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57-522: Limited information exists on official government positions regarding Esperanto in the Soviet Union, as little official documentation addressed the subject. According to a German press release in 1920, the Soviet Union required the teaching of Esperanto in public schools, though this report was denied by People's Commissar for Education Anatoly Lunacharsky . Following the New Economic Policy in 1921,

114-589: A sealed train - though not the same train that Lenin had used earlier. Like other internationalist social democrats returning from abroad, he briefly joined the Mezhraiontsy before they merged with the Bolsheviks in July–August 1917. He was also the cultural editor of Novaya Zhizn , until forced against his will to sever this connection, because the paper took an anti-Bolshevik line. Even before he formally joined

171-588: 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, to Totma , where they were the only political exiles. In 1903, the RSDLP split between the Bolsheviks , led by Vladimir Lenin , and the Mensheviks . Lunacharsky, who by now had ended his period in exile and

228-550: 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 the Vpered -ites . And Anatoly Vasilyevich was always particularly keen and witty in Lenin's presence. Lunacharsky returned to Russia after

285-533: A change in the Russian alphabet, latinizing it from Cyrillic to Latin . 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." But Ilya Ehrenburg wrote: "I

342-664: A course of convergence with Lenin and Leon Trotsky . In 1915, Lunacharsky and Pavel Lebedev-Poliansky restarted the social democratic newspaper Vpered with an emphasis on proletarian culture . From 1915, he also worked for the daily newspaper Nashe Slovo , sometimes acting as peacemaker between the two editors, Trotsky and the Menshevik internationalist Julius Martov . After the February Revolution of 1917, Lunacharsky left his family in Switzerland and returned to Russia on

399-695: A historical drama Oliver Cromwell. In July 1919, he took personal charge of the theatre administration from Olga Kameneva , with the intention of reviving realism on stage. Lunacharsky was associated with the establishment of the Bolshoi Drama Theater in 1919, working with Maxim Gorky, Alexander Blok and Maria Andreyeva . He also played a part in persuading the Moscow Art Theatre (MAT) and its renowned directors Konstantin Stanislavski and Vladimir Nemirovich-Danchenko to end their opposition to

456-498: 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 told George 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". In

513-801: 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 Times decried Lunacharsky's efforts in education in an article entitled "Reds Are Ruining Children of Russia". It claimed that he

570-604: A rumour that the Bolsheviks had bombarded St Basil's Cathedral on Red Square while they were storming the Kremlin , but after two days he withdrew his resignation. After the creation of the Soviet 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

627-497: A year in Petrograd (now Saint Petersburg) and left the running of his commissariat to his deputy, Mikhail Pokrovsky . 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

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684-555: Is his historical role; for the brilliance of talent, to say nothing of culture, he has no equal in the constellation of Bolshevik leaders. 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 of Revolutionary Silhouettes in 1923, which included portraits of Trotsky, Zinoviev , and Martov , but failed to mention Stalin . Later, he offended Trotsky by saying at an event in

741-873: The February Revolution and joined the Socialist Revolutionary Party , followed by the Communist Party , and began service in the Red Army . He then went to work in the Soviet government as the "deputy chargé d’affaires in the Central Executive Committee of Soviets". Drezen attended the Third All-Russian Esperantist Congress in 1921, during which the Soviet Esperantist Union was founded. He was responsible for outlining

798-695: The Great Purge in the 1930s. Drezen was born in Latvia in 1892. He attended secondary school in Kronstadt before attending the Peter the Great St. Petersburg Polytechnic University . During his time in university, Drezen was active in the student Esperantist group. He attended a military engineering school during World War I and became an officer in a Tsarist battalion responsible for electrical engineering. Drezen participated in

855-559: The International Socialist Congress held in Stuttgart . 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 new Vpered . 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

912-672: The Russian Social Democratic Labour Party . He also lived for a time in France. In 1899, Lunacharsky returned to Russia, where he and Vladimir Lenin 's sister revived the Moscow Committee of the Russian Social Democratic Labour Party (RSDLP), until they were betrayed by an informant and arrested. He was allowed to settle in Kyiv , but was arrested again after resuming his political activities, and after ten months in prison he

969-592: The "soul of Narkompros". Friends included Igor Moiseyev . Lunacharsky's remains were returned to Moscow, where his urn was buried in the Kremlin Wall Necropolis , a rare privilege during the Soviet era. During the Great Purge of 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

