Swans of the Kremlin: Ballet and Power in Soviet Russia

337 Pages·2012·4.897 MB·English

by  Christina Ezrahi

swans of the kremlin
Pitt series in russian and
east euroPean studies
Jonathan Harris, Editor
wans of the
S
Kremlin
z
ballet and Power
in soviet russia
Christina Ezrahi
university of Pittsburgh Press
dance books
Published by the University of Pittsburgh Press, Pittsburgh, Pa., 15260
Copyright © 2012, University of Pittsburgh Press
All rights reserved
Manufactured in the United States of America
Printed on acid-free paper
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
Published in Great Britain in 2012 by Dance Books Ltd., Southwold House, Isington
Road, Binsted, Hampshire. GU34 4 PH
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Ezrahi, Christina.
Swans of the Kremlin : ballet and power in Soviet Russia / Christina Ezrahi.
p. cm. — (Pitt russian east european)
ISBN 978-0-8229-6214-4 (pbk.)
1. Ballet—Soviet Union—History. 2. Dance—Soviet Union—History. 3. Dance—
Political aspects—Soviet Union. I. Title.
GV1663.E97 2012
792.80947—dc23 2012030694
CIP catalog record is available from the British Library
ISBN 978-1-85-273158-8
To Ariel, Lina, and Yariv

Contents
Acknowledgments ix
A Note on Transliteration and Translation xi
Introduction 1
1. Survival: The Mariinsky and Bolshoi after the October
Revolution 10
2. Ideological Pressure: Classical Ballet and Soviet Cultural
Politics, 1923–1936 30
3. Art versus Politics: The Kirov’s Artistic Council,
1950s–1960s 67
4. Ballet Battles: The Kirov Ballet during
Khrushchev’s Thaw 102
5. Beyond the Iron Curtain: The Bolshoi Ballet in
London in 1956 137
6. Enfant Terrible: Leonid Iakobson and The Bedbug, 1962 169
7. Choreography as Resistance: Yuri Grigorovich’s
Spartacus, 1968 201
Conclusion 232
Appendix 1: A Who’s Who 241
Appendix 2: Ballets 257
Notes 273
Bibliography 301
Index 309
vii

Acknowledgments
The sublime dancers of the Mariinsky-Kirov and the Bolshoi, who elevated
the art of ballet throughout the tumultuous twentieth century, inspired this
research. I would like to thank the staff at the Central State Archive of Liter-
ature and the Arts in St. Petersburg and of the Russian State Archive of Lit-
erature and the Arts in Moscow. Ballet is a visual art, and this book would
not have been the same without the help of Natalia Metelitsa, Tatiana Vlaso-
va, and Sergei Laletin from the St. Petersburg State Museum of Theater and
Music, Elena Lollo, Alisa Meves, Elena Mochalova, and Olga Ovechkina
from the Mariinsky Theater, and of Gwyneth Campling and Victoria Relph
from the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden, who helped me obtain pho-
tographs for this book. I am grateful to the dancers of the Kirov and Bolshoi
Ballet companies who have shared their thoughts with me over the years,
above all Makharbek Vaziev, Olga Chenchikova, and Evgeny Goremykin.
I thank my editor, Peter Kracht, for his guidance and his enthusiasm
about this project, which began at University College London’s School of
Slavonic and East European Studies. I am indebted to Alena Ledeneva and
Geoffrey Hosking for their inspiring guidance and to Nancy Condee for her
support. I would like to thank the Arts and Humanities Research Council
and University College London for funding my work.
I am deeply grateful to my mother for sharing my love for Russian bal-
let and to my father for putting up with our enthusiasm. I am obliged to my
parents-in-law, especially Sidra DeKoven Ezrahi and Ruth HaCohen, for
nurturing me intellectually and gastronomically, but notably to Yaron Ez-
rahi, who has provided invaluable guidance at different stages. Above all, I
would like to thank my husband, Ariel, who has become an expert on Rus-
sian ballet, my daughter, Lina, whose first words included Mariinsky and
Bolshoi, and my son, Yariv, who chivalrously accompanied me to St. Peters-
burg even before he was born.
ix