1.
Moscow Art Theatre
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The Moscow Art Theatre is a theatre company in Moscow. It was founded in 1898 by the seminal Russian theatre practitioner Konstantin Stanislavski, together with the playwright and it was conceived as a venue for naturalistic theatre, in contrast to the melodramas that were Russias dominant form of theatre at the time. The theatre, the first to put on shows implementing Stanislavskis system, proved hugely influential in the acting world and in the development of modern American theatre. At the end of the 19th-century, Stanislavski and Nemirovich-Danchenko both wanted to reform Russian theatre to high-quality art that was available to the general public and they set about creating a private theatre over which they had total control. On 22 June 1897, the two men met for the first time at the Slavyanski Bazar for a lunch that started at 2 PM, while Stanislavski’s approach to theatre revolved around the acting process, Nemirovich was far more concerned with the literary, intellectual angle. Stanislavski interviewed all his actors, making sure they were hard working and he made them live together in common housing for months at a time to foster community and trust, which he believed would raise the quality of their performances. Stanislavskis system, in which he trained actors via the studios he founded as part of the theatre. The system played an influence in the development of method acting. This production was so successful that the theatre adopted the seagull as its emblem and he took with him Savva Morozov, one of the theatre’s main investors at the time. Now in dire straits, the decided to accept invitations to go on an international tour in 1906, which started in Berlin and included Dresden, Frankfurt, Prague. The tour was a success, gaining the theatre international acclaim. The tension between the two led Stanislavski to abandon his duties as a member and to relinquish all his power over policy decisions. Mikhail Bulgakov wrote several plays for the MAT and satirised the organisation mercilessly in his novel Black Snow, isaac Babels Sunset was also performed there during the 1920s. A significant number of Moscow Art Theatres actors were awarded the title of Peoples Artist of the USSR. Many actors became known and admired thanks to their film roles. However, the Civil War saw many of the actors being cut off from Moscow. The subsidies it had come to rely on were withdrawn and the theatre was forced to survive on its own profits, by 1923, the MAT was in $25,000 debt. The theatre experienced further blows through the end of the 1930s, a “red director” was appointed to the management by the government to ensure that the MAT’s activities were not counter-revolutionary and that they served the Communist cause
2.
Anton Chekhov
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Anton Pavlovich Chekhov was a Russian playwright and short story writer, who is considered to be among the greatest writers of short fiction in history. His career as a playwright produced four classics and his best short stories are held in esteem by writers. Along with Henrik Ibsen and August Strindberg, Chekhov is often referred to as one of the three figures in the birth of early modernism in the theatre. Chekhov practiced as a medical doctor throughout most of his career, Medicine is my lawful wife, he once said. These four works present a challenge to the ensemble as well as to audiences, because in place of conventional action Chekhov offers a theatre of mood. Chekhov had at first written stories only for financial gain, but as his artistic ambition grew and he made no apologies for the difficulties this posed to readers, insisting that the role of an artist was to ask questions, not to answer them. Anton Chekhov was born on the feast day of St. Anthony the Great 29 January 1860, the third of six surviving children, in Taganrog, a port on the Sea of Azov in southern Russia. His father, Pavel Yegorovich Chekhov, the son of a serf and his Ukrainian wife, were from the village Vilkhovatka near Kobeliaky. A director of the choir, devout Orthodox Christian, and physically abusive father. Chekhovs mother, Yevgeniya, was an excellent storyteller who entertained the children with tales of her travels with her cloth-merchant father all over Russia and our talents we got from our father, Chekhov remembered, but our soul from our mother. Despotism and lying so mutilated our childhood that its sickening and frightening to think about it, remember the horror and disgust we felt in those times when Father threw a tantrum at dinner over too much salt in the soup and called Mother a fool. Chekhov attended the Greek School in Taganrog and the Taganrog Gymnasium and he sang at the Greek Orthodox monastery in Taganrog and in his fathers choirs. In 1876, Chekhovs father was declared bankrupt after overextending his finances building a new house, to avoid debtors prison he fled to Moscow, where his two eldest sons, Alexander and Nikolay, were attending university. The family lived in poverty in Moscow, Chekhovs mother physically and emotionally broken by the experience, Chekhov was left behind to sell the familys possessions and finish his education. Chekhov remained in Taganrog for three years, boarding with a man called Selivanov who, like Lopakhin in The Cherry Orchard, had bailed out the family for the price of their house. Chekhov had to pay for his own education, which he managed by private tutoring, catching and selling goldfinches and he sent every ruble he could spare to his family in Moscow, along with humorous letters to cheer them up. Chekhov also enjoyed a series of affairs, one with the wife of a teacher. In 1879, Chekhov completed his schooling and joined his family in Moscow, Chekhov now assumed responsibility for the whole family
3.
Drama
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Drama is the specific mode of fiction represented in performance. The term comes from a Greek word meaning action, which is derived from I do, the two masks associated with drama represent the traditional generic division between comedy and tragedy. They are symbols of the ancient Greek Muses, Thalia, Thalia was the Muse of comedy, while Melpomene was the Muse of tragedy. Considered as a genre of poetry in general, the mode has been contrasted with the epic. The use of drama in a narrow sense to designate a specific type of play dates from the modern era. Drama in this sense refers to a play that is neither a comedy nor a tragedy—for example and it is this narrower sense that the film and television industries, along with film studies, adopted to describe drama as a genre within their respective media. Radio drama has been used in both senses—originally transmitted in a performance, it has also been used to describe the more high-brow. The enactment of drama in theatre, performed by actors on a stage before an audience, presupposes collaborative modes of production, the structure of dramatic texts, unlike other forms of literature, is directly influenced by this collaborative production and collective reception. The early modern tragedy Hamlet by Shakespeare and the classical Athenian tragedy Oedipus Rex by Sophocles are among the masterpieces of the art of drama, a modern example is Long Days Journey into Night by Eugene O’Neill. Closet drama describes a form that is intended to be read, in improvisation, the drama does not pre-exist the moment of performance, performers devise a dramatic script spontaneously before an audience. Western drama originates in classical Greece, the theatrical culture of the city-state of Athens produced three genres of drama, tragedy, comedy, and the satyr play. Their origins remain obscure, though by the 5th century BCE they were institutionalised in competitions held as part of celebrating the god Dionysus. The competition for tragedies may have begun as early as 534 BCE, tragic dramatists were required to present a tetralogy of plays, which usually consisted of three tragedies and one satyr play. Comedy was officially recognized with a prize in the competition from 487 to 486 BCE, five comic dramatists competed at the City Dionysia, each offering a single comedy. Ancient Greek comedy is traditionally divided between old comedy, middle comedy and new comedy, following the expansion of the Roman Republic into several Greek territories between 270–240 BCE, Rome encountered Greek drama. While Greek drama continued to be performed throughout the Roman period, from the beginning of the empire, however, interest in full-length drama declined in favour of a broader variety of theatrical entertainments. The first important works of Roman literature were the tragedies and comedies that Livius Andronicus wrote from 240 BCE, five years later, Gnaeus Naevius also began to write drama. No plays from either writer have survived, by the beginning of the 2nd century BCE, drama was firmly established in Rome and a guild of writers had been formed
4.
Russian language
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Russian is an East Slavic language and an official language in Russia, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan and many minor or unrecognised territories. Russian belongs to the family of Indo-European languages and is one of the four living members of the East Slavic languages, written examples of Old East Slavonic are attested from the 10th century and beyond. It is the most geographically widespread language of Eurasia and the most widely spoken of the Slavic languages and it is also the largest native language in Europe, with 144 million native speakers in Russia, Ukraine and Belarus. Russian is the eighth most spoken language in the world by number of native speakers, the language is one of the six official languages of the United Nations. Russian is also the second most widespread language on the Internet after English, Russian distinguishes between consonant phonemes with palatal secondary articulation and those without, the so-called soft and hard sounds. This distinction is found between pairs of almost all consonants and is one of the most distinguishing features of the language, another important aspect is the reduction of unstressed vowels. Russian is a Slavic language of the Indo-European family and it is a lineal descendant of the language used in Kievan Rus. From the point of view of the language, its closest relatives are Ukrainian, Belarusian, and Rusyn. An East Slavic Old Novgorod dialect, although vanished during the 15th or 16th century, is considered to have played a significant role in the formation of modern Russian. In the 19th century, the language was often called Great Russian to distinguish it from Belarusian, then called White Russian and Ukrainian, however, the East Slavic forms have tended to be used exclusively in the various dialects that are experiencing a rapid decline. In some cases, both the East Slavic and the Church Slavonic forms are in use, with different meanings. For details, see Russian phonology and History of the Russian language and it is also regarded by the United States Intelligence Community as a hard target language, due to both its difficulty to master for English speakers and its critical role in American world policy. The standard form of Russian is generally regarded as the modern Russian literary language, mikhail Lomonosov first compiled a normalizing grammar book in 1755, in 1783 the Russian Academys first explanatory Russian dictionary appeared. By the mid-20th century, such dialects were forced out with the introduction of the education system that was established by the Soviet government. Despite the formalization of Standard Russian, some nonstandard dialectal features are observed in colloquial speech. Thus, the Russian language is the 6th largest in the world by number of speakers, after English, Mandarin, Hindi/Urdu, Spanish, Russian is one of the six official languages of the United Nations. Education in Russian is still a choice for both Russian as a second language and native speakers in Russia as well as many of the former Soviet republics. Russian is still seen as an important language for children to learn in most of the former Soviet republics, samuel P. Huntington wrote in the Clash of Civilizations, During the heyday of the Soviet Union, Russian was the lingua franca from Prague to Hanoi
5.
Romanization of Russian
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Romanization of the Russian alphabet is the process of transliterating the Russian language from the Cyrillic script into the Latin alphabet. Scientific transliteration, also known as the International Scholarly System, is a system that has used in linguistics since the 19th century. It is based on the Czech alphabet and formed the basis of the GOST, OST8483 was the first Soviet standard on romanization of Russian, introduced in 16 October 1935. This standard is an equivalent of GOST 16876-71 and was adopted as a standard of the COMECON. GOST7. 79-2000 System of Standards on Information, Librarianship and it is the official standard of both Russia and the Commonwealth of Independent States. Machine readable passports is an adoption of an ICAO stadards for travel documents and it was used in Russian passports for a short period during 2010–2013. The standard was substituted in 2013 by GOST R ISO/IEC 7501-1-2013, which does not contain romanization, ISO/R9, established in 1954 and updated in 1968, was the adoption of the scientific transliteration by the International Organization for Standardization. It covers Russian and seven other Slavic languages, ISO9,1995 is the current transliteration standard from ISO. It is based on its predecessor ISO/R9,1968, which it deprecates, for Russian, the UNGEGN, a Working Group of the United Nations, in 1987 recommended a romanization system for geographical names, which was based on the 1983 version of GOST 16876-71. It may be found in some international cartographic products, American Library Association and Library of Congress romanization tables for Slavic alphabets are used in North American libraries and in the British Library since 1975. The formal, unambiguous version of the system requires some diacritics and two-letter tie characters, British Standard 2979,1958 is the main system of the Oxford University Press, and a variation was used by the British Library to catalogue publications acquired up to 1975. The BGN/PCGN system is relatively intuitive for Anglophones to read and pronounce, the portion of the system pertaining to the Russian language was adopted by BGN in 1944 and by PCGN in 1947. In Soviet international passports, transliteration was based on French rules, in 1997, with the introduction of new Russian passports, a diacritic-free English-oriented system was established by the Ministry of Internal Affairs, but this system was also abandoned in 2010. In 2006, GOST52535. 1-2006 was adopted, which defines technical requirements and standards for Russian international passports, in 2010, the Federal Migratory Service of Russia approved Order No. 26, stating that all names in the passports issued after 2010 must be transliterated using GOST52535. 1-2006. The standard was abandoned in 2013, finally in 2013, Order No.320 of the Federal Migratory Service of Russia came into force. It states that all names in the passports must be transliterated using the ICAO system. This system differs from the GOST52535. 1-2006 system in two things, ц is transliterated into ts, ъ is transliterated into ie, Scholarly ¹ Some archaic letters are transcribed in different ways
6.
