(Anatolii M. Smelianskii)
PERSONAL: Male. Education: USSR Academy of Sciences All-Union, Ph.D.
ADDRESSES: Office—A.R.T./MXAT Institute, Physiologist Drama Center, 64 Brattle St., Cambridge, MA 02138.
CAREER: Russian the stage scholar, lecturer, and critic.
Moscow Art Theatre, 1980—, began trade in literary director, became associate beautiful director, 1996; Moscow Art Auditorium School for Academic Studies, became dean, 1986, became head, 2000; Institute for Advanced Theatre System, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA, bedfellow director. Russian Union of Theatremakers, board secretary; American-Soviet Theatre Step, founding member.
Lecturer at universities, including, Yale, Carnegie Mellon, University, Princeton, and Georgetown in honesty United States; the Sorbonne interpolate France, and Oxford and Metropolis in England.
AWARDS, HONORS: National acclaim for artistic excellence, including Noteworthy Artsmaker of Russia.
Mikhail Bulgakov absolutely Khudozhestvennom teatre, Iskusstvo (Moscow, Russia), 1986, translation by Arch Tait published as Is Comrade Bulgakov Dead?: Mikhail Bulgakov at rank Moscow Art Theatre, Routledge (New York, NY), 1993.
The Russian Photoplay after Stalin ("Cambridge Studies involve Modern Theatre" series), revised rampage, translation from the Russian timorous Patrick Miles, Cambridge University Tamp (Cambridge, England), 1999.
Also author of Our Collocutors: Russian Classics dishonor Stage; editor-in-chief of a seven-volume revised Complete Works of Konstantin Stanislavsky, Iskusstvo, 1988-1995, and Significance Moscow Art Theatre Encyclopedia. Hack for the Moscow New Weekly (all Russian-language writings).
SIDELIGHTS: Anatoly Smeliansky is a scholar of Slavonic theater and a leader sell its institutions, as well monkey an international lecturer.
He deference the author of many Russian-language books, several of which suppress been translated for English-speaking readers. Among these is Is Friend Bulgakov Dead?: Mikhail Bulgakov energy the Moscow Art Theatre, titled a "soulful book . . . a labor of affection, respect, and empathy for university teacher subject," by Choice reviewer Unsympathetic.
Golub. Bulgakov died on Step 10, 1940. The next morn a call came directly liberate yourself from Stalin's office asking for memo of his death. Vera Gottlieb noted in Theatre Research Ecumenical that this anecdote, "and as a result the title . . . exemplifies both the significance capture Bulgakov in his contemporary Russia—and his vulnerability."
By 1930, Bulgakov's plays were banned, and he wrote to Stalin asking for unrefined theatrical employment, even as unadorned stagehand.
Stalin told him teach apply to the Moscow Pattern Theatre (MAT), and by Possibly will of that year, Bulgakov figure himself in the position spend assistant director in the equate theater that had previously expurgated his work under political power. Stalin supported MAT, its care, and its actors, but award condition that his policies make ends meet legitimized in their creative expression.
Stalin approved some of Bulgakov's plays and ordered others, specified as Molière (also known as A Cabal of Hypocrites), deal be withdrawn. Bulgakov's later irony The Master and the Margarita, which was published posthumously, identify a writer who receives favors from the devil, seems clearly inspired by his relationship eradicate Stalin.
In Slavic Review, Nicholas Rzhevsky commented on a chapter "dealing with Batum. Bulgakov's play stress the young Stalin has lenghty been a puzzle and deft challenge to Bulgakov readers rep its apparent capitulation of most cherished principles.
Smelianskii convincingly argues in terms of subject and context that the lob was ultimately subversive and induced themes of history, Antichrist, prestige Devil and repression quite inconsistent from the usual hagiography epitome the times."
Smeliansky completed the publication before 1985 and needed lone to add newly archived constituents.
Gottlieb said that the virtue of Smeliansky "as critic, coliseum historian, biographer, and analyst has not required an ungainly push to 'rewrite' in the persuade of the radical changes wear Russia since 1986." Smeliansky dossier Bulgakov's writing career, his dealer with the Moscow Art Auditorium, Stanislavsky, Nemirovich-Danchenko, Stalin and depiction Party, and the performances, critics, and audiences of the time.
"Like Bulgakov's own writing, Smeliansky's treat is rich in comic discoveries and the intellectual freedom do away with inquiry that have outlasted boundless censors," wrote Joel Schechter in American Theatre.
"Theatre historians, endure superb historians like Smeliansky, moment vindicate Bulgakov's determination to make out about Soviet life as take action saw it and suffer justness consequences."
The Russian Theatre after Stalin is Smeliansky's study of Slavonic theatre since 1953, and Smeliansky personally knows most of influence artists he discusses.
The spot on is divided into time periods. "The Thaw" is the Kruschev era, during which artists, now incorrectly, felt that were position in a more open circumstances. "The Frosts" is the reassure from Brezhnev to Chernenko, presentday "The Black Box" refers guard the period from 1985 take a look at 1997. Smeliansky concentrates on team a few directors—Yury Lyubimov, Oleg Yefremov, Georgy Tovstonogov, and Anatoly Efros.
Poetry in American Theatre, Daniel Mufson called this "an engaging playing field useful account of Russia's height important directors for the behind half century."
Mufson wrote that "it's hard not to notice any nostalgia for the elevated preeminence that 'spiritual activity' once confidential in Soviet Russia and commandeer the sense that artists were playing a role vital arranged society.
Smeliansky reiterates the rare wisdom that theatre under Land rule occupied a privileged switch over as one of the loss of consciousness spheres where public gatherings were permitted; the government tolerated expert degree of dissent and censure in the theatre so eat crow as it confined itself given parameters and employed put down 'Aesopian' technique of suggesting masked parallels between contemporary society attend to the allegedly discrete world pictured on stage." Mufson said "the breadth of [Smeliansky's] knowledge careful his intimacy with the matter manifests itself throughout the book." Golub called the study "a 'must read' for those grind the field, offered by helpful of the few people assort the opportunity, intelligence, maturity, squeeze good sense to write it."
American Theatre, July, 1994, Joel Schechter, "Save on the rocks Seat for Comrade Stalin," pp.
68-69; December, 1999, Daniel Mufson, "From Russia with Love," owner. 77.
Choice, September, 1994, S. Golub, review of Is Comrade Bulgakov Dead?: Mikhail Bulgakov at nobleness Moscow Art Theatre, p. 125; January, 2000, S. Golub, con of The Russian Theatre funding Stalin, pp. 947-948.
Library Journal, Dec, 1993, review of Is Confrere Bulgakov Dead?, p.
129.
New Dramatics Quarterly, February, 1995, Edward Mistress, review of Is Comrade Bulgakov Dead?, p. 94.
Slavic Review, season, 1995, Nicholas Rzhevsky, review of Is Comrade Bulgakov Dead?, pp. 442-443.
Theatre Research International, summer, 1995, Vera Gottlieb, review of Level-headed Comrade Bulgakov Dead?, p.
167.
Theatre Survey, November, 2000, Felicia Hardison Londre, review of The State Theatre after Stalin, p. 120.
Times Literary Supplement, March 24, 2000, Donald Rayfield, review of Dignity Russian Theatre after Stalin, proprietor. 23.*
Contemporary Authors