often in a short article, in a review, even a note, he gave an in-depth analysis of the artistic phenomena of theater and art.

Thanks to his vast experience, authority, knowledge and sincere desire to help build the newly formed state, after the October Revolution, A. V. Lunacharsky was appointed People's Commissar of Education of the RSFSR. He stayed in this position from 1917 to 1929, having managed to do a lot for the development of the culture of the era. As part of his activities in this responsible position, he paid great attention to theater and dramaturgy, being not only a functionary and official, but also a theorist, theater practitioner and playwright, who produced many valuable and highly artistic works for the Soviet stage.

In 1919-1920, when there was an extremely sharp controversy in connection with questions of attitude to the classical heritage in art and numerous voices arose that doubted the need to preserve it, Lunacharsky strongly objected to nihilism and "rabid" denial of the old culture. On this occasion, he wrote in the article “The Soviet State and Art”: “... there is no such work of true art<...>which could be thrown out of human memory and should be considered as forbidden for a working person, heir to an old culture<. >you involuntarily become indignant when you notice that some conscious or unconscious demagogue who has not thought through to the end wants to obscure this great heritage from the eyes of the worker and peasant and convince him of the need to turn his eyes only to that still meager lamp that is lit in the region art in the last days.

A. V. Lunacharsky differed from many new figures of Soviet politics and culture not only in the scale of his creative personality, but also in the fact that even before the Revolution he was deeply involved in the cultural life of the country and in the theatrical process. His ability to see problems in perspective and in the form of a generalization allowed him to understand that the destruction of the pre-revolutionary theater and all its achievements would only bring harm, because. only the experience of the past will make the new art meaningful and creatively mature. It is only necessary to sweep away the unnecessary and use the valuable that appears only thanks to years and decades of development of the theater: this is an acting school, the experience of staging classical scenes, various training systems, etc.

The figures of the Soviet theater, who saw how the centuries-old theatrical tradition and the fate of many cultural figures "hangs in the balance", felt gratitude for the work of Lunacharsky in the field of explaining and upholding such seemingly obvious values.

The artistic director of the Maly Theater A. I. Yuzhin wrote to the President of the Academy of Arts P. S. Kogan in connection with the fiftieth anniversary of the birth of A. V. Lunacharsky “The Russian theater will never forget what A. V. Lunacharsky did for him in terrible conditions revolution, and much that has been preserved thanks to him and that has grown under him will be a monument to him stronger than copper. I have the right and reason to testify that there is no word of exaggeration in what I write about this noble saver and defender of the theatre.

Even when the situation changed and the attacks on the theater ceased, Anatoly Vasilyevich for many years had to constantly explain to less literate and often very militant reformers that it was historically illiterate to classify classical art, whether it be theater, literature or painting, as bourgeois or noble art. In a report read in 1925. at the Leningrad State Academic Drama Theatre, he proclaimed the first task of the People's Commissariat for Education to be to preserve the achievements of art. “For example, there are works such as A Life for the Tsar, where the ideas of the monarchy are defended in excellent music. What to do with this kind of work? They are undeniably harmful, especially in an era when there are elements vacillating between the proletariat and the old bourgeoisie, when such phenomena can seize upon and make them their banner. How to approach this? Of course, a cautious approach is required. If this work is of great cultural value, and the poison contained in it is a counter-revolutionary poison, or outdated, or generally weak, then it is better not to ban such things, but to use them in moderation with the addition of the necessary comments to help separate lentils from the tares."

Directly before the theater, A. Lunacharsky set the task of making dramatic art and ways of presenting it to intelligible and understandable masses. “...despite the fact that much of Pushkin, or Turgenev, or the Wanderers, or the Kuchka is alien and incomprehensible to the proletariat, but nevertheless it is ten times closer to them than the latest gizmos, because the proletariat there understands, and understands because that there is something to understand. Even before the Revolution, he was opposed to excessive aestheticism, pretentiousness, semantic and external sophistication in the presentation of theatrical material. In his ideas, he was largely based on Western European creative practice during its heyday, adapting it to the realities of Soviet reality. In this he succeeded significantly, his contribution to the development of Soviet culture and theater can hardly be overestimated. He constantly inquisitively worked on finding new ways for the independent and original development of the new theatrical art.

In general, Lunacharsky was one of the few cultural figures "from the authorities" who not only established commissions and supervisory bodies and thereby limited the ways and possibilities for the development of art, but in their practical activities, namely, in published and orally expressed on numerous official meetings, he offered the Soviet theater some interesting and possible development options within the framework of the Soviet ideology. He treated world literature with great reverence, which he knew perfectly well and believed that it was impossible to exclude the best examples of Western European dramaturgy and literary heritage from the theatrical repertoire. Thus, thanks to Lunacharsky, the repertoire of many academic theaters was preserved.

As a theater critic, he argued with contemporary directors, but approached their work, successes and failures, not from the point of view of the primacy of ideology, but first of all, evaluating the artistic and aesthetic merits of their productions.

A. V. Lunacharsky's wide awareness of art issues, his great erudition gave him the opportunity to be comprehensive. He did not join any of the literary or creative groups, did not narrow himself down to any artistic programs. He was not a traditionalist, although he advocated the preservation of the leading theater groups that existed before the Revolution. He was not an avant-garde artist, although he supported the artists of this direction. His task, rather, was to stay inside the creative processes taking place in the country, to see the ways of developing culture from the inside, with the view of a professional and "accomplice" of what is happening in the field of painting, literature, theater, etc. And he did a great job in this role.

