correspondence of Soviet theater figures as a relevant play

The theatrical almanac “Mnemosyne” is a long-term work of a team of wonderful publishers, the best collection of archival finds and research in the field of the history of Russian theater. In the eighth and ninth issues of Mnemosyne, which were published almost simultaneously, the editor-compiler Vladislav Ivanov and his co-publishers acted not only as “archive people”, but also as a kind of playwright.

Text: Olga Fedyanina

Unlike an ordinary playwright, a playwright-publisher cannot write anything on his own; the documents speak for him. The question, however, is how to collect and distribute these documents. The playwrights of this paper theater managed to collect and organize their documentary material into a real historical epic.

The prologue is the letters of Mikhail Chekhov published in the eighth issue of Mnemosyne from the 1930s, that is, already from the period of emigration. They were addressed to his Swiss admirer Georgette Bonheur, who during their acquaintance turned not only into a kind of patron of the arts (patron?) of Chekhov, but also partly into his assistant in creative affairs. In correspondence with an enthusiastic girl, fascinated by both art and the figure of Chekhov himself, romantic, creative and pragmatic plots are inextricably intertwined. Worries about the premiere of “The Inspector General” and continued work on a theoretical treatise on the art of acting are interrupted by constant worries about visas and passports, discussions of possible tour routes, health problems, copyrights and money. The publication of these letters, for which the Finnish researcher of the life and work of Mikhail Chekhov, Liisa Bückling, was responsible, took a long time to prepare, but both in their content and in their intonation, echoes of the present day seem to be heard – Chekhov, who left Soviet Russia in 1928, is faced with the problems of everyday life , he rehearses, theorizes, thinks about the future, fears the failure of all plans and at the same time lives in hope of their success. In all this there is a lot of unsettlement, uncertainty, fear of not being able to do something very important, scraps of brilliant ideas, the probability of implementation of which is absolutely unclear and depends on a lot of completely new circumstances – and from all this there is a feeling of constant haste, haste, haste. The hasty, interrupted breathing of these letters resonates today with a very familiar sound.

What corresponds to this sound in the next, ninth edition of the same “Mnemosyne” is heard today as the voice of a time much more distant, separate from us today. Although in fact everything is exactly the opposite.

The ninth Mnemosyne has three sections, and these are three correspondences. Alisa Koonen in correspondence with Naum Berkovsky, Naum Berkovsky in correspondence with Natalya Krymova, Boris Zingerman in correspondence with Svetlana Bushueva. Time coverage (with long pauses) – from 1959 to 1995 – between the beginning of the thaw and the end of perestroika.

For people of the theater or for those who have had at least a little contact with the theater, the names of the participants do not require comments, but the rest probably need a short explanation. Those who make up these decorously conversing pairs are real grandees, grand dames and grand lords of the Soviet theater, people of outstanding talent who influenced the theater of their time and subsequent generations. Alisa Koonen – long-term prima of the destroyed Chamber Theater, widow of Alexander Tairov; Naum Berkovsky is a literary critic, a man of universal scholarship and a broad humanitarian outlook; Natalya Krymova is the number one name in Soviet post-war theater criticism, the wife of director Anatoly Efros; Boris Zingerman is a theater expert, the owner of a charmingly sharp mind and supernatural insight; Svetlana Bushueva, the best specialist in the history of Italian theater in the USSR, is still extremely revered in the professional community and little known outside it (she is present here only as an addressee; her own letters are not in the almanac).

They are all united by theatre. They work in it and for it, they write, think, and publish about it. They do not go on stage (the only theatrical practitioner here, Alisa Koonen, after the closure of the Chamber Theater only occasionally gives readings and makes literary recordings for the radio, but her acting life is essentially over), but their existence, their word, is in the first place turn means a lot. They are as much a part of the thaw spring as Sovremennik or Taganka: the new theater is based on their thoughts, on their erudition, and (in the case of Koonen and Berkovsky) on their memory of the destroyed art of the 1920s and 1930s. All of them (except Koonen) are people of the office, library and desk, but at the same time active figures in the epicenter of Soviet theatrical life.

Therefore, for theater people, these letters are priceless – as a source of facts, details, and background for a variety of events. How Alisa Koonen felt about her early roles, under what circumstances the “thaw” editorial office of the “Theater” magazine was dispersed in the late 1960s, what was remarkable about the tour of the Hamburg Drama Theater in Moscow in 1959. All this – and hundreds of other important details – are contained in the almost 500 pages of Mnemosyne.

But in addition to the fact that these letters are a historical source, they are also involuntary historical evidence. Testimony of the Soviet era, written by people of the same circle, quite numerous and uniting not only theater people. A circle of those who had no inclination towards dissidence, but at the same time were not ready to consider the USSR the best country in the world. A circle of people with an unenthusiastic way of thinking. They had a kind of pact with the post-Stalin Soviet state – not a cold war, but a cold peace, mutually unfriendly and, naturally, not implying equality of sides. The heroes of Mnemosyne never discuss this cold world, but always imply it – and for today’s reader of their letters its contours are quite clearly perceptible (if you imagine a contemporary reader, he most likely lived within the framework of the same convention and did not feel whatever, letters are just letters). First of all, the extent to which practically no relevance is allowed in them. Or rather, a certain layer of this relevance.

