1. I. I. Vasil'ev-Viaz'min, Iskusstvo liudnykh ploshchadei (Moscow: Znanie, 1977), p. 8.

2. A. V. Lunacharskii, "Budem smeiat'sia," in Lunacharskii, Stat'i o teatre i dramaturgii (Moscow: Iskusstvo, 1938), pp. 164-65.

3. Fine descriptions of Russian carnival culture can be found in Nekrylova, Russkie narodnye gorodskie prazdniki, uveseleniia i zrelishcha, and AlekseevIakovlev, Russkie narodnye gulianiia . No one should miss the magical description in Alexandre Benois, Memoirs (London: Chatto & Windus, 1960), vol. 1, pp. 117-30.

4. Quoted in Dmitriev, Russkii tsirk, p. 32.

5. Adolphe L. de Custine, Journey for Our Time (Chicago: H. Regnery, 1951), p. 141. Custine noted that the equality was due to a mutual and absolute abasement before the tsar.

6. See Ivan Shcheglov, "Narodnye gulianiia v Moskve," in Shcheglov, V zashchitu narodnogo teatra (St. Petersburg: V. Kirshbaum, 1903).

7. "Khronika," ZI, 29 April 1919, p. 2.

8. Trotsky, incidentally, would eventually conceive the same notion: see "Vodka, the Church and the Cinema" (1923) in Leon Trotsky, Problems of Everyday Life, and Other Writings on Culture & Science (New York: Monad Press, 1973).

9. Aleksandr Benois, "Vykhod iskusstva na ulitsu," NZh, 4 June 1917, p. 3.

10. Protocols of the commission can be found in LGAOR, f. 2551, op. 1, dd. 2250, 2357.

11. "K sniatiiu pamiatnika Nikolaiu Nikolaevichu," ZI, 15 November 1918, p. 4.

12. See V. A. Nevskii, Massovaia politiko-prosvetitel'naia rabota revoliutsionnykh let (Moscow: Gudok, 1925), for a thorough overview of these methods, including their successes and failures.

13. VT, no. 22 (1919), p. 3, in AMI (1984), p. 93.

14. Mazaev, Prazdnik, p. 292.

15. See V. Golovasevich and V. Lashchilin, Narodnyi teatr na Donu (Rostov: Rostizdat, 1947), pp. 27-28, 55-58.

16. For descriptions, see "Sud nad Vrangelem," VT, no. 72-73 (1920), pp. 16-17; "Obzor agitatsionnogo materiala. Instsenirovka agitatsionnykh sudov," Vestnik agitatsii i propagandy, 25 November 1920, pp. 25-27; René FülöpMiller, The Mind and Face of Bolshevism (New York: Knopf, 1928), pp. 201-2 (with inaccuracies); Kerzhentsev, Tvorcheskii teatr, pp. 147-48; and Vsevolod Vishnevskii, "20-letie sovetskoi dramaturgii," Sovetskie dramaturgi o svoem tvorchestve (Moscow: Iskusstvo, 1967), pp. 149-50.

17. Kerzhentsev, Tvorcheskii teatr, p. 147.

18. Rolland, Le théâtre du peuple, pp. 121-24. For the views of Gorky and Lunacharsky, see G. V. Titova, "A. V. Lunacharskii o revoliutsionno-romanticheskom teatre," in Teatr i dramaturgiia (Leningrad, 1967), or V. K. Aizenshtadt, Russkaia sovetskaia istoricheskaia dramaturgiia 1917-1929 (Kharkov: KhGIK, 1969), vol. 1, pp. 27-28.

19. A. V. Lunacharskii, "Kakaia nam nuzhna melodrama" (1919), in Lunacharskii, Sobranie sochinenii (Moscow: Khudozh. literatura, 1964), vol. 2, p. 213.

20. Russkii-sovetskii teatr, p. 359.

21. Iu. M. Lotman, "Khudozhestvennaia priroda russkikh narodnykh kartinok," in Narodnaia graviura i fol'klor v Rossii XVII-XIX vv. (Moscow: Sovetskii khudozhnik, 1976). See also Zelentsova, Narodnyi revoliutsionnyi teatr, p. 31.

22. "K oktiabr'skim torzhestvam," ZI, 5 November 1918, p. 4.

