THEATRE IN THE GULAG

Art in captivity was a paradox, one of the most complex and controversial aspects of GULAG history.

FROM SOLOVKI TO KOLYMA

The first prison theatre was established on Solovki in 1923, with two separate stages: one for political prisoners, the other for criminal convicts. Among the actors and directors of these prison theatres were prominent cultural figures, such as Ukrainian director Les Kurbas, whose last production on Solovki—«The Death of Tarelkin»—was a sharp satire of the Soviet system.

Prison theatres were created throughout the GULAG system, but the most famous was the Magadan Musical Drama Theatre, founded in the 1930s. It was there that Giuseppe Verdi’s opera «La Traviata» was staged, with the lead role performed by Ida Ziskina, a prisoner of Kolyma and the future mother of Anna Varpakhovskaya.

THEATRE BEHIND BARBED WIRE

GULAG theatres were not only seen by the NKVD as a tool for «re-education» but also became a lifeline for the prisoners. Performers received slightly better conditions, but their fate was at the mercy of camp authorities.

In Magadan, ultimate control rested with Alexandra Gridasova, the mistress of Ivan Nikishov, the head of Dalstroy. She ruled over the theatre and its performers just as she ruled over the prisoners’ lives. When director Leonid Varpakhovsky complained that he lacked male voices for the choir, she responded: «Don’t worry, an Estonian choir will arrive soon.» All its members were arrested and sent to the camp.

TRAGEDY AND TRIUMPH OF PRISON ART

While some actors preserved their dignity and lives through theatre, others did not survive to see the camps. In 1938, the entire troupe of the Latvian theatre «Skatuve» in Moscow was executed.

However, some prisoners managed to return to the stage after the GULAG. Among them were Lidiya Ruslanova, Tatyana Okunevskaya, Georgy Zhzhyonov, Vaclav Dvorzhetsky, and director Leonid Varpakhovsky, Anna Varpakhovskaya’s father.

FREEDOM OR COMPROMISE?

Theatre in the GULAG remained a moral dilemma. Was it a means of survival or a form of collaboration? Many performers doubted their choices, but as Vaclav Dvorzhetsky put it:
«Theatre helped thousands of prisoners preserve their dignity and not turn into beasts.»