Towards a Public Theatre
Darya Manucharova
Открытие дома Секции содействия устройству деревенских, фабричных и школьных театров 7 мая 1915 Фото: Л.Я. Леонидов © Музей-заповедник В.Д. Поленова Gathering of the Sect ion for Assisting the Organization of Factory and Village Theatres, May 7 1915 Photograph by L. Leonidov © Vasily Polenov Museum-Reserve
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Public University;5 however, the Association would later work in cooperation with that organization). Polenov be came the head of the Association on December 19 1912, and from then on he would dedicate almost all of his time and energy to its development and activities. Polenov duly invited his friends to join the Assoc iation, and his correspondence reveals what he thought its main purpose to be. As he wrote to the opera singer Feodor Chaliapin in May 1913, “Our… goal is, to the best of our ability, to help ordinary folk fulfill the loftiest de sires that the individual can have, those of the mind and soul. It is our deepest-held belief that art is one of the most powerful means to achieve that.”6 Polenov strove to bring Russia’s most eminent cultural figures into the Association, and many accepted his invitation, including the painters Viktor and Apollinary Vasnetsov, Ilya Repin, Konstantin Korovin, Chaliapin and the actress Zinaida Sokolova (the sister of Konstantin Stanislavski). At the end of the 19th century, on a wave of in creasing public interest in democratic change – both in society as a whole and in the world of art in particular – many cultural figures in Russia and Europe were att racted to the “theatre for the people” movement. Thus, in the 1890s, Valentina Serova, the mother of the famous artist Valentin Serov, began staging opera productions in villages, with local peasants as singers. In France, Ro main Rolland published his essay “Le Théâtre du people” in 1903. Ideas that were quite similar to those of the Association for Furthering the Development of Rural, Factory and School Theatres gained widespread pop
ularity, but the work that the Association did was never theless unique. It was not merely a platform for product ions staged for the working masses – its goals reached much further: Polenov called it “a theatre laboratory for all Russia”.7 The Association’s main function was to help amateur theatres choose their repertoire, adapt literary works for the stage, and create stage designs within their financial means, something that was especially im portant for non-professional ventures. The Association’s endeavours included some sig nificant background work, both practical and scholarly; for instance, in 1914 the organization published Nikolai Skorodumov’s book “The New Method of Simplified Stage Productions. Scenic Design and Equipment”, which included sketches of Polenov’s designs and ess ays in which the artist explained the basic principles of perspective, providing detailed instructions on stage design, as well as on the choice of suitable paints and other materials. At the time the Association occupied a basement in a private house on Malaya Dmitrovka Street in the centre of Moscow, and building dedicated new premises for it would become one of Polenov’s main accomplish ments as its chairman. Archival documents confirm that on February 10 1915 8 Polenov, with financial assistance from Sergei Morozov (brother of Savva Morozov),9 pur chased a plot measuring 723.45 square meters from Vasily Mironov, a peasant. The plot was located on the corner of Medynka Street and Kabanikhin Lane, in the Sadovaya-Kudrinskaya area (its current address is
The Tretyakov Gallery Magazine #3 (64) / 2019
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