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Diktat and Dialogue in Stalinist Culture: Staging Patriotic Historical Opera in Soviet Ukraine, 1936-1954

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  27 January 2017

Serhy Yekelchyk
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Decades ago, a highly readable émigré memoir aptly labeled Stalinist cultural policy the “taming of the arts.” Reinforcing the dominant totalitarian paradigm according to which Soviet society was the passive object of an all-powerful state, this catchy image became popular in the Cold War west. During the 1970s, the “revisionist” generation of western scholars began questioning the orthodox view of Stalinist culture. For example, Vera Dunham suggested that the middle-class values apparent in the literature of mature Stalinism might reflect a “Big Deal” between the bureaucracy and the cultural tastes of the new Soviet “middle class,” while Sheila Fitzpatrick maintained that even in the heyday of Stalinism, some prominent intellectuals held positions of “cultural authority,” enabling them to influence the course of cultural life.

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Slavic Review , Volume 59 , Issue 3 , Fall 2000 , pp. 597 - 624
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Copyright © Association for Slavic, East European, and Eurasian Studies. 2008

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References

The first draft of this paper was presented at the annual convention of the American Association for the Advancement of Slavic Studies in Boca Raton in September 1998.1 would like to thank the critics of the original text: Mark Baker, David Brandenberger, John-Paul Himka, Marko Pavlyshyn, Karen Petrone, and Kevin Piatt, all of whom contributed valuable suggestions for revision. The final version of this essay, however, owes much of its form and content to the comments of the Slavic Review's anonymous reviewers and to the editorial counsel of Diane Koenker. Peter Klovan and Myroslav Yurkevich have aided me with the stylistic editing of the final draft. My studies and research at the University of Alberta were made possible by two generous fellowships, the Izaak Walton Killam Memorial Doctoral Fellowship and the Ivan Lysiak Rudnytsky Memorial Doctoral Fellowship in Ukrainian History and Political Thought.

1. Elagin, Iu., Ukroshchenie iskusstv (New York, 1952).Google Scholar

2. See Dunham, Vera S., In Stalin's Time: Middleclass Values in Soviet Fiction, with an introduction by Hough, Jerry F. (Cambridge, Eng., 1976)Google Scholar; Fitzpatrick, Sheila, “Culture and Politics under Stalin: A Reappraisal,” Slavic Review 35, no. 2 (June 1976): 211-31CrossRefGoogle Scholar, reprinted in substantially revised form as “Cultural Orthodoxies under Stalin” in her The CulturalFront: Power and Culture in Revolutionary Russia (Ithaca, 1992), 238-56.

3. See, for example, Clark, Katerina, The Soviet Novel: History as Ritual (Chicago, 1981)Google Scholar; Groys, Boris, The Total Art of Stalinism: Avant-garde, Aesthetic Dictatorship, and Beyond, trans. Rougle, Charles (Princeton, 1992)Google Scholar; Kenez, Peter, Cinema and Soviet Society, 1917-1953 (Cambridge, Eng., 1992)Google Scholar; Robin, Regine, Socialist Realism: An Impossible Aesthetic, trans. Porter, Catherine (Stanford, 1992)Google Scholar; Stites, Richard, Russian Popular Culture: Entertainment and Society since 1900 (Cambridge, Eng., 1992)Google Scholar; and Brooks, Jeffrey, Thank You, Comrade Stalin! Soviet Public Culture from the Revolution to Cold War (Princeton, 2000).Google Scholar

4. See, for example, Maksimenkov, Leonid, Sumbur vmeslo muzyki: Stalinskaia kul'turnaia revoliutsiia 1936-1938 (Moscow, 1997)Google Scholar, where the valuable archival findings often contradict the author's traditionalist conclusions.

