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Article evaluation

I have chosen to evaluate the article “The Storming of the Winter Palace” on Wikipedia. It explains a large performance re-enacting the events of the 1917 Revolution. A brief article, I didn’t notice anything superfluous or distracting within the text. Everything included was very relevant to the topic. In fact, I found there could be additions made to the article giving more details about the specifics of the set and other elements of the performance piece. I appreciated the one photograph provided and would have valued more pictures if they were available and legal to include.

The article is not biased in any way that I could infer, maintaining a scholastic and neutral tone throughout. A good addition to the basic information given would have been a summary of the audience reaction to the spectacle, their viewpoints would have been a great insight.

The most concerning part of the article is the lack of sources. One link goes to a page that is no longer in service and the other is only a citation for the photograph. There is one other reference provided, however, having only one verifiable source is a problem. I have left a recommendation in the talk page to include an article I found in the academic journal, “Comparative Drama”, as an additional citation and resource for more facts. I noticed my comment would be the first submission on the talk page and I hope it will be considered by other editors. The article is of interest to two Wikiprojects, Wikiproject Russia and Wikiproject Theatre, and is currently rated Start-class.

I was drawn to this subject matter due to the discussions in class regarding Soviet and Bolshevik ideas portrayed in film. Since I am a stage actor, watching the Russian films made me very curious about the proletariat story as portrayed by live theatre. I hope to learn much about theatre under Stalin in this class and am drawn to Wikipedia articles around this topic.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Storming_of_the_Winter_Palace

Article selection

Moscow State Jewish Theatre

Moscow State Jewish Theatre

SOURCE LIST:

1) Moscow State Jewish Theatre. (2000). In M. Banham (Ed.), The Cambridge Guide to Theater (2nd ed.). Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press. Retrieved from http://ezp1r.riosalado.edu/login?url=https://search.credoreference.com/content/entry/cupthea/moscow_state_jewish_theatre/0?institutionId=5539

2) https://www.questia.com/library/journal/1P3-686735651/the-moscow-state-yiddish-theater-jewish-culture-on, The Moscow State Yiddish Theater: Jewish Culture on the Soviet Stage, by Jeffrey Veidlinger.

3) Breiger, M. (2001, Apr 06). Moscow state theater merged yiddish art with soviet idealism. Jewish Bulletin of Northern California Retrieved from http://ezp1r.riosalado.edu/login?url=https://search-proquest-com.ezp1r.riosalado.edu/docview/367659196?accountid=40965

4) Mikhoels, Solomon (1890 - 1948). (2000). In M. Banham (Ed.), The Cambridge Guide to Theater (2nd ed.). Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press. Retrieved from http://ezp1r.riosalado.edu/login?url=https://search.credoreference.com/content/entry/cupthea/mikhoels_solomon_1890_1948/0?institutionId=5539

5) Posner, D. N. (2015). Moscow State yiddish (Jewish) theatre (GOSET). In S. Williams, The Cambridge encyclopedia of stage actors and acting. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press. Retrieved from http://ezp1r.riosalado.edu/login?url=https://search.credoreference.com/content/entry/cupstage/moscow_state_yiddish_jewish_theatre_goset/0?institutionId=5539

6) Shternshis, A. (2006). Soviet and Kosher : Jewish Popular Culture in the Soviet Union, 1923-1939. Bloomington: Indiana University Press. Retrieved from https://ezp1r.riosalado.edu/login?url=https://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=e000xna&AN=187157&site=ehost-live Page 71.

7) Slezkine, Y. (2006). The Jewish Century. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press. Retrieved from https://ezp1r.riosalado.edu/login?url=https://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=e000xna&AN=372571&site=ehost-live Page 138

8) Azadovskii, Konstantin and Boris Egorov, "From Anti-Westernism to Anti-Semitism: Stalin and the Impact of the 'Anti-Cosmopolitan' Campaigns on Soviet Culture," Journal of Cold War Studies 4(1), 2002, 66-80. Page 4

9) Veidlinger, Jeffrey (2006). The Moscow State Yiddish Theater: Jewish Culture on the Soviet Stage. Indiana University Press. ISBN 0253218926

10) Harshav, Benjamin; Duksina, Irina N.(2008) The Moscow Yiddish Theater: Art on Stage in the Time of Revolution. Yale University Press. Page 10. https://books.google.com/books?hl=en&lr=&id=M6ZBP78Q63UC&oi=fnd&pg=PR9&dq=artists+who+performed+at+the+Moscow+Jewish+Theater+&ots=-_jlKuCZ-k&sig=WVA9-r8QOQ-WTTtUEgp9dQujQv8#v=onepage&q=artists%20who%20performed%20at%20the%20Moscow%20Jewish%20Theater&f=false