1026-658: 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. After the October Revolution of 1917, Lunacharsky was appointed head of the People's Commissariat for Education (Narkompros) in the first Soviet government. On 15 November, after eight days in this post, he resigned in protest over

1083-665: 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 like Leopold 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

1140-686: The Communist Party in 1989. Drezen described the appeal of Esperanto as "a certain relief from the grey monotony of social life in the Tsarist dictatorship ". Following the creation of the Soviet Union, Drezen was an active member of the Communist Party. He opposed the inclusion of anarchists and social democrats in the Esperantist community, and he was critical of the Sennacieca Asocio Tutmonda for being insufficiently Communist. Drezen advocated an internationalist approach and encouraged members of

1197-493: The Esperanto House. Several international advocates of Esperanto also resided in the Soviet Union for periods of time in the 1920s to help promote the language, including founding Sennacieca Asocio Tutmonda members Robert Guiheneuf and Lucien Laurat . According to E. J. Dillon , Esperanto was the fourth most common foreign language taught in Soviet schools by 1929 after English, German, and French. The Esperanto movement in

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1254-508: The Great Purge began in 1937, the Soviet government identified "citizens with contacts abroad" as one of the categories of suspicious persons. Esperantists were labeled as "spies, Zionists , and cosmopolitans ", and Esperantists were imprisoned or executed for the remainder of Stalin's rule. The Soviet government did not officially condemn or outlaw the Esperanto movement in the Soviet Union, and

1311-635: The Literature Encyclopedia (published 1929–1939). Lunacharsky represented the Soviet Union at the League of Nations from 1930 through 1932. In 1930, Anatolii Lunacharsky established a government commission to research satirical genres in all kinds of art. In 1933, he was appointed ambassador to Spain , a post he never assumed, as he died en route . Lunacharsky died at 58 on 26 December 1933 in Menton , France, while travelling to Spain to take up

1368-417: The Soviet Union limited its endorsement of cultural initiatives, including Esperanto. In 1925, the Soviet post office published the world's first Esperanto postage stamps . Vladimir Lenin sought international cooperation between socialist movements, but neither he nor the other Bolsheviks believed that a constructed language should serve this purpose. Lenin was skeptical of Esperanto, and he believed that it

1425-491: The Soviet Union, "the first arts professional since Anatoly V. Lunacharsky" because he seemed to "identify" with Lunacharsky. Ernest Drezen Ernest Karlovich Drezen (14 November 1892 – 27 October 1937) was a Soviet Esperantist (i.e. a proponent of the artificial international language Esperanto ) and engineer. He was the leader of the Soviet Esperantist Union (SEU). Drezen was arrested and killed during

1482-467: The Turbins (usually known by its original title, The White Guard ) Despite his belief in 'proletarian' literature, Lunacharsky also defended writers who were not experimental, nor even sympathetic to the Bolsheviks. He also helped Boris Pasternak . In 1924, Pasternak's wife wrote to his cousin saying "so far, Lunacharsky has never refused to see Borya". Lunacharsky was the first Bolshevik to recognise

1539-454: 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 play Mystery-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 Magi and Ivan Goes to Heaven , and

1596-408: The early years of the Soviet Union was divided as to whether Esperanto should comply with Soviet ideology and to whether its focus should be national or international. In 1929, there were an estimated 5,726 Esperantists in the Soviet Union, though the Soviet Esperantist Union (SEU) claimed that there were 16,066. Vasili Eroshenko was a notable Soviet writer that wrote in Esperanto, dying shortly before

1653-776: The front, much less beautiful if you looked at her predatory profile". He claimed that Lunacharsky had previously been the lover of the ballerina Inna 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 of Johann Gottlieb Fichte , Frederich Nietzsche and Richard Avenarius . He could read six modern languages and two dead ones. Lunacharsky corresponded with H. G. Wells , Bernard Shaw and Romain Rolland . He met numerous other famous cultural figures such as Rabindranath Tagore and Nicholas Roerich . Lunacharsky once described Nadezhda Krupskaya as

1710-425: The future". This earned him the description "god builder". Like many contemporary socialists (including Bogdanov), Lunacharsky was influenced by the empirio-criticism philosophy of Ernst Mach and Avenarius. Lenin opposed Machism as a form of subjective idealism and strongly criticised its proponents in his book Materialism and Empirio-criticism (1908). In 1909, Lunacharsky joined Bogdanov and Maxim Gorky at

