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Nikolai Petrov: Mass Spectacles (1960)
Mass Spectacles (1960)
(p. 88 – 91)

Nikolai Petrov

Mass Spectacles (1960)

PDF, 4 pages

  • Russia
  • historic documents
  • revolution
  • History of photography

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Nikolai Petrov

(1890–1964), theater director, founded together with Evreinov and Annenkov the Free Comedy Theater (Vol’naia komediia), which existed until 1924. In the Soviet Union Petrov made his career as a director and university professor. For The Storming of the Winter Palace he was a co-director and author for the scenes on the red stage.

Other texts by Nikolai Petrov for DIAPHANES
Inke Arns (ed.), Igor Chubarov (ed.), ...: Nikolai Evreinov: »The Storming of the Winter Palace«

In 1920, the third anniversary of the October Revolution, The Storming of the Winter Palace was performed with a cast of 10,000. But as a reenactment this mass spectacle, directed by Nikolai Evreinov, was deceptive. It was intended to recall something—the storming of the Winter Palace as the beginning of the revolution—that it itself produced as a theatrical medium. This volume reconstructs the event with texts, photographs, and drawings, and shows how not only in the Soviet Union did the photograph of the theatrical “storming” become a historical document of the October Revolution.

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