1.

Record Nr.

UNINA9910136641903321

Autore

Mally Lynn

Titolo

Revolutionary Acts : Amateur Theater and the Soviet State, 1917-1938 / / Lynn Mally

Pubbl/distr/stampa

Cornell University Press, 2000

Ithaca : , : Cornell University Press, , 2000

©2000

ISBN

1-5017-0697-7

1-5017-0698-5

Descrizione fisica

1 online resource (263 pages)

Disciplina

792/.0222/094709041

Soggetti

Amateur theater - Soviet Union - History

Electronic books.

Lingua di pubblicazione

Inglese

Formato

Materiale a stampa

Livello bibliografico

Monografia

Nota di bibliografia

Includes bibliographical references (p. [225]-241) and index.

Nota di contenuto

Frontmatter -- Contents -- Preface -- Introduction -- 1. The Revolution Loves the Theater -- 2. Small Forms on Small Stages -- 3. From "Club Plays" to the Classics -- 4. TRAM: The Vanguard of Amateur Art -- 5. Shock Workers on the Cultural Front -- 6. Amateurs in the Spectacle State -- Conclusion -- Glossary -- Bibliography -- Index

Sommario/riassunto

During the Russian Revolution and Civil War, amateur theater groups sprang up in cities across the country. Workers, peasants, students, soldiers, and sailors provided entertainment ranging from improvisations to gymnastics and from propaganda sketches to the plays of Chekhov. In Revolutionary Acts, Lynn Mally reconstructs the history of the amateur stage in Soviet Russia from 1917 to the height of the Stalinist purges. Her book illustrates in fascinating detail how Soviet culture was transformed during the new regime's first two decades in power.Of all the arts, theater had a special appeal for mass audiences in Russia, and with the coming of the revolution it took on an important role in the dissemination of the new socialist culture. Mally's analysis of amateur theater as a space where performers, their audiences, and the political authorities came into contact enables her to explore whether this culture emerged spontaneously "from below" or was imposed by



the revolutionary elite. She shows that by the late 1920s, Soviet leaders had come to distrust the initiatives of the lower classes, and the amateur theaters fell increasingly under the guidance of artistic professionals. Within a few years, state agencies intervened to homogenize repertoire and performance style, and with the institutionalization of Socialist Realist principles, only those works in a unified Soviet canon were presented.