11) Adler, Lois. "Alexis Granovsky and the Jewish State Theatre of Moscow." The Drama Review: TDR 24, no. 3 (1980): 27-42. doi:10.2307/1145307.https://www-jstor-org.ezproxy1.lib.asu.edu/stable/1145307?sid=primo&origin=crossref&seq=2#metadata_info_tab_contents

12) Wasserstein, Bernard (2012) On the Eve: The Jews of Europe Before the Second World War. Simon and Schuster. ISBN 9781416594277 https://books.google.com/books?id=HJSQZJKHX_8C&pg=PA292#v=onepage&q&f=false Page 292.

(Draft) Moscow State Jewish (Yiddish) Theatre

The Moscow State Jewish (Yiddish) Theater (Russian: Московский Государственный Еврейский Театр), also known by its acronym GOSET (ГОСЕТ), State Yiddish Theatre, Yiddish Chamber Theatre, Yiddish Worker's Theatre, Jewish State Chamber Theatre, State Yiddish Chamber Theatre or Yiddish Theatre-Studio, was a Yiddish theater company established in 1919 and shut down in 1948 by the Soviet authorities. During its time in operation, it served as a prominent expression of Jewish culture in Russia under Joseph Stalin.

Founding and early years

Map of Russia showing the theatre's original location, St. Petersburg. Below it can be seen the city of Moscow, where the theatre moved in 1920.

It was conceived in 1916 and founded in 1919 by Alexander Granowsky as the Jewish Theater Workshop in St. Petersburg. Early productions were offered at Maly Theater, a small eighty seat space. On April 1, 1920, after the capital was changed to Moscow, the company was moved at the request of Anatoly Lunacharsky and became the Moscow State Jewish Theater. Lunacharsky, the Soviet Minister of Enlightenment at the time, saw the company's potential to spread the Bolshevik message to the Jewish population of Russia and abroad.

Once in Moscow, the company began utilizing a house which was confiscated from a Jewish merchant by the name of L. I. Gurevich who had decided to flee the city around the time of the Russian Revolution. The house, which was built in 1902, consisted of three floors. The second floor featured a large living room that was converted into an auditorium consisting of ninety seats. The kitchen, which was directly adjacent to the now auditorium, was turned into the stage. The first and third floors were reserved for the actors and their families. The house-turned-theater would later be named Chagall Hall after designer Marc Chagall. The design of the foyer, as well as decorations, sets and costumes for its first production were done by Chagall. However, this would be Chagall's only collaboration with Granowsky, as the two could not get along. January 1, 1921 was the date of GOSET's first performance in Moscow, a production called An Evening of Sholom Aleichem. Only a year later, the company relocated to a substantially larger auditorium on Malya-Bronnaya Street capable of seating five hundred.

Style and practices

A photograph of Marc Chagall taken in 1921, the same year he would design the sets for GOSET's first Moscow production, An Evening of Sholem Aleichem.

Granowsky was heavily influenced by the avant-garde trends of Europe and many of the company's early productions were examples of an expressionistic style. Architypes, masks, heavy makeup, cubism and the grotesque were common staples of the company's performances in the 1920s. German critic Alfred Kerr wrote that Alexis Granovsky's productions were one of a kind and gave them high praise. Kerr, a reviewer with a "hard to please" reputation, found Granovsky's use of sound, movement, color, music and imagery to be both comedic and terrifying. The critic likened the performances to a humanity circus, noting they were without a single dull moment.

Unlike many theatre companies, GOSET preferred to train their own performers rather than hiring actors and dancers who were already considered professionals. By educating their own inexperienced actors, the company hoped to avoid performers with the melodramatic style common in other Yiddish theatre troupes. Vsevolod Meyerhold's "biomechanics" was the preferred acting technique used by company members under Granowsky's direction.

In the summertime, the company organized tours to the rural provinces where Yiddish theatre was actually more popular than in the larger cities. Shtetl residents looked forward to GOSET performances given near their small towns each year. Audience numbers averaged 1,250 per night on tour, as opposed to the nightly house average of less than 300 for performances in Moscow. One of the best documented tours visited Kiev, Gomel, Odessa and Kharkov in the summer of 1924 and offered a variety of short sketches called A Carnival of Jewish Comedy in addition to full length productions, such as The Sorceress, 200,000 and God of Vengeance.

