Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-lnqnp Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-24T03:15:00.991Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Let's Perform a Miracle: The Soviet Yiddish State Theater in the 1920s

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  27 January 2017

Jeffrey Veidlinger
Jeffrey Veidlinger*
Affiliation:
Department of History, Georgetown University
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Extract

The history of the Soviet Yiddish State Theater (Gosudarstvennyi evreiskii teatr, or Goset) provides an illuminating glimpse into the life of Jewish entertainers and the position of Yiddish culture in the Soviet Union during the 1920s. While Solomon Mikhoels, the theater's star actor and director from 1929 until 1949, is well known for his role in chairing the Jewish Anti-Fascist Committee during World War II, and for becoming the first victim of Stalin's anti-Semitic purges with his 1948 execution, little research has been conducted on the theater to which he dedicated his life. Art and theater historians have evaluated the theater's aesthetic approach to selected productions, and Mikhoels's contemporaries have provided anecdotal glimpses into that artist's life by writing biographies of him, but there has not yet been an attempt to assess the theater's relationship to the state during its heyday or to place the theater within the context of Soviet culture of the 1920s.

Type
Articles
Information
Slavic Review , Volume 57 , Issue 2 , Summer 1998 , pp. 372 - 397
Copyright
Copyright © Association for Slavic, East European, and Eurasian Studies. 1998

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

I would like to thank Richard Stites, David Goldfrank, Catherine Evtuhov, Lynn Mally, Zvi Gitelman, and Rebecca Leitman for their helpful comments and suggestions. Earlier drafts of this paper were presented at the national convention of the American Association for the Advancement of Slavic Studies, Washington, D.C., 26 October 1995, and at the Southern Conference on Slavic Studies, Mobile, Alabama, 18 March 1995.

1. For recent works dealing with the execution of Mikhoels and the post–World War II liquidation of Jewish cultural and social institutions, see Vaksberg, Arkady, Stalin against the Jews, trans. Bouis, Antonina W. (New York, 1994)Google Scholar; Kostyrchenko, G., V plenu u krasnogo faraona: Politicheskie presledovaniia evreev v SSSR v poslednee stalinskoe desiatiletie: Dokumental'noe issledovanie (Moscow, 1994)Google Scholar; Redlich, Shimon, War, Holocaust and Stalinism: A Documented Study of the Jewish Anti–Fascist Committee in the USSR (Luxembourg, 1995)Google Scholar; Naumov, V. P., ed. and comp., Nepravednyi sud: Poslednii stalinskii rasstrel: Stenogramma sudebnogo protsessa nad chlenami Evreiskogo antifashistskogo komiteta (Moscow, 1994)Google Scholar; Borshchagovskii, Aleksandr, Obviniaetsia krov’ (Moscow, 1994)Google Scholar.

2. For reviews, background information, and exhibition catalogues of Marc Chagall's artistic work with the Soviet Yiddish State theater, see Judisches Museum der Stadt Wien, Chagall: Bilder, Trdume, Theater 1908–1920 (Vienna, 1994)Google Scholar; Marc Chagall and the Jewish Theater (New York, 1992); and Frost, Matthew, “Marc Chagall and the Jewish State Chamber Theatre,” Russian History 8, no. 1–2 (1981): 90–99 CrossRefGoogle Scholar. For analyses of other selected productions of the theater, see Gordon, Mel, “Granovskii's Tragic Comedy: Night in the Old Market,” Drama Review 29 (Winter 1985): 91–122 CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Picon–Vallin, Beatrice, Le theatre juif sovietique pendant les annees vingt (Lausanne, 1973)Google Scholar; and Altshuler, Mordechai, ed., HaTeatron ha Yehudi bi Verit ha Moatsot (Jerusalem, 1996).Google Scholar

3. Dobrushin, Yehezekel, Mikhoels der aktior (Moscow, 1940)Google Scholar; Geizer, Matvei, Solomon Mikhoels (Moscow, 1990)Google Scholar; Grinval'd, Iakov, Mikhoels: Kratkii kritiko-biograficheskii ocherk (Moscow, 1948)Google Scholar; Liubomirskii, Osip, Mikhoels (Moscow, 1938)Google Scholar; Markish, Peretz, Mikhoels (Moscow, 1939)Google Scholar; Mikhoels, Natalia Vovsi, Mon pere Salomon Mikhoels: Souvenirs sur sa vie et sur sa mort, trans. Spatz, Erwin (Montricher, 1990)Google Scholar; Zagorskii, M., Mikhoels (Moscow, 1927)Google Scholar.