A. Lunacharsky actively opposed his views to those who denied the possibility of independent paths of development and existence for Soviet culture, and to those who represented the extreme leftist trends in this very new culture. Constantly defending his position with evidence, A. Lunacharsky many times voiced what he "stands" for the breadth of artistic creativity and the possibility of self-expression of representatives of various trends and aesthetic trends. This is how he saw the path of proletarian art, which would combine both the pre-revolutionary heritage and the newest ideas and values.

During the first post-revolutionary years, A. Lunacharsky actively fought against a large group of supporters of "total proletarianization" (the so-called "proletarians") of all theatrical art. It was they who stood up for the liquidation of the theaters created before 1917, as representatives of the “bourgeois” culture alien to the new Soviet man, and for the creation of completely new “revolutionary propaganda” theaters on their ruins. Thanks to Lunacharsky, pre-revolutionary theaters were preserved, which received the status of "academic", on the stages of which classical plays continued to be staged. He later called them “a flexible organ that can respond to reality in the most excellent way. We are at the very beginning of the update. There are still few pieces of the new repertoire, but we can say: academic theaters are coming into life and, with the help of real virtuosos, begin to play new songs on their wonderful violins.

Speaking about the development of theatrical art, Lunacharsky wrote in 1920: “I affirm that the proletarian theater should most likely begin with the technique of the Maly Theater, just as it will begin music as soon as possible with imitation

Beethoven, painting - in imitation of the great masters of the Renaissance, sculpture - from the Hellenic tradition, etc. " . At the same time, Lunacharsky characterized the technique and style of the Maly Theater as "theatrical realism and partly romance", and considered the 40-60s to be the time of its best manifestation. XIX century. Being a really fine connoisseur in this area, the critic spoke about such important elements as the "stage elation" of the productions, the "beauty of gestures", the "beauty of diction", the clarity of types. All these things, seemingly alien to the new Soviet society and way of life, were in fact necessary for the theater, because. performances of different style, era of writing and themes required the possession of such conventions, only thanks to which the actor could be convincing and interesting in completely different roles. In addition, the depiction of revolutionary sailors or heroes of the civil war on stage required the same indispensable textbook professional skills from the performers.

Giving his comments on the “Decree on the Unification of Theater Work” issued in 1919, Lunacharsky offered his own explanations of the functions assigned to the theater in Soviet society and immediately proposed a new definition of the theater that should have been created in Russia: “A kind of folk institution for the artistic propaganda of life wisdom, given in the most pleasant, in the most fascinating form. This idea was perceived and used in a peculiar way, but in itself it was quite constructive.

The concept of separating the "content" and "form" of any work of art was legitimized, which had as its goal not any aesthetic transformation, but the promotion of an ideological criterion and an approach to assessing art as overwhelming all others. Glavpolitprosvet, which was an organization that disseminates and brings to general information the official point of view of the government and the party, in 1926 he published the materials of the corresponding "dispute", which were to become the main material and a guide to action for theatrical criticism that existed in the country. A red thread here can be read an idea that categorically does not correspond to the mentality and tradition of the Russian theater before the Revolution and the Soviet theater of the 1920s - 1930s. “We agree once and for all that for us in the theater the play is the basis, that is, the content, not the form,” said art critic R. Pelshe, who generally believed that this issue should not even be discussed and considered as a matter of course . A. Lunacharsky, who was given the floor at the debate immediately after R. Pelshe, did not argue with this seemingly absurd maxim. Reflecting on the idea of ​​the extraordinary importance of creating theatrical productions and realistic plays directly on contemporary themes and plots, he thought more about whether there were authors among his contemporaries who were able to create works that, in terms of artistic level, corresponded to the best examples of world and Russian literature and dramaturgy. At the same time, Lunacharsky actually came into conflict with the approved ideology, retaining his personal opinion on the issues of "form" and "content", and putting forward the thesis that stage experiments are possible within the framework of the old dramaturgy, that it does not have to be presented traditionally ( for example, that not all theaters should put on psychological plays in the same style as they are at the Maly Theatre). That is, allegorically, the people's commissar said that the form is no less important than the content and that one should not follow the path of R. Pelshe, or the path of V. Meyerhold, who "make a meatball out of any play"!

Paying attention to another component of the theatrical process - criticism, A. V. Lunacharsky showed his dissatisfaction with her state of the art. He wrote: “What kind of critics are they who cannot write a play, draw a scenery, stage a performance and perform? The magazine will do well if instead of this kind of “critics” it will simply have serious, prominent and conscious theatrical workers of various trends. Along with this, communists, Komsomol members and even pioneers will respond to productions; this will give more than any article of our critics, "specialists" in theatrical business. These lines were published in 1926. Their author entered into a conscious debate with many of his contemporaries for the sake of the most important goal - the viability of art. These reflections were in counterpoint with Markov's The Newest Theatrical Trends, Gvozdev's articles on Meyerhold, Vakhtangov's and Tairov's performances analyzed in detail, reviews of Hamlet, i.e. provided the basis for the development of critical thought. Lunacharsky paid special attention to the organization of workers' correspondents - Rabkor, which was organized to express the opinion of the working people and their opinion on theatrical productions. “The theater will not find such mouthpieces, such other transmission wires to the hearts of the masses as worker correspondents can be. Never even the most eloquent, well-written, well-versed specialist in theater criticism will be able to serve as a clear link to the large masses of the new audience as a worker correspondent. Therefore, Anatoly Vasilievich calls on work correspondents to constantly educate themselves, grow up and avoid harsh judgments, because they may simply not understand a lot.

