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BACK TO OSTROVSKY!: RECLAIMING RUSSIA'S NATIONAL PLAYWRIGHT ON THE EARLY SOVIET STAGE by William David Gunn A Dissertation Presented to the FACULTY OF THE USC GRADUATE SCHOOL UNIVERSITY OF SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA In Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY (SLAVIC LANGUAGES AND LITERATURES) August 2012 Copyright 2012 William David Gunn
Object Description
Title | Back to Ostrovsky !: reclaiming Russia's national playwright on the early Soviet stage |
Author | Gunn, William David |
Author email | wdgunn@gmail.com;wdgunn@gmail.com |
Degree | Doctor of Philosophy |
Document type | Dissertation |
Degree program | Slavic Languages and Literatures |
School | College of Letters, Arts And Sciences |
Date defended/completed | 2012-06-18 |
Date submitted | 2012-07-25 |
Date approved | 2012-07-25 |
Restricted until | 2012-07-25 |
Date published | 2012-07-25 |
Advisor (committee chair) | Carnicke, Sharon M. |
Advisor (committee member) |
Damaré, Brad M. Damare, Brad M. Collins II, James |
Abstract | Alexander Ostrovsky (1823-1886) is the most prolific and most produced playwright in the history of Russian theatre, and no other figure has been as instrumental in establishing theatre as a key institution of Russian national culture. In 1923, the centennial of Ostrovsky's birth, the Soviet Commissar of Enlightenment, Anatoly Lunacharsky, launched a campaign promoting Russia's national playwright with the slogan ""Back to Ostrovsky!"" At a time when the language of the regime was focused on forward momentum, this was a peculiar directive to look back to the bourgeois art of Russia’s past. Lunacharsky employed the 1923 Ostrovsky jubilee to promote his agenda for the Soviet theatre and began a push to use dramatic classics as models for new proletarian art. The ""Back to Ostrovsky!"" campaign prompted the greatest theatrical directors of the era to create new productions of Ostrovsky’s plays in the 1920s. These directors, representing both avant-garde and traditionalist aesthetic ideologies, engaged in a performative dialogue embodying the larger artistic debate of the post-Revolutionary period. Three productions from the years immediately following the 1923 Ostrovsky jubilee are examined: Enough Stupidity in Every Wiseman (Na vsiakogo mudretsa dovol'no prostoty) directed by Sergei Eisenstein at the Proletkult Theatre in 1923, The Forest (Les) directed by Vsevelod Meyerhold at the Meyerhold Theatre in 1924, and An Ardent Heart (Goriachee serdtse) directed by Konstantin Stanislavsky at the Moscow Art Theatre in 1926. Relying on W. B. Worthen's conception of dramatic writing as ""writing for use"" these productions support the claim that Ostrovsky's works were used as a platform to work out aesthetic and ideological debates in the early Soviet era. Before analyzing the productions in Chapters Three, Four and Five, Chapter One examines the model for coopting Ostrovsky's works established by the social critics of the mid-nineteenth century, and Chapter Two presents the key issues facing the early Soviet Theatre. |
Keyword | theater; theatre; Russia; Russian; Stanislavsky; Meyerhold; Eisenstein; Stanislavskii; Meierkhol'd; Eizenshtein; Ostrovsky; Ostrovskii; Russian theatre; Russian theater; Lunacharsky; Lunacharskii; Moscow Art Theatre; Proletkult; Proletkul't; Back to Ostrovsky; Soviet theatre; Soviet theater; Alexander Ostrovsky; Aleksandr Ostrovskii; Aleksandr Nikolaevich Ostrovskii; A. N. Ostrovsky; A.N. Ostrovskii; Enough Stupidity in Every Wiseman; Even Wise Men Err; Na vsiakogo mudretsa dovol'no prostoty; The Forest; Les; An Ardent Heart; Goriachee serdtse; A Passionate Heart; A Warm Heart; aesthetics; ideology; politics; aesthetic; ideological; political |
Language | English |
Part of collection | University of Southern California dissertations and theses |
Publisher (of the original version) | University of Southern California |
Place of publication (of the original version) | Los Angeles, California |
Publisher (of the digital version) | University of Southern California. Libraries |
Provenance | Electronically uploaded by the author |
Type | texts |
Legacy record ID | usctheses-m |
Contributing entity | University of Southern California |
Rights | Gunn, William David |
Physical access | The author retains rights to his/her dissertation, thesis or other graduate work according to U.S. copyright law. Electronic access is being provided by the USC Libraries in agreement with the author, as the original true and official version of the work, but does not grant the reader permission to use the work if the desired use is covered by copyright. It is the author, as rights holder, who must provide use permission if such use is covered by copyright. The original signature page accompanying the original submission of the work to the USC Libraries is retained by the USC Libraries and a copy of it may be obtained by authorized requesters contacting the repository e-mail address given. |
Repository name | University of Southern California Digital Library |
Repository address | USC Digital Library, University of Southern California, University Park Campus MC 7002, 106 University Village, Los Angeles, California 90089-7002, USA |
Repository email | cisadmin@lib.usc.edu |
Archival file | uscthesesreloadpub_Volume4/etd-GunnWillia-983.pdf |
Description
Title | Page 1 |
Contributing entity | University of Southern California |
Repository email | cisadmin@lib.usc.edu |
Full text | BACK TO OSTROVSKY!: RECLAIMING RUSSIA'S NATIONAL PLAYWRIGHT ON THE EARLY SOVIET STAGE by William David Gunn A Dissertation Presented to the FACULTY OF THE USC GRADUATE SCHOOL UNIVERSITY OF SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA In Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY (SLAVIC LANGUAGES AND LITERATURES) August 2012 Copyright 2012 William David Gunn |