5. It is significant that Bakhtin developed the notion of dialogism in the Stalinist Soviet Union. Much of his work celebrated unofficial resistance to the authoritative discourses that attempt to limit the polysemous impulses of language. Since meanings cannot be fixed and made absolute, the hegemonic quest for order and stability is frustrated by the persistent residual otherness of subversion, irresolution, and ambiguity. See Bakhtin, M. M., The Dialogic Imagination: Four Essays, trans. Emerson, Caryl and Holquist, Michael, ed. Holquist, Michael (Austin, 1981)Google Scholar; Voloshinov, V. N., Marxism and the Philosophy of Language, trans. Matejka, Ladislav and Titunik, I. R. (New York, 1973)Google Scholar; Holquist, Michael, Dialogism: Bakhtin and His World (New York, 1990).CrossRefGoogle Scholar

6. Fredric Jameson, The Political Unconscious: Narrative as a Socially Symbolic Act (Ithaca, 1981).

7. Significantly, the study of the social history of Stalinism is developing in the same conceptual direction. Stephen Kotkin has recently argued that workers came to share Stalinism as a “civilization” through “positive integration” into official society by learning to “speak Bolshevik” and entering a subtle, if unequal, negotiation with the system. See Kotkin, Stephen, Magnetic Mountain: Stalinism as a Civilization (Berkeley, 1995)Google Scholar.

8. Here I agree with Slezkine, Yuri. See his provocative “The USSR as a Communal Apartment, or How a Socialist State Promoted Ethnic Particularism,” Slavic Reviexu 53, no. 2 (Summer 1994): 414-52, here 447.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

9. Ronald Grigor Suny has examined the Soviet ideal of “healthy” ethnolinguistic nationhood in The Revenge of the Past: Nationalism, Revolution, and the Collapse of the Soviet Union (Stanford, 1993), 111-12.

10. See L. A. Shevchenko, “Kul'turno-ideolohichniprotsesyvUkrainiu40-50-kh rr.,“ Ukrains'kyi islorychnyi zhurnal, 1992, no. 7/8:39-48; Shevchenko, “Kul'tura Ukrainy v umovakh stalins'koho totalitaryzmu (druha polovyna 40-kh-pochatok 50-kh rokiv),” in V M. Danylenko, ed., Ukraina XX St.: Kul'tura, ideolohiia, polityka (Kiev, 1993), 1:119-30; V. I. Iurchuk, Kul'turne zhyttia v Ukraini u povoienni roky: Svitlo i tini (Kiev, 1995); Zamlyns'ka, O. V, “Ideolohichni represii v haluzi hul'tury v Ukraini u 1948-1953 rr.,” in Danylenko, V. M., ed., Ukraina XXst: Kul'tura, ideolohiia, polityka (Kiev, 1996), 2:144-56Google Scholar.

11. This paper uses the following abbreviations for the names of the Russian and Ukrainian archives: RTsKhlDNI (Rossiiskii tsentr khraneniia i izucheniia dokumentov noveishei istorii; renamed Rossiiskii gosudarstvennyi arkhiv sotsial'no-politicheskoi istorii in March 1999), TsKhSD (Tsentr khraneniia sovremennoi dokumentatsii), GARF (Gosudarstvennyi arkhiv Rossiiskoi Federatsii), RGALI (Rossiiskii gosudarstvennyi arkhiv literatury i iskusstva), TsDAHO (Tsentral'nyi derzhavnyi arkhiv hromads'kykh ob“iednan' Ukrainy), TsDAVOV (Tsentral'nyi derzhavnyi arkhiv vyshchykh orhaniv vlady i derzhavnoho upravlinnia Ukrainy), and TsDAMLM (Tsentral'nyi derzhavnyi arkhiv-muzei literatury i mystetstva Ukrainy).