Nevertheless, despite the breadth of views, Lunacharsky was politician, a Bolshevik who shared the views of the country's leaders, whose aesthetic convictions "were completely irreconcilable with the new, symbolist and post-symbolist art that broke the structure characteristic of the 19th century" . Under these conditions, many directions and styles that appeared within the theatrical avant-garde in the first Soviet decade were later condemned and eliminated from the Soviet stage. For example, the conditional theater of V. Meyerhold, the leading creative figure of the era, was interpreted as "bourgeois decadence." For the Bolshevik ideology, such a presentation of theatrical evolution and the place in it of the Meyerhold method, which was given by Lunacharsky, sounds completely “classical”: also its cinematic bias. Leaving aside the accidental revolutionary nature of the content, we can say this: the bourgeoisie in the West went from decadence, through cubo-futurism to Americanism. It was a process of outward healing that reflected the rise of bestial imperialism. Behind the idealistic, softened aestheticism, partly reflected by the Moscow Art Theater, came a semi-gymnastic, paradoxical, virtuoso aestheticism”89.

By the end of the 1920s, the “party line” was increasingly asserting itself, which demanded realistic plots and design of performances, plots that were revolutionary or related to the life of a new Soviet person, as well as the absence of dubious philosophical themes and ideas. Lunacharsky, of course, was primarily subordinate to the dominant ideology in the country. Being the People's Commissar of Education and belonging to political elite country, Lunacharsky consciously chose for himself functions that included close ties with politics. Undoubtedly, he supported the key ideas of the new state structure and the accompanying ideological attitudes. In this regard, he ardently supported the revolutionary theme in art, regulated the creation of state bodies that censored and controlled all types and forms of art in the country, although, of course, he hardly imagined what a terrible time the 1930s would turn out to be when the At the end of the 1920s, the ideological “machine” started to work in full force.

Despite the propaganda and political tendencies in culture and art, A. V. Lunacharsky sincerely worried that the scope of aesthetic propaganda would not come at the expense of lowering the criteria for choosing works that went to print or staged in the theater, as well as by reducing the skill of the performers. To this end, he saw it useful in the formation of exemplary traveling troupes and concert ensembles, a series of well-chosen exhibitions that give one or another system of artistic impressions. Similar traveling troupes, ensembles and sets of exhibitions should be created at each provincial political education. This idea was later accepted and helped to raise the general cultural level in the country.

Also, A. V. Lunacharsky understood the need for the speedy formation of a new Soviet creative intelligentsia from people who would organically feel themselves in the new political conditions and would not be burdened with the “baggage” of pre-revolutionary activities in the theater. But he was apprehensive about the decline in the level of dramaturgy (and literature in general) and the great influence of amateurism. Fortunately, by the end of the 1920s, the theater finally began to enrich itself with works Soviet authors quite worthy in their artistic level. Plays "Untilovsk" by L. Leonov, "Armored train 16-49" Sun. Ivanov, "Days of the Turbins" by M. Bulgakov, written on the basis of the novel "White Guard", "Esquanderers" by V. Kataev, wonderful works by Y. Olesha "Conspiracy of Feelings", "Three Fat Men", "Break" by B. Lavrenev and many others .

As a critic and theorist of art and theater, in particular, Lunacharsky attached great importance to the organization of "aesthetic propaganda". He offered to “accompany performances, concerts, excursions to museums with lectures and explanations, he actively participated in such events. He considered organized visits to performances and concerts to be especially useful, followed by discussion, so that the masses would learn to understand the historical, aesthetic, and psychological content of what they perceived. We need to teach the masses to read the book and understand what they read. This is the task of clubs, circles, individual educated communists, to whom readers can turn with their doubts. But the main role in this matter should be played by the school. It is also very important to supply books with Marxist prefaces and notes. In this part, too, no one has done as much as Lunacharsky himself.

On the whole, Anatoly Vasilyevich Lunacharsky remained the brightest positive figure of a public figure and leader in the field of culture in the 1920s-1930s in our country. He showed himself in various fields activities: in politics, culture, literature, criticism. Thanks to his phenomenal personal qualities and extraordinary education, he managed to balance on the line invisible to many public figures between the interests of the state and the interests of art. Being the People's Commissar of Education in an era when total enslavement of all types of creative activity began in Soviet Russia, he was able to do a lot to ensure that the creative work of his contemporaries - both beginners and recognized masters - found a place in the life of the Soviet country. Without his help, it would not have been possible to preserve pre-revolutionary theaters, to carry out a number of bold creative experiments, and new interesting names of artists, writers, and directors would not have appeared. Lunacharsky also motivated a number of interesting discussions, which during the first revolutionary decade still allowed for an adequate and interesting dialogue around new trends in art and their representatives.

3 Political censorship of theatrical repertoire

The Soviet government could not ignore the cultural life that shaped the worldview of society, so the party set clear boundaries within which the new Soviet culture was to develop and take shape. It carried out its functions with the help of party-state and censorship bodies.

First of all, let's define what exactly we mean by censorship. Historian T. M. Goryaeva suggests: “...by political censorship, we mean a system of actions and measures aimed at ensuring and serving the interests of the authorities, which is a structural and extra-structural activity that is not always provided by law and regulations.” In our case, to define the boundaries and fill this concept, the all-embracing nature of Soviet political censorship is important, which leads to the withdrawal of this phenomenon in Soviet Russia beyond the narrow framework of the concept of "censorship", significantly expands its functions and tasks, as well as the possibilities for implementing the installations of power in this sphere (with the help of specialized state bodies). Due to the peculiarities of the prevailing political regime, the merger of the party and the state, the prevalence of the ideology of communism, in the Soviet state political censorship was the activity of special party and government institutions that were entrusted with leadership and control over all spheres of public life.