4. See, for example, Stites, Richard, Revolutionary Dreams: Utopian Vision and Experimental Life in the Russian Revolution (New York, 1989)Google Scholar; Stites, Richard, Russian Popular Culture: Entertainment and Society since 1900 (Cambridge, Eng., 1992)Google Scholar; Mally, Lynn, Culture of the Future: The Proletkult Movement in Revolutionary Russia (Berkeley, 1990)Google Scholar; Gleason, Abbott, Kenez, Peter, and Stites, Richard, eds., Bolshevik Culture: Experiment and Order in the Russian Revolution (Bloomington, 1985)Google Scholar; Youngblood, Denise J., Movies for the Masses: Popular Cinema and Soviet Society in the 1920s (Cambridge, Eng., 1992)Google Scholar; Clark, Katerina, Petersburg, Crucible of Cultural Revolution (Cambridge, Mass., 1995)Google Scholar.

5. Pinkus, Benjamin, The Jews in the Soviet Union: The History of a National Minority (Cambridge, Eng., 1988), 106 CrossRefGoogle Scholar. For similar predominantly Cold War-era interpretations, see Kochan, Lionel, ed., The Jews in Soviet Russia since 1917 (New York, 1970)Google Scholar; Baron, Salo Wittmayer, The Russian Jew under Tsars and Soviets (New York, 1964)Google Scholar; Schwarz, Solomon M., The Jews in the Soviet Union (Syracuse, N.Y., 1951)Google Scholar; Levin, Nora, The Jews in the Soviet Union since 1917: Paradox of Survival, 2 vols. (New York, 1990)Google Scholar; Ro'i, Yaacov, ed., Jews and Jewish Life in Russia and the Soviet Union (Ilford, Eng., 1995).Google Scholar

6. Swet, Gershon, “Jewish Religion in Soviet Russia,” in Frumkin, Jacob et al., Russian Jewry, 1860–1917, trans. Ginsburg, Mirra (New York, 1966), 209–21Google Scholar; Gitelman, Zvi, Jewish Nationality and Soviet Politics: The Jewish Sections of the CPSU, 1917–1930 (Princeton, 1972), 291–318 Google Scholar; Levin, Jews in the Soviet Union, 68–119.

7. Gitelman, Jewish Nationality, 321–78.

8. For the Hebrew language Habima theater, see Ivanov, Vladislav, “Poetika metamorfoz: Vakhtangov i Gabima,” Voprosy teatra, 1993, no. 13: 188–222 Google Scholar; and Ivanov, Vladislav, “Teatr Gabima v Moskve: Na vesakh Iova,” Znamia, 1995, no. 12: 168–92Google Scholar. For film, see Hoberman, J., Bridge of Light: Yiddish Film between Two Worlds (New York, 1991), 87–102 Google Scholar. For art, see Gabriel, Ruth Apter, ed., Tradition and Revolution: The Jewish Renaissance in Russian Avant Garde Art, 1912–1928, 2d ed. (Jerusalem, 1988)Google Scholar.

9. See Rudnitsky, Konstantin, Russian and Soviet Theater, 1905–1932 (New York, 1988), 41–47 Google Scholar; Geldern, James von, Bolshevik Festivals, 1917–1920 (Berkeley, 1993)Google Scholar; Douglas Clayton, J., Pierrot in Petrograd: The Commedia Dell'Arte/Balagan in Twentieth–Century Russian Theatre and Drama (Montreal, 1993)Google Scholar; Clark, Petersburg, 74–121.

10. Ivanov, Viacheslav, Rodnoe i vselenskoe (Moscow, 1994), 26–51.Google Scholar

11. Lunacharskii, A. V., O teatre i dramaturgii: Izbrannye stati, ed. and comp. Deicha, A., 2 vols. (Moscow, 1958), 1: 129.Google Scholar

12. Litvakov, Moshe, Funf yor melukhisher yidisher kunst teater, 1921–1925 (Moscow, 1924), 21 Google Scholar. See also his “Der tsushtand un di oyfgabz fun der sovetish yidisher literatur,” Literarishe bleter, 13 January 1928, 37–9; and Katz, Moshe, “Di vegn fun dem yidishn teater,” Baginen, June 1919, bk. 1: 69–79.Google Scholar