12. The rehabilitation of Russian patriotism and traditional cultural values in the mid-1930s is the subject of Nicholas S. Timasheff, The Great Retreat: The Growth andDecline of Communism in Russia (New York, 1946); Dunham, In Stalin's Time; Robert C. Tucker, Stalin in Power: The Revolution from Above, 1928-1941 (New York, 1990); Fitzpatrick, The Cultural Front; and D. L. Brandenberger and A. M. Dubrovsky, “The People Need a Tsar': The Emergence of National Bolshevism as Stalinist Ideology, 1931-1941,” Europe-Asia Studies 50, no. 5 (July 1998): 873-92.

13. Gozenpud, A. A., Russkii sovetskii opernyi teatr (1917-1941): Ocherk istorii (Leningrad, 1963), 212-19, 252-64Google Scholar; Schwarz, Boris, Music and Musical Life in Soviet Russia, 1917-1981, enl. ed. (Bloomington, 1983), 122 Google Scholar; Tucker, Stalin in Power, 554,570-71.

14. On the rise of the “friendship of peoples” paradigm in Soviet history writing, see Tillett, Lowell, The Great Friendship: Soviet Historians on the Non-Russian Nationalities (Chapel Hill, 1969)Google Scholar.

15. See the extensive coverage of the dekada in Pravda, 11-25 March 1936.

16. After the 1936 dekada, some Leningrad artists reportedly complained that Ukrainians had received awards as part of a political campaign to exalt “ethnics” rather than because they merited them. See Fitzpatrick, Sheila, Everyday Stalinism: Ordinary Life in Extraordinary Times: Soviet Russia in the 1930s (New York, 1999), 167-68Google Scholar. This would not explain, however, the simultaneous promotion of the Kiev Opera's leading conductor, Arii Pazovskii, first to the artistic directorship of the Kirov Opera in Leningrad and then to the analogous post at the Bolshoi.

17. Pravda, 13 March 1936, 4.

18. Pravda, 23 March 1936, 4 (Kievans preparing Taras); RTsKhlDNI, f. 17 (TsK VKP[b]), op. 163, d. 1103,11. 144-46 (Kerzhentsev).

19. Similar observations have been made about the 1939 production of Ivan Susanin at the Bolshoi. See Bojan Bujic, “Anti-Polish Propaganda and Russian Opera: The Revised Version of Glinka's Ivan Susanin,” European History Quarterly 15, no. 2 (April 1985): 175— 86. The Kharkiv opera company staged Taras in 1924 and the Kiev company in 1927 and 1928.

20. See Iu. O. Stanishevs'kyi, Ukrains'kyi radians'kyi muzychnyi teatr: Narysy islorii (1917- 1967) (Kiev, 1970), 63-67.

21. See the collection of reviews and newspaper clippings in TsDAMLM, f. 71 (N. V. Smolich), op. 1, spr. 38, and M. Stefanovych, Kyivs'kyi derzhavnyi ordena Lenina akademichnyi teatr opery i baleta URSR im. T. H. Shevchenka: Istorychnyi narys (Kiev, 1968), 138-41.

22. Slezkine, “The USSR as a Communal Apartment,” 446-47.

23. Pravda, 24 October 1937, 6.

24. TsDAMLM, f. 71, op. 1, spr. 20, ark. 206. Glavlit was the Soviet censorship office. In 1895, Nikolai Rimskii-Korsakov wrote about Taras as follows: “In Kiev I met with my former students Ryb and the composer Lysenko. At Lysenko's I ate dumplings and listened to excerpts from his Taras Bulba. Didn't like it—Taras Bulba, that is, not the dumplings.” Rimskii-Korsakov, N. A., Letopis’ moei muzykal'noi zhizni (Moscow, 1955), 197.Google Scholar

25. Pashchyn, M. P., “Nash tvorchyi raport,” Festyval’ opernoho i baletnoho mystelstva: 24 bereznia-7 kvitnia [1941] (Kiev, 1941), 9 Google Scholar; TsDAMLM, f. 573 (Natsional'na opera Ukrainy), op. 1, spr. 171, ark. 2.