However, one should not treat the phenomenon of censorship as something out of the ordinary. In a civilized state of law, it is always present and is the most important tool of power for the implementation of key tasks of internal and foreign policy. It is designed to control and regulate the information process with the help of various kinds of instructions and standards. At the same time, in the conditions of any, even the most loyal, government, censorship is endowed with a protective function, in order to ensure and preserve military and state secrets, etc.

As part of the implementation of the reference function of censorship, the state authorities fix and consolidate certain ethical and aesthetic norms in science, art, artistic creativity, social life. Generally speaking, censorship has preventive functions that allow ensuring stability in the state, as well as preventing the appearance in the field of publicly available information of information that can undermine the authority of the government and its prestige in the eyes of the people. In addition, censorship has a sanctioning function that ensures that only information that has undergone certain processing and filtering gets into the media and into the "use" of society (the so-called socio-cultural context). If the state also becomes public and objective, unedited information, then this is evidence of softness and a certain type of political power.

In general, censorship is not aimed at depriving people of art of the possibility of free creative expression, its role in the structure of the state is much more global. Censorship exists within the framework of the laws of the country, its political structure and principles of organization, and helps to exercise control functions and manage the huge organism that is any state. Thus, internal and external security is ensured, political stability and the level of loyalty of the population to the political system are controlled, subject to a slight restriction of human rights and freedoms. Unfortunately, in this form, censorship exists only in theory, because. in practice, it serves precisely to restrict freedom of thought, opinion and the right to one's own attitude towards all social phenomena happening around.

The totalitarian type of power uses the scheme proposed above to the maximum, bringing the "police" functions of power and censorship to the absolute, i.e. exercising unceasing (explicit and veiled) control over every area of ​​human life and society (including invasion of privacy).

The order becomes simple and unambiguous: there is what the government approves and officially allows, and everything else (it doesn’t matter what it is - the choice of subjects for works, aesthetic directions within which you can create, etc.). Here, censorship becomes part of a huge propaganda "machine", acting on the official "order" of the totalitarian system and the political leaders of the country. The functions of censorship are transformed from protective and recommendatory into strictly controlling, prohibitive and manipulative, the purpose of which is the complete control of both the whole society as a whole and individual citizens. The functions of censorship in the life of the "police" state have many points of intersection with the functions of repressive bodies and work with it in parallel, pursuing largely the same goals. For art, such influences are usually the most destructive, because. the creative process inherently does not imply any control from the outside and submission to political or other rules and restrictions. The processes of enslavement and control over society in a totalitarian state also negatively affect the human personality.

The Russian lawyer M. Fedotov points out the political nature of censorship and the desire to invade directly the creative process, the professional sphere and the private life of citizens, giving the following definition to Soviet censorship: “Censorship is a generic concept. It covers various types and forms of control by official authorities over the content of published and disseminated mass information in order to prevent or limit the dissemination of ideas and information recognized by these authorities as undesirable or harmful. Control is carried out depending on the type of mass media (print, television, broadcasting, cinema). It is necessary to distinguish between censorship, which imposes a ban on the disclosure of information of a certain kind, and censorship, which interferes with the creative process.

That is why attempts to limit the concept of "Soviet censorship" only to the activities of state censorship institutions without taking into account the sophisticated forms and methods of various kinds of influence and control turned out to be of little fruit. In the absence of clearly defined legislative foundations, in the conditions of the dictates of party bodies, as well as the bureaucratic atmosphere that prevailed in society, "mutual responsibility", the patronage system, it turned out that many works could be recognized as ideologically harmful, tendentious or formalist, which in itself was a "sentence ". The phrase "Soviet censorship" is not able to fully reflect all the components of the political and ideological control that the state exercised over culture and art. The closest thing to it in terms of meaning is the term “political censorship”, which is an ideological power system that is part of the politics and political system of society. All spheres of spiritual and cultural life were under control, dissent was completely suppressed in the most severe and extreme forms.

Soviet censorship is considered by some researchers to be an extreme reactionary manifestation of totalitarian power. USSR in the late 1930s. it is presented to them as a society where culture is subordinated to bureaucracy, deprived of freedom of expression. Often, comparing with the tsarist era, they note that then censorship did not affect the author. And in Soviet times, if a writer, director, etc. did not follow party guidelines, then, most likely, their activities were considered destructive and unacceptable.

However, one should not assume that Soviet censorship began to operate only in the 1930s of totalitarian terror. She was before. The party sought to completely control the theatrical business. In a note to the Politburo of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks on sending artists abroad dated May 17, 1921, A. V. Lunacharsky writes the following: , with a statement that only persons who have previously left will be released again. Thus, we will establish a natural mutual responsibility. It was supposed to be sent at the request of the artists through the trade unions, so that if the first did not return, the artists themselves would be to blame for the fact that they would not be released now. Such measures were taken in order to prevent the outflow of Soviet artists abroad and to subordinate their activities to the will of the party.

Undoubtedly, it makes sense to say that in the very first days after the establishment of Soviet power in the country, a military-style order of repression and control was introduced, with the help of which the party dictatorship was introduced into all intellectual and social spheres without exception. A number of specialized state structures were created in the highest party bodies, which in practice determined the implementation of ideological guidelines. They were the Central Committee and its internal divisions, which made decisions on the most important issues - the Politburo, the Secretariat, the Orgburo; they were adjoined by smaller departments that dealt with issues of ideology and culture at a lower level. The ideologization of culture took place progressively, but at the same time quite confidently. In the 1920s, the policy of the new government focused on tracking everything that went into mass distribution. First of all, it was the print media and literature, with special attention paid to any manifestations of “agitation against the Soviet regime”, disclosure (or appearance of it) of the “military secrets of the republic”, as well as disinformation of the population “by reporting false information”, which could contribute to “nationalist and religious fanaticism. Of course, the theater also fell under censorship, because. in an era when the literacy of the population remained low and not everyone had access to what was printed in a newspaper or written in a book, a word heard from the stage could seriously affect public consciousness.

