Popular theater and society in Tsarist Russia / E. Anthony Swift.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Swift, Eugene Anthony.

Series:

Studies on the history of society and culture ; 44.

Studies on the history of society and culture ; 44

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Theater--Russia--History.

Theater.

Popular culture--Russia.

Popular culture.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (367 p.)

Edition:

1st ed.

Place of Publication:

Berkeley, Calif. : University of California Press, c2002.

Language Note:

English

Summary:

This is the most comprehensive study available of the popular theater that developed during the last decades of tsarist Russia. Swift examines the origins and significance of the new "people's theaters" that were created for the lower classes in St. Petersburg and Moscow between 1861 and 1917. His extensively researched study, full of anecdotes from the theater world of the day, shows how these people's theaters became a major arena in which the cultural contests of late imperial Russia were played out and how they contributed to the emergence of an urban consumer culture during this period of rapid social and political change. Swift illuminates many aspects of the story of these popular theaters-the cultural politics and aesthetic ambitions of theater directors and actors, state censorship politics and their role in shaping the theatrical repertoire, and the theater as a vehicle for social and political reform. He looks at roots of the theaters, discusses specific theaters and performances, and explores in particular how popular audiences responded to the plays.

Contents:

Front matter

Contents

Illustrations

Acknowledgments

Note on Transliteration and Dates

Introduction

1. The Urban Theatrical Landscape

2. People's Theater and Cultural Politics

3. Censorship and Repertoire

4. Theater, Temperance, and Popular Culture

5. Workers' Theater, Proletarian Culture, and Respectability

6. The People at the Theater: Audience Reception

Conclusion

Epilogue

Appendix of Titles

Notes

Selected Bibliography

Index

Notes:

Description based upon print version of record.

Includes bibliographical references (p. 303-326) and index.

Description based on print version record and CIP data provided by publisher; resource not viewed.

ISBN:

9786612356469

9781282356467

1282356461

9780520925878

0520925874

9781597348232

1597348236

OCLC:

475928822