THE AESTHETICS OF THE RUSSIAN REVOLUTIONARY THEATRE 1917-21

The theatre especially is in a difficult position for it does not know where to go and what to 'show'. And it is most remarkable that the theatre, which is perhaps the most conservative form of art, should have the most radical theorists. Everyone knows that the most revolutionary group in the Union of Soviet Republics is the class of dramatic critics.—Leon Trotsky, 1924 THE REVOLUTION in the theatre world that followed the Bolshevik revolu-tion has yet to be fully examined and analysed, especially during the years 1917-21. One may assert without any exaggeration that no other four-year period in history can equal the revolutionary years in terms of theatrical debate and activity. One Russian scholar has rightly pointed out that during those years 'amateur and professional theatres, circles, studios and schools arose in the country in the hundreds and thousands. Never has Russia or any other country witnessed such an attraction of the people's masses to the theatre.'1 This paper investigates the relationship between theatre and revolution in Russia during 1917-21. It seeks to elucidate and assess the revolutionary aesthetics of the theatre against the background of a violent political and social upheaval, from the perspective of those who attempted to make the theatre an integral part of daily life in a communist society as well as the expression of the creative vitality of the Bolshevik revolution. Its aim will be to demonstrate that the revolution in the theatre, as exempli-fied in Platon Kerzhentsev's aesthetics of the theatre and in particular Vsevolod Meierkhol'd's programme of 'Theatrical October', however compatible with the cultural aims of the Bolshevik leaders and even en-couraged by them, went far beyond their expectations and had to be curtailed as official theatrical policy. An examination of this revolutionary episode in the Russian theatre can illuminate, we submit, the relationship between art and revolution and the subsequent history of the avant-garde theatre in the Soviet Union after 1921. In the latter half of October, 1917, rumours of an impending revolutio