From the very early stage of the existence of political censorship in the Soviet Union, one of its most important components, which could be relied upon and counted on to implement any plans and measures related to the control of culture and art, as well as to protect the political and ideological interests of the country, became various organizations. Later, in the 1930s, these elements were in constant contact, in addition, there was a clear organizational connection between censorship and such organizations as the Cheka / GPU / OGPU. This made it possible to exert a constant influence both on the creative and scientific intelligentsia, and on the entire population of the country as a whole. The absolutely hopeless atmosphere of lack of freedom, surveillance and impending repressions, when representatives of such creative writers' unions as the OPOYAZ and Serapions were already in serious danger, as well as the mood of the permanent participants in the meetings in the House of Art during these years, was recalled in the story "Epilogue" by the Soviet writer and publicist V. A. Kaverin. The writer B. Eikhenbaum wrote in his diary on August 20, 1921: “Arrests in the city (Lossky, Lapshin, Kharitonov, Volkovysk, Zamyatin).” Unfortunately, over the years the situation only worsened, total surveillance was established.

In June 1922 monopoly management of the press under the People's Commissariat of Education of the RSFSR, in order to unite all types of censorship, the Main Directorate for Literature and Publishing Houses (Glavlit RSFSR) was organized.

All entertainment events theatrical performances(both academic, and new Soviet, and amateur theatres), concerts, stage performances, public lectures, etc. came under the full jurisdiction of Glavlit. Then, in 1923, in order for the work of this huge “mechanism” to be carried out more efficiently, a Glavrepert Committee was formed within the Glavlit itself - a committee that controlled the repertoire.

Researcher Goryaeva notes: “To carry out the above functions, the Glavrepertkom was assigned the following duties: a) control the repertoire of all entertainment enterprises and issue instructions on the procedure for exercising the said control; b) take the necessary measures and close, through the appropriate administrative and judicial authorities, entertainment enterprises in cases of violation of its regulations. Supervision of the activities of entertainment enterprises "in order to prevent the staging of unauthorized works" and monitoring the implementation of the decisions of the Glavrepertkom were assigned to the NKVD and its local bodies.

Since the establishment of this body, not a single work (whether a play or a finished performance) has been allowed for public demonstration or performance without obtaining special permission from the Glavrepertkom or some local authorities that perform the same functions.

At the same time, as we noted above, full-scale censorship began to function from the end of the 1920s, when, in order to maintain the correct ideological situation in the country, the range of topics and plots that could be staged was significantly narrowed, and control over how these themes and plots are presented by the directors and creators of the play, has become tougher.

If we talk about theaters, then by the time the Glavrepertkom began its work, they largely functioned independently, without being subordinate to any censorship and regulatory organization. It was both good and bad, because. some control over the creative level of productions and the artistic composition of the repertoire was necessary. However, unfortunately, almost immediately after the period of chaos was followed by a no less destructive period of complete control.

The first category included plays that were allowed to be staged in all theaters; the second category included those allowed, but not recommended for the worker-peasant audience. The third category included plays that were banned from being staged. These included works with counter-revolutionary, mystical and chauvinist content, as well as everything that was considered untimely to be staged.

A special situation has developed in academic theaters, because they, by virtue of tradition, most actively resisted the trends and attitudes of the new government, and also expressed their disregard for its dubious ideological criteria. The Theater of the Revolution, which was on especially favorable individual conditions for this difficult era, was subjected to special criticism. It was fully funded by the state, although other academic theaters were only partially subsidized. The reason for the criticism of the theater was the appearance on its stage of the play “Lake Lyul”, “where, although decaying capitalism is shown, the revolutionaries opposed to it are revealed as bandits” . By a resolution of the Presidium of the Collegium of the People's Commissariat of Education, this play was recognized as "ideologically unacceptable"; a decision was made on “party influence on the Political Council of the theater in order to prevent similar productions in the future, which are costly to the state”99.

The dissatisfaction of the party with the staging of theatrical censorship was expressed in a special resolution adopted at a meeting of the Central Committee of the RCP (b) on October 23, 1926. It emphasized that the theater, being one of the powerful tools for the socio-cultural and political education of the masses, is still very little used and not placed at the service of the proletariat and the working peasantry. It was further noted that the "Sovietization" of the repertoire is one of the main tasks of the Soviet theater.

A new stage in the history of political censorship, associated with a sharp political struggle and increased attention of the party to cultural issues and the role of creative intelligentsia in socialist construction, was characterized by a more demanding attitude towards censorship bodies and the effectiveness of their work. Therefore, the activities of Glavrepertkom and Glavlit were sharply criticized.

Meanwhile, a little more than a year had not passed before the activities of the Glaviskusstva caused obvious displeasure of the Agitprop of the Central Committee. The main "accused" was the first chairman of the Glaviskusstvo A. I. Svidersky, under whose leadership, as it turned out, the Glaviskusstvo defended "the hostile, Smenovekhov repertoire, in particular M. Bulgakov's play "Running"". Svidersky was accused of having given permission for the production of the play "Running", despite the ban of the Glavrepertkom and its Council; allowed the Chamber Theater to stage Levidov's play "Conspiracy of Equals", removed from the repertoire; allowed the Moscow Art Theater 1 to stage The Brothers Karamazov. He also allowed the Chamber Theater to stage M. Bulgakov's play "The Crimson Island", which was called anti-communist feelings in the public. then, to figure out what can and cannot be staged, and to study each work and its proposed setting for impermissible judgments, ideas, or even ephemeral allusions to them. Unfortunately, such situations often did not always end in letters and discussions in the press or at arts councils, and in the 1930s. often led to much more tragic consequences.