At the end of GOSET's European tour that took place throughout the majority of 1928, Granowsky chose to remain in Germany, never returning to the Soviet Union. The decision came after years of conflict with Russian authorities over artistic and financial decisions that Granowsky had made for the company. Soon after the theatre's founding, GOSET had attracted Solomon Mikhoels, who eventually became the leading actor and, after Granowsky defected to the West, artistic director.

1936 photograph of Solomon Mikhoels, actor and Artistic Director at GOSET

The theater's repertoire included adaptations of classic works by Sholem Asch, Mendele Mocher Sforim, Sholom Aleichem, such as Tevye the Milkman (also adopted in the West as Fiddler on the Roof), and of Avrom Goldfaden, such as Bar Kokhba. Under Mikhoels' direction, the company began to produce works by contemporary Soviet Yiddish writers, such as Shmuel Halkin, Perets Markish and David Bergelson. Considered their most popular production, in 1935 the theater produced William Shakespeare's King Lear to great acclaim with Benjamin Zuskin playing the Fool and Mikhoels in the title role of Lear. The international success of the production meant that Mikhoels had achieved one of the theatre company's founding goals; to make Yiddish a language of art to countries all across the world.

Many of the theater's plays were ostensibly supportive of the Soviet state, but closer readings suggest they actually contained veiled critiques of Stalin's regime, most notably the production of King Lear and the planned production of Richard III. In 1929, in response to a rise in censorship imposed by the government, the company began offering works of Socialist Realism as expected, however the artists placed Jewish subtext in each production by hiding it within allegory, symbols and Jewish cultural archetypes. Works of Soviet realism were modestly funded, while works retelling historical Jewish achievements, such as Bar Kochba and Maccabees, were large scale productions.

The company's production of Boytre the Bandit in 1936 was a Robin Hood style story written by Moshe Kulbak. The show celebrated the proletariat, and while praised by the press, it was condemned by Lazar Kaganovich, the most prominent Jewish figure in government. Kaganovich chided Mikhoels and the company members of GOSET for not portraying Jewish people in a positive enough light and requested they stick to productions retelling events similar to Bar Kochba. Shorty after, Boytre the Bandit's author, Kulbak, was arrested, prosecuted in a trial for show, and executed.

In October of 1936, the Committee of Artistic Affairs informed Mikhoels that he must move away from Granowsky's style of "formalism" (defined as a "departure from reality") and limit the company's productions to realistic portrayals of Jewish history, Jewish folklore, or current Soviet Jews.

Productions

• 1919: The Blind
• 1919: Sin
• 1919: Thamar and Amnon
• 1919: The Builder
• 1921: An Evening of Sholom Aleichem
• 1921: Before Sunrise
• 1921: God of Vengeance
• 1921: Mystery-Bouffe
• 1922: The Sorceress
• 1922: Uriel Acosta
• 1923: The Carnival of Jewish Masks
• 1923: 200,000
• 1924: Get
• 1924: Three Jewish Raisins
• 1925: A Night in the Old Marketplace
• 1926: The Tenth Commandment
• 1926: 137 Children's Homes
• 1927: The Travels of Benjamin III
• 1927: Trouhadec
• 1927: Uprising
• 1928: Luftmentshem
• 1928: Man of Air
• 1928 - 1929: European Tour
  • 200,000
  • The Sorceress
  • The Travels of Benjamin III
  • Trouhadec
• 1929: The Court is in Session
• 1929: The Dams
• 1930: The Deaf
• 1931: Do Not Grieve!
• 1931: Four Days
• 1932: The Specialist
• 1933: A Measure of Strictness
• 1934: The Millionaire, the Dentist, and the Pauper
• 1935: King Lear
• 1935: Wailing Wall
• 1936: Boytre the Bandit
• 1937: Shulamis
• 1937: Family Ovadis
• 1938: Bar Kokhba
• 1938: Tevye the Milkman
• 1938: Restless Old Age
• 1939: The Banquet
• 1939: Arn Fridman
• 1940: Solomon Maimon
• 1940: Two Schmil Schmelkes
• 1941: Wandering Stars
• 1941: The Spaniards
• 1942: Khamza
• 1942: An Eye for An Eye
• 1942: The Enchanted Tailor
• 1943: Capricious Bride
• 1945: Freylekhs
• 1947: Holiday Eve
• 1947: Sun Doesn't Set
• 1947: Uprising in the Ghetto
• 1947: Tumultuous Forest
• 1948: Zoria Belinkovich
• 1948: Life is Worth Living

