Ivan Vasilyevich Ekskuzovich — Architect and Theater Figure
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.21638/spbu15.2024.103Abstract
For the first time the article gives a biographical study of the major theatrical figure and St Petersburg architect I. V. Ekskuzovich. Having graduated from the Institute of Civil Engineers in his youth, he has built several buildings in the capital of the Russian Empire, but his lifework was the management of academic theaters in Leningrad and Moscow. In this article there was first established the existence of the “Ekskuzovich coterie” in 1917, which also included V. E. Meyerhold, conductor N. A. Malko and a certain number of the artists of the Mariinsky Theatre; the role of the coterie in the nomination of Ekskuzovich to the post of the head of the theater department at the end of 1917. The article summarizes the extensive material related to his administrative activities in theaters: the role of Ekskuzovich in the creation of the association of academic theaters, his official and personal correspondence with artists and the People’s Commissar of Education A. V. Lunacharsky. Based on the reviews of memoirists, private correspondence of artists and a number of anniversary addresses, a conclusion is made about the significant popularity of Ekskuzovich in the artistic environment. It is emphasized that the resignation of Ekskuzovich in 1928 took place against the will of Lunacharsky, who lost by the end of the 1920s his real power in the People’s Commissariat for Education. The activity of Ekskuzovich as a theorist and practitioner in mechanization of the theater stage, as well as one of the leading engineers in the park management of Leningrad in the 1930s, is also traced. The monograph “The Theater Stage in the Past and Present” published by him in 1930, Ekskuzovich’s work on the continuation of this research, as well as his work on equipping the stages of Soviet theaters, including the work on the theatrical part of the Palace of Soviets, are considered. The article is based mainly on archival data; materials used 13 archives and manuscript departments of museums and libraries.
Keywords:
I.V. Ekskuzovich, A.V. Lunacharsky, V.E. Meyerhold, Soviet theater, Russian theater, architecture of St. Petersburg, Palace of Soviets.
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Articles of "Vestnik of Saint Petersburg University. Arts" are open access distributed under the terms of the License Agreement with Saint Petersburg State University, which permits to the authors unrestricted distribution and self-archiving free of charge.