26. See Timasheff, The Great Retreat, 167-76; Bernd Uhlenbruch, “The Annexation of History: Eisenstein and the Ivan Groznyi Cult of the 1940s,” in Hans Gunther, ed., The Culture of the Stalin Period (New York, 1990), 266-87; Maureen Perrie, “The Tsar, the Emperor, the Leader: Ivan the Terrible, Peter the Great and Anatolii Rybakov's Stalin,” in Lampert, Nick and Rittersporn, Gabor T., eds., Stalinism: Its Nature and Aftermath: Essays in Honor of Moshe Lexvin (London, 1992), 77–100 CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

27. However outdated, the best survey of the changing Soviet views on Khmel'nyts'kyi remains John Basarab, Pereiaslav 1654: A Historiographical Study (Edmonton, 1982), 162-213.

28. See Mykhailov, M., Kostiantyn Fedorovych Dan'kevych: Narodnyi artyst SRSR (Kiev, 1964), 15, 75 (Dan'kevych)Google Scholar; Stanishevs'kyi, Ukrains'kyi radians'kyi muzychnyi teatr, 177 (Shostakovich).

29. TsDAHO, f. 1 (TsKKP[b]U), op. 23, spr. 441, ark. 5zv.

30. Emphasis added. The resolution was published in Literaturna hazeta, 12 October 1946, 2; Radians'ke mystetstvo, 15 October 1946, 1; Iu. Iu. Kondufor, ed., Kul'turne budivnytstvo v Ukrains'kii RSR: Cherveri 1941-1950: Zbirnyh dokumentiv i materialiv (Kiev, 1989), 271-76.

31. TsDAHO, f. 1, op. 1, spr. 729, ark. 149 (Lytvyn); Radians'ke mystetstvo, 1 October 1946, 1, and 15 October 1946, 1 (Verykivs'kyi).

32. TsDAMLM, f. 146 (M. P. Stefanovych), op. 1, spr. 203, ark. 1-15 (typescripts of negative reviews); f. 573, op. 1, spr. 46 (contemporary critical discussion); TsDAHO, f. 1, op. 30, spr. 3653, ark. 165-70 (later comments containing valuable insights into the causes of the 1946 fiasco); Radians'ke mystetstvo, 4 December 1946, 3 (dismissive review).

33. TsDAMLM, f. 71, op. 1, spr. 20, ark. 270. As a professor at the Kiev Conservatory from 1913 to 1920, Gliere taught both Revuts'kyi and Liatoshyns'kyi.

34. L. Arkhimovych, Shliakhy rozvytku ukrains'koi radians'koi opery (Kiev, 1970), 290; Mykhailov, M., M. A. Skorul's'kyi: Naryspro xhyttia i tvorchist’ (Kiev, 1960), 71.Google Scholar

35. Radians'ke mystetstvo, 18 February 1948, 2; Lileralurna hazeta, 4 April 1948, 2, and 27 May 1948, 1.

36. See TsDAMLM, f. 573, op. 1, spr. 144, ark. 15 (1947), and spr. 93, ark. 52-53 (1949).

37. TsDAMLM, f. 71, op. 1, spr. 20, ark. 237, 241.

38. Ibid., ark. 270zv-271.

39. See Liber, George O., Soviet Nationality Policy, Urban Growth, and Identity Change in the Ukrainian SSR, 1923-1934 (Cambridge, Eng., 1992), 112, 176CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Shkandrij, Myroslav, Modernists, Marxists and the Nation: The Ukrainian Literary Discussion of the 1920s (Edmonton, 1992), 92.Google Scholar

40. TsDAMLM, f. 71, op. 1, spr. 20, ark. 216, 272.

41. Ibid., ark. 272zv. Today, to be sure, Russian classical operas are customarily performed in Russian in both France and Spain. It should be remembered, however, that staging operas in the language of the original is a relatively recent innovation in the west.

