In chapter 4, Fowler discusses the role of national culture in theater and how that was different in Moscow or St. Petersburg than in the other republics. He says, “Elissa Bemporad argues that the Yiddish theatre in Minsk was more successful because they could do any play they wanted; the audience was a Jewish audience who wanted shows in Yiddish, whether those were European classics, traditional Yiddish plays, or the latest Soviet offerings. In Moscow, regardless of his theatre’s critical success, Mikhoels had to the fit the niche of the “Jewish” theatre in order to secure and audience” (159). He also discusses differences in the funding, success, and reception of Jewish, Polish, and Ukrainian theatre in Ukraine. What is the role of national culture in Soviet theatre and its connection to the Party-state? How is this different in the center vs. the periphery? How is this different for ethnic groups without a republic?
The theatrical image is the main difference between Mykytenko’s and Kurbas’ Dictatorship. The prevalence of image is obviously seen as threatening to the Party-state, and does not fit the characteristics of Soviet realism. Fowler examines the Soviet resistance to this use of image, stating, “some scholars explain this textualization of theatre as caused by censorship as necessity of monitoring performance. Yet Hungarian dissident Mikos Haraszti offers different view on socialist realism: ‘This art neither hates nor worships ‘reality’; it merely denies reality the chance to be mysterious … Kurbas’ production so radically differed from Mykytenko’s text, however, that the director showed the possibilities and the elasticity of the word”(141). Which do you believe motivates the “textualization of theatre”, the threat of mystery or the ease of censorship? Is the use of image or transformation itself a threat to the Party-state, or is it just the “elasticity of the word” exposed through the use of image? Is more text-based theater better able to “engineer the human soul”?
Finally, what elements of Soviet realism do we see in Petrov’s The Golden Calf? What do the sons of Lieutenant Schmidt represent?
I was also caught by how Fowler weighed the two justifications for the primacy of script over production. They seem to prefer Haraszti’s criticism, lumping script-based production into socialist realism, as a push to banish “mystery” and to lay bare the agitational objectives of theatre. I can see why it: this push for “transparency” is a much broader idea, and would also seem to explain cultural changes elsewhere in the Soviet arts world.
That being said, I wish Fowler could have done more with her observation that official tastes were leaning towards the literary. Given her exploration in the next chapter of how officials cultivated artists (and vice-versa), could she have concretely explored how a preference for literary over physical theatre propagated itself throughout the Soviet arts system, through artists seeking opportunities and the management of arts officials? This would have connected the official artist and the arts official. In the extract we’ve read, though, I’m not sure that Fowler is able to connect artistic production and arts management together in more detail than simply acknowledging that this relationship was one of patronage.
In thinking about your last question I was drawn to Fowler’s paraphrase of Leszek Kolakowski, who casts artists as either “priests,” propping up an ideological orthodoxy, or “jesters,” mocking those same orthodoxies. Fowler, noting the prevalence of “priests” in the Soviet art world, asks “who were the jesters in the Soviet space?” (167). And more specifically we could ask, what might it mean to be a jester within the confines of socialist realism. At first I read “The Golden Calf” as a social critique and therefore as the work of a jester. But its bizarre tale of organized con-men taking advantage of gullible officials seems to comment more on the NEP period than the Stalinist moment in which the novel was published. In this light we could read these chapters as a sort of Stalinist parable set in 1928, the waning year of the NEP. That being said, I do wonder if the latent criticisms in Ilf and Petrov’s comic narrative can really be contained in such a way.
“What is the role of national culture in Soviet theatre and its connection to the Party-state? How is this different in the center vs. the periphery? How is this different for ethnic groups without a republic?”
On page 164, Fowler wrote that “[Kurbas] and his generation had attempted, as chapters 2 and 3 detail, to create an artistic culture in Ukrainian that was urban, that was modern, that equalled the best from Europe or Russia.” (167) We can see in Kurbas’s reworking of the Dictatorship play (134-144) as his work to imbue Ukrainian theatre with this fledgling spirit of art: experimentation and visual concepts like ‘transformation’ were to distinguish it. But his touch created a scandal, and his goal was shown to be at odds with the state’s purpose for arts, which apparently was an unambiguous, realistic representation of the situation at hand. This was where he and Kulish also went wrong with Maklena (154-155) in the State’s eyes: “there was no ‘revolutionary fight’ and no real Communists in the play.” (154)
With the consolidation of the different offices of art mentioned in that chapter, making art in the province of Ukraine was increasingly constrained in comparison to in Moscow. Kurbas complained, “to ‘work in in the cultural situation as it is in Ukraine is like death for an artist.'” (164) From this we get the sense that the nationalist project was a bit of a sham, for in reality, deviation and autonomy of the artist was undermined by by both administrative intervention by the Soviet government, as well as by the expectations of the audience.
