Anatoly Lunacharsky

In this name that followsEastern Slavic naming customs,thepatronymicisVasilyevichand thefamily nameisLunacharsky.

Anatoly Lunacharsky
Анатолий Луначарский
Lunacharsky in 1925
People's Commissar for Education
In office 26 October 1917 – September 1929
Premier	Vladimir Lenin Alexei Rykov
Preceded by	None (position established)
Succeeded by	Andrei Bubnov
Personal details
Born	Anatoly Aleksandrovich Antonov 23 November [O.S.11 November] 1875 Poltava,Russian Empire
Died	26 December 1933(1933-12-26)(aged 58) Menton,Alpes-Maritimes,France
Political party	RSDLP(Bolsheviks)(1903–1918) Russian Communist Party(1918–1933)
Alma mater	University of Zurich
Occupation	Politician essayist journalist

Anatoly Vasilyevich Lunacharsky(Russian:Анато́лий Васи́льевич Лунача́рский,bornAnatoly Aleksandrovich Antonov;23 November [O.S.11 November] 1875 – 26 December 1933) was a RussianMarxistrevolutionary and the firstBolshevikSovietPeople's Commissar(Narkompros) responsible for the Ministry of Education as well as an active playwright, critic, essayist, and journalist throughout his career.

Background

Lunacharsky was born on 23 or 24 November 1875 inPoltava,Ukraine(then part of theRussian Empire), as theillegitimatechild of Alexander Antonov and Alexandra Lunacharskaya, née Rostovtseva. His mother was then married to statesman Vasily Lunacharsky, anoblemanof Polish origin, whence Anatoly's surname and patronym. She later divorced Vasily Lunacharsky and married Antonov, but Anatoly kept his former name.

In 1890, at the age of 15, Lunacharsky became aMarxist.From 1894, he studied at theUniversity of ZurichunderRichard Avenariusfor two years without taking a degree. InZürichhe met European socialists, includingRosa LuxemburgandLeo Jogiches,and joined theRussian Social Democratic Labour Party.He also lived for a time in France.

Early career

Lunacharsky in 1899

In 1899, Lunacharsky returned to Russia, where he andVladimir Lenin's sister revived the Moscow Committee of theRussian Social Democratic Labour Party(RSDLP), until they were betrayed by an informant and arrested. He was allowed to settle inKyiv,but was arrested again after resuming his political activities, and after ten months in prison he was sent toKaluga,where he joined a Marxist circle that includedAlexander BogdanovandVladimir Bazarov.

In February 1902, he was exiled to Kushinov village inVologda,where he again shared his exile with Bogdanov, whose sister he married, and with theLegal MarxistNikolai Berdyaevand theSocialist RevolutionaryterroristBoris Savinkovamong others. After the first issue of Lenin's newspaperIskrahad reached Vologda, Bogdanov and Lunacharsky organised a Marxist circle that distributed illegal literature, while he also legally wrote theatre criticism for a local liberal newspaper.In March 1903, the governor of Vologda ordered Lunacharsky to be transferred further north, toTotma,where they were the only political exiles.

In 1903, the RSDLP split between theBolsheviks,led byVladimir Lenin,and theMensheviks.Lunacharsky, who by now had ended his period in exile and was back in Kyiv, originally believed that the split was unnecessary and joined the 'conciliators', who hoped to bring the two sides together,but he was converted to Bolshevism by Bogdanov. In 1904, he moved to Geneva and became one of Lenin's most active collaborators and an editor of the first exclusively Bolshevik newspaper,Vpered.According to Nadezhda Krupskaya:

Lunacharsky turned out to be a brilliant orator and did a great deal to assist in strengthening the Bolshevik positions. From then on Lenin became on very good terms with Lunacharsky, became jolly in his presence, and was rather partial towards him even at the time of the difference with theVpered-ites.And Anatoly Vasilyevich was always particularly keen and witty in Lenin's presence.

Lunacharsky returned to Russia after the outbreak of the1905 Revolution.In Moscow he co-edited the journalNovaya zhiznand other Bolshevik publications, which could be published legally, and gave lectures on art and literature. Arrested during a workers' meeting, he spent a month inKresty Prison.

Soon after his release, he faced "extremely serious" charges, and fled abroad, via Finland, in March 1906.In 1907, he attended theInternational Socialist Congressheld inStuttgart.

Vpered

In 1908, when the Bolsheviks split between Lenin's supporters and Alexander Bogdanov's followers, Lunacharsky supported his brother-in-law Bogdanov in setting up a newVpered.During this period, he wrote a two-volume work on the relationship between Marxism and religion,Religion and Socialism(1908, 1911), declaring that god should be interpreted as "humanity in the future". This earned him the description "god builder".

