[SOVIET UNION] SATZ, Natalia [i.e., Natalya Sats]; "S.R." (text); L.N. Cherniavsky (ed); Mikulina, Timofeyev, Rosanov, Fabisovich (et al, photographs)

The Moscow Theatre for Children

Moscow: Cooperative Publishing Society of Foreign Workers in the U.S.S.R., 1934. First Edition. Oblong octavo (17.5cm x 26cm). Tan cloth with applied pictorial device; unpaginated [96pp]; photo illus. Covers lightly soiled; lacking dustwrapper; Very Good. Text entirely in English.

A scarce and attractive Soviet photobook, recording the first decade of the Moscow Theatre for Children, which was established in 1921 under the directorship of the legendary Natalya Sats (1903-1993). Following Sats' introduction, the text is comprised almost entirely of captioned photographs, many by noted Soviet photographers, providing a great visual record of the Theatre's avant-garde tendencies in this period. That the theatre was intended primarily as a way to indoctrinate young people in Bolshevik ideology is made clear in Sats' introduction: "In every performance we must present problems which interest children of the age for which the performance is intended, present them in such a manner that the production itself may contain a convincing solution to them...our task is "not to explain the world, but to change it" (Marx). We must educate through the theatre not observers, but fighters and builders..." Not in Karasik.

Price: $300.00

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