The Popular Theatre Movement in Russia, 1862-1919 [Reprint ed.] 0810134845, 9780810134843

Table of contents :
Dedication
Contents
Acknowledgments
Introduction
Part I
1 The Birth of Russian Popular Theatre
2 Essential Ostrovsky
3 Plays for Schooling: Resistance and Response
4 “Even in the Workhouse a Theatre!”
Part II
5 Expansion in Contentious Times
6 New Initiatives, 1907–1914
7 The Popular Theatre Unbound
Conclusion
Notes
Works Cited
Index

Citation preview

The Popular Theatre Movement in Russia, 1862-1919

N orthwestem University Press Studies in Russian Literature and Theory

Founding Editor Gary Saul Morson General Editor Caryl Emerson Consulting Editors Carol Avins Robert Belknap Robert Louis Jackson Elliott Mossman Alfred Rieber William Mills Todd III Alexander Zholkovsky

The Popular Theatre Movement in Russia, 1862-1919

Can] Thurston

NORTHWESTERN UNIVERSITY PRESS / EVANSTON, ILLiNOIS

Northwestern University Press www.nupress.northwestern.edu Copyright © 1998 by Northwestern University Press. Published 1998. All rights reserved. Printed in the United States of America ISBN 978-0-8101-3484-3 The Library of Congress has cataloged the original, hardcover edition as follows: Thurston, Gary.    The popular theatre movement in Russia, 1862–1919 / Gary Thurston.     p. cm. — (Studies in Russian literature and theory)    Includes bibliographical references and index.    ISBN 0-8101-1550-6 (cloth)    1. Theater—Russia—History—19th century. 2. Theater—Russia—History—   20th century. 3. Theater and society—Russia—History—19th century.   4. Theater and society—Russia—History—20th century. 5. Popular culture—   Russia—History—19th century. 6. Popular culture—Russia—History—   20th century.  I. Title. II. Series.  PN2723.T5 1998  792'.0947'09034—dc21 98-24479 CIP

In Loving Memory: o.W. & J.L.G.T.

O'leHb 6bI H O'leHb xoporno 6bIJIO, eCJm 6 KTO H3 HarnHX H3bICKaTeJIeH 3aHHJICH HOBbIMH H 60JIee T~aTeJIbHbIMH, 'leM ,ll;oceJIe, HCCJIe,ll;OBaHHHMH 0 HapO,ll;HOM TeaTpe, KOTOPbIH eCTb, cyrn,ecTByeT H ,ll;a:>Ke, MO:>KeT 6bITb, He COBceM HH'lTO:>KHbIH. - ,1.l;ocToeBCKHH It would be vel)', vel)' good if one of our researchers undertook a new and more thorough investigation than has yet been done of popular theatre, which exists, is functioning, and is perhaps not completely without value. -Dostoevsky

lliHPOKO pacrrpocTpaHeHHoe CY:>K,ll;eHHe orreKYHoB HapO,ll;HOrO TeaTpa: «Hapo,ll; XOqeT CKa3KH, a He 6bITa.» n.n. r aH,ll;e6ypoB: «qero XOqeT HapO,ll;, 3HaeT TOJIbKO HapO,ll;-,ll;a H 3aBTpa OH MO:>KeT 3axoTeT JIyqrnero, 60JIbrnerO H, BO BCHKOM CJIyqae, HHOrO, qeM OH XOqeT CerO,ll;HH.» In response to those who insisted that popular audiences wanted only amusing entertainment and not reality in the theatre, P. P. Gaideburov replied: 'Whatever the people want, only they know-and tomorrow they may want something better, bigger, and, in any case, different from what they want today."

vii

Contents

Acknowledgments

xi

Introduction

1

Part I

Chapter One

The Birth of Russian Popular Theatre

Chapter Two

Essential Ostrovsky 59

Chapter Three

Plays for Schooling: Resistance and Response

Chapter Four

"Even in the Workhouse a Theatre!"

27

85

122

Part II

Chapter Five

Expansion in Contentious Times

Chapter Six

New Initiatives, 1907-1914

Chapter Seven

The Popular Theatre Unbound

165

211 253

Conclusion

283

Notes

291

Works Cited

343

Acknowledgments

For the undimmed first pleasure of afternoon rehearsals and exciting evenings in the theatre, I have my high school drama coach to thank. Carol Houghton Hollingsworth combined high energy, an infallible instinct for quality in dramatic texts with community appeal, and rare dedication to her charges and their personal development. Interestingly, her ancestors at Hoghton Tower employed, then protected William Shakespeare in a connection that is just now understood sufficiently to clarif)r aspects of his originality that have puzzled scholars for nearly four hundred years. At Grinnell College I left off playing to explore the dazzling possibilities of historical explanation. Sam Baron encouraged me to believe that I could make a living while studying European history, and commended Russian history as a specialization. He also revealed a brilliant teaching method that challenges me still. Two of my teachers at Columbia, mentors, respectively, in Russian history and Russian literature, have been nobly generous with their time and attention. Marc Raeff and Robert Maguire, succeSSively holders of the Bakhmetieff Chair of Russian Studies (created after I had left New York), have been available at the shortest notice to discuss any quandaries or snags. The latter has shown me many kindnesses, including providing material from his personallibrary for use in the present study. Marc Raeff, a European-American who embodies the attributes of courtesy, civility, and civilization, is an inspiration. I am particularly grateful for his persistent encouragement to write my own book rather than fill in a square in the grid of Slavic studies. Elsewhere I have thanked Eugen Weber for the very stimulating National Endowment for the Humanities summer seminar he gave at UCLA just after publishing Peasants into Frenchmen. I should add here that, among other things, he put me on to Continental historians it would have taken me years to find on my own. The International Research and Exchanges Board afforded me ten months in the Soviet Union, without which any proper appreciation of popxi