I was wondering the same thing as you and was intrigued by the “mystery” of Kurbas’ theater and why that was a threat to the state. I think your questions on this subject are really interesting: “Which do you believe motivates the “textualization of theatre”, the threat of mystery or the ease of censorship? Is the use of image or transformation itself a threat to the Party-state, or is it just the “elasticity of the word” exposed through the use of image? Is more text-based theater better able to “engineer the human soul”?”
I was puzzling through Kurbas’ artistic choices and why these choices were characterized as threats to the state. He certainly used theater in a different way than his counterparts: he used strong imagery, senses, and scenes that were dream-like. Reality was not easily detectable. On that level, it certainly did not fall under the category of socialist realism — the prescriptive style. I think Kurbas’ interpretation of the original text that so drastically changed the whole piece is what the Union viewed as the biggest threat. Through altering the play so drastically, the message of the play was altered, too. Even though the original play was approved by the Union as having good socialist content that engineered the soul, an adaptation of the play might not be approved because it might change the underlying tone or message, like Kurbas’ interpretation did. The theater allows for room to change the inflection of words, the set, the music, and how the script is arranged. In the written word, there is not this flexibility. I think the problem of adapting a play lends itself to a problem of censorship. If the original play is approved, it is easy to assume, for efficiency reasons, that any adaptation is approved too. Kurbas’ interpretation proves that the theater is not that simple and the transformative aspect of a play proves to be an issue for censorship. Kurbas’ obviously has a different conception of art that was deeply different than the Soviet Union and we see this ideological difference play out, but I think the root of this disagreement is the autonomy of the artist and that maps on to the nature of theater itself and the artistic choices and changes a director can make.
I wanted to respond to your question about how funding, success, and reception was different in the core and periphery. I think that Fowler demonstrates that there existed an embedded hierarchy where Russian theatre was permanently considered more sophisticated and superior to that of other Republics. The Olympiad, and the collectivization of writing are examples of how this was demonstrated. Another aspect Fowler shows of the relationship between Moscow and the Ukrainian artists also interacts with the relationship between writers/directors and officials. On 157, Fowler writes
“By actively mediating between artist and audience, officialdom
became the primary audience, and officials always kept their eyes
turned towards Moscow. [Regarding the play Maklena] Theatre was
intended to speak to an all-Union audience centred in the Soviet
capital, and Moscow did not want to hear about famine in Soviet
Ukraine.”
What I find interesting about this situation is that not only is there clearly an imperial mindset, of a center automatically considering it’s theatre superior to its periphery, and of periphery artists having to orient their art towards the center instead of towards their own audiences, but there’s also a paternalistic relationship happening between the officials and the “proletariat” audience in general, as officials mediated between artist and audience. I think Fowler emphasizes this in the claim “Khvylia [an official upset about Maklena] spoke for proletarian society, that is, for the audiencce — or so he believed” (155).
“Finally, what elements of Soviet realism do we see in Petrov’s The Golden Calf? What do the sons of Lieutenant Schmidt represent?”
I have no idea. I had a really difficult time following the “The Golden Calf” or what its message is supposed to be. It seems like the story of a bunch of conmen making a fool out of the party chairman would be anathema to the goals of the Soviet Union, but maybe it serves as a warning. The story of the Golden Calf in the bible is a story about idols, just as the sons hinge their con on the idolization of Lieutenant Schmidt. So perhaps this is a warning tale of blind idolization?
Also, is this story Soviet realism? Fowler quotes a Hungarian dissident, Miklos Haraszti, as saying about Socialist realism, “This art neither hates nor worships ‘reality’; it merely denies reality the chance to be mysterious” (141) but it seems like Petrov purposely plays with the mystery of reality in order to tell their tale. Does that mean that “The Golden Calf” is not Soviet realism or was Haraszti wrong?
While it is true that Socialist Realism required a greater emphasis to be placed on the text rather than the image, it is also important that we examine the boundaries between theater, literature, and to an extent film in the Soviet Union. In other words, is there an inherit conflict between the text of the play and the images created on stage, or was this conflict merely manufactured by directors like Kurbas in response to an increased air of state intervention and censorship in the realm of theater which in turn created a greater need for focus to be placed on the text rather than on the images created on stage? It’s just hard for me to imagine a theater in which the script does not determine the images created on stage to an extent. Yes, the script does not determine which images are created, but the script does not determine how lines are performed as well. In my view, the script does not embody the verbal aspect of the play, any more than the visual aspect of the play. The script is the font of both, with the actual words being said the mere foundation for how the play takes form through both sound and image. In other words, you cannot have a theater without images, or a theater in which images are not as privileged as sounds unless you are creating a radio-play. As long as you have actors on the stage, an image is created which is as important in telling the story as the words of the play, even if the actors are doing anything visually interesting.