Problems of Teaching Theater Criticism in the First Years of the Kharkiv Theater Institute
Authors: Partola Y.V. 
Published: June 2019

Background. The history of theater criticism in Ukraine is a poorly understood science area. The process of formation and development of Theater Studies education is even less learned page of our theatrical process. Currently we have mainly short background history descriptions of the single theatrical departments than the reproduction of the whole process. Kharkiv Theater Institute (now the Kharkiv National University of Arts named after I. P. Kotlyarevsky) is highlighted in several publications that date back to the jubilee dates of the educational institution (the articles by N. Logvinova (1992 [17]), H. Botunova (2007 [9]), H. Botunova in collaboration with I. Lobanova (2017 [8]) and with I. Lobanova and Yu. Kovalenko (2012 [6]). Taking into account the reference and informational nature of these writings, the question of the methodology of teaching specialized disciplines, in particular, theatrical criticism, practically is not considered. The aim of this study is to analyze the process of formation of theater studies education within the boundaries of Kharkiv theatrical school, to determine the main methodological principles of theater criticism teaching in the context of the theatrical process development in general and the theatrical critical thought in particular, and also to consider the objective and subjective factors that were influenced on the schooling process in theatrical criticism area. Results. The development of theatrical criticism is directly related to the development of theatrical art. The active theatrical movement of the 1920’s has produced a great wave of theatrical criticism that was unprecedented in Ukrainian journalism. Among the factors that influenced the formation of the institute of theater criticism is the development of theater education in Kharkiv of the same period. And the most important thing is that authoritative theorists and practitioners have been involved in the organization and functioning of these educational institutions, teaching historical and theoretical disciplines: I. Turkeltaub, A. Bielecki, Ya. Mamontov, I. Shevchenko, M. Voronyi. It would seem that the logic of the theatrical process and theater education and the level of theatrical-critical thought should one way or another lead to the creation of the theatrical faculty (department) in one of Kharkiv’s higher educational institutions. However, the devastating defeat of the Ukrainian theater during the theatrical disputes of the late 1920’s and the further physical elimination of both theatrical artists and the chroniclers of their work, did not leave a trace of the rise and diversity of critical thought. The repressive processes also did not walked past and the sphere of theater education. In 1934, the Musical-Theater Institute in Kharkiv was closed. The rapid stage of development of all areas of theatrical art, which could lead to the establishment of a vocational school, was artificially torn and slowed down the process of establishing Theater Studies education on a certain time. A new stage in the history of Kharkiv’s theatrical criticism, which ultimately led to the establishment of vocational education, began after the liberation of the city in 1944, when the faculty of Theater Studies was opened at the Kharkiv Theater Institute due to initiative of S. Ignatov and A. Pletniov. Historical and theoretical disciplines were dominated in the theatre theorist’ education. Also there were a few subjects provides skills and ability to analyze drama, performance, directing and acting, the modern theatrical process: “Introduction to Theater Studies”, “Theatrical Criticism Workshop”, “Theory of Literature and Drama”. However, their teaching was extremely unsystematic. In search of the “Criticism” teacher the institute appealed to one of the most experienced theatrical reviewers V. Morsky, who had more than 20 years of experience in journalism at that time. This discipline did not have a clear developed program, work plan, methodological development, there was not even a well-known name, and it appears as “Reviewer Practicum”, “Theater Criticism”, “Theatrical Criticism Workshop”. V. Morsky was an active journalist and his method of teaching was based primarily on personal experience and everyday practice. The most important thing that was instilled to students is the need to write and publish. At the classes, students discussed and analyzed Kharkiv theaters’ performances, write reviews and read them directly in class. If there were not enough theatrical events, the lector chose music concerts and new movies to analyze. Active and gifted students were attracted to the review work in the newspaper “Krasnoye Znamya”, where he headed the Department of Culture, and they were beginning be published from a student’s times. He taught his students to analyze first the aesthetic and artistic qualities of artistic works, and not ideological and sociological components. An equally important factor in the young critics’ formation was the newspaper theatrical journalism, which was at a high professional level in Kharkiv in the late 1940’s. The theater life in the city was regularly covered in newspapers by V. Morsky, G. Gelfandbein, L. Zhadanov (L. Livshits) and B. Milyavsky. The prime of theatrical and generally artistic life, the rise of local journalism did not last long. The new repressive campaign in the USSR in 1946–1949 held in the field of science, literature, culture and the art. During these campaigns, a pleiad of highly talented teachers was fired from the institute or they quitted. It destroyed major of Kharkiv journalism in the 1940’s, including the first teacher of theatrical critique V. Morsky that was arrested and soon died in exile. Theatrical criticism as a profession for many years has lost its position of influence on the artistic process and disappeared from the Institute schedule in the function of classroom discipline for some time. Significantly decreased the amount of wishing to restock the ranks of “rootless cosmopolitans” (so they were reviled by official propaganda); the competition for Theater Studies department was virtually non-existent. Conclusions. Formation of the Theater Studies Department, developing teaching methods of one of the core subjects – theater criticism – at the Kharkiv Theater Institute took place against a background of difficult conditions of historical reality saturated ideological and political repression. This fact has not contributed to the development of theater criticism. National Theater Studies must go a long way to recreate an objective picture of the development of Ukrainian theatrical criticism, to define its stages and trends, fill in the lacunae in the biographies of scientists and formulate the originality of the methodology each of them.