INFORMATION to USERS This Manuscript Has Been Reproduced
Total Page：16
File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb
INFORMATION TO USERS This manuscript has been reproduced from the microfilm master. UMI films the text directly from the original or copy submitted. Thus, some thesis and dissertation copies are in typewriter face, while others may be from any type of computer printer. The quality of this reproduction is dependent upon the quality of the copy submitted. Broken or indistinct print, colored or poor quality illustrations and photographs, print bleedthrough, substandard margins, and improper alignment can adversely affect reproduction. In the unlikely event that the author did not send UMI a complete manuscript and there are missing pages, these will be noted. Also, if unauthorized copyright material had to be removed, a note will indicate the deletion. Oversize materials (e.g., maps, drawings, charts) are reproduced by sectioning the original, beginning at the upper left-hand comer and continuing from left to right in equal sections withsmall overlaps. Each original is also photographed in one exposure and is included in reduced form at the back of the book. Photographs included in the original manuscript have been reproduced xerographically in this copy. Higher quality 6" x 9" black and white photographic prints are available for any photographs or illustrations appearing in this copy for an additional charge. Contact UMI directly to order. A Bell & Howell Information Company 300North Z eeb Road, Ann Arbor. Ml 48106-1346USA 313/761-4700 800/521-0600 DRAMATIC AND THEATRICAL MANIFESTATIONS OF GLASNOST IN SOVIET RUSSIA DURING THE FIRST HALF OF THE GORBACHEV EPOCH, 1985-1988 DISSERTATION Presented in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree Doctor of Philosophy in the Graduate School of The Ohio State University By Jeffrey Pace Stephens, B.A., M.A. $ $ $ jJc The Ohio State University 1995 Dissertation Committee Approved by Joseph Brandesky Esther Beth Sullivan Adviser Alan Woods Department of Theatre UMI Number: 9526091 Copyright 1995 by STEPHENS, JEFFREY PACE All rights reserved. UMI Microform 9526091 Copyright 1995, by UMI Company. All rights reserved. This microform edition is protected against unauthorized copying under Title 17, United States Code. UMI 300 North Zeeb Road Ann Arbor, MI 48103 Copyright by Jeffrey Pace Stephens 1995 To Harold, Clara, Susan, and Hal ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I thank the following for their help and guidance: Alan Woods, Esther Beth Sullivan, Joe Brandesky, Betsy Greiner, Alexandra Karriker, Karen Baker, Leigh Lambert, Kenneth Cox, Peter Westerhoff, Jerry Davis, Mary Ann Hempe, Jean Herrick, George Kalbouss, Sharon Foster, Jay Oney, Carol Sutton, Gaye Lynn Scott, Brett Scott, Brian Rose, Christopher Jones, Kristine Taylor, and John Taylor. VITA May 26, 1963..................................................... Born-Oklahoma City, Oklahoma 1985..................................................................... B.A., University of Oklahoma, Norman, Oklahoma 1988..................................................................... M.A., Oklahoma State University, Stillwater, Oklahoma 1988-1992......................................................... Teaching and Research Associate, Department of Theatre, The Ohio State University, Columbus, Ohio 1992-1993......................................................... Membership Services, George M. Otto Associates, Chicago, Illinois 1994-Present..................................................... Membership Services, Zonta International Headquarters, Chicago, Illinois FIELDS OF STUDY Major Field: Theatre Studies in General Theatre History: Alan Woods Kenneth Cox Alfred Golding Soviet and Russian Theatre History: Alexandra Karriker George Kalbouss Dramatic Theory: Esther Beth Sullivan Stratos Constantinidis TABLE OF CONTENTS DEDICATION......................................................................................................... ii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS................................................................................... iii VITA......................................................................................................................... iv NOTE ON TRANSLITERATION...................................................................... viii CHAPTER PAGE I. INTRODUCTION........................................................... 1 Introduction......................................................... 1 Purpose of the Study.......................................... 4 Method of Approach.......................................... 6 II. SIGNIFYING REVOLUTIONARY IDEOLOGY ON THE STAGE: SOVIET THEATRE FROM 1917 UNTIL 1985.......................................................... 10 Introduction........................................................ 