| Historians of Russian culture often remark on the high degree of theatricality in Russian social institutions after the revolutions of 1917. This dissertation examines the interaction between theater and the social sphere (political, educational, and legal) in early Soviet Russia and discusses how the Bolsheviks used theater as a propaganda tool to create the new Soviet man and a new proletarian society. Chapter One examines utopian theatrical theories, whose roots lay in Russian Symbolism, and their impact on Bolshevik notions of cultural mobilization. The Bolshevik push to use theater for propaganda purposes resulted in the emergence of the agitsud, or mock trial, which figured as a popular theatrical genre throughout the twenties. The agitsud forms the subject of Chapter Two of this dissertation, and Chapter Three investigates actual political trials of the 1920's--the trial of the left Socialist Revolutionaries in 1922 and the Shakhty trial in 1928. In both their form and function, theatrical mock trials provided the model for political show trials of the time. In the last two chapters, this dissertation interprets the work of the director V. E. Meyerhold and the relationship of his theater to these two forms of propaganda and the emerging totalitarian state. Chapter Four treats several of Meyerhold's most influential productions during NEP, namely, Mystery-Bouffe in 1921, Tarelkin's Death in 1922, Mandate in 1925, and Inspector General in 1926. Chapter Five discusses Meyerhold's last avant-garde productions during the first five-year plan, including Woe to Wit in 1928, The Bedbug in 1929, The Bathhouse in 1930, and The Suicide in 1932. This dissertation provides an overview of the uses of the theater to create and enforce the Bolsheviks' own sense of "poetic justice" and of how Meyerhold, in his own theater, reacted to and tried to modify the concept of poetic justice. |
