The Lenkov Theater – A Experimental and Expressive State Theater
The Lenkom theater was one that flirted with both free expression and was under party control. Lenkom Theater was known as the Moscow State Theater and was named after Lenin’s Komosoml (the All-Union Leninist Young Communist League) as the inscription on the build is “The Moscow theater of the Lenin Komsomol.” This theater built in 1909 was annexed by the local party committee in 1918 and eventually became the “Theatre for Working Youth” (TRAM) in 1927. It was known as a theater for young people and by young people in addition to becoming a place of fresh and experimental theater in the Soviet Union, a surprising characterization since it was so closely tied to the party [1]. It did have close ties with Lenin still, as it distinguished itself with productions of Mikhai Shatrov and his about Lenin [2]. The
After the Soviet Union fell, the then director of the theater, Mark Zakharov publically on television burned his party card [3]! In addition, during the Gorbachev years, Zarkhov would write articles challenging the bureaucrats’ interference in theater [2]. In addition to directly challenging the political environment, Lenkom was the first theater to open a foreign currency exchange and a nightclub, at a time when evening life and nightlife started to merge. This theater, started by Lenin, ended up developing into one of the most vibrant, on-the-edge, and political-challenging theaters.
[1] History of the Theater. Translated page by Google.
[2] Dobrenko, Evgeny and Balina, Marina. The Cambridge Companion to Twentieth-Century Russian Literature. Cambridge, 2011. Page 230.
[3] Smeliansky, Anatoly, Miles, Patrik, and Senelick, Laurence. The Russian Theatre After Stalin. Cambridge, 1999. Page 164 and 159.