Popular Theater and Society in Tsarist Russia by Anthony E. Swift (review)

Abstract

342 SEER, 82, 2, 2004 Swift, Anthony E. PopularTheater andSociety in TsaristRussia.Studies on the History of Society and Culture, 44. University of California Press, Berkeley and Los Angeles, CA, and London, 2002. xv + 346 pp. Illustrations.Appendix. Notes. Bibliography.Index. C35.??:$49.95. IN this well-researched and illuminating book, Anthony Swift provides a fascinating and engaging insight into the history of the people's theatre movement in Russia from its emergence in the i 86os to I9 I 7. He approaches the topic from three main perspectives: the discourse conducted by the intelligentsia and the authorities, among others, about the potential advantagesand disadvantagesof narodnyi teatr; thepracticalapplicationof thepeople's theatre idea; and the complex but crucial issue of audience reception. The resultis a lucid and scholarlyanalysisof a significantaspect of urban life and culturalpolitics in late imperialRussia. People'stheatres,as Swiftexplains, 'werecreatedfor the expresspurposeof transformingthe common people' (p. i o), a didactic ambition that set them apart from other entertainments available to popular audiences in St Petersburg and Moscow, the geographical purview of the study. Several different, though not mutually exclusive, benefits were anticipated. For the intelligentsia, people's theatre offered a means of transmitting'high' culture to a wider audience, thereby bridging the divide between the elite and the narodand creating a unified national culture. For others, the principal attraction of people's theatre was its putative disciplinaryrole, and many in positions of authority, notably the police, came to regard it as a way of distracting potentially riotous elements. Meanwhile, factory owners and temperance societies viewed it as a useful distractionfrom the temptations of the tavern, while the 'people' themselves, notably urban workers, often embraced theatreas a badge of 'respectability'. In the firstof six chapters, Swiftsurveysthe theatricallandscapeof imperial Russia in order to highlight the eclectic traditionswhich the people's theatre movement drew upon. These included the Enlightenment concept of an educative theatre, the Imperial theatres, fairground entertainments like the balagan, commercial theatres,pleasuregardens,and scatteredinstancesof folk dramaticsin factoriesand barracks(thoughno examplesof barracktheatricals are provided). The second chapter investigatesthe widespreadinterestin the concept of people's theatre from the I86os and examines the few early but ephemeral incarnations,such as the people's theatreat the Moscow Polytechnic Exposition in I872. After the repeal of the Imperial theatre monopoly in I882, further ventures appeared, notably Mikhail Lentovskii's Skomorokh, but this was a commercial enterprise and struggled in the face of financial limitations. Censorship and the repertoireare the focus of the third chapter. In i888, the authorities introduced a special censorship regulation for people's theatres defined for the censors'purposesby seat prices on the grounds that 'what was good for educated society was not necessarily good for the people' (p. 89). Prohibited plays included those that depicted Russian rulers or dealt, however indirectly, with rebellion. Advocates of people's theatre opposed the regulations on the grounds that they limited the number of REVIEWS 343 serious plays that could be performed for the narod.However, as Swift demonstrates,the ruleswere often flouted and, in fact, the repertoirediffered little from the Imperial and other theatres,though he stillconcludes that 'the state's censorship policy hampered the development of Russian popular theater'(p. 129). The first non-commercial people's theatres appeared in the I88os and I89os and were founded not by the intelligentsia or the state but by factory owners. Subsequently, from around I900, the Guardianships of Popular Temperance became the most visible sponsors. Swift argues persuasively,in chapter four, that these endeavours failed to 'acculturate and discipline the common people by "rationalizing" their recreations' (p. i 8o): their chief contributionwas to transformthe theatricallandscape and make inexpensive entertainment more readily available. In the fifth chapter, Swift focuses on attempts by workers themselves to participate in theatrical productions. Sometimes their motive was to use theatre as a propaganda tool in political struggle, but more often they were seeking to acquire 'respectability' by imitating the practicesof the elite. Such effortswere on a smallscale, but they demonstratedthatnot allworkerswere content to be passiveconsumersof the culturepresidedover by the elite. In the final chapter, Swift considers audience reception. Drawing on contemporary observations and audience surveys,he shows that, ultimately, people's theatresdid not transformtheiraudiences. Rather, the people tended to...