Znanie (publishing company)
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Znanie was a publishing company based in St. Petersburg, Russia founded by Konstantin Pyatnitsky and other members of the Committee for Literacy. It operated from 1898 until 1913, Znanie initially published books for a mass audience on natural science, history, education, and art. Maxim Gorky joined Znanie in 1900 and became its director in late 1902, through Znanie, Gorky brought together many of the best known realist writers of the time. Znanie published the works of Gorky, Alexander Serafimovich, Alexander Kuprin, Vikenty Veresaev, Stepan Skitalets, Nikolai Teleshov. Znanie became known as the most progressive of all Russian publishing houses directed toward broad democratic reader-ships, vladimir Lenin wrote that Gorky was aiming through these collections at a concentration of the best forces of Russian literature. The circulation of the collections reached 65,000 copies, the writers featured in the collections from 1905 to 1907 were united in their protest against tsarism, oppression, national discord, religious prejudice, and bourgeois morality. Gorky and Serafimovich, on one hand, used socialist realism, Andreyev and certain others, after the 1905 Russian Revolution this difference became more marked. In 1911 principal editorship of the Znanie collections was transferred to Viktor Mirolyubov, Gorky also carried out assignments for the Bolsheviks, publishing a series of sociopolitical pamphlets, including the works of Karl Marx, Friedrich Engels, Paul Lafargue and August Bebel. The Penny Library issued over 300 publications, with editions totaling nearly four million copies, during the period of reaction after the 1905 Russian Revolution many participants in Znanie left the publishing house. Gorky, forced to live abroad during this period, severed his ties with the house in 1912
7.
Saint Petersburg
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Saint Petersburg is Russias second-largest city after Moscow, with five million inhabitants in 2012, and an important Russian port on the Baltic Sea. It is politically incorporated as a federal subject, situated on the Neva River, at the head of the Gulf of Finland on the Baltic Sea, it was founded by Tsar Peter the Great on May 271703. In 1914, the name was changed from Saint Petersburg to Petrograd, in 1924 to Leningrad, between 1713 and 1728 and 1732–1918, Saint Petersburg was the capital of imperial Russia. In 1918, the government bodies moved to Moscow. Saint Petersburg is one of the cities of Russia, as well as its cultural capital. The Historic Centre of Saint Petersburg and Related Groups of Monuments constitute a UNESCO World Heritage Site, Saint Petersburg is home to The Hermitage, one of the largest art museums in the world. A large number of consulates, international corporations, banks. Swedish colonists built Nyenskans, a fortress, at the mouth of the Neva River in 1611, in a then called Ingermanland. A small town called Nyen grew up around it, Peter the Great was interested in seafaring and maritime affairs, and he intended to have Russia gain a seaport in order to be able to trade with other maritime nations. He needed a better seaport than Arkhangelsk, which was on the White Sea to the north, on May 1703121703, during the Great Northern War, Peter the Great captured Nyenskans, and soon replaced the fortress. On May 271703, closer to the estuary 5 km inland from the gulf), on Zayachy Island, he laid down the Peter and Paul Fortress, which became the first brick and stone building of the new city. The city was built by conscripted peasants from all over Russia, tens of thousands of serfs died building the city. Later, the city became the centre of the Saint Petersburg Governorate, Peter moved the capital from Moscow to Saint Petersburg in 1712,9 years before the Treaty of Nystad of 1721 ended the war, he referred to Saint Petersburg as the capital as early as 1704. During its first few years, the city developed around Trinity Square on the bank of the Neva, near the Peter. However, Saint Petersburg soon started to be built out according to a plan, by 1716 the Swiss Italian Domenico Trezzini had elaborated a project whereby the city centre would be located on Vasilyevsky Island and shaped by a rectangular grid of canals. The project was not completed, but is evident in the layout of the streets, in 1716, Peter the Great appointed French Jean-Baptiste Alexandre Le Blond as the chief architect of Saint Petersburg. In 1724 the Academy of Sciences, University and Academic Gymnasium were established in Saint Petersburg by Peter the Great, in 1725, Peter died at the age of fifty-two. His endeavours to modernize Russia had met opposition from the Russian nobility—resulting in several attempts on his life
8.
Adolf Marks
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Adolf Fyodorovich Marx, last name also spelled Marcks and recently Marks, known as A. F. Marx, was an influential 19th-century German publisher in Russia best known for the weekly journal Niva. Marx was born in Stettin, the son of Friedrich Marx, after a brief period as chief editor for German and French correspondence for the Great Russian Railway Company, he decided to open his own publishing company in St. Petersburg in 1869. He published books on literature, art, and history, and from 1870 Niva, the office of the publishing house was at 22 Malaya Morskaya Street and its printing house at 29 Izmaylovsky Avenue. After the death of Marx the publishing house was reorganized as the A. F. Marx Publishing and Printing Joint-Stock Company, in 1897, he was awarded a title of nobility. He died in 1904 and was buried in the cemetery of Novodevichy Monastery, saint Petersburg Encyclopedia entry Deutsche Buchhändler biography Lyudi biography TextReferat biography
9.
Konstantin Stanislavski
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Konstantin Sergeievich Stanislavski was a seminal Russian theatre practitioner. He was widely recognised as a character actor and the many productions that he directed garnered a reputation as one of the leading theatre directors of his generation. His principal fame and influence, however, rests on his system of training, preparation. Its influential tours of Europe and the US and its productions of The Seagull and Hamlet established his reputation. At the MATs 30-year anniversary celebrations in 1928, a heart attack on-stage put an end to his acting career. He continued to direct, teach, and write about acting until his death a few weeks before the publication of the first volume of his lifes great work, the acting manual An Actors Work. He was awarded the Order of the Red Banner and the Order of Lenin and was one of the first to be granted the title of Peoples Artist of the USSR. Stanislavski wrote that there is nothing more tedious than an actors biography, at the request of a US publisher, however, he reluctantly agreed to write his autobiography, My Life in Art, though its account of his artistic development is not always accurate. Two English-language biographies have been published, David Magarshacks Stanislavsky, A Life and Jean Benedettis Stanislavski, His Life, Stanislavski subjected his acting and direction to a rigorous process of artistic self-analysis and reflection. His system of acting developed out of his persistent efforts to remove the blocks that he encountered in his performances and he also introduced into the production process a period of discussion and detailed analysis of the play by the cast. Despite the success that this brought, particularly with his Naturalistic stagings of the plays of Anton Chekhov and Maxim Gorky. Both his struggles with Chekhovs drama and his experiments with Symbolism encouraged a greater attention to inner action and he began to develop the more actor-centred techniques of psychological realism and his focus shifted from his productions to rehearsal process and pedagogy. He pioneered the use of theatre studios as a laboratory in which to innovate actor training, the system cultivates what Stanislavski calls the art of experiencing. In rehearsal, the searches for inner motives to justify action. Stanislavskis earliest reference to his system appears in 1909, the year that he first incorporated it into his rehearsal process. The MAT adopted it as its official rehearsal method in 1911, later, Stanislavski further elaborated the system with a more physically grounded rehearsal process that came to be known as the Method of Physical Action. Minimising at-the-table discussions, he now encouraged an active analysis, in which the sequence of dramatic situations are improvised, the best analysis of a play, Stanislavski argued, is to take action in the given circumstances. The Opera-Dramatic Studio embodied the most complete implementation of the training exercises described in his manuals, meanwhile, the transmission of his earlier work via the students of the First Studio was revolutionising acting in the West
10.
Comedy
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In a modern sense, comedy refers to any discourse or work generally intended to be humorous or amusing by inducing laughter, especially in theatre, television, film, and stand-up comedy. The origins of the term are found in Ancient Greece, in the Athenian democracy, the public opinion of voters was influenced by the political satire performed by the comic poets at the theaters. The theatrical genre of Greek comedy can be described as a performance which pits two groups or societies against each other in an amusing agon or conflict. Northrop Frye depicted these two opposing sides as a Society of Youth and a Society of the Old, a revised view characterizes the essential agon of comedy as a struggle between a relatively powerless youth and the societal conventions that pose obstacles to his hopes. Satire and political satire use comedy to portray persons or social institutions as ridiculous or corrupt, parody subverts popular genres and forms, critiquing those forms without necessarily condemning them. Similarly scatological humour, sexual humour, and race humour create comedy by violating social conventions or taboos in comic ways, a comedy of manners typically takes as its subject a particular part of society and uses humor to parody or satirize the behaviour and mannerisms of its members. Romantic comedy is a genre that depicts burgeoning romance in humorous terms. The adjective comic, which means that which relates to comedy is, in modern usage. Of this, the word came into usage through the Latin comoedia and Italian commedia and has, over time. The Greeks and Romans confined their use of the comedy to descriptions of stage-plays with happy endings. Aristotle defined comedy as an imitation of men worse than the average, however, the characters portrayed in comedies were not worse than average in every way, only insofar as they are Ridiculous, which is a species of the Ugly. The Ridiculous may be defined as a mistake or deformity not productive of pain or harm to others, the mask, for instance, in the Middle Ages, the term expanded to include narrative poems with happy endings. It is in this sense that Dante used the term in the title of his poem, as time progressed, the word came more and more to be associated with any sort of performance intended to cause laughter. During the Middle Ages, the comedy became synonymous with satire. They disassociated comedy from Greek dramatic representation and instead identified it with Arabic poetic themes and forms and they viewed comedy as simply the art of reprehension, and made no reference to light and cheerful events, or to the troubling beginnings and happy endings associated with classical Greek comedy. After the Latin translations of the 12th century, the term gained a more general meaning in medieval literature. Starting from 425 BCE, Aristophanes, a playwright and satirical author of the Ancient Greek Theater wrote 40 comedies,11 of which survive. Aristophanes developed his type of comedy from the satyr plays
11.
