The Soviet Vaudeville and the Controversy between 1932-1941

Abstract

This paper is devoted to study the soviet vaudeville and the controversy between 1932-1941. The Soviet vaudeville debate was focused on the theme: How and in what way do the entertainment and laughter, produced by Vaudeville, would respond to the norm, value, and function of Soviet literature? In 1934, the Stalin government established socialist realism as a only literary theory and principle. While the Union of Soviet Writers did’t take control of literary hegemony completely, the freedom and diversity of literary creation remained for a while and the vaudeville debate has also developed in various ways: The complete rejection of vaudeville, the eclectic combination of vaudeville and satire, and the full recognition of vaudeville as an entertainment genre. The Grand Purge of 1936-1938 was expressed in the realm of culture as anti-formalism campaigns, which The Arts Committee led; vaudeville was criticized as a genre representing the formalism of the play. The opponents regarded the vaudeville techniques for laughter and entertainment as a formalism: They were accused of resulting in the disappearance of the contemporary, serious theme about the Soviet reality, which the Soviet Cultural policy demanded writers to describe in their works. From the anti-formalism campaign until the outbreak of World War II (1938-1941), Soviet critics such as Akimov, on the one hand, demanded full recognition of the light comedy, including Vodeville. On the other hand, there was position, that vaudeville was the main reason for the regression of the Soviet comedy. In 1932-1941, although Soviet vaudeville was discriminated on the level of theater policy, theory and performance, the popularity of vaudeville remained constant; the government’s cultural policy makers and their critics could not ignore the demand of vaudeville advocates, that all comic genres including vaudeville be given the same rights. Between 1932 and 1941, vaudeville, which was not entirely exiled from the Soviet stage, was still possible.