13. Lunacharskii, O teatre i dramaturgii, 1: 127–50; Leon Trotsky, Literature and Revolution (Ann Arbor, 1960), 237.

14. Efros, Abram, “Evreiskii teatr,”Teatr i muzyka, 28 November 1922, no. 9: 110–11.Google Scholar

15. Solomon Mikhoels, “Mikhoels Vovsi vegn dem teatr,” Literarishe bleter, 27 April 1928, no. 17: 318–20.

16. Chagall, Marc, My Life (New York, 1960), 159.Google Scholar

17. See especially Maiakovskii, Vladimir et al., “Poshchechina obshchestvennomu vkusu,” in Maiakovskii, Vladimir, Polnoe sobranie sochinenii (Moscow, 1955), 13: 244 Google Scholar. For a discussion of the various forms of iconoclasm in the Russian revolution, see Stites, Richard, “Iconoclastic Currents in the Russian Revolution: Destroying and Preserving the Past,” in Gleason, , Kenez, , and Stites, , eds., Bolshevik Culture, 1–24.Google Scholar

18. Gosudarstvennyi teatral'nyi muzei im. A. A. Bakhrushina, rukopisnyi otdel (GTsTM), f. 584, d. 4 (Aleksandr Granovskii, “Nashi tseli i zadachi,” June 1919).

19. For a general discussion of god–building and millenarianism, see Stites, Revolutionary Dreams, 37–46; Clark, Petersburg, 30–38.

20. This claim, however, has never been fully established. See Zalmen Zylbercwaig, “Iz dos yidishe teater gegrindet in Berditshev losi gor in Konstantinopol?” Literarishe bleter, 24 February 1928, no. 8: 149–50; L. Dushman, “Iz dos yidishe teater gegrindet in Varshe?” Literarishe bleter, 30 March 1928, no. 13: 269.

21. Voskhod, 1900, no. 93: 14. See also, Voskhod, 1900, nos. 17, 36, 61; 1902, nos. 45–48; and Budushchnost', 1900, no. 28; 1901, no. 12; and 1902, no. 32.

22. Rossiiskii gosudarstvennyi arkhiv literatury i iskusstva (RGALI), f. 2307, op. 2, d. 529, 11.1–5 (founding principles of the Jewish Theatrical Society, July 1916).

23. For more on Jewish organic work in early nineteenth–century Russia, see Gassenschmidt, Christoph, Jewish Liberal Politics in Tsarist Russia, 1900–1914: The Modernization of Russian Jewry (New York, 1995).Google Scholar

24. RGALI, f. 2307, op. 2, d. 530 (protocols of the Jewish Theatrical Society, 1916–1918), 1. 47.

25. Vovsi Mikhoels, Mon pere Salomon Mikhoels, 39.

26. GTsTM, f. 584, d. 7 (list of Granovskii's work, 1920–1930).

27. RGALI, f. 2307, op. 2, d. 530, 11. 48–52.

28. Gosudarstvennyi arkhiv Rossiiskoi Federatsii (GA RF), f. 2306, op. 24, d. 510 (correspondence between Collegium of National Minorities and Theatrical Section of Commissariat of Enlightenment, October 1918–May 1919), 11.3–4.

29. GA RF, f. 2306, op. 24, d. 510, 1. 35.

30. For an explanation of this process, see Fitzpatrick, Sheila, The Commissariat of Enlightenment (Cambridge, 1970), 139–61.Google Scholar

31. For the Proletkul't, see Mally, Culture of the Future. For TRAM, see Mally, Lynn, “The Rise and Fall of the Soviet Youth Theater TRAM,” Slavic Review 51, no. 3 (Fall 1992): 411–30.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

32. Irina Avanesian, “Master,” Teatral'naia zhizn', May 1990, no. 10: 17.

33. GTsTM, f. 584, d. 4, 1. 1.

34. See, for instance, Mally, “The Soviet Youth Theater TRAM,” 415.

35. Liubomirskii, Mikhoels, 8.

36. GTsTM, f. 584, d. 128 (autobiography of Solomon Mikhoels).

37. GTsTM, f. 584, d. 129 (contract for E. B. Abramovich).

38. RGALI, f. 2307, op. 2, d. 436 (posters, 1919–1923).

39. GTsTM, f. 584, d. 51 (Stroitel', a play by Solomon Mikhoels).

40. Rosenfeld, Lulla Adler, The Yiddish Theatre and Jacob P. Adler, 2d rev. ed. (New York, 1988), 101 Google Scholar. See also Kaufmann, Dalia, “Uriel Acosta le-Karl Gutzkov al ha bimah ha Yehudit (1881–1922),” in Altshuler, Mordechai, ed., Ha Teatron, 205–24.Google Scholar

41. Vovsi Mikhoels, Mon père Salomon Mikhoels, 28.

42. See Fitzpatrick, Commissariat of Enlightenment, 151. Thorpe, Richard G., “The Academic Theater and the Fate of Soviet Artistic Pluralism, 1919–1928,” Slavic Review 51, no. 3 (Fall 1992): 389–410.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

