The daily worker. [volume] (Chicago, Ill.) 1924-1958, 1925-04-04
BY MICHAEL GOLD.

MONG many of the American intel
IA ligentsia it is a common belief
that the Soviet revolution has killed
all art and culture in Russia. This
charge has been repeated so often that
even friends of Russia credit it with
some truth.
But it is not true; it is merely an
other of those strange, malicious
ISLANDERS that have been so freely cir
culated to give Russia a bad name.
Time will disprove this mean lie, as it
has disproved so many other lies
about Russia. Time will show that
the revolution was not destruction
of culture, but the great renaissance
of nation and a world.
In ten years artists and students
from all over the world will be throng.
ing to Russia just as in the middle
ages young intellectual Englishmen
and Germans, like John Milton and
Erasmus, went to Italy, for new
ideas. Russia will be the worlds
fountainhead of all free and bold
modern thot during the next few dec
AIDES.
There are. Jews all over the world,
for instance, and they have powerful
communities in New York, London
Paris and Berlin. have been in all
these cities, and have seen the Jew.
ish life in them, but in my judgment
the heart of Jewish culture and art
exists today in Moscow.
ThStwo greatest Jewish theaters in
the world are now playing in Moscow
They are the Jewish Kamerny theater
and the Gabima theater. OF them one
cannot write calmly-they are a reve.
lation to student Of stage-craft. They
are marvellous laboratories of the
theater, and they are also the finest
blooming Of the long-suppressed Jew.
ish race-spirit.
The Gabima theater gives produc-
tons In classic Hebrew, the only
theater Of its kind in the world.
saw the two plays in its repertoire,
namely: Gadybuk. and the Eternal
Jew, by David Pinski.
The Gadybuk is one Of the standard
pieces Of the Jewish stage and has
been given many times in America.
But it has never been given with the
genius with which It has been clothed
at the Gabima in Moscow. There it
becomes rich, glamorous epic Of the
Jewish folk, blend Of Jewish poetry
mysticism, music, melancholy and
dancing as well as benighted Jewish
superstition and bigotry.
Vahtangov, a young Armenian reg.
isseur Of the Moscow Art theater who
died a few days ago, was the director
of both pieces played at the Gabima.
He was one of the great regisseurs of
Russia and even tho he was not a
Jew, his Semitic blood gave him ar
instructive understanding Of Jewish
life that makes his productions as au-
thentic as if they had been born in
the mind Of native of Palestine.
The Gabima is the spiritual center
around which a great deal of mystic
Jewish Zionism and nationalism re-
wolves in Moscow. / am not an ad-
herent of Jewish nationalistic mysti.
cisT1, any more than I can yield my.
self to the Irish national mystics like
Yeats, or the catholic mystics of the
stage like Claudel. These mystics
write nobIy Of infinity, god. the soul.
the cosmos, but when one goes under
the purple and gold of their imagery
one finds the skeleton of the same
100 per cent patriotism and national.
ism that has plunged the world into
so many ugly. bloody wars. To grow
mystical over ones nation or ones
race is to join hands with the ku klux
khan of ones nation and race.
One cannot apply political test to
the Gabima. however. 1t is a great art
theater, and poet and artist finds
himself rayished by the beauty of its
perfect performances. About one
"a