Like many contemporary socialists (including Bogdanov), Lunacharsky was influenced by the empirio-criticism philosophy ofErnst Machand Avenarius. Lenin opposed Machism as a form of subjective idealism and strongly criticised its proponents in his bookMaterialism and Empirio-criticism(1908).

In 1909, Lunacharsky joined Bogdanov andMaxim Gorkyat the latter's villa on the island ofCapri,where they started a school for Russian socialist workers. In 1910, Bogdanov, Lunacharsky,Mikhail Pokrovskyand their supporters moved the school toBologna,where they continued teaching classes through 1911. In 1911, Lunacharsky moved to Paris, where he started his own Circle of Proletarian Culture.

World War I

After the outbreak ofWorld War Iin 1914, Lunacharsky adopted aninternationalistantiwar position, which put him on a course of convergence with Lenin andLeon Trotsky.In 1915, Lunacharsky andPavel Lebedev-Polianskyrestarted the social democratic newspaperVperedwith an emphasis onproletarian culture.From 1915, he also worked for the daily newspaperNashe Slovo,sometimes acting as peacemaker between the two editors, Trotsky and theMenshevik internationalistJulius Martov.

After theFebruary Revolutionof 1917, Lunacharsky left his family in Switzerland and returned to Russia on asealed train- though not the same train that Lenin had used earlier. Like other internationalist social democrats returning from abroad, he briefly joined theMezhraiontsybefore they merged with the Bolsheviks in July–August 1917. He was also the cultural editor ofNovaya Zhizn,until forced against his will to sever this connection, because the paper took an anti-Bolshevik line.

Even before he formally joined the Bolsheviks, he proved to be one of their most popular and effective orators, often sharing a platform with Trotsky. He was arrested with Trotsky on 22 July 1917, on a charge of inciting the "July Days"riots, and was held in Kresty prison until September.

People's Commissariat for Education (Narkompros)

After theOctober Revolutionof 1917, Lunacharsky was appointed head of thePeople's Commissariat for Education(Narkompros) in the first Soviet government. On 15 November, after eight days in this post, he resigned in protest over a rumour that the Bolsheviks had bombardedSt Basil's CathedralonRed Squarewhile they were storming theKremlin,but after two days he withdrew his resignation. After the creation of theSoviet Union,he was People's Commissar for Enlightenment, which was a function devolved to the union republics, for the Russian Federation only.

Lunacharsky opposed the decision in 1918 to transfer Russia's capital to Moscow and stayed for a year inPetrograd(now Saint Petersburg) and left the running of his commissariat to his deputy,Mikhail Pokrovsky.

Lunacharsky, People's Commissar for Education on 13 Congress of Soviets of the RSFSR, April 1927

Education

On 10 November 1917, Lunacharsky signed a decree making school education a state monopoly at local government level and said that his department would not claim central power over schools. In December, he ordered church schools to be brought under the jurisdiction of local Soviets.

He faced determined opposition from the teachers' union. In February 1918, the fourth month of a teachers' strike, he ordered all teachers to report to their local soviets and to stand for re-election to their jobs. In March, he reluctantly disbanded the union and sequestered its funds. Largely because of the opposition from teachers, he had to abandon his scheme for local autonomy.

He also believed in polytechnic schools, in which children could learn a range of basic skills, including manual skills, with specialist training beginning in late adolescence. All children were to have the same education and would automatically qualify for higher education, but opposition from Trotsky and others later compelled him to agree that specialist education would begin in secondary schools.

In July 1918, he proposed that all university lecturers should be elected for seven-year terms, irrespective of their academic qualifications, that all courses would be free, and that institutions would be run by elected councils made of staff and students. His ideas were vigorously opposed by academics.

In June 1919,The New York Timesdecried Lunacharsky's efforts in education in an article entitled "Reds Are Ruining Children of Russia". It claimed that he was instilling a "system of calculated moral depravity [...] in one of the most diabolical of all measures conceived by the Bolshevik rulers of Russia".

Culture

Lunacharsky alongsideVladimir Mayakovskyin 1924

A week before the October Revolution, Lunacharsky convened and presided over a conference of proletarian cultural and educational organisations, at which the independent art movementProletkultwas launched, with Lunacharsky's former colleague, Bogdanov, as its leading figure. In October 1920, he clashed with Lenin, who insisted on bringing Proletkult under state control. But though he believed in encouraging factories to create literature or art, he did not share the hostility to "bourgeois" art forms exhibited byRAPPand other exponents of proletarian art.

In the week after the revolution, he invited everyone in Petrograd involved in cultural or artistic work to a meeting at Communist Party headquarters. Although the meeting was widely advertised, no more than seven people turned up, though they includedAlexander Blok,Vladimir Mayakovsky,Vsevolod MeyerholdandLarissa Reissner.