1767-498: The government did not officially acknowledge the persecution of Esperantists. Following the death of Joseph Stalin in 1953, active suppression of Esperanto ended. The following year, VOKS delivered a statement denying that Esperanto was illegal in the Soviet Union. In 1954, the Soviet Union did not oppose a measure for UNESCO to recognize the Universal Esperanto Association . Esperanto was historically regarded by

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1824-592: The great experiments in public arts after the Revolution, such as the agit-trains and agit-boats that circulated over all Russia spreading Revolution and revolutionary arts. He also gave support to constructivism 's experiments and the initiatives such as the ROSTA Windows , revolutionary posters designed and written by Mayakovsky, Rodchenko and others. With his encouragement, 36 new art galleries were opened in 1918-21. Mayakovsky stimulated his interest in cinema, then

1881-524: The hostility to "bourgeois" art forms exhibited by RAPP and 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 included Alexander Blok , Vladimir Mayakovsky , Vsevolod Meyerhold and Larissa Reissner . Lunacharsky directed some of

1938-514: The language that could then be shared with the press. This correspondence strategy began to experience backlash in the late 1920s when exchanged between Soviet and foreign socialists suggested that working conditions under capitalism were not worse than those under the Soviet Union or otherwise suggested that the Communist revolution had not been successful. The SEU changed its strategy in the 1930s, focusing less on messaging and more on practical use of

1995-445: The language. Drezen was relieved from his position as president of the SEU in 1936. He was arrested along with other members of the SEU on 17 April 1937 as part of the Great Purge to eliminate potential political enemies of Joseph Stalin , and he was executed by gunshot on 27 October 1937. Drezen's reputation was rehabilitated by the Soviet Union in 1957, and he was posthumously readmitted to

2052-459: The language. Rather than using Esperanto as a revolutionary language, the group encouraged its use as a hobby and in everyday life. Membership of the SEU increased during the mid-1930s, but the SEU was targeted as part of the Stalinist purge against Esperanto. The group was not officially disbanded, as the Soviet government instead targeted members until operations could no longer continue. In the purge

2109-477: The latter's villa on the island of Capri , where they started a school for Russian socialist workers. In 1910, Bogdanov, Lunacharsky, Mikhail Pokrovsky and their supporters moved the school to Bologna , where they continued teaching classes through 1911. In 1911, Lunacharsky moved to Paris, where he started his own Circle of Proletarian Culture. After the outbreak of World War I in 1914, Lunacharsky adopted an internationalist antiwar position, which put him on

2166-870: The leader of the Soviet Esperantist Union, Ernest Drezen, was executed by gunshot on 27 October 1937. Drezen's reputation was rehabilitated by the USSR in 1957, and he was posthumously readmitted to the Communist Party in 1989. The suppression of Esperantists gradually decreased and organizations were allowed to form. In 1969 a Soviet Esperantist Youth Movement was formed, and the Association of Soviet Esperantists in 1979. The association had limited reach even compared to Esperantist groups in other Communist Bloc countries. Anatoly Lunacharsky Anatoly Vasilyevich Lunacharsky ( Russian : Анато́лий Васи́льевич Лунача́рский , born Anatoly Aleksandrovich Antonov ; 23 November [ O.S. 11 November] 1875 – 26 December 1933)

2223-505: The outbreak of the 1905 Revolution . In Moscow he co-edited the journal Novaya zhizn and other Bolshevik publications, which could be published legally, and gave lectures on art and literature. Arrested during a workers' meeting, he spent a month in Kresty Prison . Soon after his release, he faced "extremely serious" charges, and fled abroad, via Finland, in March 1906. In 1907, he attended

2280-402: The pianist Alexander Borovsky to 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 of The Love for Three Oranges , which he compared to "a glass of champagne, all sparkling and frothy". In 1929, Lunacharsky supported

2337-559: The population of Esperantists has been significantly reduced in the Soviet Union. Contact between Soviet Esperantists and the global Esperantist community was restored in the 1950s. A World Youth Festival was held in Moscow in 1957, bringing together Esperantists from 26 countries. A Soviet delegation to the World Congress of Esperanto was formed in 1963. A national Esperantist organization was not formed until 1979. The Soviet Esperantist Union