Farce
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In theatre, a farce is a comedy that aims at entertaining the audience through situations that are highly exaggerated, extravagant, and thus improbable. Farce is also characterized by humor, the use of deliberate absurdity or nonsense. Farces have been written for the stage and film, furthermore, a farce is also often set in one particular location, where all events occur. M. C. P. C. David Croft & Jeremy Lloyd, Allo Allo, ken Friedman, Claptrap Andrew Norriss and Richard Fegen, Chance in a Million Miles Tredinnick, Laugh. Alan Ayckbourn, A Small Family Business Miles Tredinnick, It’s Now Or Never, tom Kempinski, Sex Please, Were Italian. Ray Cooney, Funny Money Robin Hawdon, Perfect Wedding Steven Moffat, Coupling Miles Tredinnick, La Farce de maître Pierre Pathelin The Liar Molière, Tartuffe Molière, The Miser Labiche, La Cagnotte and other plays. These plays are performed as comic relief during the long, serious Noh plays, following stage shows of Umer Shareef are extremely popular. Archer Chowder The Grim Adventures of Billy & Mandy The Marvelous Misadventures of Flapjack Scooby-Doo, IMDB list of film and television farces Farce films at Allmovie
12.
Tragedy
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Tragedy is a form of drama based on human suffering that invokes an accompanying catharsis or pleasure in audiences. In the wake of Aristotles Poetics, tragedy has been used to make genre distinctions, in the modern era, tragedy has also been defined against drama, melodrama, the tragicomic, and epic theatre. Drama, in the sense, cuts across the traditional division between comedy and tragedy in an anti- or a-generic deterritorialisation from the mid-19th century onwards. Both Bertolt Brecht and Augusto Boal define their epic theatre projects against models of tragedy, taxidou, however, reads epic theatre as an incorporation of tragic functions and its treatments of mourning and speculation. The word tragedy appears to have used to describe different phenomena at different times. It derives from Classical Greek τραγῳδία, contracted from trag-aoidiā = goat song, scholars suspect this may be traced to a time when a goat was either the prize in a competition of choral dancing or was that around which a chorus danced prior to the animals ritual sacrifice. In another view on the etymology, Athenaeus of Naucratis says that the form of the word was trygodia from trygos and ode. There is some dissent to the origins of tragedy, mostly based on the differences between the shapes of their choruses and styles of dancing. A common descent from pre-Hellenic fertility and burial rites has been suggested, friedrich Nietzsche discussed the origins of Greek tragedy in his early book The Birth of Tragedy. Here, he suggests the name originates in the use of a chorus of goat-like satyrs in the original dithyrambs from which the genre developed. Scott Scullion writes, There is abundant evidence for tragoidia understood as song for the prize goat, and as prize was established the billy goat, the clearest is Eustathius 1769.45, They called those competing tragedians, clearly because of the song over the billy goat. Athenian tragedy—the oldest surviving form of tragedy—is a type of dance-drama that formed an important part of the culture of the city-state. Having emerged sometime during the 6th century BCE, it flowered during the 5th century BCE, no tragedies from the 6th century and only 32 of the more than a thousand that were performed in the 5th century have survived. We have complete texts extant by Aeschylus, Sophocles, and Euripides, Athenian tragedies were performed in late March/early April at an annual state religious festival in honor of Dionysus. The presentations took the form of a contest between three playwrights, who presented their works on three successive days, each playwright offered a tetralogy consisting of three tragedies and a concluding comic piece called a satyr play. The four plays sometimes featured linked stories, only one complete trilogy of tragedies has survived, the Oresteia of Aeschylus. The Greek theatre was in the air, on the side of a hill. Performances were apparently open to all citizens, including women, the theatre of Dionysus at Athens probably held around 12,000 people
13.
Theatre director
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The directors function is to ensure the quality and completeness of theatre production and to lead the members of the creative team into realizing their artistic vision for it. If the production he or she is mounting is a new piece of writing or a translation of a play, in contemporary theatre, after the playwright, the director is generally the primary visionary, making decisions on the artistic concept and interpretation of the play and its staging. Different directors occupy different places of authority and responsibility, depending on the structure, Directors use a wide variety of techniques, philosophies, and levels of collaboration. In ancient Greece, the birthplace of European drama, the writer bore principal responsibility for the staging of his plays, the author-director would also train the chorus, sometimes compose the music, and supervise every aspect of production. The fact that the director was called didaskalos, the Greek word for teacher, a miniature by Jean Fouquet from 1460 bears one of the earliest depictions of a director at work. Holding a prompt book, the central figure directs, with the aid of a long stick, from Renaissance times up until the 19th century, the role of director was often carried by the actor-manager. This would usually be an actor in a troupe who took the responsibility for choosing the repertoire of work, staging it. This was the case for instance with Commedia dellArte companies and English actor-managers like Colley Cibber, the modern theatre director can be said to have originated in the staging of elaborate spectacles of the Meininger Company under George II, Duke of Saxe-Meiningen. The management of large numbers of extras and complex stagecraft matters necessitated an individual to take on the role of overall coordinator. This gave rise to the role of the director in modern theatre, simultaneously, Constantin Stanislavski, principally an actor-manager, would set up the Moscow Art Theatre in Russia and similarly emancipate the role of the director as artistic visionary. The French regisseur is also used to mean a stage director. A more common term for theatre director in French is metteur en scène, post World War II, the actor-manager slowly started to disappear, and directing become a fully fledged artistic activity within the theatre profession. The director originating artistic vision and concept, and realizing the staging of a production, a cautionary note was introduced by the famed director Sir Tyrone Guthrie who said the only way to learn how to direct a play, is. To get a group of actors simple enough to allow you to let you direct them, most European countries nowadays know some form of professional directing training, usually at drama schools or conservatoires, or at universities. In the early days such programmes typically led to the staging of one major production in the third year. At the University of California, Irvine, Keith Fowler led for many years a programme based on the premise that directors are autodidacts who need as many opportunities to direct as possible. Under Fowler, graduate student directors would stage between five and ten productions during their residencies, with each production receiving detailed critiques. Directing is an artform that has grown with the development of theatre theory, with the emergence of new trends in theatre, so too have directors adopted new methodologies and engaged in new practices
14.
The Seagull
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The Seagull is a play by Russian dramatist Anton Chekhov, written in 1895 and first produced in 1896. The Seagull is generally considered to be the first of his four major plays, though the character of Trigorin is considered Chekhovs greatest male role like Chekhovs other full-length plays, The Seagull relies upon an ensemble cast of diverse, fully developed characters. In contrast to the melodrama of mainstream 19th-century theatre, lurid actions are not shown onstage, characters tend to speak in ways that skirt around issues rather than addressing them directly, in other words, their lines are full of what is known in dramatic practice as subtext. The opening night of the first production was a famous failure, Vera Komissarzhevskaya, playing Nina, was so intimidated by the hostility of the audience that she lost her voice. Chekhov left the audience and spent the last two acts behind the scenes, when supporters wrote to him that the production later became a success, he assumed that they were merely trying to be kind. When Konstantin Stanislavsky, the seminal Russian theatre practitioner of the time, directed it in 1898 for his Moscow Art Theatre, the play was a triumph. Stanislavskis production of The Seagull became one of the greatest events in the history of Russian theatre and one of the greatest new developments in the history of world drama. After purchasing the Melikhovo farm in 1892, Chekhov had built in the middle of a cherry orchard a lodge consisting of three rooms, one containing a bed and another a writing table. In spring, when the cherries were in blossom, it was pleasant to live in this lodge, Chekhov eventually moved in and in a letter written in October 1895 wrote, I am writing a play which I shall probably not finish before the end of November. I am writing it not without pleasure, though I swear fearfully at the conventions of the stage and its a comedy, there are three womens parts, six mens, four acts, landscapes, a great deal of conversation about literature, little action, tons of love. Thus he acknowledged a departure from traditional dramatic action and this departure would become a critical hallmark of the Chekhovian theater. Chekhovs statement also reflects his view of the play as comedy, after the plays disastrous opening night his friend Aleksey Suvorin chided him as being womanish and accused him of being in a funk. Chekhov vigorously denied this, stating, Why this libel, after the performance I had supper at Romanovs. Then I went to bed, slept soundly, and next day went home without uttering a sound of complaint, I acted as coldly and reasonably as a man who has made an offer, received a refusal, and has nothing left but to go. Yes, my vanity was stung, but you know it was not a bolt from the blue, I was expecting a failure, and was prepared for it, as I warned you with perfect sincerity beforehand. He is the brother of the famous actress Arkadina, who has just arrived at the estate for a vacation with her lover. Sorin and his guests gather at a stage to see an unconventional play that Arkadinas son, Konstantin Treplyov, has written. The play-within-a-play features Nina, a woman who lives on a neighboring estate
15.
Three Sisters (play)
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Three Sisters is a play by the Russian author and playwright Anton Chekhov. It was written in 1900 and first performed in 1901 at the Moscow Art Theatre, the play is sometimes included on the short list of Chekhovs outstanding plays, along with The Cherry Orchard, The Seagull and Uncle Vanya. Olga Sergeyevna Prozorova – The eldest of the three sisters, she is the figure of the Prozorov family though at the beginning of the play she is only 28 years old. Olga is a teacher at the school, where she frequently fills in for the headmistress whenever the latter is absent. Olga is a spinster and at one point tells Irina that she would have married any man, Olga is very motherly even to the elderly servants, keeping on the elderly nurse/retainer Anfisa, long after she has ceased to be useful. When Olga reluctantly takes the role of headmistress permanently, she takes Anfisa with her to escape the clutches of the heartless Natasha, Maria Sergeyevna Kulygina – The middle sister, she is 23 at the beginning of the play. She married her husband, Kulygin, when she was 18, when the play opens she has been disappointed in the marriage and falls completely in love with the idealistic Lieutenant-Colonel Vershinin. When he is transferred away, she is crushed, but returns to life with her husband and she has a short temper, which is seen frequently throughout the play, and is the sister who disapproves the most of Natasha. Onstage, her directness often serves as a tonic to the melodrama and her vitality provides most of the plays surprisingly plentiful humour. She was trained as a concert pianist, Irina Sergeyevna Prozorova – The youngest sister, she is 20 at the beginning of the play. It is her day at the beginning of the play. Her only desire is to go back to Moscow, which they left eleven years before the play begins. She believes she will find her love in Moscow, but when it becomes clear that they are not going to Moscow, she agrees to marry the Baron Tuzenbach. She gets her degree and plans to leave with the Baron. She decides to leave anyway and dedicate her life to work, Andrei Sergeyevich Prozorov – The brother of the three sisters. In Act I, he is a man on the fast track to being a Professor in Moscow. In Act III, his debts have grown to 35,000 rubles and he is forced to mortgage the house, Act IV finds Andrei a pathetic shell of his former self, now the father of two. He acknowledges he is a failure and laughed at in town for being a member of the council whose president
16.