23. LGAOR, f. 2551, op. 1, d. 2246, I. 6.

24. U istokov, pp. 295-96.

25. See "M. Gorkii o kinematografe," VT, no. 30 (1919), p. 10, for the original idea.

26. Iu. A. Dmitriev, Sovetskii tsirk (Moscow: Iskusstvo, 1963), p. 24.

27. Shklovskii, "Iskusstvo tsirk," in Shklovskii, Khod konia, p. 138.

28. For Lunacharsky's views on the conversion of the circus to the new order, see "Zadachi obnovlennogo tsirka" (1919) in A. V. Lunacharskii, O massovykh prazdnestvakh, estrade i tsirke (Moscow: Iskusstvo, 1981).

29. Dmitriev, Sovetskii tsirk, p. 33.

30. Text translated in Frantishek Déak, "The Agit-Prop and Circus Plays of Vladimir Mayakovsky," Drama Review 17, no. 1 (March 1973). Something similar had already been done under different circumstances in the United States: see MacKaye, The Civic Theatre, p. 71.

31. For the best descriptions, see Annenkov, Dnevnik moikh vstrech, vol. 2, pp. 449-55; Shklovskii, "Dopolnennyi Tolstoi," in Shklovskii, Khod konia; and Zolotnitskii, Zori teatral'nogo oktiabria, pp. 234-39.

32. N. N[osko]v, "Pervyi vinokur," ZI, 24 September 1919, p. 1.

33. Shklovskii, "Dopolnennyi Tolstoi," p. 127.

34. Iu. Annenkov, "Krizis èstrady," ZI, 3-4 July 1920, in Zolotnitskii, Zori teatral'nogo oktiabria, p. 236. The influence on Eisenstein and his "montage of attractions" would be apparent in a few years.

35. "Vozrozhdenie tsirka," VT, no. 9 (1919), pp. 4-5.

36. "Tsirk," VT, no. 39 (1919), p. 13.

37. Dmitriev, Russkii tsirk, p. 194.

38. TsGALI, f. 2087, op. 1, d. 80, 1. 98.

39. E. M. Kuznetsov, Arena i liudi sovetskogo tsirka (Leningrad: Iskusstvo, 1947), p. 32.

40. "Vtoroi gos. tsirk," VT, no. 44 (1919), p. 7.

41. "Konenkov dlia tsirka," VT, no. 44 (1919), pp. 6-7.

42. The figure had been used effectively in posters of the 1905 and 1917 revolutions: Lapshin, Khudozhestvennaia zhizn', pp. 89, 105. And in 1930 Mayakovsky would write a scenario for another circus performance, Moscow Afire, using the same formation.

43. "Pervyi gos. tsirk," VT, no. 42 (1919), p. 10.

44. D. Samarskii, Nastrazhe mirovoi kommuny (Rostov: Gosizdat, 1920), p. 5.

45. A tiny theater whose repertory ran to pre-nineteenth-century farces and commedia dell'arte interludes: Cervantes's The Rival Ladies, Franz Pocci's Crocodile and Persia, Machiavelli's Mandragola . See "Moskovskii Balagan," VT, no. 8 (1919), p. 6.

46. "K pervomaiskim torzhestvam," VT, no. 22 (1919), pp. 3-4, in AMI (1984).

47. Vadim Shershenevich, "Tsirk," Zrelishcha, no. 2 (1922), p. 15. See also Boris Erdman, "Nepovtorimoe vremia," Tsirk i estrada, no. 3-4 (1928), pp. 6-8, 8, or A. V. Lunacharskii, "O tsirkakh," in Lunacharskii, Star'i, pp. 170-72.

48. Historians have ignored Gaideburov's contributions. Unfortunately, the main source for all work on early Soviet festivals has been Piotrovsky, scholar at GIII through the 1920s and 1930s, director of various theaters, and administrator of the Politprosvet theater network. Piotrovsky, who was a brilliant and productive critic, carried something of a vendetta against Gaideburov, partly for ideological reasons, partly for personal reasons. On top of his historiographical elisions, Piotrovsky never hesitated to slander Gaideburov directly: see Istoriia sovetskogo teatra, pp. 159-68; A. P[iotrovskii], "Akademicheskii teatr intelligentsii," ZI, 20 December 1921, p. 4; "Dovol'no Peredvizhnogo," ZI, no. 23 (1923). From his administrative position, Piotrovsky twice succeeded in appropriating the Mobile-Popular Theater's building, the final time when he handed it over to TRAM (Theater of Worker Youth), of which he was administrative patron.

49. This approach was most closely associated with Ivan Shcheglov—for example, "O repertuare narodnogo teatra," in Shcheglov, V zashchitu narodnogo teatra .