Acknowledgments

ular theatre's significance in Russian history would have been impossible. The University of Rhode Island Council for Research enabled me to return to Moscow when the political climate changed, and Nikolai Ivanov graciously assisted me in gaining access to archival materials I had not been able to see under IREX auspices. The Harvard Ukrainian Research Institute and Russian Research Center gave me affiliation for a sabbatical year, maximum Widener Library privileges, and the opportunity to try out my ideas on critical audiences. The University of Illinois Slavic Lab twice provided accommodation while I availed myself of their library'S superb reference facilities and extensive collection. The University of Chicago Library let me roam in the papers of Samuel Harper. (I have to credit the Department of Special Collections for permission to quote from them.) Joel Cohen, as chair of my department, vigorously endorsed my work on popular theatre and enlisted his dean's material support. Joan Neuberger took time to discuss Habermas with me. Friends who have read various versions of the manuscript-Sam Baron, Patricia Herlihy, Denise Youngblood, Marilyn Malina, and Marc Raeff-all called attention to problems and shortcomings, yet have sustained me with their warm encouragement. None bears responsibility for how everything was finally resolved. C.J.T. Wakefield, Rhode Island January 1998

xii

Introduction

EUROPEAN POPULAR THEATRE

It was in the eighteenth century that Europe harnessed literary theatre to the project of Enlightenment. Literary theatre denoted performances of fixed, written texts by known authors. Such texts had first appeared in classical Greece, and the Greek tragedies and comedies were thought to constitute part of an irreplaceable European inheritance. There was folk theatre as well, with looser performances, following something closer to scenarios than authored texts, and adjusting readily to the moods and responses of particular audiences. Europeans fancied that Greek drama bespoke a civic unity that had been lost sometime in the past. The scientific revolution and rationalism in the seventeenth century, above all, had left Europeans living in "two different worlds of the mind."1 It was hoped that a reconstituted theatre would (1) restore unity to the public and (2) correct social "problems"like drunkenness-related to urbanization and population growth. Folk theatre had no role to play, given its not infrequently antagonistic relationship to high culture and the progress of manners.z But literary theatre, revitalized and regulated, could generate texts defining a nation's genius. The argument of this book is that the popular theatre phenomenon in Europe united aesthetic achievement and aspiration to community in an endeavor of lasting significance. The Russian manifestation is, of course, my main concern here. But Russian popular theatre must be understood from the outset as part of a process encompassing distinct (and predictable) phases, a process played out-with variations-in several European countries. Therefore I lay the groundwork by considering the process as experienced outside Russia. Next I offer a brief description of popular theatre's progress in Russia with consideration of a theory that helps explain the rising and falling fortunes of theatre for enlightenment. I close with a consideration of theatre's essential function from its inception. In France, central and northern Europe, England, and Russia advocates emerged for popular theatre and organizers appeared to bring theatre 1

The Popular Theatre Movement in Russia, 1862-1919

to those not served by commercial or state-supported enterprises. The French experience and discussion is of particular interest because it served as a reference point for other Europeans who would subsequently take up the cause. The Enlightenment debate on theatre's educational potential can perhaps be traced to Voltaire, who settled in Calvinist Geneva in 1754 and began to give amateur theatricals at home. He invited local young people, whose theatrical exposure had been limited to street fairs, the only form of the medium to survive in the Protestant city.3 D'Alembert, in his entry on Geneva in volume 7 of the Encyclopedie, argued for the right of theatre to exist (under careful regulation and censorship). Rousseau, in his Letter to d'Alembert on Theatre (1785) insisted that the theatre could arouse passions that cause viewers to forget virtue, but was powerless to improve manners and morals: "The empire of opinion ... does not depend on theatre at all, for, rather than giving the law to the public, the theatre receives the law from it."4 The theatre of the Greeks, Rousseau conceded, had inspired sentiments of honor and glory in the breasts of the people. Their plays were "a constant source of instruction." But contemporary theatres functioned differently, having been built for "personal aggrandizement," and presenting modern plays full of "nastiness." Diderot, in his Deuxifhne entretien sur Ie Fils naturel, echoed this theme of the vast difference between the theatres of antiquity and the contemporary stage. But he considered that a modern drama depicting middle-class people in domestic situations with authentic feeling could, by developing sentiments of tenderness and compassion (sensibiliti), prove far more useful to viewers than the remote issues and grand passions of classical tragedy.5 His diSciple, the critic Louis-Sebastien Mercier, in his Du theatre: ou nouvel essai sur ['art dramatique (1773) and Nouvel exarnen de la Tragedy franr;aise (1778) called for plays that would mold the manners and morals of citizens. Deploring the cultural separation of the people from the elite, Mercier demanded a people's theatre that would "illuminate and arm the people with reason."fi Republicans in the French Revolution took up Mercier's ideas of theatre as a school for the people. Legislation in 1791 abolished corporate monopolies of the Comedie-Fran