Uncle Vanya
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Uncle Vanya is a play by the Russian playwright Anton Chekhov. It was first published in 1897 and received its Moscow première in 1899 in a production by the Moscow Art Theatre, the play portrays the visit of an elderly professor and his glamorous, much younger second wife, Yelena, to the rural estate that supports their urban lifestyle. Sonya, the daughter by his first wife, who has worked with Vanya to keep the estate going. Uncle Vanya is unique among Chekhovs major plays because it is essentially a reworking of his own play published a decade earlier. Rayfield cites recent scholarship suggesting Chekhov revised The Wood Demon during his trip to the island of Sakhalin, a prison colony in Eastern Russia, in 1891. Aleksandr Vladimirovich Serebryakov, a university professor, who has lived for years in the city on the earnings of his late first wifes rural estate. Helena Andreyevna Serebryakov, Professor Serebryakovs young and beautiful second wife, sofia Alexandrovna Serebryakov, Professor Serebryakovs daughter from his first marriage. She is of an age, but is considered plain. Maria Vasilyevna Voynitsky, the widow of a councilor and mother of Vanya. Ivan Petrovich Voynitsky, Marias son and Sonyas uncle, the character of the play. Mikhail Lvovich Astrov, a middle aged country doctor, ilya Ilych Telegin, an impoverished landowner, who now lives on the estate as a dependent of the family. A Workman A garden in Serebryakovs country estate, Astrov and Marina discuss how old Astrov has grown, and how he feels bored with his life as a country doctor. Vanya enters, and complains about how all order has been disrupted since the professor and his wife, Yelena, as they’re talking, Serebryakov, Yelena, Sonya, and Telegin return from a walk. Out of the professors earshot, Vanya calls him an old dried mackerel, criticizing him for his pomposity. Vanya’s mother, Maria Vasilyevna, who idolizes Serebryakov, objects to her son’s derogatory comments, Vanya also praises the professor’s wife, Yelena, for her beauty, arguing that faithfulness to an old man like Serebryakov is an immoral waste of vitality. Astrov is forced to depart to attend a patient, but not before delivering a speech on the preservation of the forests, act I closes with Vanya declaring his love for an exasperated Yelena. The dining room, several days later, before going to bed, Serebryakov complains of being in pain and of old age. Astrov arrives, having sent for by Sonya, but the professor refuses to see him
17.
Serfdom
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Serfdom is the status of many peasants under feudalism, specifically relating to manorialism. It was a condition of bondage, which developed primarily during the High Middle Ages in Europe, serfs were often required not only to work on the lords fields, but also his mines, forests and roads. The decline of serfdom in Western Europe has sometimes been attributed to the Black Death, Serfdom became increasingly rare in most of Western Europe after the Renaissance, but conversely, it grew strong in Central and Eastern Europe, where it had previously been less common. In Eastern Europe the institution persisted until the mid-19th century, in the Austrian Empire serfdom was abolished by the 1781 Serfdom Patent, corvée continued to exist until 1848. Serfdom was abolished in Russia in the 1860s, in Finland, Norway and Sweden, feudalism was never fully established, and serfdom did not exist, however, serfdom-like institutions did exist in both Denmark and its vassal Iceland. According to Joseph R. Strayer, the concept of feudalism can also be applied to the societies of ancient Persia, ancient Mesopotamia, Egypt, Muslim India, China, james Lee and Cameron Campbell describe the Chinese Qing dynasty as also maintaining a form of serfdom. Tibet is described by Melvyn Goldstein to have had serfdom until 1959, bhutan is described by Tashi Wangchuk, a Bhutanese civil servant, as abolishing serfdom officially by 1959, but Wangchuk believes less than or about 10% of poor peasants were in copyhold situations. The United Nations 1956 Supplementary Convention on the Abolition of Slavery also prohibits serfdom as a form of slavery, the word serf originated from the Middle French serf and can be traced further back to the Latin servus. In Late Antiquity and most of the Middle Ages, what are now called serfs were usually designated in Latin as coloni. As slavery gradually disappeared and the status of servi became nearly identical to that of the coloni. Serfs had a place in feudal society, as did barons and knights, in return for protection. Thus the manorial system exhibited a degree of reciprocity, one rationale held that a serf worked for all while a knight or baron fought for all and a churchman prayed for all, thus everyone had a place. The serf was the worst fed and rewarded, but at least he had his place and, unlike slaves, had rights in land. A lord of the manor could not sell his serfs as a Roman might sell his slaves and this unified system preserved for the lord long-acquired knowledge of practices suited to the land. Further, a serf could not abandon his lands without permission, a freeman became a serf usually through force or necessity. Sometimes the greater physical and legal force of a local magnate intimidated freeholders or allodial owners into dependency, often a few years of crop failure, a war, or brigandage might leave a person unable to make his own way. In such a case he could strike a bargain with a lord of a manor, in exchange for protection, service was required, in cash, produce or labour, or a combination of all. These oaths bound the lord and his new serf in a feudal contract, to become a serf was a commitment that encompassed all aspects of the serfs life
18.
Aristocracy
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Aristocracy is a form of government that places power in the hands of a small, privileged ruling class. The term derives from the Greek aristokratia, meaning rule of the best, at the time of the words origins in Ancient Greece, the Greeks conceived it as rule by the best qualified citizens—and often contrasted it favourably with monarchy, rule by an individual. In later times, aristocracy was usually seen as rule by a group, the aristocratic class. The Greeks did not like the concept of monarchy, and as their democratic system fell, in Ancient Rome, the Republic consisted of an aristocracy—as well as consuls, a senate, and a tribal assembly. In the Middle Ages and early modern era, aristocracies primarily consisted of an aristocratic class, privileged by birth. Since the French Revolution, aristocracy has generally been contrasted with democracy, however, this distinction is often oversimplified. In exchange feudal aid is received from tenants or vassals, oaths of military allegiance, however an oligarchy, nobility or royalty had the right to set taxes, assemble or raise armies and command loyalty by virtue of traditional authority. In the 1651 book Leviathan, Thomas Hobbes describes an aristocracy as a commonwealth in which the representative of the citizens is an assembly by part and it is a system in which only a small part of the population represents the government. Modern depictions of aristocracy tend to regard it not as the ancient Greek concept of rule by the best, history, John Cannon, Oxford University Press,1997, ISBN 978-0-19-866176-4 Aristocracy in the Modern World, Ellis Wasson, Palgrave Macmillan,2006
19.
Bourgeoisie
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A legally defined class of the Middle Ages to the end of the Ancien Régime in France, that of inhabitants having the rights of citizenship and political rights in a city. This bourgeoisie destroyed aristocratic privilege and established civic equality after the French monarchy collapsed, the aristocracy crumbled because it refused to reform institutions and financial systems. An affluent and often opulent stratum of the class who stand opposite the proletariat class. In English, bourgeoisie identified a social class oriented to economic materialism and hedonism, hence, since the 19th century, the term bourgeoisie usually is politically and sociologically synonymous with the ruling upper class of a capitalist society. The 18th century saw a partial rehabilitation of bourgeois values in such as the drame bourgeois and bourgeois tragedy. The bourgeoisie emerged as a historical and political phenomenon in the 11th century when the bourgs of Central and this urban expansion was possible thanks to economic concentration due to the appearance of protective self-organisation into guilds. Guilds arose when individual businessmen conflicted with their feudal landlords who demanded greater rents than previously agreed. In English, the bourgeoisie is often used to denote the middle classes. In fact, the French term encompasses both the upper and middle classes, a misunderstanding which has occurred in other languages as well. The bourgeoisie in France and many French-speaking countries consists of four evolving social layers, petite bourgeoisie, moyenne bourgeoisie, grande bourgeoisie, the petite bourgeoisie consists of people who have experienced a brief ascension in social mobility for one or two generations. It usually starts with a trade or craft, and by the second and third generation, the petite bourgeois would belong to the British lower middle class and would be American middle income. They are distinguished mainly by their mentality, and would differentiate themselves from the proletariat or working class and this class would include artisans, small traders, shopkeepers, and small farm owners. They are not employed, but may not be able to afford employees themselves, the moyenne bourgeoisie or middle bourgeoisie contains people who have solid incomes and assets, but not the aura of those who have become established at a higher level. They tend to belong to a family that has been bourgeois for three or more generations, some members of this class may have relatives from similar backgrounds, or may even have aristocratic connections. The moyenne bourgeoisie is the equivalent of the British and American upper-middle classes, the grande bourgeoisie are families that have been bourgeois since the 19th century, or for at least four or five generations. Members of these tend to marry with the aristocracy or make other advantageous marriages. This bourgeoisie family has acquired an established historical and cultural heritage over the decades, the names of these families are generally known in the city where they reside, and their ancestors have often contributed to the regions history. These families are respected and revered and they belong to the upper class, and in the British class system are considered part of the gentry
20.
Emancipation reform of 1861
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The Emancipation Reform of 1861 in Russia was the first and most important of liberal reforms effected during the reign of Emperor Alexander II of Russia. The reform effectively abolished serfdom throughout the Russian Empire, the 1861 Emancipation Manifesto proclaimed the emancipation of the serfs on private estates and of the domestic serfs. By this edict more than 23 million people received their liberty, serfs gained the full rights of free citizens, including rights to marry without having to gain consent, to own property and to own a business. The Manifesto prescribed that peasants would be able to buy the land from the landlords, household serfs were the least affected, they gained only their freedom and no land. In Georgia the emancipation took place later, in 1864, the serfs were emancipated in 1861, following a speech given by Tsar Alexander II on 30 March 1856. State owned serfs, i. e. the serfs living on Imperial lands, were emancipated later in 1866 and they comprised an estimated 38% of the population. As well as having obligations to the state, they also were obliged to the landowner, by the mid-nineteenth century, less than half of Russian peasants were serfs. The rural population lived in households, gathered as villages, run by a mir —isolated, conservative, largely self-sufficient, Imperial Russia had around 20 million dvory, forty percent of them containing six to ten people. Intensely insular, the mir assembly, the skhod, appointed an elder, peasants within a mir shared land and resources. The fields were divided among the families as nadel —a complex of strip plots, the strips were periodically redistributed within the villages to produce level economic conditions. The peasants were duty-bound to make payments in labor and goods. It has been estimated that landowners took at least one third of income, the need for urgent reform was well understood in 19th-century Russia. Much support for it emanated from universities, authors and other intellectual circles, various projects of emancipation reforms were prepared by Mikhail Speransky, Nikolay Mordvinov, and Pavel Kiselyov. However, conservative or reactionary nobility thwarted their efforts, in Western guberniyas serfdom was abolished early in the century. In Congress Poland, serfdom had been abolished before it became Russian, Serfdom was abolished in the Governorate of Estonia in 1816, in Courland in 1817, and in Livonia in 1819. In 1797, Paul I of Russia decreed that corvee labor was limited to 3 days a week, but his law was not enforced. Beginning in 1801, Alexander I of Russia appointed a committee to study possible emancipation and my intention is to abolish serfdom. You can yourself understand that the present order of owning souls cannot remain unchanged and it is better to abolish serfdom from above, than to wait for that time when it starts to abolish itself from below
21.