42. TsDAHO, f. 1, op. 30, spr. 2051, ark. 176-77 (audit); RGALI, f. 962 (Vsesoiuznyi komitet po delam iskusstv pri Sovete Ministrov SSSR), op. 11, d. 560,11. 51-53 (Susanin in L'viv). The ostensible aim of the 1950 audit was to ensure that Ukrainian opera companies were complying with the rule on performing Russian operas in Ukrainian translation. Nevertheless, the republican officials did not seem overly concerned about poor compliance on the part of opera companies outside Kiev.

43. TsDAHO, f. 1, op. 30, spr. 2015, ark. 185.

44. RGALI, f. 962, op. 11, d. 558,1. 82. Of course, “Pushkin's text” did not refer to Ivan Susanin.

45. RGALI, f. 962, op. 11, d. 558, 11. 21, 48, 17. At the time, Kompaniiets’ served as head of the Administration of Theaters at the Ukrainian Committee for the Arts. The first draft of the libretto can be found in TsDAMLM, f. 435 (O. Ie. Korniichuk), op. 1, d. 297. On Dan'kevych, see Radians'ke myslelstvo, 28 July 1948, 3.

46. TsDAHO, f. 1, op. 30, spr. 2041, ark. 1 (telegram to Nazarenko), and spr. 2051, ark. 1 (telegram to Kyrychenko); Radians'ke mystetstvo, 15 February 1950, 3 (first audition), and 23 August 1950, 3 (score ready).

47. Radians'ke mystetstvo, 31 January 1951, 1; Literaturna hazela, 8 February 1951, 3 (the quotation is from the second article); RGALI, f. 962, op. 2, d. 2336,1.13, and op. 3, d. 2306, 1. 6. Even such a discriminating and cultured singer as Borys Hmyria genuinely liked the role of Colonel Kryvonis. After reading the score in October 1950, he immediately wrote to a friend: “A good role—both for singing and acting.” In February 1951, he again characterized this role as “significant both musically and artistically.” See TsDAMLM, f. 443 (B. R. Hmyria), op. 1, spr. 58, ark. 105, 108.

48. TsDAHO, f. 1, op. 30, spr. 2050, ark. 3.

49. TsDAHO, f. 1, op. 30, spr. 2050; RGALI, f. 962, op. 3, dd. 2306, 2336.

50. TsDAVOV, f. 4763 (Komitet u spravakh mystetstv URSR), op. 1, spr. 360, ark. 25; TsDAMLM, f. 573, op. 1, spr. 171, ark. 25.

51. TsDAHO, f. 1, op. 30, spr. 1875, ark. 47-94, esp. ark. 73 (Hrechukha), 88 (Dan'kevych), and 75 (Nazarenko).

52. TsDAHO, f. 1, op. 30, spr. 2428, ark. 3-85. Compare the official chronicle of the decade in Pravda, 16-28 June 1951, and in Dekada ukrains'koho mystetstva u Moskvi 15-24 chervnia 1951 r.: Zbirka materialiv (Kiev, 1953).

53. Pravda, 16June 1951, 1.

54. As both the printed program of the concert of 24 June 1951 and the transcript of the television coverage attest, no arias from Bohdan were performed that evening. The archival materials do not reveal who overruled Nazarenko on this matter or when the decision occurred. See TsDAMLM, f. 146, op. 1, spr. 215, ark. l-3zv (program); GARF, f. 6903 (Komitet po radioveshchaniiu i televideniiu pri Sovete Ministrov SSSR), op. 26, d. 21, program listing for 26June (this folder has no continuous pagination).

55. GARF, f. 6903, op. 26, d. 21, programs for 15 and 16 June. Interestingly, the record shows that Bohdan was supposed to end by 11:30 P.M. on 15 June but continued until midnight.

56. On 30 June, Orders of Lenin were conferred on Mykhailo Hryshko (Bohdan) and Mykhailo Romens'kyi, who sang the role of the Muscovite ambassador in Bohdan. Dan'kevych received the Order of the Red Banner for Labor, while Honored Artist of Ukraine Borys Hmyria (Colonel Kryvonis in the opera) skipped a step in the hierarchy of Soviet actors to attain the highest rank of People's Artist of the Soviet Union. See Pravda, 1 July 1951, 1-2.