The years brought personnel and structural reorganization of the Glaviskusstvo, which also changed the atmosphere in this institution: its activities were brought into line with the newly formulated and approved ideological tasks. The new planning scheme - the five-year plans created by the State Planning Commission and monitoring the effectiveness of any sector of the national economy according to its benchmarks - made it possible to fit all the diversity of the country's cultural life and the creative work of many people into dry numbers.

In January 1936, the All-Union Committee for the Arts (VKI) was formed under the Council of People's Commissars of the USSR, which was supposed to manage art enterprises, all types of art were supposed to obey it, the repertoire was also placed under its supervision. The Glavrepertkom was transferred to his jurisdiction. "This new qualitative turn completes the next stage of structural development, which lasted from 1933 until the formation on January 17, 1936 of the VKI under the Council of People's Commissars of the USSR, a powerful censorship and control department." The newly formed body carried out the instructions of the party and government in the field of theater and art. “So, for example, theaters were fixed as stationary institutions, “certification” and compilation of lists of theaters by category, transfer of all theaters to state subsidies.” A model instruction was developed for the organization of theaters in regional centers, where now drama, musical theaters and the Theater of the Young Spectator were to function without fail.

A distribution institution was also introduced, according to the rules of which each actor, director, and in general a graduate of a theater university was “attached” to a certain theater and could not go to work in another until the “working out” period expired or the person did not receive permission from the relevant governing bodies.

According to the decision of the Glaviskusstvo, the approval of the repertoire of any theater took place a year in advance. All plays accepted for staging had to have a special approval stamp from the Glavrepertkom, which gave permission for staging and determined its category. Here, of course, plots and themes were taken into account, the priority was given to plays by Soviet playwrights and on a certain range of topics. For example, plays in which one of the characters was the figure of V. I. Lenin were always considered separately, and not every theater could get permission to include them in the repertoire (such theaters were included in a pre-approved list). The theater awarded this honor sent to the governing body a description of the actor chosen for this role, as well as his photographs in Lenin's make-up for approval.

The state successfully pursued the policy of the so-called "carrot and stick". There were privileged theaters, which, in contrast to the repression of the "undesirable" groups, received generous encouragement and financial assistance.

In 1939, the main directions that fell under the activities of censorship were spelled out. Of course, this list included the repertoires of theaters and other entertainment institutions. Projects of monuments dedicated to prominent people were also included in this list. Organizations uniting people of creative professions were under the supervision of censorship authorities. The above list includes control over all types of amateur art activities and coordination of the work of public and trade union organizations related to amateur art activities.

All this assumed the development of the creative process exclusively within the framework of full control and strict accountability, in the same planned mode that was introduced in all sectors of the national economy. In such conditions, all spheres of culture, including the theater, were forced to exist.

Conclusion

October events of 1917 overturned the usual course of the spiritual life of society. Culture, with its ability to influence on a subconscious level, had to obey the goals and objectives of the authorities, moreover, reforms in the field art, unlike other transformations, should have yielded results in the very near future. Realizing the importance of cultural education, the authorities issued a decree on the transfer of theaters to the department of arts of the State Commission for Education, which soon became the People's Commissariat for Education. Many theater figures, such as V. E. Meyerhold, A. Ya. Tairov, and others, very sensitively responded to new topics, new topical issues that now required coverage on the stage and which really interested the viewer. First Soviet years classical plots and productions faded into the background, giving way to mass actions about the events of the revolution and the Civil War, which aroused great enthusiasm among the viewer and were very warmly received by any segment of the population. At the same time, there were those (A. V. Lunacharsky, K. S. Stanislavsky) who understood the importance of preserving the traditions and the best performances of the pre-revolutionary repertoire, which would become the foundation that would allow relying on the achievements of the old art in new searches and experiments.

The art of theater in the 1920s - early 1930s. was truly imbued with the desire to create new ideals, to demonstrate how life in the country is changing for the better, to show on stage a renewed, more morally perfect person, capable of heroic deeds.

The first post-revolutionary decade was a time of bright creative experiments and innovation. In the theatrical process of the 1920s, along with classical productions, the leading trends in avant-garde art, such as constructivism, futurism, cubism, conceptualism, minimalism, etc., appeared. In the 1930s, in all spheres of society, including art and culture, the era of the total influence of ideology and the politicization of all spheres of life has come, which greatly influenced the theater. Socialist realism became the preferred direction in art, the framework and style of which was regulated by the party and state power. But do not think that the 30s. it is only a period of stagnation and decline. During this period, the classical productions of W. Shakespeare, A. N. Ostrovsky, M. Gorky and others were widely used. The theater developed continuously, rich in new styles and forms.

After the revolution, the thesis of the “new spectator” became widespread. The masses were given the opportunity to come into contact with high art. It was not immediately possible to establish relations between the theater and the audience. The audience, unaccustomed to theatrical performances and unfamiliar with classical literature, although they went to the theater with great interest, did not always understand the essence of what was happening. Spectators - "neophytes" could burst out laughing in completely, it would seem, episodes of action that were inappropriate for this. Or they could not react at all where the playwright and director counted on certain spectator emotions - laughter, approval, empathy. The most understandable and congenial for the public viewer at that moment were topical and topical stories about the revolution, the fight against tyranny, the civil war. Over the years, the viewer has adapted to the previously complex and incomprehensible theatrical sphere. By the 1930s, the theater had become a common form of entertainment, which, until the rapid development of cinemas and the advent of televisions, continued to enjoy unwavering success.