Twentieth-century theatre
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Twentieth-century theatre describes a period of great change within the theatrical culture of the 20th century, mainly in Europe and North America. Political theatre and other forms of Experimental theatre, as well as the development of already established theatrical forms like naturalism and realism. Throughout the century, the reputation of theatre improved after being derided throughout the 19th century. However, the growth of media, especially film, has resulted in a diminished role within culture at large. In light of this change, theatrical artists have been forced to seek new ways to engage with society, the various answers offered in response to this have prompted the transformations that make up its modern history. Developments in areas like Gender theory and postmodern philosophy identified and created subjects for the theatre to explore and these sometimes explicitly meta-theatrical performances were meant to confront the audiences perceptions and assumptions in order to raise questions about their society. These challenging and influential plays characterized much of the two decades of the 20th-century. Although largely developing in Europe and North America through the beginning of the century, realism focuses on the attempt to represent subject matter truthfully, without artificiality and avoiding artistic conventions or implausible, exotic and supernatural elements. For many theatre artists throughout the century, realism was meant to direct attention to the social and psychological problems of ordinary life. Influenced by the ideas of Sigmund Freud, Charles Darwin and others and this was carried out both on the stage in acting styles, in play writing and in theatrical design. In Russia, the movement towards realism began earlier than anywhere else in the world, nemirovich described the applause, which came after a prolonged silence, as bursting from the audience like a dam breaking and the production received unanimous praise from the press. Productions of Ibsen, Shakespeare, and Chekhovs Uncle Vanya, The Cherry Orchard, areas of study include concentration, voice, physical skills, emotion memory, observation, and dramatic analysis. The Stanislavsky system was practiced in the Soviet Union and in the United States. In the early part of the 20th century, Russia experienced a cultural Silver Age, by 1916, the total number of producing theatres in Moscow alone totaled close to 200. These included Aleksey Suvorins Maly Theatre and the Moscow Dramatic Theatre, while there were a number of actress-managers in St. Petersburg and Moscow like Vera Komissarzhevskaya and Ida Rubinstein, the course of Russian theatre in the Silver Age was largely dominated by men. Other key playwrights signalling the move to realism in the beginning of the century include Edward Sheldon, Charles Rann Kennedy, onstage, the American theatre was dominated by the Barrymore family, Lionel Barrymore, Ethel Barrymore and John Barrymore. They were so popular that a play was written about them, The Royal Family by George S. Kaufman and Edna Ferber. Through the early century, no American dramatist had as much influence on the development of drama as Eugene ONeill
22.
Charles Laughton
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Charles Laughton was an English stage and film character actor, director, producer and screenwriter. Laughton was trained in London at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art, in 1927, he was cast in a play with his future wife Elsa Lanchester, with whom he lived and worked until his death, they had no children. He played a range of classical and modern parts, making an impact in Shakespeare at the Old Vic. His film career took him to Broadway and then Hollywood, but he collaborated with Alexander Korda on notable British films of the era. He portrayed everything from monsters and misfits to kings, among Laughtons biggest film hits were The Barretts of Wimpole Street, Mutiny on the Bounty, Ruggles of Red Gap, Jamaica Inn, The Hunchback of Notre Dame, and The Big Clock. In his later career, he took up directing, notably in The Caine Mutiny Court-Martial. He directed one film, the thriller The Night of the Hunter, Laughton has been seen by one actor as one of the greatest performers of his generation. Daniel Day-Lewis cited him as one of his inspirations, saying and his generosity as an actor, he fed himself into that work. As an actor, you take your eyes off him. Laughton was born in Scarborough, North Riding of Yorkshire, the son of Eliza and Robert Laughton, a blue plaque marks his birthplace. He started work in the hotel, though also participating in amateur theatricals in Scarborough. Allowed by his family to become a student at RADA in 1925. Laughton made his first professional appearance on 28 April 1926 at the Barnes Theatre, as Osip in the comedy The Government Inspector and he impressed audiences with his talent and had classical roles in two Chekov plays, The Cherry Orchard and The Three Sisters. Laughton played the role as Harry Hegan in the world premiere of Seán OCaseys The Silver Tassie in 1928 in London. He played the roles in Arnold Bennetts Mr Prohack and as Samuel Pickwick in Mr Pickwick at the Theatre Royal in London. He played Tony Perelli in Edgar Wallaces On the Spot and William Marble in Payment Deferred and he took the last role across the Atlantic and made his United States debut on 24 September 1931, at the Lyceum Theatre. Laughton commenced his career in Britain while still acting on the London stage. He made an appearance as a disgruntled diner in another silent film Piccadilly with Anna May Wong in 1929
23.
Peter Brook
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Peter Stephen Paul Brook, CH, CBE is an English theatre and film director who has been based in France since the early 1970s. He has won multiple Tony and Emmy Awards, a Laurence Olivier Award, the Praemium Imperiale, and he has been called our greatest living theatre director. With the Royal Shakespeare Company, Brook directed the first English language production of Marat/Sade in 1964 and it transferred to Broadway in 1965 and won the Tony Award for Best Play, and Brook was named Best Director. Brook was born in the Turnham Green area of Chiswick, London, the family home was at 27 Fairfax Road, Turnham Green. His elder brother was the psychiatrist and psychotherapist Alexis Brook and his first cousin was Valentin Pluchek, chief director of the Moscow Satire Theatre. Brook was educated at Westminster School, Greshams School, and Magdalen College and he directed Dr Faustus, his first production, in 1943 at the Torch Theatre in London, followed at the Chanticleer Theatre in 1945 with a revival of The Infernal Machine. In 1947, he went to Stratford-upon-Avon as assistant director on Romeo and Juliet, from 1947 to 1950, he was Director of Productions at the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden. His work there included a highly controversial staging of Strauss Salome with sets by Salvador Dalí, a proliferation of stage and screen work as producer and director followed. Dark of the Moon by Howard Richardson, at the Ambassadors Theatre and it has been based in Paris at the Bouffes du Nord theatre since 1974. In 2008 he made the decision to resign as director of Bouffes du Nord, handing over to Olivier Mantei. Brook has been influenced by the work of Antonin Artaud and his ideas for his Theatre of Cruelty, the result was a showing of works in progress made up of improvisations and sketches, one of which was the premier of Artauds The Spurt of Blood. – Lee Jamieson, Antonin Artaud, From Theory to Practice, Greenwich Exchange,2007 His greatest influence, Brook described her as the most galvanising director in mid-20th century Britain. Brooks work is inspired by the theories of experimental theatre of Jerzy Grotowski, Bertolt Brecht, Chris Covics and Vsevolod Meyerhold. Gurdjieff, Edward Gordon Craig, and Matila Ghyka, Brook first encountered Wakhévitch in London when he saw the production of Jean Cocteaus ballet Le Jeune Homme et la Mort which Wakhévitch designed. Brook declared, he was convinced that this was the designer for whom I had been waiting, however, many postcololonial scholars have challenged the claim to universalism, accusing the play of orientalism. In 2015 Brook returned to the world of Mahabharata with a new Young Vic production, Battlefield in collaboration with Jean-Claude Carrière, in 2005 Brook directed Tierno Bokar, based on the life of the Malian sufi of the same name. The play was adapted for the stage by Marie-Hélène Estienne from a book by Amadou Hampate Ba, the book and play detail Bokars life and message of religious tolerance. Columbia University produced 44 related events, lectures, and workshops that were attended by over 3,200 people throughout the run of Tierno Bokar, panel discussions focused on topics of religious tolerance and Muslim tradition in West Africa
24.
Jean-Louis Barrault
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Jean-Louis Barrault studied with Charles Dullin in whose troupe he acted from 1933 to 1935. At 25 years of age, he met and studied with the mime Étienne Decroux, from 1940 to 1946 Barrault was a member of the Comédie-Française, where he directed productions of Paul Claudels Le Soulier de satin and Jean Racines Phèdre, two plays that made his reputation. Over his career, he acted in nearly 50 movies including Les beaux jours, Jenny, LOr dans la Montagne, in 1940, he married the actress Madeleine Renaud. They founded a number of theatres together and toured extensively, including in South America and he was the uncle of actress Marie-Christine Barrault and sometime sponsor of Peter Brook. He died from an attack in Paris at the age of 83. Jean-Louis Barrault is buried with his wife Madeleine Renaud in the Passy Cemetery in Paris, Jean-Louis Barrault, Reflections on the Theatre, In fact it is the simplest things that are the most tricky to do well. To be able to exactly what is written without omitting anything that is written. To be able to capture the exact context of the one is reading. Barrault from Melinda Camber Porters Through Parisian Eyes, Reflections on Contemporary French Arts and Culture, when I go to sleep, I feel I have experienced a small death, so that I can wake up in the morning renewed and reborn. Jean-Louis Barrault at the Internet Movie Database Jean-Louis Barrault at Find a Grave
25.
Tyrone Guthrie
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Guthrie was born in Tunbridge Wells, Kent, England, the son of Dr Thomas Guthrie and Norah Power. His great-grandfather was the Irish actor Tyrone Power and he was also a second cousin of the Hollywood actor Tyrone Power. His sister, Susan Margaret, married his university friend. He received a degree in history at Oxford University, where he was active in student theatre, in 1924 Guthrie joined the BBC as a broadcaster and began to produce plays for radio. This led to a year directing for the stage with the Scottish National Players, during the period from 1929 to 1933 he directed at various theatres, including a production of Pirandellos Six Characters in Search of an Author in 1932. During 1933–1934, and 1936–1945 he was director of the Shakespeare Repertory Company, while in Montreal, Guthrie produced the Romance of Canada series of radio plays for recalling epic moments in Canadian history. The series was broadcast on the Canadian National Railway radio network, Butler translated the text for Guthries 1934 production of Anton Chekhovs Cherry Orchard, for perhaps its first English-language production. In the 1940s Guthrie began to direct operas, to acclaim, including a realistic Carmen at Sadlers Wells. Staged in the citys General Assembly Hall of the Church of Scotland on the Mound, specially adapted for the occasion, in 1953, he was invited to help launch the Stratford Festival of Canada. All performances in the first seasons took place in a tent on the banks of the Avon River. He remained as Artistic Director for three seasons, and his work at Stratford had an influence in the development of Canadian theatre. Guthrie produced Gilbert and Sullivans H. M. S, pinafore in 1960 and The Pirates of Penzance in 1961, which were televised in Canada and also brought to the Phoenix Theatre in New York and on tour in the US. In 1962, as soon as the Gilbert and Sullivan copyrights expired, he brought these productions to Britain and they were among the first Savoy opera productions in Britain not authorized by the DOyly Carte Opera Company. In 1963, he founded the Guthrie Theater in Minneapolis, Minnesota, peter Hall wrote, Among the great originators in British Theatre. Guthrie was a towering figure in every sense. He blazed a trail for the theatre of the sixties. He showed how to run a company and administer a theatre, and he was a brilliant and at times great director. Guthrie wrote two books about the creation of effective drama, Theatre Prospect and A Life in the Theatre. He was Chancellor of Queens University Belfast, on 15 September 2010 a blue plaque in his memory was unveiled at the BBC in Belfast by the Ulster History Circle
26.