Artists

• Alexander Granowsky (founder, director, Artistic Director 1919 -1928)
• Solomon Mikhoels (actor, writer, director, Artistic Director 1928 - 1948)
  • Lear: King Lear
  • Reb Alter: An Evening of Sholom Aleichem
  • Benjamin: The Travels of Benjamin III
  • Hostmach: The Sorceress
  • Trouhadec: Trouhadec
  • Uriel: Uriel Acosta
  • Menakhem Mendl: Luftmentshem
  • Iulis: Four Days
  • Berg: The Specialist
  • Zayvl Ovadis: Family Ovadis
  • Tevye: Tevye the Milkman
• Benjamin Zuskin (actor, Artistic Director 1948)
  • Fool: King Lear
  • Baba Iakhna: The Sorceress
  • Senderie: The Travels of Benjamin III
  • Niome Burman: The Court is in Session
  • Anatol: The Millionaire, the Dentist, and the Pauper
  • Boytre: Boytre the Bandit
  • Solomon: Solomon Maimon
  • Shimen-Eli: The Enchanted Tailor
• Sergei Radlov (director)
  • King Lear
  • Do Not Grieve!
• Marc Chagall (designer)
  • An Evening of Sholom Aleichem
• Nathan Altman (designer)
  • 137 Children's Homes
  • Arn Fridman
  • Mystery-Bouffe
• Alexander Krein (composer)
  • A Night in the Old Marketplace
  • 137 Children's Homes
  • The Spaniards
• Isaak Rabinovich (designer)
  • The Sorceress
  • God of Vengeance
• Isaak Rabichev (designer)
  • 200,000
• Lev Pulver (composer)
  • Trouhadec
  • Bar Kokhba
  • Wandering Stars
  • Freylekhs
• Aron Namiot (lighting technician)
• Robert Falk (designer)
  • A Night in the Old Marketplace
  • The Travels of Benjamin III
  • The Spaniards
• Rakhel Imenitova (actor)
• E.Z. Vayner (actor)
• Moshe Goldblatt (actor)
• Peretz Markish (writer)
• Fedor Kaverin (staging and movement)
  • The Court is in Session
  • The Dams
• Hershl Orliand (writer)
  • The Dams
• Aleksandr Tyshler (designer)
  • King Lear
  • Bar Kokhba
  • Wandering Stars
• Vasily Fedorov (staging)
  • Wailing Wall
• Vadim Ryndin (designer)
  • Shulamis
• Leah Rom (actor)
• Iustina Minkova (actor)
  • Mrs. Maimon: Solomon Maimon
• Etta Kovenskaia (actor)
  • Reysl: Wandering Stars
• Sonia Binnik (actor)
• Sara Rotbaum (actor)
• Eda Berkovskaia (actor)
• Alexander Benoit (designer)
  • The Blind
• Joseph Achron (composer)
  • The Blind

End

During The Moscow Trials of 1936 -1938, Mikhoels' daughter confessed that the family lived in fear while witnessing the arrests of many friends and colleagues. Despite the uncertainty of government reactions the late 1930s, Mikhoels found himself in a position to aid Stalin during World War II by organizing a Jewish resistance movement, the aim of which was to mobilize the world's Jewish population in the struggle against fascism. During the war, GOSET's performances were often interrupted by air raid sirens that caused both performers and audiences to run for cover underground. Despite this, the company continuously endeavored to offer entertainment to keep the population of Moscow calm and give them an escape from hardships. In October of 1941, GOSET was officially restructured by the Committee of Artistic Affairs and its planned productions were replaced by Soviet wartime propaganda pieces. After the evacuation of Moscow, most company members took refuge in Tashkent, Uzbekistan where they continued to offer performances to the Uzbek people. The company returned to Moscow in late 1943.

1936 photograph of actor Benjamin Zuskin who took over as Artist Director after Mikhoels was murdered in 1948.

After WWII, the rise of anti-Semitism in Russia caused people once referred to as "Brother Jew" to be labeled "Rootless Cosmopolitan" and members of government began to interpret Mikhoels' artistic choices as proof of Jewish-nationalism. In January of 1948, Mikhoels was murdered by the MVD, and his death was made to look like a car accident. Afterwards, Stalin's daughter, Svetlana, would attribute his murder directly to her father's paranoia of Zionist plots. After Mikhoels' death, Benjamin Zuskin took leadership of the company as artistic director. Months later, Zuskin was arrested and the theater received orders to shut down along with all other Yiddish theatre companies in the Soviet Union. In addition, all members of the Jewish Anti-Fascist Committee (also formerly headed by Mikhoels) were arrested. Zuskin was one of at least thirteen prominent Soviet Yiddish artists who were executed on August 12, 1952 in the event known as "The Night of the Murdered Poets" ("Ночь казненных поэтов").