There is an endless conversation about work – that is, almost always about manuscripts. About deadlines, publication deadlines, copyright copies, editorial boards, and so on, and so on. The shadows of German romantics, Pirandello, Brecht, Tairov, Yakhontov endlessly wander through these letters, along with the shadows of editors, regular and main, internal and external reviewers and some completely invisible ideological superiors.

Along with work, the letters include the pace of life, that is, it would be more accurate to say anti-pace. It can take six months from a conversation about a magazine publication between Berkovsky and Krymova to the actual appearance of an article in a magazine. And sometimes an article can get stuck somewhere and not happen at all. What can we say about books! Koonen, in his letters to Berkovsky, constantly returns to his memories, which he is working on – both participants in the correspondence simply will not live to see the book’s publication, Berkovsky passed away in 1972, Koonen in 1974, her “Pages of Life” was published in 1975 -m. Even between the ideological authorities’ intention to dismiss Krymova from the editorial board of the “Theater” magazine and the actual dismissal, about three years pass. Anti-speed.

At the same time, it would be completely untrue to talk about the notorious ivory tower in which the intelligentsia class lives in the post-Stalin USSR, seeing nothing but their art. The towers remained in the Silver Age; the Soviet Union does not provide the opportunity to look at the world around us from a small dormer window, but from above.

All life happens at the level of life itself. And the letters are also full of this “footsteps” of everyday life. And it also exists in antitempo mode. Everyday problems (and achievements) stretch over months and years, the unsettled life develops into a routine. Illnesses and hospitals last: Berkovsky, who ended up in the hospital with a stroke in early spring, expects to be discharged by mid-summer. Departures to a dacha, a creative center, or a sanatorium are also planned, discussed, and lived out at length.

All this fills the pages of these correspondences as well as the endless conversation about manuscripts, editors, and publications.

Sooner or later it becomes apparent that between these two layers – relatively speaking, the fates of the heroes of German romanticism and the search for a housekeeper – something is constantly missing. Some intermediate layer of reality, external context, signs of the outside world. If you don’t look at the date and don’t get into the comments, then the letters practically cannot be identified as 1961, or 1968, or any other.

It’s not so much the fear of saying something unnecessary, but rather the habit of subtracting unnecessary things from consciousness. The heroes of “Mnemosyne” treat Soviet life roughly like a communal apartment – it’s impossible to get rid of your neighbors, but you can somehow arrange yourself so as to pay as little attention to them as possible. By generally observing the rules of the hostel. The constant “subtraction” of certain parts of the landscape of life becomes automatic.

Today’s consciousness takes this lack of speed of life as luxury, and the absence of signs from the outside world as freedom. But, for example, by the way Krymova feverishly writes to Berkovsky about her upcoming trip to England, and by the way she generally writes about departures, business trips, and travel, one can guess how much longing for a different air has accumulated in this “inner” space, for a different feeling and sound of life. By movement. At this very speed, the time of which, however, will eventually come.

When you come across the note “on the opening day of the congress” in one of Boris Zingerman’s letters under the date February 23, 1981, you begin to feverishly figure out what kind of joke is hidden behind this. What congress? Where? Whom? Of course, it’s a joke, on this day the XXVI Congress of the CPSU opened, the very mention of this layer of social life in such correspondence could only be comic, but to clarify which congress and none of its participants would have occurred to the anecdotal “will eat the CPSU” in these days rushed from every iron.

Zingerman generally stands a little apart in this whole story; he has a different nature of talent, and he seems to set off his colleagues. First of all, this talent is terribly wasteful. Against its background, it is noticeable how sparingly Berkovsky and Krymova handle their own thoughts and words – they are needed for something else, for articles, for books, for lectures, and in their letters, at best, they contain sketches, sketches of thoughts, testing their strength. Zingerman’s letters are as much a pleasure to read as his articles, and in the genre of “said in passing” and “said in a backhand” he seems to have no equal. When he writes about “The Cherry Orchard” by Anatoly Efros at Taganka (as a compliment, it should be noted): “This is Chekhov staged by Makarenko’s colony,” then anyone who saw that performance takes his breath away for a second from the carefree sniper formulation of the wording.

It is not surprising that it is Boris Zingerman, in the historical epistolary novel Mnemosynes, who is ultimately responsible for violating the code of evasion – and it is no coincidence that it is his letters, chronologically the latest (1975-1995), that fall in that transitional period when the era of silence ends.

Mnemosyne. Documents and facts from the history of Russian theater of the twentieth century. Issues 8 and 9 / Editor-compiler V.V. Ivanov. M.: Artist. Director. Theater, 2023, 2024

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