Art

Lunacharsky directed some of the great experiments in public arts after the Revolution, such as theagit-trainsand agit-boats that circulated over all Russia spreading Revolution and revolutionary arts. He also gave support toconstructivism's experiments and the initiatives such as theROSTA Windows,revolutionary posters designed and written by Mayakovsky,Rodchenkoand others. With his encouragement, 36 new art galleries were opened in 1918-21.

Cinema

Mayakovsky stimulated his interest in cinema, then a new art form. Lunacharsky wrote an "agit-comedy", which was filmed in the streets of Petrograd for the first anniversary of the Bolshevik revolution. Soon afterwards, he nationalised the film industry and founded the State Film School. In 1920, he toldGeorge Lansbury:"So far, cinemas are not much use owing to shortage of materials.... When these difficulties are removed... the story of humanity will be told in pictures".

Theatre

In the early 1920s, theatre appears to have been the art form to which Lunacharsky attached the greatest importance. In 1918, when most Bolsheviks despised experimental art, Lunacharsky praised Mayakovsky's playMystery-Bouffe,directed by Meyerhold, which he described as "original, powerful and beautiful".But his main interest was not experimental theatre. During the civil war, he wrote two symbolic dramas,The MagiandIvan Goes to Heaven,and a historical dramaOliver Cromwell.In July 1919, he took personal charge of the theatre administration fromOlga Kameneva,with the intention of reviving realism on stage.

Lunacharsky was associated with the establishment of theBolshoi Drama Theaterin 1919, working with Maxim Gorky,Alexander BlokandMaria Andreyeva.He also played a part in persuading theMoscow Art Theatre(MAT) and its renowned directorsKonstantin StanislavskiandVladimir Nemirovich-Danchenkoto end their opposition to the regime and resume productions. In January 1922 he protested vigorously after Lenin had ordered that theBolshoi Balletwas to be closed, and succeeded in keeping it open.

In 1923 he launched aBack toOstrovskymovement to mark the centenary of Russia's first great playwright.He was also personally involved in the decision to allow the MAT to stageMikhail Bulgakov's first play,The Days of the Turbins(usually known by its original title,The White Guard)

Literature

Despite his belief in 'proletarian' literature, Lunacharsky also defended writers who were not experimental, nor even sympathetic to the Bolsheviks. He also helpedBoris Pasternak.In 1924, Pasternak's wife wrote to his cousin saying "so far, Lunacharsky has never refused to see Borya".

Music

Lunacharsky was the first Bolshevik to recognise the value of the composerSergei Prokofiev,whom he met in April 1918, after the premiere of hisClassical Symphony.In 1926, he wrote "the freshness and rich imagination characteristic of Prokofiev attest to his exceptional talent".He arranged a passport that allowed Prokofiev to leave Russia, then in July 1925 he persuaded theCentral Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Unionto invite Prokofiev,Igor Stravinsky,and the pianistAlexander Borovskyto return to Russia. Stravinsky and Borovsky rejected the offer, but Prokofiev was given permission to come and go freely while Lunacharsky was in office. In February 1927, he sat with Prokofiev during the first Russian performance ofThe Love for Three Oranges,which he compared to "a glass of champagne, all sparkling and frothy".

In 1929, Lunacharsky supported a change in theRussianalphabet,latinizingit fromCyrillictoLatin.

Personality

Though he was influential in setting Soviet policy on culture and education, particularly in the early years while Lenin was alive, Lunacharsky was not a powerful figure. Trotsky described him as "a man always easily infected by the moods of those around him, imposing in appearance and voice, eloquent in a declamatory way, none too reliable, but often irreplaceable."ButIlya Ehrenburgwrote: "I was struck by something different: he was not a poet, he was engrossed in political activity, but an extraordinary love of art burned in him", andNikolai Sukhanov,who knew him well, wrote that

The great people of the revolution - both his comrades and his opponents - almost always spoke of Lunacharsky with sneers, irony or scorn. Though a most popular personality and minister, he was kept away from high policy: 'I have no influence,' he once told me himself... But that is his historical role; for the brilliance of talent, to say nothing of culture, he has no equal in the constellation of Bolshevik leaders.

Later career

Lunacharsky avoided taking sides when the Communist Party split after Lenin's death, but he almost became embroiled in the split by accident by publishing his selection ofRevolutionary Silhouettesin 1923, which included portraits of Trotsky,Zinoviev,andMartov,but failed to mentionStalin.Later, he offended Trotsky by saying at an event in the Bolshoi Theatre to commemorate the second anniversary of Lenin's death, that "they" (he did not say who) were willing to offer Trotsky "a crown on a velvet cushion" and "hail him as Lev I".