57. TsDAMLM, f. 661 (Spilka radians'kykh kompozytoriv Ukrainy), op. 1, spr. 130. To be sure, Boris had some ensembles, but apparently not enough for the 1950s notion of a classical opera.

58. Pravda, 2July 1951, 2. See Bilinsky, Yaroslav, The Second Soviet Republic: The Ukraine after World WarII (New Brunswick, 1964), 15–17 Google Scholar; Baran, Volodymyr, Ukraina 1950-1960-kh rr.:Evoliutsiia totalitarnoi systemy (L'viv, 1996), 60–65.Google Scholar

59. Pravda, 20July 1951, 3-4.

60. Which is not to say that the games themselves were ideologically coherent. See an excellent recent study: Alexei Kojevnikov, “Rituals of Stalinist Culture at Work: Science and the Games of Intraparty Democracy circa 1948,” Russian Review 57, no. 1 (January 1998): 25-52.

61. Pravda, 24 July 1951, and Literaturna hazeta, 26 July 1951, 4; TsDAHO, f. 1, op. 30, spr. 2424, ark. 5-76 (Korniichuk, esp. ark. 13-14, on his own mistakes).

62. RTsKhlDNI, f. 17, op. 133, d. 311,11. 34-39 (26July 1951); TsDAHO, f. 1, op. 24, spr. 785, ark. 61-67 (14 August 1951).

63. TsDAHO, f. 1, op. 1, spr. 976, ark. 12, 18-20 (Mel'nikov), 227-29 (Korniichuk).

64. Ibid., ark. 208: “Tse ukhyliannia vid suchasnykh tern i koposhinnia v tsykh istoriiakh drevnosti—tse tezh slid rozhlaiadaty iak svoieridnyi proiav natsionalizmu.“

65. Ibid., ark. 77-82.

66. RTsKhlDNI, f. 17, op. 132, d. 419,11. 219-21.

67. Radians'ke mystetstvo, 24 October 1951, 4. The party's Central Committee requested a copy of the libretto for review and approved it. See RTsKhlDNI, f. 17, op. 132, d. 419, II. 222-52.

68. RGALI, f. 962, op. 11, d. 613,11.1-47. The censorship permit stamp no. Sh-00125, dated 30 January 1952, is on 1. 1.

69. TsKhSD, f. 5 (TsK KPSS), op. 17, d. 445,11. 35-38. As an example of the “Ukrainian reading” of The Zaporozhian Cossack, Ryl's'kyi wrote in 1949 about the “lofty patriotism that permeates this opera from first note to last.” See TsDAMLM, f. 146, op. 1, spr. 192, ark. 2.

70. TsDAMLM, f. 573, op. 1, spr. 216, ark. 5.

71. S. Hulak-Artemovs'kyi, Zaporozhets’ za Dunaiem, Kharkivs'kyi akademichnyi teatr opery ta baletu: Sezon 1935-36 r. (n.p., n.d.), 10; Zaporozhets! za Dunaiem: Postava Derzhavnoho akademichnoho teatru opery ta baleta URSR, Kyiv, Hastrol’ u Moskvi 11-21 bereznia 1936 roku (n.p., 1936), 52. The copy of the original libretto from the 1860s can be found in TsDAMLM, f. 1106 (I. S. Patorzhyns'kyi), op. 1, spr. 22, ark. 166-94, here 172.

72. TsDAMLM, f. 573, op. 4, spr. 17, ark. 17 and 25. Compare the 1949 libretto in TsDAMLM, f. 146, op. 1, spr. 192, ark. 5-39. Interestingly, after Ukrainian independence, the Kiev Opera restored some elements of The Zaporozhian Cossack's original score, including the references to God—but not the Arnauts. The 1951 prohibition of Moscow ideologues was still in force as late as May 1999.

