The St Petersburg Imperial Theaters: Stage and State in Revolutionary Russia 1900-1920 by Murray s> Frame (review)

Abstract

324 SEER, 79, 2, 2001 ethical engagement and worldly intervention, thus making it chime with Marxist political theory. Bakhtin seems to follow suit when he defines the Bildungsroman as a breakwith earlier idyllic narrativeforms, but his emphasis on Goethe's idea of an integralseeing allows him to reduce Bildung to the very idylliccontemplation it was supposedto transcend. A short review can't possiblydojustice to the subtletywith which Tihanov pursues his case, or even give a hint of the many compelling arguments generated in its wake. Nor can it even list the fascinatingintellectualhistories which Tihanov has unearthed through patient research (two examples for illustrationalone:he showshow Voloshinov'stheoryof languagedepended on Bukharin'swritingson ideology and the indebtednessof Bakhtin'sinterpretation of Goethe to books by Dilthey, Simmel and Gundolf). Up till now 'historical context' in books on Bakhtin has generally meant hazy and unprovable generalizations about 'Russian thought'; in Tihanov's study it means precise research -in five languages and carefulargument.In one fellswoop Tihanov has given us a brilliantanalysisof culturalargumentin the interwar period and set a new standard for the study of Bakhtin'swork in particular.We can only hope that otherswill follow his example. Department ofEnglishandAmericanStudies KEN HIRSCHKOP University ofManchester Frame,Murray. TheStPetersburg Imperial Theaters: Stage andStateinRevolutionary RussiaI900-I920. McFarland &Company, Jefferson,NorthCarolina, 2000. X+ 214 pp. Notes. Index. $39.95. AT a moment when the St PetersburgKirov (formerMariinskii)Opera and Ballet Company is receiving rave reviewson its currentworld tour and when critics are explaining its qualities of superlative ensemble in terms of a specificallySoviettraditionof statefundingwith itsoriginsin Russia'simperial past, the appearanceof the presentbook seems especiallyapposite. The theme of MurrayFrame'sthoroughlyresearchedand conciselywritten studyconcernstheinstitutionalidentityof the St PetersburgImperialTheatres and their relationship to the Russian state during the turbulentyears which included the revolution of 1905, the FirstWorldWar, and both the February and October revolutionsof 19I7. For the uninitiated, the status of the two major Imperial Theatres in St Petersburgmay be likenedto that of the two Royal Theatres (Covent Garden and Drury Lane) in England between i66o and I843, whilst the extravagant funding of the Aleksandrinskiiand Mariinskiiis not unlike that bestowed on the staging of allegoricallysignificantcourt masques by James and Charles I during the firsthalf of the seventeenth century. In this latter sense, the policy of the Bolsheviks in sustaining the cultural significance of the Imperial Theatresbeyond 19I7 seemspositivelyenlightenedwhen comparedwith that of its revolutionaryforebearsin England,where both the court and the public theatreswere crushed(somewould saypermanently)duringthe I640s. Again, it can be argued that prestigious institutions in British culture which have 'imperial' status, in so far as they attract a disproportionate amount of REVIEWS 325 centrally allocated funding, such as the Royal National Theatre, the Royal Shakespeare Company and the Theatre Royal, Covent Garden, occupy a political and cultural space in British society similar to that of their prerevolutionaryand post-revolutionaryRussiancounterparts. It is, however, at points where this study reminds the reader of historical similarities that the qualitative discrepancy highlights essential differences. When, for example, Frameis considering the nature of a repressiveImperial Directorate and its paradoxicallyenabling effects on the theatricalculture of the Russian Silver Age, he records the adventurous artistic policy of the incumbentImperialTheatre director,V. A. Teliakovskii(inmany respectsthe hero of this narrative)and the talentswhich his administrationnurtured.The roll-call of names includes Shaliapin, Karsavina, Pavlova,Nizhinskii, Petipa, Fokin, Meierkhol'd, Bakst, not to mention the dramatic talents of Savina, Varlamov,Iur'evand others. The book chartsthe backgroundto this extraordinaryphase by tracingthe rise of the Imperial Theatres as virtual departments of state during the nineteenth century, combining the characteristicsof a military culture with adherenceto the calendarof the Orthodox Churchaspartof theirofficialrole as celebratoryemblemsof the tsaristcourtand, after I882, as culturalbastions against the rise of commercial theatrical entertainment. The study then considers the relationship between the Directorate of the Imperial Theatres and its troupes, before going on to characterize the audiences of privileged and wealthy patrons who constituted a cultural elite closely associated with Russian imperial power. However, the section on the repertoire concludes that this was not narrowly court-based but had a much wider social and culturalsignificance.Interestingly,the most popularplays at the Aleksandrinskii during this period were Gogol"s TheGovernment Inspector and SukhovoKobylin 'sKrechinskii's Wedding, whilstthe most performedShakespeareanplay was TheMerchant of Venice...