Beschreibung:

Vsevolod Emilyevich Meyerhold (1874-1940) Rejecting Peter the First because it is not politically 'useful'. 1929 Autograph letter signed ('V. Meyerhold') to Aleksei Nikolayevich Tolstoy, Detskoe Selo [now Pushkin], 1 December 1929. In Russian. Two pages, 218 x 137mm, bifolium. ‘I can’t work on something that doesn’t consume me entirely and utterly’: writing to the ‘Comrade Count’ to reject an early version of Peter the First on the basis that it is not politically ‘useful’ enough. Meyerhold apologises for not coming to see Tolstoy, as he reached Detskoe later than planned, and his visits to R.V. Ivanov and A.Y. Golovin have left him short of time. He then turns to Tolstoy’s play (undoubtedly Na dube (On the Rack) an early version of Peter the First), and in uncompromising terms rejects it for performance at his theatre, expressing frustration that Tolstoy did not write the anti-religious drama he was looking for, which would be more ‘useful’ in political terms: ‘About the play. We will not be able stage it at our theatre. Our policy is such that it will find neither the director it needs nor the appropriate actors. If we decided to tackle an anti-religious theme, then that is the sort of play we are looking for, and we are now desperately searching for the reason why you chose not to portray sectarians engaged in harmful activities on the territory of the USSR. Such a play would be infinitely more useful, in my opinion; the play you read to me is unlikely to produce an anti-religious sentiment and excitement’. As for On the Rack, ‘someone among the Moscow or Leningrad producers would be able to stage it exactly the way you envisage it … But I would not take on this project. I can’t work on something that doesn’t consume me entirely and utterly’. The letter concludes with greetings from ‘Z.N.’ [Meyerhold’s wife, the star actress Zinaida Reich]. Vsevolod Meyerhold was one of the most innovative and influential theatrical directors of the early 20th century, pioneering a technique known as ‘biomechanics’ which prioritised gesture and physicality over the internal motivation of ‘method’ acting. In spite of the present letter’s search for theatrical material which would be politically ‘useful’, he endured an uneasy relationship with the Stalinist regime, which culminated in his arrest, brutal torture and murder at the hands of the NKVD. The recipient, A.N. Tolstoy (1882-1945), known as the ‘Comrade Count’, was a pioneer of both science fiction (with his 1923 novel Aelita) and historical fiction, most famously in the three-part novel Peter the Great (1930-1943), in which he drew favourable analogies between Peter and Stalin. Tolstoy’s theatrical work on the same theme, Peter the First (given the early title On the Rack), was equally celebrated: as Meyerhold predicts, it was staged at the Second Moscow Art Theatre in 1930, being subsequently revived in 1935 and 1938, and made into a film in 1937 (see lot 156 for part of the script). Paradoxically, and in spite of the import of the present letter, Tolstoy is more usually criticised for being too ideologically accommodating to the Soviet government, in contrast with Meyerhold’s relative creative independence. Regardless, the suggestion from one Soviet creative master to another that his work is insufficiently ‘useful’ in serving the regime is extraordinarily evocative of the tensions of the Stalinist years. Please note this lot is the property of a consumer. See H1 of the Conditions of Sale.