73. TsDAMLM, f. 1106, op. 1, spr. 22, ark. 1-166, here la, 9-10, 21.

74. TsDAHO, f. 1, op. 30, spr. 3268, ark. 29 (released in July 1953).

75. TsDAHO, f. 1, op. 30, spr. 3266, ark. 117, 120-27 (Askol'd's Tomb), 119 (The Siege of Dubno), and spr. 3265, ark. 96-138 (Aleksandrov's libretto; Nazarenko's quoted notes are on ark. 133 and 136).

76. Radians'ke mystelstvo, 11 August 1954, 1 (“intolerable situation“), 2 (“forgotten treasures“); TsDAHO, f. 1, op. 24, spr. 3528, ark. 21-22 (Khrushchev at the opera).

77. TsDAVOV, f. 4763, op. 1, spr. 360, ark. 1-55 (Ryl's'kyi on ark. 50); TsDAMLM, f. 573, op. 1, spr. 171, ark. 2-56.

78. TsDAMLM, f. 573, op. 1, spr. 171, ark. 23, 47.

79. TsDAMLM, f. 443, op. 1, spr. 58, ark. 115-16. Previously, the Ukrainian Committee for the Arts had wanted the Kiev Opera to renew Taras for the 1951 dekada in Moscow. The management avoided the issue, arguing that only Patorzhyns'kyi could sing Taras and that he was too busy with other roles. See TsDAMLM, f. 573, op. 1, spr. 141, ark. 5. In fact, the republican artistic elite was simply reluctant to become involved with the muchcriticized work. The prominent theater artist Oleksandr Khvostenko-Khvostov openly told the company's director that “he would not like to be held responsible for this spectacle.“ See TsDAMLM, f. 573, op. 1, spr. 171, ark. 4. After three more years of heavy editing, the Kiev Opera finally produced a successful Taras Bul'ba in 1955. See TsDAHO, f. 1, op. 30, spr. 3653, ark. 165-70; TsDAMLM, f. 573, op. 4, spr. 26; op. 1, spr. 241, ark. 10-22; spr. 250, ark. 3-4zv; E. N. Iavors'kyi, ‘Taras Bul'ba“: Opera M. Lysenka (Kiev, 1964).

80. TsDAHO, f. 1, op. 30, spr. 2773, ark. 97-98.

81. TsDAMLM, f. 435, op. 1, spr. 305 (manuscript changes to the libretto); TsDAHO, f. 1, op. 30, spr. 2747 (printed copy from the archive of the Central Committee, dated January 1952); TsDAVOV, f. 4763, op. 1, spr. 357, ark. 2-5, 44; TsDAMLM, f. 435, op. 1, spr. 304, ark. 1-8 (outline of changes); N. Pirogova, Opera “Bogdan Khmel'nitskii” K. Dankevicha: Poiasnenie (Moscow, 1959), 8-9.

82. TsDAMLM, f. 435, op. 1, spr. 2012, ark. 5-6, 8.

83. See TsDAMLM, f. 673, op. 4 (10), spr. 16, ark. 19 (old text); TsDAMLM, f. 146, op. 1, spr. 194, ark. 22, and TsDAHO, f. 1, op. 30, spr. 2851, ark. 23 (new text).

84. TsDAMLM, f. 435, op. 1, spr. 1959, ark. 25 (Levada), 31 (Kozyts'kyi), 57 (Dol'd- Mykhailyk), 15 (Composers’ Union); TsDAHO, f. 1, op. 30, spr. 2851, ark. 23 (second draft of the aria submitted to the Ukrainian Central Committee); TsDAVOV, f. 4763, op. 1, spr. 357, ark. 95 (concluding words).