50. P. P. Gaideburov, "Novye zadachi teatral'nogo instruktorstva," VO, no. 2-3 (1919), p. 20.

51. Repertory listings can be found in the appendices of an excellent study: Gaideburov, Literaturnoe nasledie .

52. G. A. Khaichenko, Russkii narodnyi teatr kontsa XIX-nachala XX veka (Moscow: Nauka, 1975), p. 165.

53. P. P. Gaideburov, "Vsenarodnyi teatr," in Konst. Erberg, ed., Iskusstvo i narod (Petrograd: Kolos, 1922).

54. "Nashim budushchim zriteliam" (1918), in Gaideburov, Literaturnoe nasledie, p. 224.

55. P. P. Gaideburov, "Novye metody teatral'nogo instruktorstva," VO, no. 4-5 (1919), p. 6.

56. P. P. Gaideburov, "Pis'mo k zriteliu. Bez zaglaviia," ZPOT, no. 17 (1919), p. 6. Note the reliance on Ivanov's terminology.

57. Osip Mandelstam provides an ironic description in The Noise of Time, in The Prose of Osip Mandelstam, trans. Clarence Brown (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1965), pp. 98-99.

58. The line is originally from Plutarch and was probably passed on to the Russians by Nietzsche. My description is based mostly on Gaideburov's account in Literaturnoe nasledie, pp. 238-39.

59. Istoriia sovetskogo teatra, p. 166.

60. Gaideburov, "Novye zadachi," pp. 20-23.

61. "Poezdka v Vitebsk," ZPOT, no. 20 (1919), p. 9.

62. Gaideburov, "Novye zadachi."

63. P. P. Gaideburov, "Tvorcheskaia igra. Improvizatsionnyi metod N. F. Skarskoi," VO, no. 6-8 (1919), pp. 36-40.

64. A complete course list can be found in "V Institute vneshkol'nogo obrazovaniia," ZPOT, no. 24-25 (1919), p. 18.

65. Again, if history has been recorded differently, Piotrovsky and his assistant Avlov (a former lawyer) are at fault. In many publications they propagated the idea that Gaideburov was responsible for the kulturträger, or anti-amateur, method of instruction: for example, G. Avlov, Klubnyi samodeiatel'nyi teatr: Evoliutsia metodov i form, introduction by A. V. Piotrovskii (Leningrad: Teakinopechat', 1930).

66. A. Mashirov-Samobytnik, "Istoriia Proletkul'ta (1905-1917)," Voprosy literatury, no. 1 (1958), pp. 172-76.

67. See S. V. Panina, "Na Peterburgskoi okraine," Novyi zhurnal, no. 48-49 (1957).

68. Gaideburov, "Pis'mo k zriteliu," pp. 3-6.

69. See Vinogradov-Mamont, Krasnoarmeiskoe chudo, p. 5.

70. Ibid., pp. 13-14.

69. See Vinogradov-Mamont, Krasnoarmeiskoe chudo, p. 5.

70. Ibid., pp. 13-14.

71. Gaideburov, "Novye zadachi," pp. 22-23.

72. Histories of the group can be found in Vinogradov-Mamont, Krasnoarmeiskoe chudo, and in Istoriia sovetskogo teatra, pp. 244-50.

73. Fedor Dostoevskii, Zapiski iz mertvogo doma, in Polnoe sobranie sochinenii (Leningrad: Nauka, 1972), vol. 4, pp. 118-19.

74. English readers can find a good description in Elizabeth Warner, The Russian Folk Theatre (The Hague: Mouton, 1977), pp. 127-40.

75. See V. Krupianskaia, "Narodnaia drama (genezis i literaturnaia istoriia)," in Slavianskii fol'klor (Moscow: Nauka, 1972).

76. Original accounts can be found in Istoriia sovetskogo teatra, pp. 244-46; Massovye prazdnestva, pp. 57-60; Vinogradov-Mamont, Krasnoarmeiskoe chudo, pp. 26-30; "Pervyi spektakl' dramaticheskoi masterskoi Krasnoi Armii," IK, 30 March 1919, p. 4; and "Peterburgskie pis'ma," VT, no. 43 (1919), p. 13.

77. The French scholar Nina Gourfinkel called it a jeu: see Nina Gourfinkel, Théâtre russe contemporain (Paris: La Renaissance du Livre, 1931), p. 129.

78. Istoriia sovetskogo teatra, p. 246. The reader may feel free to doubt this figure, which is given by many sources but seems unlikely.

79. Vinogradov-Mamont, Krasnoarmeiskoe chudo, p. 22.

80. I have yet to fathom how the seats were arranged. Descriptions suggest that seats faced one of the stages; but that would have forced spectators to constantly swivel back and forth.

