Soviet circus: pages of history

2024 Author: Leah Sherlock | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-17 05:25

Most of those who were born in the USSR had no doubt that the Soviet circus was the best in the whole world. It is our illusionists who are the most "magic", clowns are funny, and trainers and acrobats are brave and courageous. Going to the circus was a great holiday for both adults and children.

But the Soviet circus art did not arise from scratch. We will tell about how the Soviet circus developed in this article.

History of Russian circus art

Even in the days of Kievan Rus, the first "seeds" of circus art were laid in our country, as evidenced by the frescoes in Kiev's St. Sophia Cathedral dating back to 1070-1075. They depict competitions of horses and fisticuffs, tightrope walkers with poles. In those distant times, such masters as wandering acrobats and bear guides, buffoons and jugglers performed in city squares, fairs and festivities, surprising and amusing people. The heyday of the case of buffoons in Russia was the XV-XVI centuries.

Thanks to the efforts of Tsar Peter I in the XVIII century in the capital and largesecular life began to take shape in cities and touring European circus performers began to appear, which contributed to the rapid development of circus art.

The 19th century is considered the heyday of the Russian circus.

It is at this time that many farce fair performances take place with the participation of strongmen and gymnasts, jugglers and acrobats, dancers and magicians, as well as artists of other genres. The artistic career of the Nikitin and Durov brothers, as well as many others, began with performances in fair booths. An important milestone in the development of the Russian circus was the opening of the first stone buildings: in St. Petersburg, on the Fontanka embankment, in 1877, in Moscow, on Tsvetnoy Boulevard, in 1880.

The emergence of the Soviet circus

After the October events of 1917, there were significant changes in the fate and history of Russian circus art. The Bolsheviks, conducting a cultural revolution, provided the circus with state support and made it a powerful ideological tool through which it had an impact on the masses. An important influence on the development of the Soviet circus had a decree "On the unification of theatrical business", signed in August 1919 by Ulyanov-Lenin. According to this document, all circus and theatrical property was subject to nationalization. However, things progressed rather slowly, and by 1922 the domestic circus consisted of only two state Moscow ones.

Then pretty quickly, in just three years, another 15 circuses indifferent Soviet cities became state. The first of these was the Soviet circus tent opened at the Nizhny Novgorod Fair. Then circuses in Leningrad, Tver, Rostov-on-Don, Orel, Kyiv, Ivanovo-Voznesensk, Kazan, Tula were nationalized, repaired and began to give performances. Most of the performances presented were foreign, as there were not enough of their own artistic personnel, and the level of their training left much to be desired. To solve the problem, courses in circus art were organized in 1926, which later became a technical school, where the first artists of the Soviet circus studied.

Becoming

In the late 1920s and early 1930s, many new numbers appeared on domestic circus arenas, prepared taking into account the changing ideology and worldview of the audience. After the release of a film about the performing arts in 1936, a generation of inspired and eager young artists entered the Soviet circus. It was at this time that the first peak of the popularity of the great clown Pencil (M. N. Rumyantsev) occurred, magnificent numbers of aerial gymnasts Valentina and Mikhail Volgin, Semyon Basta appeared, the tightrope walkers brothers Svirin and Pavel Tarasov amazed with their skill. We can safely say that in the thirties and forties of the XX century, the Soviet circus developed its own unique and easily recognizable style.

War and post-war years

The circus arena brings up in artists of any genre such qualities as endurance and endurance, courage and perseverance in achieving the goal. They all appearedin difficult military conditions. Marshal Chernyakhovsky did not accidentally characterize circus performers as people of steel character.

The Soviet circus suffered great damage during the Great Patriotic War. As a result of the bombing, many buildings were destroyed, but even in the most difficult years of the war, the Soviet government took measures to support circus art. On the second day of the war, an ensemble of riders, led by M. Tuganov, joined the Dovator cavalry corps along with the horses. The remaining artists continued to perform as part of artistic teams that gave concerts on the front line and in hospital wards, at railway stations and in military enlistment offices. Both the fighters and the workers were very popular with satirical numbers that were demonstrated by the clowns of the Soviet circus Mikhail Nikolaevich Rumyantsev (Pencil), Boris Vyatkin, Konstantin Berman.

Many of the artists died on the fronts, and those who survived, in the post-war years, together with young personnel, began to restore and develop circus art, later recognized as the best in the world.