Nikolai Evreinov
The Storming of the Winter Palace Photograph
of the Proletkult mass spectacle, Petrograd, 1920, 500musicians,
6,000–8,000 participants, 45,000–100,000 spectators, directed by
Nikolai Evreinov
In addition to critical re-enactments, which
seek to ‘enlighten’ or ‘emancipate’ (like for example, the work of
Jeremy Deller or Rod Dickinson), there are also most fascinating
examples of re-enactments for propaganda purposes that are utilised
explicitly to create identification with concrete ideological goals.
These re-enactments are “not so much about recalling the past but more
about restructuring the past for the needs of (a contemporary)
audience”(1). Perhaps the most famous example in this context is the
re-enactment of the storming of the Winter Palace in 1920, the “biggest
mass spectacle of all time” (2), in which at least 6,000 people took
part in Petrograd on the third anniversary of the October Revolution.
The Proletkult mass spectacle was organised by Nikolai Evreinov
(1879–1953). The director did not attempt to stage an exact copy
(because the actual event of 1917 was not really spectacular), but
rather an interpretation using theatrical devices – for example, the
depiction of the bourgeoisie and the Provisional Government on the
‘white stage’ was exaggeratedly satirical. The audience of around
100,000 people, which represented at the time a quarter of Petrograd’s
population, were not just spectators but represented the revolutionary
masses. Anatoly Lunacharsky, who at the time was People’s Commissar for
Enlightenment, that is, for promoting the awareness of these
revolutionary masses, formulated the aim of the spectacle thus: “In
order to acquire a sense of self the masses must outwardly manifest
themselves, and this is possible only when, in Robespierre’s words,
they become a spectacle unto themselves.” (3)
“Festivals
like these”, wrote Richard Taylor in 2002, “were designed to create a
sense of identification between the audience and the event re-enacted
through the spectacle itself and the act of collective memory that it
both embodied and provoked.” (4) The images we associate with the
Russian Revolution of 1917 do not show the ‘real’ event (no photographs
or film material exist), they are actually from the film October (1927)
by the Soviet director Sergei Eisenstein, which was shown in cinemas to
celebrate the 10th anniversary of the October Revolution. Because only
a few photographs of the 1920 re-enactment existed (one is exhibited in
the exhibition), Eisenstein recreated the re-enactment of 1920 seven
years later.
Inke Arns
(1) Steve Rushton, Tweedledum and Tweedledee resolved to have a battle (Preface one), in: Experience, Memory,
Re-enactment, Rotterdam/Frankfurt a.M. 2005, p.6.
(2)
Katerina Clark, Petersburg. Crucible of Cultural Revolution, Cambridge
(Mass.) / London: Harvard University Press 1996, p. 122.
(3) Anatoly Lunacharsky, cited in Richard Taylor, October, London: British Film Institute 2002.
(4) Richard Taylor, op. cit., cited at http://www.bfi.org.uk/booksvideo/books/catalogue/text.php?bookid=349.
... back