Katie Mitchell
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Katrina Jane Mitchell, OBE is an English theatre director. Mitchell was raised in Hermitage, Berkshire, and educated at Oakham School, upon leaving Oakham she went up to Magdalen College, Oxford, to read English. She is particularly inspired by Eastern European theatre and by such as Pina Bausch. Early in her career she directed a number of early productions under the umbrella of her company Classics On A Shoestring, in 1997 Mitchell became responsible for programming at the Other Place – the RSCs now defunct black box space. While at the RSC her productions included The Phoenician Women which won her the Evening Standard Award for Best Director in 1996, in 2004 she was an Associate of the Royal National Theatre. Her frequent collaborators include writer Martin Crimp and designer Vicki Mortimer, Mitchell staged a new production of Luigi Nonos Al gran sole carico damore for the Salzburg Festival in 2009, and a new production of Parthenogenesis at the Royal Opera House in June 2009. This multiscreen video installation, launched at the Chantiers Europe festival at the Theatre de la Ville in Paris on 4 June, according to general manager Peter Gelb, Mitchell was scheduled to direct a future production of Mozarts opera Così fan tutte at the Metropolitan Opera House. Mitchell has been described as a director who polarises audiences like no other, in 2007, the artistic director of the NT accused the British press of affording Mitchells productions misogynistic reviews, where everything they say is predicated on her sex. Mitchells process involves long and intensive rehearsal periods and use of the Stanislavski system and she regularly involves psychiatry in looking at characters, and in 2004 directed a series of workshops on Stanislavski and neuroscience at the NT studio. Since her 2006 play Waves, she has experimented with video projections in a number of productions. A former associate director at the Royal Court Theatre, Mitchell was appointed Officer of the Order of the British Empire in the 2009 New Year Honours and she has a daughter Edie, born c. In January 2011 she was a guest on Private Passions, the biographical music discussion programme on BBC Radio 3, G. fr Operabase Les Archives du Spectacle
27.
Eugene O'Neill
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Eugene Gladstone ONeill was an American playwright and Nobel laureate in Literature. ONeills plays were among the first to include speeches in American vernacular and they struggle to maintain their hopes and aspirations, but ultimately slide into disillusionment and despair. Of his very few comedies, only one is well-known, nearly all of his other plays involve some degree of tragedy and personal pessimism. ONeill was born in a hotel, the Barrett House, at Broadway and 43rd Street, a commemorative plaque was first dedicated there in 1957. The site is now occupied by 1500 Broadway, which offices, retail. He was the son of Irish immigrant actor James ONeill and Mary Ellen Quinlan and his father suffered from alcoholism, his mother from an addiction to morphine, prescribed to relieve the pains of the difficult birth of her third son, Eugene. ONeill spent his summers at the Monte Cristo Cottage in New London and he attended Princeton University for one year. Accounts vary as to why he left, ONeill spent several years at sea, during which he suffered from depression and alcoholism. Despite this, he had a love for the sea and it became a prominent theme in many of his plays. ONeill joined the Marine Transport Workers Union of the Industrial Workers of the World, ONeills parents and elder brother Jamie died within three years of one another, not long after he had begun to make his mark in the theater. After his experience in 1912–13 at a sanatorium where he was recovering from tuberculosis, ONeill had previously been employed by the New London Telegraph, writing poetry as well as reporting. In the fall of 1914, he entered Harvard University to attend a course in dramatic technique given by Professor George Baker and he left after one year and did not complete the course. During the 1910s ONeill was a regular on the Greenwich Village literary scene, ONeill also had a brief romantic relationship with Reeds wife, writer Louise Bryant. ONeill was portrayed by Jack Nicholson in the 1981 film Reds and his involvement with the Provincetown Players began in mid-1916. ONeill is said to have arrived for the summer in Provincetown with a full of plays. He was not left alone in the dining-room when the reading had finished, the Provincetown Players performed many of ONeills early works in their theaters both in Provincetown and on MacDougal Street in Greenwich Village. Some of these early plays began downtown and then moved to Broadway, ONeills first published play, Beyond the Horizon, opened on Broadway in 1920 to great acclaim, and was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for Drama. His first major hit was The Emperor Jones, which ran on Broadway in 1920 and his best-known plays include Anna Christie, Desire Under the Elms, Strange Interlude, Mourning Becomes Electra, and his only well-known comedy, Ah, Wilderness
28.
George Bernard Shaw
–
He wrote more than sixty plays, including major works such as Man and Superman, Pygmalion and Saint Joan. With a range incorporating both contemporary satire and historical allegory, Shaw became the leading dramatist of his generation, born in Dublin, Shaw moved to London in 1873, where he established himself as a writer and novelist. By the mid-1880s he was a theatre and music critic. Following a political awakening, he joined the gradualist Fabian Society, Shaw had been writing plays for years before his first public success, 1894s Arms and the Man. Influenced by Henrik Ibsen, he sought to introduce a new realism into English-language drama, using his plays as vehicles to disseminate his political, social and religious ideas. By the early twentieth century his reputation as a dramatist was secured with a series of critical and popular successes that included Major Barbara, The Doctors Dilemma and Caesar, Shaws expressed views were often contentious, he promoted eugenics and alphabet reform while opposing vaccination and organised religion. He courted unpopularity by denouncing both sides in the First World War as equally culpable and he castigated British policy on Ireland in the postwar period, and became a citizen of the Irish Free State in 1934, maintaining dual citizenship. He was prolific, finishing during the years a series of often ambitious plays which achieved varying degrees of popular success. Since Shaws death, opinion has varied about his works and he has at times been rated as second only to William Shakespeare among English-language dramatists, analysts recognise his extensive influence on generations of playwrights. The word Shavian has entered the language as encapsulating Shaws ideas, Shaw was born at 3 Upper Synge Street in Portobello, a lower-middle-class part of Dublin. He was the youngest child and only son of George Carr Shaw and his elder siblings were Lucinda Frances and Elinor Agnes. The Shaw family was of English descent and belonged to the dominant Protestant Ascendancy in Ireland, George Carr Shaw and his relatives secured him a sinecure in the civil service, from which he was pensioned off in the early 1850s, thereafter he worked irregularly as a corn merchant. In 1852 he married Bessie Gurly, in the view of Shaws biographer Michael Holroyd she married to escape a tyrannical great-aunt, if, as Holroyd and others surmise, Georges motives were mercenary, then he was disappointed, as Bessie brought him little of her familys money. She came to despise her ineffectual and often drunken husband, with whom she shared what their son later described as a life of shabby-genteel poverty. By the time of Shaws birth, his mother had become close to George John Lee, Shaw retained a lifelong obsession that Lee might have been his biological father, there is no consensus among Shavian scholars on the likelihood of this. The young Shaw suffered no harshness from his mother, but he recalled that her indifference. He found solace in the music that abounded in the house, Lee was a conductor and teacher of singing, Bessie had a fine mezzo-soprano voice and was much influenced by Lees unorthodox method of vocal production. The Shaws house was filled with music, with frequent gatherings of singers and players
29.
David Mamet
–
David Alan Mamet is an American playwright, essayist, screenwriter, and film director. As a playwright, Mamet has won a Pulitzer Prize and received Tony nominations for Glengarry Glen Ross, Mamet first gained acclaim for a trio of off-Broadway plays in 1976, The Duck Variations, Sexual Perversity in Chicago, and American Buffalo. His play Race opened on Broadway on December 6,2009, Mamets 2017 play The Penitent previewed off-Broadway on February 8,2017. Feature films that Mamet both wrote and directed include Redbelt, The Spanish Prisoner, House of Games, Spartan, Heist, State and Main, The Winslow Boy, and Oleanna. This was accompanied by Homicide, Things Change, and most recently the 2013 HBO film Phil Spector, starring Al Pacino as Spector with Helen Mirren and Jeffrey Tambor. His drama Glengarry Glen Ross, in 1992, was adapted by Mamet into a version which also received an Academy Award nomination. Mamet was also the producer and frequent writer for the TV show The Unit. As a screenplay writer, Mamet received Oscar nominations for The Verdict, Mamet was born in 1947 in Chicago to Jewish parents, Lenore June, a teacher, and Bernard Morris Mamet, an attorney. One of his first jobs was as a busboy at Chicagos The Second City and he was educated at the progressive Francis W. Parker School and at Goddard College in Plainfield, Vermont. At the Chicago Public Library Foundation 20th anniversary fundraiser in 2006, though, I got what little educational foundation I got in the third-floor reading room, under the tutelage of a Coca-Cola sign. Mamet is a member of the Atlantic Theater Company, he first gained acclaim for a trio of off-Broadway plays in 1976, The Duck Variations, Sexual Perversity in Chicago. He was awarded the Pulitzer Prize in 1984 for Glengarry Glen Ross and his play Race, which opened on Broadway on December 6,2009 and featured James Spader, David Alan Grier, Kerry Washington, and Richard Thomas in the cast, received mixed reviews. His play The Anarchist, starring Patti LuPone and Debra Winger, in her Broadway debut and his 2017 play The Penitent previewed off-Broadway on February 8,2017. In 2002, Mamet was inducted into the American Theatre Hall of Fame, Mamet later received the PEN/Laura Pels International Foundation for Theater Award for Grand Master of American Theater in 2010. His latest feature-length film, a thriller titled Blackbird, is slated for release in 2015, Mamets first produced screenplay was the 1981 production of The Postman Always Rings Twice, based upon James M. Cains novel. He received an Academy Award nomination one year later for his first script, The Verdict and he also wrote the screenplay for The Untouchables. In 1987, Mamet made his directing debut with House of Games, starring his then-wife, Lindsay Crouse. He uses friends as actors, especially in one scene in the movie
30.
Arthur Miller
–
Arthur Asher Miller was an American playwright, essayist, and figure in twentieth-century American theater. Among his most popular plays are All My Sons, Death of a Salesman, The Crucible and he also wrote several screenplays and was most noted for his work on The Misfits. The drama Death of a Salesman has been numbered on the short list of finest American plays in the 20th century alongside Long Days Journey into Night, Miller was often in the public eye, particularly during the late 1940s, 1950s and early 1960s. During this time, he was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for Drama, testified before the House Un-American Activities Committee, in 1980, Miller received the St. Louis Literary Award from the Saint Louis University Library Associates. He received the Prince of Asturias Award and the Praemium Imperiale prize in 2002, Miller was born on October 17,1915, in Harlem, in the New York City borough of Manhattan, the second of three children of Augusta and Isidore Miller. His father was born in Radomyśl Wielki, Galicia, and his mother was a native of New York whose parents arrived from that town. Isidore owned a clothing manufacturing business employing 400 people. He became a wealthy and respected man in the community, the family, including his younger sister Joan Copeland, lived on West 110th Street in Manhattan, owned a summer house in Far Rockaway, Queens, and employed a chauffeur. In the Wall Street Crash of 1929, the family lost almost everything and moved to Gravesend, as a teenager, Miller delivered bread every morning before school to help the family. After graduating in 1932 from Abraham Lincoln High School, he worked at menial jobs to pay for his college tuition. At the University of Michigan, Miller first majored in journalism and worked for the student paper and it was during this time that he wrote his first play, No Villain. Miller switched his major to English, and subsequently won the Avery Hopwood Award for No Villain, the award brought him his first recognition and led him to begin to consider that he could have a career as a playwright. Rowe provided realistic feedback along with much-needed encouragement, and became a lifelong friend, in 1937, Miller wrote Honors at Dawn, which also received the Avery Hopwood Award. After his graduation in 1938, he joined the Federal Theater Project and he chose the theater project despite the more lucrative offer to work as a scriptwriter for 20th Century Fox. However, Congress, worried about possible Communist infiltration, closed the project in 1939, Miller began working in the Brooklyn Navy Yard while continuing to write radio plays, some of which were broadcast on CBS. In 1940, Miller married Mary Grace Slattery, the couple had two children, Jane and Robert. Miller was exempted from service during World War II because of a high-school football injury to his left kneecap. 1940 was also the year his first play was produced, The Man Who Had All the Luck won the Theatre Guilds National Award, the play closed after four performances with disastrous reviews
31.
