The Artistic Action “The Conquest of the Winter Palace” for Celebrating the Anniversary of the October Revolution in the History of the Formation of Performative Arts

Vera N. Dyomina

Abstract


The article is devoted to the issue of formation of performative art in the context of development
of spectacular forms of Soviet state holidays. While examining the time and space of official
festivities, the author traces the process of design of texts of symbolic pictures narrating on the
advent of “the happy life” of the new socialist era in the history of humankind. The theatrical
pageantry replicating the chief events of Soviet history, being a significant component of mass
holidays, is researched by the author within the dynamics of the process of formation of new forms
of culture occurring during the course of the entire specified stage of research. In the variety of
the mass shows of 1920 the most large-scale is the grandiose stage work “The Conquest of the
Winter Palace” replicating the events of October 1917 in real time and space, accompanied by the
performance of the proletarian anthem, revolutionary songs, marches and gunshots.
This constructed quasi-military atmosphere unified the sound space of the festivity, singling
it out from the everyday routine spatial/temporal domain. The application of performative means
created the conditions for the perception of the developed action as a real-time historical event.
These were the means by which the sacred chronotope of the Soviet holiday was created: the
traditional spatial/temporal dimension of the holiday received an innovational interpretation
through the implementation of new symbols which are significant for the formation of the Soviet
state.

Keywords: Soviet theater, mass shows, performative art.


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DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.33779/2587-6341.2020.2.037-044

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