10 The Party as Aegis and Nemesis of the “Golden Age” of Soviet Theatre 15 Socialist Realism, RAPP, and the Campaign Against Meyerhold............................... 27 The Kirov Murder and the “Great Terror” 33 War Drama, Zhdanovism, and the Death of Stalin...................................... 36 The “Thaw” and De-Stalinization .................... 41 The Era of Stagnation........................................ 44 Conclusion.......................................................... 47 v III. GLASNOST AS A PREVAILING CONCEPT OF THE POLITICS OF “NEW THINKING”............................. 50 Introduction......................................................... 50 Speech to the Twenty-Seventh Party Congress....................................... 53 The Reformist Triumvirate: Peter, Catherine, and Mikhail ............................................ 56 The Paradox of Party Control During the Gorbachev Epoch: The Arms Race and Economic Restructuring................ 61 Speech to the Ruling Apparatus on the Occasion of the Seventieth Anniversary of the October Revolution............................... 69 “New Thinking” as Cultural Disorientation: Revised Monuments, Rehabilitations, The Nina Andreeva Letter .................... 73 IV. CULTURAL POLICY UNDER GORBACHEV AND ITS RELATIONSHIP TO THEORIES OF IDEOLOGY...................................................................... 88 Introduction.......................................................... 88 “New Thinking” as Cultural Policy.................. 89 Ideology as Marxist Terminology.................... 97 Louis Althusser and Ideological State Apparatuses (ISA)................................. 100 “Artistic Freedom” and Socialist Realism 105 Conclusion............................................................ 112 V. AN ACCOUNTING OF REPRESENTATIVE PLAYS WRITTEN OR PRODUCED DURING THE FIRST HALF OF THE GORBACHEV EPOCH..................... 114 Introduction......................................................... 114 Perestroika in the Soviet Theatre...................... 117 Cerceau................................................................ 125 Sarcophagus........................................................ 132 Cinzano................................................................ 142 Stars in the Morning................................... Sky 150 Dear Elena Sergeevna....................................... 156 Tomorrow Was War........................................... 165 Onward! Onward! Onward!............................. 174 vi Heart o f A Dog................................................... 183 Conclusion........................................................... 187 VI. CONCLUSION............................................................... 189 BIBLIOGRAPHY............................................... 197 vii NOTE ON TRANSLITERATION With the exception of generally recognized Russian proper names such as Stanislavsky, Mayakovsky, and Meyerhold, I have employed System II in the body of the text as outlined in J. Thomas Shaw,The Transliteration o f Modern Russian for English-Language Publications (New York: MLA of America, 1979). I have retained varying systems used by publishers in the notes and bibliography as well as in quotations taken from secondary texts. CHAPTER I INTRODUCTION Introduction The period to the sentence begun on October 24, 1917, in the fledgling USSR appeared in late December 1991, when Mikhail Sergeevich Gorbachev resigned as President of the Soviet Union. After seventy-four years, the “dictatorship of the proletariat” passed into history as befuddled Soviet citizens continued to adjust to the radical social, economic, and political ramifications of Gorbachev's policies of perestroika (“restructuring”) and glasnost1 (“openness”).1 The Gorbachev epoch of 1985-1991 will be remembered as a bold attempt by one man and his philosophical disciples to renew the principles which, long before Stalin seized control of the Soviet political mechanism, marked the Bolshevik Revolution of 1917. Essentially, Gorbachev pursued an agenda which advocated a cleansing of the Party's sordid past via the the ideologies of “economic restructuring” and the new “openness.” Ultimately, he failed; yet the ideas he sought to implement continue to resonate in all spheres of post-Soviet life. 'Because both “perestroika” and “glasnost” have entered the English lexicon, the words will hereafter not be underlined to emphasize their foreign origin. For the purpose of this paper, “perestroika” will generally be used to suggest restructuring in a literal sense, e.g., “real alterations” in the structure of the governance of the Writers’ Union: “glasnost” to suggest historical revisionism and the simple relaxation of censorship and “new thinking” to suggest the prevailing ideology of the Gorbachev epoch. 1 2 Economic and political