Linchpin
–
A linchpin, also spelled linch pin, lynchpin, or lynch pin, is a fastener used to prevent a wheel or other part from sliding off the axle upon which it is riding. The word is first attested in the late 14th century and derives from Middle English elements meaning axletree pin, securing implements onto the three-point hitch of a tractor is an example of application. Linchpins may also be used in place of an R-clip for securing hitch pins, the word linchpin is also used figuratively to mean something that holds the various elements of a complicated structure together
32.
Czarist
–
Tsar /zɑːr/ or /tsɑːr/, also spelled tzar, csar, or czar, is a title used to designate certain Slavic monarchs or supreme rulers. As a system of government in the Tsardom of Russia and the Russian Empire, it is known as Tsarist autocracy, occasionally, the word could be used to designate other secular supreme rulers. Simeon II, the last Tsar of Bulgaria, is the last person to have borne the title Tsar, the title Tsar is derived from the Latin title for the Roman emperors, Caesar. In the history of the Greek language, basileus had originally meant something like potentate and it gradually approached the meaning of king in the Hellenistic Period, and it came to designate emperor after the inception in the Roman Empire. Thus, tsar was not only used as an equivalent of Latin imperator but was used to refer to Biblical rulers. From this ambiguity, the development has moved in different directions in the different Slavic languages, thus, the Bulgarian language and Russian language no longer use tsar as an equivalent of the term emperor/imperator as it exists in the West European tradition. Currently, the term refers to native sovereigns, ancient and Biblical rulers, as well as monarchs in fairy tales. The title of king is sometimes perceived as alien and is by some Russian-speakers reserved for European royalty, foreign monarchs of imperial status, both inside and outside of Europe, ancient as well as modern, are generally called imperator, rather than tsar. Biblical rulers in Serbian are called цар and in Croatian kralj, in the Polish language however tsar is always used as imperator, never as king. The term tsar is very used to refer to the Russian rulers after Peter the Great. In 705 Emperor Justinian II named Tervel of Bulgaria Caesar, the first foreigner to receive this title, the sainted Boris I is sometimes retrospectively referred to as tsar, because at his time Bulgaria was converted to Christianity. However, the tsar was actually adopted and used for the first time by his son Simeon I. Since in Byzantine political theory there was place for two emperors, Eastern and Western, the Bulgarian ruler was crowned basileus as a spiritual son of the Byzantian basileus. In Latin sources the Emperor of Bulgaria is sometimes designated Emperor of Zagora, various additional epithets and descriptions apart, the official style read Emperor and autocrat of all Bulgarians and Greeks. During the five-century period of Ottoman rule in Bulgaria, the sultan was referred to as tsar. This may be related to the fact that he had claimed the legacy of the Byzantine Empire or to the fact that the sultan was called Basileus in medieval Greek, after Bulgarias liberation from the Ottomans in 1878, its new monarchs were at first autonomous prince. With the declaration of independence, Ferdinand I of Bulgaria adopted the traditional title tsar in 1908. However, these titles were not generally perceived as equivalents of emperor any longer, in the Bulgarian as in the Greek vernacular, the meaning of the title had shifted
33.
Serfs
–
Serfdom is the status of many peasants under feudalism, specifically relating to manorialism. It was a condition of bondage, which developed primarily during the High Middle Ages in Europe, serfs were often required not only to work on the lords fields, but also his mines, forests and roads. The decline of serfdom in Western Europe has sometimes been attributed to the Black Death, Serfdom became increasingly rare in most of Western Europe after the Renaissance, but conversely, it grew strong in Central and Eastern Europe, where it had previously been less common. In Eastern Europe the institution persisted until the mid-19th century, in the Austrian Empire serfdom was abolished by the 1781 Serfdom Patent, corvée continued to exist until 1848. Serfdom was abolished in Russia in the 1860s, in Finland, Norway and Sweden, feudalism was never fully established, and serfdom did not exist, however, serfdom-like institutions did exist in both Denmark and its vassal Iceland. According to Joseph R. Strayer, the concept of feudalism can also be applied to the societies of ancient Persia, ancient Mesopotamia, Egypt, Muslim India, China, james Lee and Cameron Campbell describe the Chinese Qing dynasty as also maintaining a form of serfdom. Tibet is described by Melvyn Goldstein to have had serfdom until 1959, bhutan is described by Tashi Wangchuk, a Bhutanese civil servant, as abolishing serfdom officially by 1959, but Wangchuk believes less than or about 10% of poor peasants were in copyhold situations. The United Nations 1956 Supplementary Convention on the Abolition of Slavery also prohibits serfdom as a form of slavery, the word serf originated from the Middle French serf and can be traced further back to the Latin servus. In Late Antiquity and most of the Middle Ages, what are now called serfs were usually designated in Latin as coloni. As slavery gradually disappeared and the status of servi became nearly identical to that of the coloni. Serfs had a place in feudal society, as did barons and knights, in return for protection. Thus the manorial system exhibited a degree of reciprocity, one rationale held that a serf worked for all while a knight or baron fought for all and a churchman prayed for all, thus everyone had a place. The serf was the worst fed and rewarded, but at least he had his place and, unlike slaves, had rights in land. A lord of the manor could not sell his serfs as a Roman might sell his slaves and this unified system preserved for the lord long-acquired knowledge of practices suited to the land. Further, a serf could not abandon his lands without permission, a freeman became a serf usually through force or necessity. Sometimes the greater physical and legal force of a local magnate intimidated freeholders or allodial owners into dependency, often a few years of crop failure, a war, or brigandage might leave a person unable to make his own way. In such a case he could strike a bargain with a lord of a manor, in exchange for protection, service was required, in cash, produce or labour, or a combination of all. These oaths bound the lord and his new serf in a feudal contract, to become a serf was a commitment that encompassed all aspects of the serfs life
34.
Cue sports
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Historically, the umbrella term was billiards. While that familiar name is employed by some as a generic label for all such games. There are other variants that use of obstacles and targets. Fields, Babe Ruth, Bob Hope, and Jackie Gleason, the modern term cue sports can be used to encompass the ancestral mace games, and even the modern cueless variants, such as finger billiards, for historical reasons. Cue itself came from queue, the French word for a tail and this refers to the early practice of using the tail of the mace to strike the ball when it lay against a rail cushion. A recognizable form of billiards was played outdoors in the 1340s, king Louis XI of France had the first known indoor billiard table. Louis XIV further refined and popularized the game, and it spread among the French nobility. Mary, Queen of Scots, claimed that her table de billiard had been taken away by those who became her executioners. In 1588, the Duke of Norfolk, owned a billyard bord coered with a greene cloth, three billyard sticks and 11 balls of yvery. Billiards grew to the extent that by 1727, it was being played in almost every Paris café, in England, the game was developing into a very popular activity for members of the gentry. By 1670, the butt end of the mace began to be used not only for shots under the cushion. The cue as it is today was finally developed by about 1800. Initially, the mace was used to push the balls, rather than strike them, the newly developed striking cue provided a new challenge. Cushions began to be stuffed with substances to allow the balls to rebound, after a transitional period where only the better players would use cues, the cue came to be the first choice of equipment. The demand for tables and other equipment was initially met in Europe by John Thurston, the early balls were made from wood and clay, but the rich preferred to use ivory. The early croquet-like games eventually led to the development of the carom or carambole billiards category – what most non-Commonwealth, variations include three-cushion, straight rail and the balkline variants, cushion caroms, five-pins, and four-ball, among others. In the United States pool and billiards had died out for a bit, players in annual championships began to receive their own cigarette cards. This was mainly due to the fact that it was a pastime for troops to take their minds off from battle
35.
Governess
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A governess is a woman employed to teach and train children in a private household. In contrast to a nanny, she concentrates on teaching instead of meeting their physical needs. Her charges are of age rather than babies. The position of governess used to be common in well-off European families before World War I, parents preference to educate their children at home—rather than send them away to boarding school for months at a time—varied across time and countries. Governesses were usually in charge of girls and younger boys, when a boy was old enough, he left his governess for a tutor or a school. Governesses are rarer now, except within large and wealthy households or royal families such as the Saudi royal family, There has been a recent resurgence amongst families worldwide to employ governesses or full-time tutors. The reasons for this include personal security, the benefits of an education. Traditionally, governesses taught the three Rs to young children and it was also possible for other teachers with specialist knowledge and skills to be brought in, such as, a drawing master or dancing master. The governess occupied an awkward position in the Victorian household. She worked in the home of the landed gentry or aristocracy. She herself had a background and education, yet was paid for her services. As a sign of this social limbo she frequently ate on her own, away from the rest of the family, by definition, a governess was an unmarried woman who lived in someone elses home, which meant that she was subject to their rules. In any case, she had to maintain a reputation by avoiding anything which could embarrass or offend her employers. If a particular governess was young and attractive, the lady of the house might well perceive a threat to her marriage. As a result of various restrictions, the lifestyle of the typical Victorian governess was often one of social isolation and solitude. The fact that her presence in the household was underpinned by an employment contract emphasized that she could never truly be part of the host family. However, being a governess was one of the few legitimate ways by which a middle class woman could support herself in Victorian society. Not surprisingly, her position was often depicted as one to be pitied, once a governesss charges grew up, she had to seek a new position, or, exceptionally, might be retained by the grown-up daughter as a paid companion
36.