81. Vinogradov-Mamont, Krasnoarmeiskoe chudo, p. 68.

82. Massovye prazdnestva, p. 59.

83. Original accounts can be found in Vinogradov-Mamont, Krasnoarmeiskoe chudo, pp. 104-12; "Tret'ii internatsional," ZI, 9 May 1919, p. 2; and B. N[ikono]v, "Pod otkrytym nebom," ZI, 14 May 1919, p. 1.

84. The obvious precedent was Ivanov's tragedy Prometheus, written in 1916 but published only in 1919. Although The Russian Prometheus ( Rossiiskii Prometei ) was given wide manuscript circulation, the only text I know of is in TsGALI, f. 2640, op. 1, d. 147. For Vinogradov's vision of "the theater of the future," as declared to Chaliapin, Iurev, Radlov, Petrov-Vodkin, and Aleksei Remizov, see "Khronika," VT, no. 43 (1919), p. 14. This vision also reflected Ivanov's influence.

85. Vinogradov-Mamont, Rossiiskii Prometei, p. 7.

86. It was scheduled for performance on the November 1919 anniversary: "K oktiabr'skim torzhestvam," VT, no. 36 (1919), p. 13.

87. Aleksei Remizov, "Repertuar. III," ZI, 5 February 1920, p. 1; Blokovskii sbornik, vol. 1, p. 336.

88. V. I. Lenin and A. V. Lunacharskii, Perepiska, doklady, dokumenty, literaturnoe nasledstvo, no. 80 (Moscow: Nauka, 1971), pp. 383-85.

89. "Khronika," ZI, 17 August 1920, p. 1.

90. "Sverzhenie samoderzhaviia," Izvestiia arkhangel'skogo gubernskogo revkoma, 4 May 1920, p. 3.

91. A. Panfilov, Teatral'noe iskusstvo Urala 1917-1967 (Sverdlovsk: Sredneural'skoe knizhnoe izd., 1967), pp. 34-36.

92. Istoriia sovetskogo teatra, p. 250.

93. See U istokov, pp. 41-46. To my knowledge, this is one of the few examples of direct political interference in Civil War mass spectacles; and it might have been added to Shcheglov's recollections to meet the political demands of later times.

94. Ibid., pp. 43-45.

93. See U istokov, pp. 41-46. To my knowledge, this is one of the few examples of direct political interference in Civil War mass spectacles; and it might have been added to Shcheglov's recollections to meet the political demands of later times.

94. Ibid., pp. 43-45.

95. Vinogradov implies that Piotrovsky removed him from the post by false denunciation: Vinogradov-Mamont, Krasnoarmeiskoe chudo, pp. 126-28. Shcheglov just about confirms it: U istokov, p. 53. In ZI, no. 199-200 (1919), Piotrovsky wrote a strong article against Vinogradov's production of Overthrow ( Istoriia sovetskogo teatra, p. 250). Although these actions would be in line with Piotrovsky's later behavior, it should be noted that weeks after Vinogradov had departed newspapers reported that Piotrovsky was still not part of the studio: "Khronika," ZI, 21 November 1919, p. 2.

96. Accounts in Kerzhentsev, Tvorcheskii teatr, pp. 124-25; U istokov, pp.

66-68; "V Proletkul'te," ZI, 28 November 1919, p. 1; "Khronika," ZI, 18 December 1919, p. 3; "V Peterburgskom Proletkul'te," VT, no. 56 (1920), p. 15. The final episode, The December Days in Moscow, was also performed separately: "Instsenirovka dekabr'skogo vosstaniia," PP, 18 January 1920, p. 3.

97. For his teaching methods, see D. Shcheglov, "Praktika teatral'nogo dela," VO, no. 6-8 (1919), pp. 43-45.

98. The text is in D. Shcheglov, Spektakl' v klube (Leningrad: Nachatki znanii, 1925), pp. 81-101. The fact that Shcheglov claims authorship suggests the performance was not as "collective" as claimed.

99. Firsthand accounts can be found in Istoriia sovetskogo teatra, pp. 247-48; Massovye prazdnestva, pp. 60-61; "Tsirk Chinizelli," IzvPS, , 24 February 1920, p. 1; "Khronika," ZI, 26 February 1920, p. 3; E. Kuznetsov, "Peterburgskie pis'ma," VT, no. 56 (1920), p. 15.

100. Tamashin, Sovetskaia dramaturgiia, p. 45.