43. Efros, Abram and Tugendkhol'd, Iakov, Iskusstvo Marka Shagala (Moscow, 1918).Google Scholar

44. For the originals, see Aleichem, Sholem, Komedien, in Ale verk fun Sholem Aleichem, vol. 3, bk. 2 (New York, 1942), 135–68, 197–218Google Scholar. For Granovskii's version, see RGALI, f. 2307, op. 2, d. 176 (Dray pintelekh), 11. 11–23; RGALI, f. 2307, op. 2, d. 301 ( “Agenty “). For an English translation of Granovskii's version of Agents, see Marc Chagall and the Jewish Theater, 164–71.

45. Mikhoels, Solomon, Stati, besedy, rechi (Moscow, 1981), 152.Google Scholar

46. Zagorskii, Mikhoels, 14.

47. Clayton, Pierrot in Petrograd, 235.

48. For an analysis of the role of carnival in the Soviet Yiddish Theater, see Picon Vallin, Le thèâtre juif, 127–38.

49. See, for example, Iantarev, E, “Vecher Sholom Aleikhema,” Teatr i muzyka, 12 December 1922, no. 11: 236.Google Scholar

50. Vayter, A., Far tog (Wilna, 1922).Google Scholar

51. Rossiiskii tsentr khraneniia i izucheniia dokumentov noveishei istorii (RTsKhIDNI), f. 455, op. 1, d. 60 (correspondence between the Jewish Section of the Communist Party and the State Yiddish Theater, September 1920 to December 1925), 1. 19.

52. Ibid., 1. 17.

53. For The Sorceress, see Avrom Gol'dfaden, Di kishufmakherin: Opereta in 5 akten un in 8 bilder (Warsaw, 1905)Google Scholar. For Granovskii's adaptation, see RGALI, f. 2307, op. 2, dd. 299–300 (The Sorceress). For Two Hundred Thousand, see Sholem Aleichem, Dramatishe shriften, in Ale verk fun Sholem Aleichem, vol. 3, bk. 1, 151–256. For Granovskii's adaptation, see RGALI, f. 2307, op. 2, dd. 302–3 (Two Hundred Thousand).

54. RGALI, f. 2307, op. 1, d. 98 (biographical data), 11. 7–23.

55. National Sound Archives of Israel, uncatalogued.

56. “Brambilla na bronnoi,” Pravda, 14 February 1923. See also “200, 000,” Izvestiia, 8 October 1923.

57. Sandrow, Nahma, Vagabond Stars: A World History of Yiddish Theater (New York, 1977), 238.Google Scholar

58. Gordon, “Granovskii's Tragic Comedy,” 92.

59. Ghelman, Jewish Nationality, 382.

60. RGALI, f. 2307, op. 2, d. 15 (correspondence between Aleksandr Granovskii and the Commissariat of Enlightenment, 1921–1928), 11. 114–15; GTsTM, f. 584, d. 142 (protocols of the Jewish Theatrical Society, 22 December 1926).

61. RTsKhIDNI, f. 455, op. 1, d. 60, 11. 24–25, 57–58, 82.

62. RGALI, f. 2307, op. 2, d. 12 (list of employees), 1. 16.

63. RTsKhIDNI, f. 455, op. 1, d. 60, 1. 42.

64. Ibid., 1. 52.

65. Ibid., 11. 45–46.

66. The Union of Artists was composed primarily of nonartistic workers from the former municipal and private theaters. See Thorpe, “Academic Theater,” 398–99.

67. RTsKhIDNI, f. 455, op. 1, d. 60, 1. 160.

68. Ibid., 1. 162.

69. RGALI, f. 2307, op. 2, d. 26 (correspondence regarding the conflict between Goset and the trade union, 1926–1929), 11.14–18.

70. RTsKhIDNI, f. 455, op. 1, d. 183 (correspondence from the Jewish Section regarding Jewish theater, 1926–1927), 1. 65.

71. Thorpe, “Academic Theater,” 405–6.

72. Gitelman, Jewish Nationality, 330.

73. For recent evaluations of this play, see Gordon, “Granovskii's Tragic Comedy,” and Shmeruk, Rhone, “Ba–lailah ba shuk ha-yashan meat Y. L. Peretz be teatron ha Yehudi be Moskvah,” in Altshuler, Mordechai, ed., Ha-Teatron, 239–53.Google Scholar

74. Gordon, “Granovskii's Tragic Comedy,” 92–94.

75. P. A. Markov, “Noch’ na starom rynke v evreiskom teatre,” Pravda, 13 February 1925; Er., “Noch’ na starom rynke,” Izvestiia, 13 February 1925; V. B., “Noch’ na starom rynke,” Krasnaia gazeta (Leningrad), 11 September 1925; Simon Dreiden, “Noch’ na starom rynke,” Leningradskaia pravda, 12 December 1926.