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2394-605: The post of Soviet ambassador there, as the conflict that became the Spanish Civil War appeared increasingly inevitable. In 1902, he married Anna Alexandrovna Malinovskaya, Alexander Bogdanov 's sister. They had one child, a daughter named Irina Lunacharsky. In 1922, he met Natalya Rozenel , an actress at the Maly 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

2451-532: The principles of the organization, and he was elected its president. Drezen was also a member of the Sennacieca Asocio Tutmonda , though he was critical of their methods and ultimately expelled as part of the opposition in 1931. Drezen shifted his focus from Marxism almost entirely to Esperanto following a loosening of ideological standards in the early 1930s. His work at this time focused primarily on standardization of scientific and technical terms in

2508-417: The purge against the Esperanto community began. Soviet Esperantists began suffering persecution when Dmitrii Snezhko was arrested, though the Esperantist community was not aware of this persecution until several more leaders of the movement were arrested in 1938. Other Esperantists, such as poet Georgii Deshkin , were exiled to Siberia. While government persecution of Esperantists ended with Stalin's death,

2565-514: The regime and resume productions. In January 1922 he protested vigorously after Lenin had ordered that the Bolshoi Ballet was to be closed, and succeeded in keeping it open. In 1923 he launched a Back to Ostrovsky movement to mark the centenary of Russia's first great playwright. He was also personally involved in the decision to allow the MAT to stage Mikhail Bulgakov 's first play, The Days of

2622-406: The socialist movement as a potential international language for workers, resulting in relative popularity of the language in the early years of the Soviet Union. The prevalence of Esperanto groups expanded considerably between 1917-1921, seeking to undertake a worldwide Esperanto revolution to accompany a Communist revolution. The government seized a mansion and granted it to the Esperanto community as

2679-422: 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

2736-599: The value of the composer Sergei Prokofiev , whom he met in April 1918, after the premiere of his Classical 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 the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union to invite Prokofiev, Igor Stravinsky , and

2793-611: Was a Russian Marxist revolutionary and the first Bolshevik Soviet People's Commissar (Narkompros) responsible for the Ministry of Education as well as an active playwright, critic, essayist, and journalist throughout his career. Lunacharsky was born on 23 or 24 November 1875 in Poltava , Ukraine (then part of the Russian Empire ), as the illegitimate child of Alexander Antonov and Alexandra Lunacharskaya, née Rostovtseva. His mother

2850-456: 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

2907-440: Was established in 1921 to unify Esperantists in the Soviet Union with Ernest Drezen as its leader. Drezen advocated the use of Esperanto to establish communication between Soviet workers and the workers of other countries, and thousands of letters were sent between Communist groups in the 1920s. By the late 1920s, SEU membership grew to 10,000 people. To promote the use of Esperanto, the SEU published guidelines on writing letters in

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2964-687: Was instilling a "system of calculated moral depravity [...] in one of the most diabolical of all measures conceived by the Bolshevik rulers of Russia". A week before the October Revolution, Lunacharsky convened and presided over a conference of proletarian cultural and educational organisations, at which the independent art movement Proletkult was 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

3021-422: Was necessary for each country's revolution to occur within its own culture and its own language before international unity between socialist groups could occur. When Joseph Stalin took power and shifted focus toward socialism in one country , he cast doubt on the idea of a single world language. He accused those who wished to prematurely expand of being Russian nationalists deviating from Communist ideology. When

3078-673: Was sent to Kaluga , where he joined a Marxist circle that included Alexander Bogdanov and Vladimir Bazarov . In February 1902, he was exiled to Kushinov village in Vologda , where he again shared his exile with Bogdanov, whose sister he married, and with the Legal Marxist Nikolai Berdyaev and the Socialist Revolutionary terrorist Boris Savinkov among others. After the first issue of Lenin's newspaper Iskra had reached Vologda, Bogdanov and Lunacharsky organised

3135-480: 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", and Nikolai 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

3192-542: Was then married to statesman Vasily Lunacharsky, a nobleman of 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 a Marxist . From 1894, he studied at the University of Zurich under Richard Avenarius for two years without taking a degree. In Zürich he met European socialists, including Rosa Luxemburg and Leo Jogiches , and joined

3249-604: Was viewed by the Soviet intelligentsia as an educated, refined and tolerant Soviet politician. 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 orchestral harps also bear the name of Lunacharsky, presumably in his honour. These concert pedal harps were produced in Leningrad (now Saint Petersburg , Russia). The New York Times dubbed Nikolai Gubenko , last culture commissar of

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