After about 1927, he was losing control over cultural policy to Stalinists likeLeopold Averbakh.After he was removed from office, in 1929, Lunacharsky was appointed to the Learned Council of the Soviet Union Central Executive Committee. He also became an editor for the Literature Encyclopedia (published 1929–1939).

Lunacharsky represented theSoviet Unionat theLeague of Nationsfrom 1930 through 1932.

In 1930, Anatolii Lunacharsky established a government commission to research satirical genres in all kinds of art.

In 1933, he was appointedambassadortoSpain,a post he never assumed, as he dieden route.

Death

Lunacharsky died at 58 on 26 December 1933 inMenton,France,while travelling to Spain to take up the post of Soviet ambassador there, as the conflict that became theSpanish Civil Warappeared increasingly inevitable.

A monument to Lunacharsky inMenton,France

Personal life

In 1902, he married Anna Alexandrovna Malinovskaya,Alexander Bogdanov's sister. They had one child, a daughter named Irina Lunacharsky.In 1922, he metNatalya Rozenel,an actress at theMaly Theatre.He left his family and married her.Sergei Prokofiev, who met her in 1927, described her as "one of his most recent wives", and as "a beautiful woman from the front, much less beautiful if you looked at her predatory profile".He claimed that Lunacharsky had previously been the lover of the ballerinaInna Chernetskaya.

Lunacharsky was known as an art connoisseur and a critic. Besides Marxist dialectics, he had been interested in philosophy since he was a student. For instance, he was fond of the ideas ofJohann Gottlieb Fichte,Frederich NietzscheandRichard Avenarius.He could read six modern languages and two dead ones. Lunacharsky corresponded withH. G. Wells,Bernard ShawandRomain Rolland.He met numerous other famous cultural figures such asRabindranath TagoreandNicholas Roerich.

Lunacharsky once describedNadezhda Krupskayaas the "soul of Narkompros".

Friends includedIgor Moiseyev.

Legacy

Grave of Anatoly Lunacharsky in theKremlin Wall Necropolis

Lunacharsky's remains were returned to Moscow, where his urn was buried in theKremlin Wall Necropolis,a rare privilege during the Soviet era. During theGreat Purgeof 1936–1938, Lunacharsky's name was erased from the Communist Party's history and his memoirs were banned.A revival came in the late 1950s and 1960s, with a surge of memoirs about Lunacharsky and many streets and organizations named or renamed in his honour. During that era, Lunacharsky was viewed by the Sovietintelligentsiaas an educated, refined and tolerant Soviet politician.

Soviet stamp portraying Lunacharsky in 1979

In the 1960s, his daughter Irina Lunacharsky helped revive his popularity. Several streets and institutions were named in his honour.

In 1971, Asteroid 2446 was named after Lunacharsky.

Some Soviet-built orchestralharpsalso bear the name of Lunacharsky, presumably in his honour. These concert pedal harps were produced in Leningrad (nowSaint Petersburg,Russia).

The New York TimesdubbedNikolai Gubenko,last culture commissar of the Soviet Union, "the first arts professional since Anatoly V. Lunacharsky" because he seemed to "identify" with Lunacharsky.

Works

Lunacharsky was also a prolific writer. He wrote literary essays on the works of several writers, includingAlexander Pushkin,George Bernard ShawandMarcel Proust.However, his most notable work is his memoirs,Revolutionary Silhouettes,which describe anecdotes and Lunacharsky's general impressions of Lenin,Leon Trotskyand eight other revolutionaries. Trotsky reacted to some of Lunacharsky's opinions in his own autobiography,My Life.

In the 1920s, Lunacharsky producedLyubov Popova'sThe Locksmith and the Chancellorat the Comedy Theater.

Some of his works include:

• Outlines of a Collective Philosophy(1909)
• Self-Education of the Workers: The Cultural Task of the Struggling Proletariat(1918)
• Three Plays(1923)
• Revolutionary Silhouettes(1923)
• Theses on the Problems of Marxist Criticism(1928)
• Vladimir Mayakovsky, Innovator(1931)
• George Bernard Shaw(1931)
• Maxim Gorky(1932)
• On Literature and Art(1965)

See also

• God-Building
• New Soviet man
• Working-class culture
• Proletkult
• Proletarian literature
• Proletarian novel

Further reading

• Works by Lunacharsky at Marxist internet archive
• Robert C Williams, 'From Positivism to Collectivism: Lunarcharsky and Proletarian Culture', in Williams,Artists in Revolution,Indiana University Press, 1977
• Vasilisa the Wise(A play by Lunacharsky, in English)
• Anatoly LunacharskyatIMDb

External links

• Newspaper clippings about Anatoly Lunacharskyin the20th Century Press Archivesof theZBW