Revolutionary Acts

Front matter

evolutionary

A C Lt $ AMATEUR THEATER AND THE SOVIET STATE

PEVOLUT ON AR

Contents

Preface ix

The Revolution Loves the Theater 17 Small Forms on SmallStages 47

From “Club Plays" to the Classics 81 TRAM: The Vanguard of Amateur Art 109 Shock Workers on the Cultural Front 146 Amateurs in the Spectacle State 181

Preface

THIS BOOK began as a study of the Leningrad Theater of Working-Class Youth, known by its acronym TRAM. But as my work on this theater and its Moscow affiliate continued, I discovered that these popular youth stages were simply the most visible representatives of a much wider phenomenon of amateur theater that blossomed in the early Soviet period. My research then grew to include the amorphous network of impromptu stages that inspired, imitated, and eventually outlasted TRAM. Expanding this project beyond TRAM, which has its own archives and extensive secondary literature, made this book much harder to write. I hope that the end product has more to say about the place of theater and the amateur arts in the cultural transformation begun with the October Revolution.

At the early stages of this project I was taken under the wing of two remarkable experts on Russian theater, Vladislav Ivanov and Maria Ivanova. They introduced me to a new field and gave me invaluable bibliographic assistance. What began as a professional relationship ended as a friendship. Their book-lined apartment was a haven for me on my trips to Moscow. The Internet has made the work of writing a little less solitary. I was bolstered by good-natured criticism and cyber pep talks from Louise McReynolds, who tried to hem in my natural tendencies toward social history. Susan Larsen has been a wonderful reader, both on the ‘Net and off. Evgeny Dobrenko aided me with his broad knowledge of mainstream Soviet culture. Susanna Lockwood Smith shared her insights into the world of amateur music. Alice Fahs and I shared many conversations on theater, popular culture, and writing, all of which x Preface helped me to refine my thoughts. The friendship and bibliographic assistance of Joan Ariel and Ellen Broidy were very important to me. Two theater lovers, Carroll Smith-Rosenberg and Alvia Golden, helped me see this project in a broader perspective. I am particularly grateful to Alvia for thinking up the title.

Many colleagues have given me comments on individual chapters, including Jim von Geldern, Lewis Siegelbaum, and Anne Walthall. A convivial group of Russian scholars in southern California, including Robert Edelman, Choi Chatterjee, Arch Getty, Georg Michels, Elise Wirtschafter, and Mary Zirin, read versions of assorted chapters. Laurie Bernstein saw me through a research trip to Moscow. Stan Karas smoothed my way through Soviet newspapers of the 1930s. Viktorina Lefebvre helped me to compile the bibliography and the notes. My warmest thanks go to John Ackerman of Cornell University Press. I received research support for this project from the International Research Exchange Board (rREX), the Social Science Research Council, and the University of California, Irvine.

It is customary for authors to thank their families, but I believe that I have special reasons to do so. Robert Moeller has always been my first and final reader. I am grateful for his erudition, patience, and most of all his sense of humor. And my daughter Nora deserves a special mention because she continues to teach me about the passion and commitment that go into amateur theater.

Portions of chapter 4 were previously published in "The Rise and Fall of the Soviet Youth Theater TRAM,” Slavic Review 51, no. 3 (Fall 1992) and "Performing the New Woman: The Komsomolka as Actress and Image in Soviet Youth Theater," Journal of Social History 30, no. 1 (Fall 1996). I gratefully acknowledge the permission of the American Association for the Advancement of Slavic Studies and the Journal of Social History to reprint them here. Chapter 5 includes revised sections of two published articles. I thank the Ohio State University Press for allowing me to incorporate sections of my "Autonomous Theater and the Origins of Socialist Realism: The 1932 Olympiad of Autonomous Art," The Russian Review 52, no. 2 (April 1993). Copyright 1993 by Ohio State University Press. All rights reserved. The journal Russian History gave me permission to include parts of "Shock Workers on the Cultural Front: Agitprop Brigades in the First Five-Year Plan," Russian History 23, no. 1-4 (1996).