Development of the Soviet theater in 1920-1930s. It was determined by many factors, the main of which were revolutionary events and the prevailing importance of ideology in the Soviet state. The theater was given a very important place in the social life of the new society. By the end of the 1920s, art was enslaved by various regulations and controlling organizations, and to a large extent became a means of propaganda. But art sought to preserve its original tasks, to bring joy to people, to change them for the better, to instill a sense of beauty. However, under the new political conditions, this activity ceased to be completely independent and determined only by the aspirations and desires of theater workers and spectators. Now it had to develop in parallel with the interests of the authorities and the ideological restrictions they built.

Considering the history of the first decades of the Soviet theater, it is impossible not to refer to the figure of the outstanding cultural figure and politician A.V. Lunacharsky. As People's Commissar of Education, he distinguished himself in various spheres of public life. Thanks to his phenomenal personal qualities and extraordinary education, he managed to balance on the line invisible to many public figures between the interests of the state and the interests of art. Undoubtedly, he supported the key ideas of the new state system and the accompanying ideological guidelines, but he never forgot that the main thing in cultural policy is to preserve the great achievements of previous generations. In our opinion, without his help, it would not have been possible to preserve pre-revolutionary theaters, to carry out a number of bold creative experiments, and new interesting names of artists, writers, directors, actors and other creative personalities would not have appeared.

In connection with the need for complete control over art, censorship became one of the most important tools for the authorities, limiting the range of topics and works that could be presented to the Soviet audience. The lists of productions were limited, only plots that did not cause contradictions and disputes with Soviet ideology were staged. The 1930s marked the beginning of an era when all creative people in the country, including theater workers, adjusted to the ideology of the so-called "social order". From the point of view of the free development of creative thought, such pressure on creators was disastrous for art, however, even under such conditions, interesting talented performances appeared on the stages of the country with the participation of remarkable Soviet artists.

In conclusion, I would like to say that the topic considered is of great interest to researchers. Soviet theater of the 1920s and 30s is the search for a new path in art and the careful preservation of the traditional theatrical experience accumulated over the centuries. Also, the processes of interaction between culture and power remain relevant at the present time and require a detailed, more complete study.

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The decree “On the unification of theatrical business”, approved in 1919, streamlined the structure of state management of the theater. The Theater Department (TEO) of the People's Commissariat of Education was formed, headed by V.E. Meyerhold (the director's section was led by E.B. Vakhtangov). The decree established that theaters "recognized as useful and artistic" are a national treasure and are subsidized by the state.

Former imperial theaters - the Art Theater, the Chamber Theater, etc. were taken out of the leadership of the TEO and merged into the Office of State Academic Theaters (UGAT). Introduced in 1919, the honorary title "Academic Theatre" was then awarded to the six oldest theaters in the country: the Bolshoi, the Maly and the Art Theater in Moscow; Alexandrinsky, Mariinsky and Mikhailovsky in Petrograd. (http://teatr-lib.ru/Library/Zolotnitsky/Aki/)

In the pre-revolutionary theater, both officials and private individuals could act as producers. The directors of the imperial and state theaters were delegated the powers and functions of production by the supreme power - the court or the government; to heads of city theaters - theatrical commissions of city dumas; entrepreneurs and elected leaders of acting associations - the professional community and, finally, the leaders of folk theaters - the general public inclined towards stage creativity. Thus, different social groups chose producers according to their interests and needs.

After the revolution, the situation changed radically. A new, "primitive in relation to art" (K. Stanislavsky) spectator came to the theater.

During the years of war communism, artistic life focuses on theatrical art. This was noted by H. G. Wells during his first trip to Russia in 1920: "The theater turned out to be the most stable element of Russian cultural life." The number of theaters in these years is growing like an avalanche. In the same 1920, the journal The Theater Bulletin wrote: “And not only every city, but it seems that already every quarter, every plant, factory, hospital, worker and Red Army club, village, and even village have their own theater". This, as Meyerhold said, "the psychosis of theatricalization" led to the fact that in 1920, 1,547 theaters and studios were already under the jurisdiction of the People's Commissariat for Education. According to the Political Directorate (PUR), there were 1,800 clubs in the Red Army at the same time, they had 1,210 professional theaters and 911 drama circles, and there were 3,000 peasant theaters. In 1920, the budget allocated to the theater was 10% (!) from the general budget of the country. The state, which had already partially assumed the functions of a producer, was still guided not by selfish, but by romantic goals of "cultivating" the country. However, the collapse of the economy made the task of funding art for the Bolsheviks impossible.

It is always difficult for a culture to survive in the years of social change. The social and economic devastation led to the fact that people were simply not up to theaters. The new government easily and quickly dealt with its enemies or with those who could only seem to it as such, not fitting into its new ideology. Many cultural figures, including composers, writers, artists, vocalists, left the country, turning into emigrants. But the spectators also left - the Russian intelligentsia.

Nevertheless, the theater was looking for ways to survive in the new conditions. The NEP years helped. Russian art began to revive little by little - but in new conditions. The rollicking years of the NEP for the first time in Russia brought the lowest strata of society out of the backyard - the new "masters of life", small private merchants and artisans, were sometimes illiterate, they could not rise to the high spheres of musical and dramatic performances, their lot was restaurant cabarets, where they they easily left their first-earned "millions", and by art they understood cheerful light songs, many of which were frankly vulgar, but among which the undoubtedly talented "Bublicki", "Lemonchiki", "Murka" (author of poems Yakov Yadov) have survived to this day . It was a time of prosperity for cabaret theatres.

