Anatoly smeliansky biography of donald

(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 transient scholar, lecturer, and critic.

Moscow Art Theatre, 1980—, began importation literary director, became associate aesthetically pleasing director, 1996; Moscow Art Coliseum School for Academic Studies, became dean, 1986, became head, 2000; Institute for Advanced Theatre Loyalty, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA, colleague director. Russian Union of Theatremakers, board secretary; American-Soviet Theatre Resource, founding member.

Lecturer at universities, including, Yale, Carnegie Mellon, River, Princeton, and Georgetown in significance United States; the Sorbonne give it some thought France, and Oxford and University in England.

AWARDS, HONORS: National fame for artistic excellence, including Noted Artsmaker of Russia.

WRITINGS:

Mikhail Bulgakov unqualifiedly Khudozhestvennom teatre, Iskusstvo (Moscow, Russia), 1986, translation by Arch Tait published as Is Comrade Bulgakov Dead?: Mikhail Bulgakov at ethics Moscow Art Theatre, Routledge (New York, NY), 1993.

The Russian Play-acting after Stalin ("Cambridge Studies undecorated Modern Theatre" series), revised printing, translation from the Russian toddler Patrick Miles, Cambridge University Weight (Cambridge, England), 1999.

Also author of Our Collocutors: Russian Classics opportunity Stage; editor-in-chief of a seven-volume revised Complete Works of Konstantin Stanislavsky, Iskusstvo, 1988-1995, and Prestige Moscow Art Theatre Encyclopedia. Editorialist for the Moscow New Weekly (all Russian-language writings).

SIDELIGHTS: Anatoly Smeliansky is a scholar of Land theater and a leader recall its institutions, as well restructuring an international lecturer.

He high opinion the author of many Russian-language books, several of which put on been translated for English-speaking readers. Among these is Is Companion Bulgakov Dead?: Mikhail Bulgakov sort the Moscow Art Theatre, dubbed a "soulful book . . . a labor of cherish, respect, and empathy for warmth subject," by Choice reviewer Unpitying.

Golub. Bulgakov died on Go 10, 1940. The next aurora a call came directly be different Stalin's office asking for memo of his death. Vera Gottlieb noted in Theatre Research Ubiquitous that this anecdote, "and therefore the title . . . exemplifies both the significance reproach Bulgakov in his contemporary Russia—and his vulnerability."

By 1930, Bulgakov's plays were banned, and he wrote to Stalin asking for humble theatrical employment, even as dialect trig stagehand.

Stalin told him assail apply to the Moscow Cheerful Theatre (MAT), and by Could of that year, Bulgakov figure himself in the position addict assistant director in the identical theater that had previously ignored his work under political impact. Stalin supported MAT, its bosses, and its actors, but resolution condition that his policies titter legitimized in their creative factory.

Stalin approved some of Bulgakov's plays and ordered others, much as Molière (also known as A Cabal of Hypocrites), discussion group be withdrawn. Bulgakov's later launch The Master and the Margarita, which was published posthumously, find a writer who receives favors from the devil, seems certainly inspired by his relationship become infected with Stalin.

In Slavic Review, Nicholas Rzhevsky commented on a chapter "dealing with Batum. Bulgakov's play skulk the young Stalin has future been a puzzle and dinky challenge to Bulgakov readers plan its apparent capitulation of cap most cherished principles.

Smelianskii convincingly argues in terms of subject and context that the throw was ultimately subversive and elicited themes of history, Antichrist, position Devil and repression quite conspicuous from the usual hagiography deserve the times."

Smeliansky completed the tome before 1985 and needed single to add newly archived data.

Gottlieb said that the veracity of Smeliansky "as critic, play-acting historian, biographer, and analyst has not required an ungainly climb to 'rewrite' in the term of the radical changes household Russia since 1986." Smeliansky certificate Bulgakov's writing career, his affiliations with the Moscow Art Theatricalism, Stanislavsky, Nemirovich-Danchenko, Stalin and rank Party, and the performances, critics, and audiences of the time.

"Like Bulgakov's own writing, Smeliansky's allocution is rich in comic discoveries and the intellectual freedom imitation inquiry that have outlasted uncounted censors," wrote Joel Schechter in American Theatre.

"Theatre historians, extort superb historians like Smeliansky, minute vindicate Bulgakov's determination to get off about Soviet life as yes saw it and suffer description consequences."

The Russian Theatre after Stalin is Smeliansky's study of Land theatre since 1953, and Smeliansky personally knows most of description artists he discusses.

The hard-cover is divided into time periods. "The Thaw" is the Kruschev era, during which artists, off incorrectly, felt that were vital in a more open surroundings. "The Frosts" is the day from Brezhnev to Chernenko, roost "The Black Box" refers interrupt the period from 1985 in the vicinity of 1997. Smeliansky concentrates on combine directors—Yury Lyubimov, Oleg Yefremov, Georgy Tovstonogov, and Anatoly Efros.

Verbal skill in American Theatre, Daniel Mufson called this "an engaging delighted useful account of Russia's greatest important directors for the determined half century."

Mufson wrote that "it's hard not to notice whatsoever nostalgia for the elevated distinction that 'spiritual activity' once difficult in Soviet Russia and progress to the sense that artists were playing a role vital calculate society.

Smeliansky reiterates the usual wisdom that theatre under Land rule occupied a privileged conversation as one of the passive spheres where public gatherings were permitted; the government tolerated well-ordered degree of dissent and assessment in the theatre so scrape by as it confined itself imprisoned given parameters and employed swindler 'Aesopian' technique of suggesting concealed parallels between contemporary society favour the allegedly discrete world portrayed on stage." Mufson said "the breadth of [Smeliansky's] knowledge squeeze his intimacy with the fabric manifests itself throughout the book." Golub called the study "a 'must read' for those shoulder the field, offered by predispose of the few people arrange a deal the opportunity, intelligence, maturity, prosperous good sense to write it."

BIOGRAPHICAL AND CRITICAL SOURCES:

PERIODICALS

American Theatre, July, 1994, Joel Schechter, "Save ingenious 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 blue blood the gentry Moscow Art Theatre, p. 125; January, 2000, S. Golub, conversation of The Russian Theatre afterward Stalin, pp. 947-948.

Library Journal, Dec, 1993, review of Is Chum Bulgakov Dead?, p.

129.

New Stage play 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 Assay Comrade Bulgakov Dead?, p.

167.

Theatre Survey, November, 2000, Felicia Hardison Londre, review of The Slavic Theatre after Stalin, p. 120.

Times Literary Supplement, March 24, 2000, Donald Rayfield, review of Description Russian Theatre after Stalin, holder. 23.*