85. RTsKhlDNI, f. 17, op. 33, d. 369,11. 14-24. Molotov's note is on 1. 20, the decision on 11. 22-24. By 1952, the ailing Stalin had fully entrusted Malenkov with running everyday party business. As the party archives reveal, Malenkov normally circulated documents among the other secretaries of the Central Committee (Stalin was not included, although he was probably consulted verbally on major questions); decisions were reached by consensus.

86. TsDAVOV, f. 4763, op. 1, spr. 357, ark. 44.

87. TsDAHO, f. 1, op. 30, spr. 2775; TsDAVOV, f. 4763, op. 1, spr. 356 (discussion on 4 November) ;TsDAHO, f. 1, op. 30, spr. 2773, ark. 165,167 (the logistics of two closed performances), 165-66 (summary of opinions).

88. Radians'kemystelstvo, 24June 1953, \;Literaturnahazela, 25Junel953,3 (premiere).

89. Radians'ke mystetstvo, 30 September 1953, 3 (Bohdan as season opener); 14 October 1953, 3; and Literalurna hazeta, 1 October 1953, 3, and 29 October 1953, 2 (reviews). Apparently, Khrushchev did not attend a performance of Bohdan during his visit to Kiev in October 1953. As noted earlier, he definitely went to see The Zaporozhian Cossack and possibly indicated his general approval of the theater's work.

90. TsDAHO, f. 1, op. 30, spr. 3632, ark. 20-22; TsDAVOV, f. 5116 (Ministerstvo kul'tury URSR), op. 4, spr. 19, ark. 1-2 ﹛Bohdan produced in Ukrainian theaters); TsKhSD, f. 5, op. 17, d. 402,1. 71; TsDAHO, f. 1, op. 24, spr. 3504, ark. 24; TsDAVOV, f. 5116, op. 4, spr. 15, ark. 44, and spr. 20, ark. 1-7, 25.

91. GARF, f. 6903, op. 26, d. 39 (television program and transcripts for 10 May—no pagination); TsKhSD, f. 5, op. 17, d. 402,11. 76-77 (all-union radio); TsDAHO, f. 1, op. 30, spr. 3631, ark. 25 (republican radio); spr. 3633, ark. 47-54 (gramophone disks); spr. 3632, ark. 180-86 (major concert in Kiev to celebrate the anniversary); Radians'ke mystetstvo, 17 November 1954, 1 (Dan'kevych's accolade).

92. Novyi shliakh, 15 January 1954, 4. The reference to Bohdan's “boring” aria on the need for reunification seems to add some credibility to the story. Indeed, two of the hetman's arias were devoted to this subject.

93. GARF, f. 6646 (Slavianskii komitet SSSR), op. 1, d. 356,11. 14-18.

94. RGALI, f. 2329 (Ministerstvo kul'tury SSSR), op. 3, d. 168, 1. 35ob. Only a rarity, Puccini's Tosca, surpassed the record average attendance: 2,959 people showed up at a mere two performances of this opera in Kiev. A general statistical survey of all Soviet opera companies in 1954 revealed that seven theaters—Kiev and six other smaller oblast houses, all of them in Ukraine—staged 129 performances of Bohdan for a total of 136,123 spectators, an average of 1,055. No Russian classical opera enjoyed such an average attendance unionwide that year. Ivan Susanin, staged by all the largest theaters, came close, with 15 theaters, 126 performances, and 128,276 patrons (1,018). Eugene Onegin, The Queen of Spades, and other classics lagged far behind. The most frequently performed opera on a Soviet subject, Iulii Meitus's The Young Guard, incidentally also a work by a Ukrainian composer, scored 9—87—49,980 (574). See RGALI, f. 2329, op. 3, d. I l l , 11. 1-3.

95. TsKhSD, f. 5, op. 17, d. 445, 11. 85-86. Amusingly, there is every likelihood that Hryshko met Borys Hmyria (Colonel Kryvonis) regularly on Pasazh Street, where both men lived.

96. TsDAMLM, f. 435, op. 1, spr. 1302, ark. 1-2.