Madame Kaminev, Trotsky’s sister, is the head of Prolocult, a movement which aims at a new culture, especially in the theatre, which is free from Greek or other influences. It is Madame Kaminev’s theory that such a culture, springing from the workers and peasants and unspoiled by the imperfections and influences of former civilizations, will do much to stimulate and renew art in general, which she believes has become decadent
Marie Andreeva (Madame Gorky), who is herself an actress of note and was at one time a star in the famous Art Theatre in Moscow, had charge of Narodny Dom, a people’s theatre, which was started under the Tsar and is continued under the Soviets. Marie Andreeva recently made a tour of Europe to study the theatres.
But it is Stanislavsky, the director of the Moscow Art Theatre, who has rendered Lunacharsky the greatest assistance. Stanislavsky is conceded to be the greatest stage director in the world. Under his guidance, all the great Russian playwrights for the last generation have blossomed. It was Stanislavsky’s firm conviction that the Russian people must maintain the theatres, hundreds of theatres, during the revolution, in order that they might not find a life of hunger and cold too monotonous for a desire to live. With his brave little company he has managed to keep his theatre in the capital at the very highest pitch. He established and kept under his direction three other theatres in Moscow and he has put on a number of new operas. Absolutely nothing seems to discourage him. The loss of his personal fortune, which had been very great, and even the loss of his beloved workshop which was turned into a Chauffeurs’ Club, did not destroy his calm. “It is never Lenin or Lunacharsky, big men, who are to blame for these mistakes of the Soviet Government,” he told me. “It is always the little foolish, frantic men. When they took my workshop I wrote to Lenin. He did everything he could and when he was outvoted by Kaminev and the Moscow Soviet, he managed to get me another place, really just as good but lacking the old atmosphere.”
Many tales could be told about Lunacharsky. The most typical, I think, and the one that shows his persistency is the story of the Hermitage museum, which Catherine the Great founded in Petrograd.
When the Germans were knocking at the gates of Petrograd in 1917 the historic tapestries in the Winter Palace and the entire Hermitage collection were sent by dead of night to Moscow and stored in the Kremlin. One day in the winter of 1921 I called at Lunacharsky’s office. He was in a fine state of happiness. “I have great news for you,” he exclaimed. “To-day we sent the Hermitage collection back to Petrograd—intact! I wonder if you can realize what that means? I wonder if the world will know how nearly those precious things came to destruction? How wonderful it is, after all, that in another month one can go to Petrograd and behold everything arranged as it has been for centuries.
“Yes, there have been times when I did not think it possible to save the collection, not because there were reckless revolutionists who always brought up movements to sell one part or another, but by a much worse destruction. Can you imagine my anxiety when fighting, actual fighting, was going on in palaces where the old porcelains were stored? We had put the Rembrandts and other canvasses in the Kremlin cellars, and I was in constant terror that rats would gnaw them. Sometimes I was afraid to go down and look. But I feel that the worst days of such struggles are over for us. I am happy that Russia has demonstrated to the world that Russians are not barbarians. We have saved our art in spite of hunger and disease and death.”
Lunacharsky has a rare grace of spirit and while he is himself a modernist and wants to bring art as close to the people as bread, he never allows his own feelings to intrude on the feelings of his fellow artists. Himself a writer of note, he has sacrificed his own writing to save art and the creators of art. A devout revolutionist, he can allow the intricate designs of the Tsardom, the great black eagles, insolent against the sky over the turrets of the Kremlin, to remain, because they are part of the original designs of the old palaces. He can bring himself to regild the church roofs from his scanty funds although he is not at all religious, and he could faithfully gather old ikons and make of them a marvelous little collection in one of the new museums. Only such a man could have held together the temperamental army composed of the artists of Russia. Such men as Lunacharsky give the revolution the balance which prevents its collapse.
Periods of transition are always bitter and more than bitter for delicate creative souls. Once I mentioned Lunacharsky’s tact in handling artists to Helena Soochachova, the young and beautiful star at the Moscow Art Theatre. She smiled and thus characterized him: “Ah, Lunacharsky,” she said, “he is a great gentleman, he is, no doubt, the great gentleman of the revolution. That is the secret of his success and the reason his political enemies cannot defeat him and we artists cannot desert him—because he struggles so magnificently and is a man sans peur et sans reproche.”