Paradoxes of Memory: From the Solovetski Islands to Panikovsky
What happened in Kyiv recently ought to have happened long ago. A statue of the great stage director and reformer of the Ukrainian theater Les Kurbas was unveiled on Prorizna Street, up from the crossing with Khreshchatyk and a couple of hundred meters down from the Young Theater.
The appearance of the monument was, of course, a belated but nonetheless long-awaited act of historical justice. Kurbas was not just a stage director or reformer of the theater, but also gave it something far more important than what can be briefly described as new life guidelines. He was the first to demand from his cast intelligent work on every role, introducing the notion of the intellectual Harlequin, that is, a performer who would not simply go through the motions of impassioned outbursts (as was and is still often the case on our stage), but would have a philosophical, ethical, and psychological insight into the character. The official theater could not forgive this and many other fundamental innovations. Apart from destroying him physically, all memories about him had to be erased. They almost succeeded. His name has remained in oblivion for too long in Ukraine, since well before his execution in 1937 (timed to coincide with the anniversary of the October Revolution). Any mention of Les Kurbas had been taboo. For too long the students of the Kyiv Theatrical Institute had been taught in conformity with pharisaic canons. Actually, the current lamentable condition of the Ukrainian theater seems in many respects the result of that execution lasting so many decades.
Unfortunately, even the unveiling of the monument showed that the meaning of Kurbas to our theater is treated as yet another formality. Kyiv Mayor Oleksandr Omelchenko, faltering, read out a brief biography, adding nothing from himself, stressing the overall attitude of utter indifference toward the great man. Les Taniuk, chairman of the Union of Ukrainian Theatrical Figures and Stanislav Moiseyev, artistic director of the Young Theater, were more emotional. Bohdan Stupka, the current artistic director of the Ivan Franko National Theater, was also present. The statute of the founder of the legendary Berezil Company was sculpted by Mykola Rapai and kept in the traditional style of socialist realism.
The most surprising aspect, however, is that the Kurbas statue is in a sort of bronze triangle, including the statues of Makhtumkula Fraga, a little-known eighteenth century Turkmenistan poet, and Panikovsky, a character from The Golden Calf by Ilf and Petrov.
