Epic Revisionism

THE UNIVERSITY OF WISCONSIN PRESS

Contents

Illustrations................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................ixAcknowledgements.............................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................xiA Note on Conventions........................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................xiiiTerms and Acronyms...........................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................xvIntroduction: Tsarist-Era Heroes in Stalinist Mass Culture and Propaganda  David Brandenberger and Kevin M. F. Platt.........................................................................................................................................................3Lev Tolstoi1. Tolstoi in 1928: In the Mirror of the Revolution  William Nickell.........................................................................................................................................................................................................172. Press Commentary on the Tolstoi Centenary Celebration Novus, "Do We Know How to Celebrate Jubilees?"  Chitatel' i pisatel', 7 November 1928...............................................................................................................................39Peter the Great3. Rehabilitation and Afterimage: Aleksei Tolstoi's Many Returns to Peter the Great  Kevin M. F. Platt.......................................................................................................................................................................474. Aleksei Tolstoi's Remarks on the Film Peter I  Anatolii Danat, "At Aleksei Tolstoi's," Skorokhodovskii rabochii, 15 September 1937........................................................................................................................................69The Epic Heroes5. Chronicle of a Poet's Downfall: Dem'ian Bednyi, Russian History, and The Epic Heroes  A. M. Dubrovsky.....................................................................................................................................................................776. The Reaction of Writers and Artists to the Banning of D. Bednyi's Comic Opera  NKVD Report, 1936..........................................................................................................................................................................99Nikolai Leskov7. The Adventures of a Leskov Story in Soviet Russia, or the Socialist Realist Opera That Wasn't  Andrew B. Wachtel..........................................................................................................................................................1178. The Official Denunciation of Shostakovich's Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk District  [P. M. Kerzhentsev], "Muddle Instead of Music," Pravda, 28 January 1936.....................................................................................................................135Ivan the Terrible9. The Terrible Tsar as Comic Hero: Mikhail Bulgakov's Ivan Vasil'evich  Maureen Perrie......................................................................................................................................................................................14310. Terribly Pragmatic: Rewriting the History of Ivan IV's Reign, 1937-1956  David Brandenberger and Kevin M. F. Platt.......................................................................................................................................................15711. Internal Debate within the Party Hierarchy about the Rehabilitation of Ivan the Terrible  A. S. Shcherbakov, "Memorandum to Stalin concerning A. N. Tolstoi's Play Ivan the Terrible," 1941-1943.........................................................................179Aleksandr Pushkin12. The 1937 Pushkin Jubilee as Epic Trauma  Stephanie Sandler...............................................................................................................................................................................................................19313. Editorial Eulogy of A. S. Pushkin  "The Glory of the Russian People," Pravda, 10 February 1937...........................................................................................................................................................................21414. The Pushkin Jubilee as Farce  Mikhail Zoshchenko, "What I Would Like to Say about the Late Poet," Krokodil 5 (1937); "A Speech Given during the Pushkin Days at a Meeting of the Tenants' Cooperative on Malaia Perinnaia, No. 7," Krokodil 5 (1937).....................220Aleksandr Nevskii15. The Popular Reception of S. M. Eisenstein's Aleksandr Nevskii  David Brandenberger.......................................................................................................................................................................................23316. Aleksander Nevskii as Russian Patriot  Mikhail Kol'tsov, "An Epic Hero-People," Pravda, 7 November 1938..................................................................................................................................................................253Ivan Susanin17. Reinventing the Enemy: The Villains of Glinka's Opera Ivan Susanin on the Soviet Stage  Susan Beam Eggers................................................................................................................................................................26118. Official Praise for Ivan Susanin  B. A. Mordvinov, "Ivan Susanin on the Stage of the Bolshoi Theater," Pravda, 7 February 1939...........................................................................................................................................276Mikhail Lermontov19. Fashioning "Our Lermontov": Canonization and Conflict in the Stalinist 1930s  David Powelstock...........................................................................................................................................................................28320. A Rare Voice of Caution  A. Ragozin, "In the Poet's Defense," Pravda, 25 August 1939.....................................................................................................................................................................................308Epilogue21. An Internationalist's Complaint to Stalin and the Ensuing Scandal  V. I. Blium, 31 January 1939; V. Stepanov, 16 February 1939...........................................................................................................................................315Conclusion: Epic Revisionism and the Crafting of a Soviet Public  James von Geldern..........................................................................................................................................................................................325Archival Repository Abbreviations............................................................................................................................................................................................................................................341Contributors.................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................343Index........................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................347

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