76. Yidishn glikn, directed by Aleksandr Granovskii, Moscow, 1925 (film). Hoberman, Bridge of Light, 87–102.

77. RTsKhIDNI, f. 455, op. 1, d. 60, 1. 91; RGALI, f. 2307, op. 2, d. 15, 11. 18, 37–38.

78. RGALI, f. 2307, op. 2, d. 26, 11. 1–2, 14–18.

79. Thorpe, “Academic Theater,” 396–97.

80. RTsKhIDNI, f. 455, op. 1, d. 60, 11. 139, 147, 170–73.

81. Ibid., 1. 172.

82. RTsKhIDNI, f. 455, op. 1, d. 183, 1. 136.

83. RTsKhIDNI, f. 455, op. 1, d. 60, 1. 178.

84. RTsKhIDNI, f. 455, op. 1, d. 183, 1. 93.

85. Ibid., 11. 94–95.

86. Ibid., 11. 97–98.

87. Ibid., 1. 10.

88. Ibid., 11. 2–4.

89. Ibid., 1. 5.

90. Ibid., 1. 142.

91. RGALI, f. 2307, op. 2, d. 126 (137 kinder hoyzer), 1. 71.

92. RGALI, f. 2307, op. 2, d. 26, 11. 28–29.

93. Moshe Litvakov, “Truadek,” Der emes, 5 February 1927.

94. RGALI, f. 2307, op. 2, d. 450 (playbill). For an English translation of Mendele's original text, see Abramovitsh, S. Y. (Seorim, Mendele Moykher), Tales of Mendele the Book Peddler: Fishke the Lame and Benjamin the Third, ed. Miron, Dan and Frieden, Ken, trans. Gorelick, Ted and Halkin, Hillel (New York, 1996).Google Scholar

95. A. S. Lirik, “Izrael shpielt mit zayn shaten,” Haynt, 24 May 1928.

96. Grinval'd, Mikhoels, 42.

97. Moshe Litvakov, “In Moskver melukhishn yidishn teater dos tsente gebot,” Der emes, 3 February 1926; “Vegn tsvey oyfirungen,” Der ernes, 4 December 1927.

98. Reznik, Lipe, Oyfshtand (Kiev, 1928).Google Scholar

99. Moshe Goldblatt, “Der ufkum un umkum fun der yidisher teater kultur in sovetn–farband,” Moshe Goldblatt Papers, P–51/21 103, Diaspora Research Institute, Tel Aviv.

100. A. Gidion, “Kolonial'nye postanovki,” Sovremennyi teatr, 1927, no. 15.

101. Em. Beskin, “Vosstanie v Gosete,” Vecherniaia Moskva, 4 December 1927.

102. RGALI, f. 2307, op. 2, d. 26, 11. 28–29.

103. Ibid., 11. 37, 48.

104. Goldblatt, “Der ufkum,” 105.

105. Cited in Max Erlik, “Menakhem Mendl,” Shtern, 1935, nos. 5–6: 180–202 and no. 8: 82–90.

106. Liubomirskii, Mikhoels, 44.

107. I. Kruti, “Chelovek vozdukha,” Sovremennyi teatr, 1928, no. 15.

108. Sh. Shamis, “Mikhoels—Menakhem Mendel,” Der emes, 12 July 1929.

109. Central Archives for the History of the Jewish People, HM/2 7313 (correspondence of Commissariat of Enlightenment regarding Jewish theater, 1926–1928).

110. See Kuromiya, Hiroaki, Stalin's Industrial Revolution: Politics and Workers, 1928–1932 (Cambridge, Eng., 1988)Google Scholar; Rassweiler, Anne Dickason, The Generation of Power: The History of Dneprostroi (New York, 1988)Google Scholar; Siegelbaum, Lewis, Stakhanovism and the Politics of Productivity in the USSR, 1935–41 (Cambridge, Eng., 1988)Google Scholar. This theme is also shared by many of the articles in Fitzpatrick, Sheila, The Cultural Front: Power and Culture in Revolutionary Russia (Ithaca, 1992)Google Scholar; Rosenberg, William G. and Siegelbaum, Lewis H., eds., Social Dimensions of Soviet Industrialization (Bloomington, 1993)Google Scholar.