However, drama theaters, attracting the newly-minted "businessmen" (then this word did not yet exist, but the word "Nepman" was born) to the auditoriums, were looking for light genres for staging a play: fairy tales and vaudeville - so on the stage of the then recently appeared Vakhtangov's studio was born who became immortal performance based on the fairy tale by Gozzi "Princess Turandot", behind the light genre of which was a sharp social satire. But such performances were, perhaps, an exception. Basically, the new Soviet plays were proclamations and slogans of the new government, usually propagandizing and falsifying historical plots, leading the audience away from serious social reflections.

New theaters appeared with new stage aesthetics - for example, on the Arbat in 1920, Nikolai Foregger opened his Mastfor theater studio - it was there that Sergei Eisenstein, Sergei Yutkevich, Sergei Gerasimov, Tamara Makarova, Boris Barnet, Vladimir Mass and many more future outstanding figures of Soviet art.

At the same time, the theatrical movement "Blue Blouse" arose. At the same time, the former private nationalized Moscow Art Theater, the Chamber Theater, the Zimin Opera, the former imperial and also nationalized Bolshoi and Maly Theaters continued to work.

After a break, the world's only Animal Theater of trainer and natural scientist Vladimir Leonidovich Durov continued its work in the new Soviet conditions. Durov and his family were even allowed to live for some time in the former, but nationalized theater building, which at first was primarily the home of a famous trainer.

From the 20s. Sergei Vladimirovich Obraztsov, a former member of the Nemirovich-Danchenko Theater of the Moscow Art Theater, begins his performances with puppets.

For the 1920s characterized by the struggle of theatrical trends, each of which stood for major artistic achievements. Heading the "left front" of art, Meyerhold put forward the program of "Theatrical October". These ideas received stage expression in the activities of the Theater of the RSFSR 1st, founded and headed by Meyerhold. This theater staged not only new plays, performances-rallies ("The Dawns" by E. Verharn, 1920), but also sought to saturate the works of classical dramaturgy with actual political, including topical, themes. The performances used a variety of expressive means, stage conventions, grotesques and eccentrics. Often the action was transferred to the auditorium, could be supplemented by film frames on the back of the stage: Meyerhold was an opponent of the traditional "box scene".

By the mid-20s, the emergence of Soviet dramaturgy, which had a huge impact on the development of theatrical art, dates back. The major events of the theatrical seasons of 1925-27. steel "Storm" V. Bill-Belotserkovsky in the theater. MGSPS, "Love Yarovaya" by K. Trenev at the Maly Theater, "Breaking" by B. Lavrenev at the Theater. E. Vakhtangov and at the Bolshoi Drama Theatre, "Armored Train 14-69" by V. Ivanov at the Moscow Art Theater. The classics occupied a strong place in the theater repertoire. Attempts to read it again were made both by academic theaters (A. Ostrovsky's Hot Heart at the Moscow Art Theater) and by the "leftists" ("Forest" by A. Ostrovsky and N. Gogol's "Inspector General" at the V. Meyerhold Theater).

In contrast to him, A.Ya. Tairov defended the possibilities of modern productions exclusively on the theatrical stage. Alien to the politicization of art, the director succeeded both in creating a tragic performance, breaking through Racine's play to the foundations of ancient myth (Phaedra, 1922), and in harlequinade (Girofle-Girofle, Ch. Lecoq, 1922). Tairov strove for a "synthetic theatre", striving to combine all the elements of stage art - the word, music, pantomime and dance. Tairov contrasted his artistic program with both the naturalistic theater and the principles of "conditional theater" (whose founder was Meyerhold).

The efforts of radical stage direction were resisted by attempts to preserve the classical heritage in the situation of the "collapse of humanism", to establish the romantic tradition. One of the characteristic phenomena was the Bolshoi Drama Theater (BDT), opened in Petrograd (1919) with the participation of A.A. Blok, M. Gorky, M.F. Andreeva.

By the mid-1920s, the Moscow Art Theater became the most influential theater with its psychologism of the stage play (A.N. Ostrovsky’s Hot Heart, M.A. Bulgakov’s Days of the Turbins, 1926, Beaumarchais’s Crazy Day, or The Marriage of Figaro, 1927) . The second generation of actors of the Moscow Art Theater announced itself loudly: A.K. Tarasova, O.N. Androvskaya, K.N. Elanskaya, A.P. Zueva, N.P. Batalov, N.P. Khmelev, B.G. Dobronravov, B.N. Livanov, A.N. Gribov, M.M. Yashin and others. At the same time, the "Sovietization" of theaters began, primarily associated with the approval of Soviet drama, which developed the canon of the "correct" reflection of the revolutionary transformation of the country.

Since 1922, the country has been moving towards the New Economic Policy, all sectors of the national economy, including culture and art, have been transferred to self-financing. Not only do theaters not receive state subsidies, they also suffocate from exorbitant taxes and fees. As Lunacharsky wrote, in aggregate "taxes reached 70-130% of the gross collection." Only state theaters were exempted from paying taxes, the number of which varied from 14 to 17 in different years. Without state and public support, theaters are closed everywhere: in 1928 there were already 320 of them in the USSR, more than half of which were private.

In the 1920s–30s. many new theatres. The Soviet authorities saw the theater as an instrument of education, agitation and propaganda, and the meaning of its activity was to serve the cultural needs of the population, which led to the division of the audience according to social, age, regional, departmental, and other characteristics and to the corresponding specialization of theater troupes. The time of the NEP did not last long, ending tragically very quickly and giving way to the terrible Stalinist years, but the NEP trace in art, and primarily theatrical, remained forever in the history of Russian theatrical culture.