Ukrainian Theatre of National Identity - Russia's Nationalist Problem

With that said, I want to set the stage for the rest of this thesis by calling to attention what I will refer to as Soviet Russia’s “Nationalist Problem.” In a multinational empire, assembled after years of war, civil war, and rebellion, the main concern of the Soviet Union was to make the mechanism of a socialist nation function. Political policies were tried and tested in the early years of the USSR. After the nation had stabilized, for example, a policy of Ukrainization was implemented in the Ukrainian lands, offering the Ukrainian people educational and cultural autonomy. This policy was reversed under Stalin, who instead persecuted Ukrainians who explored ideas related to the nation and criticism of the USSR. Culture and politics were inextricably intertwined; in Russia, theate and theatrical spectacles were explored as strategies to propagandize the public into a sense of Soviet pride. Because the arts were so linked to the political mechanism at the time, an artist operating outside or against that political mechanism was subject to excommunication, imprisonment, and/or death. One political party—the Communist Party—dominated, and lack of membership to it was a fast track to pariah status.

In an edict written by Communist Party leadership in Soviet Ukraine, Ukrainian modernist playwright Mykola Kulish was expelled from party membership. This document, aptly provided by Les Tanyuk, establishes numerous important details about Kulish’s relationship to the Revolution, Kulish’s relationship to the Party, and the actions that Kulish took to earn his removal from the Communist Party of Soviet Ukraine:

Extract from the protocol part 8

meeting of the commission on cleaning the party organization

dated June 14, 1934.

Kulish, Mykola Gur'evich, born in 1892, civil servant, member of the Party since 1919. Was not in other parties. Has remarks for an unethical act in Zhitlokoop, remarks for refusing to go to the village, remarks for passivity in party work.

Was in the Red Army.

During the purge, speaking comrades stated that almost all of Kulish's plays have a bright nationalist color and are actually directed against the party line, such as Kulish's plays "Narodniy Malakhii", "Mina Mazaylo", "Zakut", "Maklena Grasa" ”, “Pathetic Sonata” were removed as things clearly nationalistic and foreign. Kulish all the time worked in close connection with nationalist counter-revolutionary elements (Kurbas, Yalovy), as a person who, being the head of "Vaplite" and "Vseukomdram", directs the work of these organizations against the party.

For the system of nationalist mistakes, which was especially evident in a number of nationalist plays directed against the party line (“Narodnyi Malakhiy”, “Mina Mazaylo”, “Zakut”, “Maclena Grasa”, Pathetic Sonata), for active support and close connection with nationalist counter-revolutionary elements (Kurbas, Yalovy), as a person who, being the head of "Vaplite", "Vseukomdram", directed the work of these organizations against the party, as a person with a clear nationalist ideology EXCLUDE FROM THE PARTY.

Chairman of the commission: Cherednyk

Commission members: Hans, Yeremenko

Secretary: Livshits

This document illustrates the conflict between the Ukrainian national theatre and the Soviet government, but it is also emblematic of the cultural struggle that had existed in Ukraine for decades—even centuries—before. We are given, for starters, a lexicon through which Kulish’s drama was understood. Words and phrases such as “bright nationalistic color,” “clearly nationalistic and foreign,” and “nationalist and counter-revolutionary elements” bubble to the surface upon first read-through; this is the language of Soviet Russia’s Nationalist Problem. It not only recurs long afterwards in the language of Putin’s Russia—whose justifications for the Invasion of Ukraine stem from claims of nationalist sentiment in Ukraine—but it also echoes sentiments of the multinational tsarist Russian Empire, whose repressions of Ukrainian language and culture served largely to preserve political and cultural power for the Russian Tsar.

It is important, in this case, to establish just what nationalism entails, and from there move to define what constitutes the nationalist theatre. By discovering these definitions, we can uncover the basis of Ukrainian nationalist theatre, the literary canon it borrows from, and the symbols that comprise it.

Next Section - Nationalism and Nationalist Theatre