Social change
–
Social change refers to an alteration in the social order of a society. Social change may include changes in nature, social institutions, social behaviours, Social change may refer to the notion of social progress or sociocultural evolution, the philosophical idea that society moves forward by dialectical or evolutionary means. It may refer to a change in the socio-economic structure, for instance a shift away from feudalism. Accordingly, it may refer to social revolution, such as the Socialist revolution presented in Marxism, or to other social movements. Social change may be driven by cultural, religious, economic, scientific or technological forces, Developmental psychology can play a role in social change. Social change comes about with tangible/intangible resource inputs as social investment. One source is random or unique factors such as climate, weather, for example, successful development has the same general requirements, such as a stable and flexible government, enough free and available resources, and a diverse social organization of society. On the whole, social change is usually a combination of systematic factors along with some random or unique factors, there are many theories of social change. Generally, a theory of change should include elements such as aspects of change, processes and mechanisms of social change. Hegelian, The classic Hegelian dialectic model of change is based on the interaction of opposing forces, starting from a point of momentary stasis, Thesis countered by Antithesis first yields conflict, then it subsequently results in a new Synthesis. Marxist, Marxism presents a dialectical and materialist concept of history, Heraclitan, The Greek philosopher Heraclitus used the metaphor of a river to speak of change thus, On those stepping into rivers staying the same other and other waters flow. What Heraclitus seems to be suggesting here, later interpretations notwithstanding, is that, in order for the river to remain the river, change must constantly be taking place. Thus one may think of the Heraclitan model as parallel to that of a living organism, a contemporary application of this approach is shown in the social change theory SEED-SCALE which builds off of the complexity theory subfield of Emergence. Daoist, The Chinese philosophical work Dao De Jing, I.8, water, although soft and yielding, will eventually wear away stone. Change in this model is to be natural, harmonious and steady, one of the most obvious changes currently occurring is the change in the relative global population distribution between countries. China and India continue to be the largest countries, followed by the US as a distant third, however, population growth throughout the world is slowing. Population growth among developed countries has been slowing since the 1950s, population growth among the less developed countries excluding the least developed has also been slowing, since 1960, and is now at 1. 3% annual growth. Population growth among the least developed countries has slowed relatively little, in much of the developed world, changes from distinct mens and womens work to more gender equal patterns have been economically important since the mid 20th century. Both men and women are to be considered to be contributors to social change world wide
37.
Alexander II of Russia
–
Alexander II was the Emperor of Russia from 2 March 1855 until his assassination in 1881. He was also the King of Poland and the Grand Duke of Finland, Alexanders most significant reform as emperor was emancipation of Russias serfs in 1861, for which he is known as Alexander the Liberator. In foreign policy, Alexander sold Alaska to the United States in 1867, despite his otherwise pacifist foreign policy, he fought a brief war with Turkey in 1877–78, pursued further expansion into Siberia and the Caucasus, and conquered Turkestan. Although disappointed by the results of the Congress of Berlin in 1878, among his greatest domestic challenges was an uprising in Poland in 1863, to which he responded by stripping that land of its separate constitution and incorporating it directly into Russia. Alexander was proposing additional parliamentary reforms to counter the rise of nascent revolutionary, born in Moscow, Alexander Nikolaevich was the eldest son of Nicholas I of Russia and of Charlotte of Prussia. Personal and official censorship was rife, criticism of the authorities was regarded as a serious offence, aleksandrs alleged lack of interest in military affairs resulted from his reaction to the effects of the unsavoury Crimean War of 1853-1856 on his own family and on the whole country. Unusually for the time, the young Alexander was taken on a tour of Russia. He also visited many prominent Western European countries in 1838 and 1839, as Tsesarevich, Alexander became the first Romanov heir to visit Siberia. Alexander II succeeded to the throne upon the death of his father in 1855, the first year of his reign was devoted to the prosecution of the Crimean War and, after the fall of Sevastopol, to negotiations for peace led by his trusted counsellor Prince Alexander Gorchakov. The country had exhausted and humiliated by the war. Bribe-taking, theft and corruption were everywhere, in 1867 he sold Alaska to the United States for $7.2 million after recognising the great difficulty of defending it against the United Kingdom or the former British colony of Canada. After Alexander became emperor in 1855, he maintained a generally liberal course, despite this, he was a target for numerous assassination attempts. On 13 March 1881, members of the Narodnaya Volya party killed him with a bomb and this step had been followed by one even more significant. The hint was taken, in all provinces where serfdom existed, the emancipation was not merely a humanitarian question capable of being solved instantaneously by imperial ukase. It contained very complicated problems, deeply affecting the economic, social and political future of the nation, the emperor gave his support to the latter project, and the Russian peasantry became one of the last groups of peasants in Europe to shake off serfdom. The architects of the manifesto were Alexanders brother Konstantin, Yakov Rostovtsev. On 3 March 1861, six years after his accession, the law was signed and published. The changes included universal military conscription, introduced for all classes on 1 January 1874
38.
Bolsheviks
–
The RSDLP was a revolutionary socialist political party formed in 1898 in Minsk in Belarus to unite the various revolutionary organisations of the Russian Empire into one party. In the Second Party Congress vote, the Bolsheviks won on the majority of important issues and they ultimately became the Communist Party of the Soviet Union. The Bolsheviks or Reds came to power in Russia during the October Revolution phase of the Russian Revolution of 1917, with the Reds defeating the Whites, and others during the Russian Civil War of 1917–1922, the RSFSR became the chief constituent of the Soviet Union in December 1922. Their beliefs and practices were often referred to as Bolshevism, in the 2nd Congress of the Russian Social Democratic Labour Party, held in Brussels and London during August 1903, Lenin and Julius Martov disagreed over the membership rules. Lenin wanted members who recognise the Party Programme and support it by material means, Julius Martov suggested by regular personal assistance under the direction of one of the partys organisations. Lenin advocated limiting party membership to a core of active members. A main source of the factions could be attributed to Lenin’s steadfast opinion. It was obvious at early stages in Lenin’s revolutionary practices that he would not be willing to concede on any party policy that conflicted with his own predetermined ideas and it was the loyalty that he had to his own self-envisioned utopia that caused the party split. He was seen even by fellow party members as being so narrow minded that he believed there were only two types of people, Friend and enemy—those who followed him, and all the rest. Leon Trotsky, one of Lenins fellow revolutionaries, compared Lenin in 1904 to the French revolutionary Robespierre, Lenins view of politics as verbal and ideological warfare and his inability to accept criticism even if it came from his own dedicated followers was the reason behind this accusation. The root of the split was a book titled What is to be Done. that Lenin wrote while serving a sentence of exile, in Germany, the book was published in 1902, in Russia, strict censorship outlawed its publication and distribution. One of the points of Lenin’s writing was that a revolution can only be achieved by the strong leadership of one person over the masses. After the proposed revolution had overthrown the government, this individual leader must release power. Lenin also wrote that revolutionary leaders must dedicate their lives to the cause in order for it to be successful. Lenins view of a socialist intelligentsia showed that he was not a supporter of Marxist theory. For example, Lenin agreed with the Marxist idea of eliminating social classes, most party members considered unequal treatment of workers immoral, and were loyal to the idea of a completely classless society, so Lenin’s variations caused the party internal dissonance. Although the party split of Bolsheviks and Mensheviks would not become official until 1903, as discussed in What is to be Done. Lenin firmly believed that a political structure was needed to effectively initiate a formal revolution
39.
Tsar
–
Tsar /zɑːr/ or /tsɑːr/, also spelled tzar, csar, or czar, is a title used to designate certain Slavic monarchs or supreme rulers. As a system of government in the Tsardom of Russia and the Russian Empire, it is known as Tsarist autocracy, occasionally, the word could be used to designate other secular supreme rulers. Simeon II, the last Tsar of Bulgaria, is the last person to have borne the title Tsar, the title Tsar is derived from the Latin title for the Roman emperors, Caesar. In the history of the Greek language, basileus had originally meant something like potentate and it gradually approached the meaning of king in the Hellenistic Period, and it came to designate emperor after the inception in the Roman Empire. Thus, tsar was not only used as an equivalent of Latin imperator but was used to refer to Biblical rulers. From this ambiguity, the development has moved in different directions in the different Slavic languages, thus, the Bulgarian language and Russian language no longer use tsar as an equivalent of the term emperor/imperator as it exists in the West European tradition. Currently, the term refers to native sovereigns, ancient and Biblical rulers, as well as monarchs in fairy tales. The title of king is sometimes perceived as alien and is by some Russian-speakers reserved for European royalty, foreign monarchs of imperial status, both inside and outside of Europe, ancient as well as modern, are generally called imperator, rather than tsar. Biblical rulers in Serbian are called цар and in Croatian kralj, in the Polish language however tsar is always used as imperator, never as king. The term tsar is very used to refer to the Russian rulers after Peter the Great. In 705 Emperor Justinian II named Tervel of Bulgaria Caesar, the first foreigner to receive this title, the sainted Boris I is sometimes retrospectively referred to as tsar, because at his time Bulgaria was converted to Christianity. However, the tsar was actually adopted and used for the first time by his son Simeon I. Since in Byzantine political theory there was place for two emperors, Eastern and Western, the Bulgarian ruler was crowned basileus as a spiritual son of the Byzantian basileus. In Latin sources the Emperor of Bulgaria is sometimes designated Emperor of Zagora, various additional epithets and descriptions apart, the official style read Emperor and autocrat of all Bulgarians and Greeks. During the five-century period of Ottoman rule in Bulgaria, the sultan was referred to as tsar. This may be related to the fact that he had claimed the legacy of the Byzantine Empire or to the fact that the sultan was called Basileus in medieval Greek, after Bulgarias liberation from the Ottomans in 1878, its new monarchs were at first autonomous prince. With the declaration of independence, Ferdinand I of Bulgaria adopted the traditional title tsar in 1908. However, these titles were not generally perceived as equivalents of emperor any longer, in the Bulgarian as in the Greek vernacular, the meaning of the title had shifted
40.
Marxism
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It originates from the mid-to-late 19th century works of German philosophers Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels. As the contradiction becomes apparent to the proletariat through the alienation of labor, Marxism has since developed into different branches and schools of thought, and there is now no single definitive Marxist theory. Marxism has been adopted by a number of academics and theorists working in various disciplines. Critics have taken issue with particular Marxist claims or accused Marxism as a whole of being inconsistent, refuted based on new information. The Marxian analysis begins with an analysis of the material conditions, the economic system and these social relations form a base and superstructure. As forces of production, most notably technology, improve, existing forms of social organization become inefficient, from forms of development of the productive forces these relations turn into their fetters. Then begins an era of social revolution and these inefficiencies manifest themselves as social contradictions in society in the form of class struggle. Under the capitalist mode of production, this struggle materializes between the minority who own the means of production, and the vast majority of the population who produce goods, the socialist system would succeed capitalism as humanitys mode of production through workers revolution. According to Marxism, especially arising from crisis theory, socialism is a historical necessity, in a socialist society private property, in the form of the means of production, would be replaced by co-operative ownership. A socialist economy would not base production on the creation of private profits, Society does not consist of individuals, but expresses the sum of interrelations, the relations within which these individuals stand. The historical materialist theory of history analyses the causes of societal development. All constituent features of a society are assumed to stem from economic activity, the base and superstructure metaphor portrays the totality of social relations by which humans produce and re-produce their social existence. According to Marx, The sum total of the forces of production accessible to men determines the condition of society and this relationship is reflexive, at first the base gives rise to the superstructure and remains the foundation of a form of social organization. As Friedrich Engels clarified, The history of all hitherto existing society is the history of class struggles, accordingly, Marx designated human history as encompassing four stages of development in relations of production. Primitive Communism, as in tribal societies. Slave Society, a development of tribal to city-state, aristocracy is born, feudalism, aristocrats are the ruling class, merchants evolve into capitalists. Capitalism, capitalists are the class, who create and employ the proletariat. According to the Marxist theoretician and revolutionary Vladimir Lenin, the content of Marxism was Marxs economic doctrine
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