Les Kurbas: who is it? 

He was a Ukrainian theatrical director, actor, theater theorist, dramatist, publicist, and translator. He was a member of a fantastic generation of Ukrainian artists, writers, and creators. This generation is known as Rozstriliane vidrodzhennia (Executed Renaissance). This metaphor was proposed by  Jerzy Władysław Giedroyc famous Polish publicist, politician, and supporter of Polish-Ukrainian friendship and cooperation.

SJerzy Władysław Giedroyco Les (Olexandr-Zenon) Kurbas was born in 1887 in Sambir near Lviv. At that time the small town belonged to Austro-Hungarian Empire. His parents were actors, so no wonder that little Olexandr decided to follow in their footsteps. Les started his education in Vienna and Lviv. There he got familiar with modern European culture. In 1907, when Les was a student, he founded his first theater. In 1916 Kurbas moved to Kyiv where joined the theater troupe of Mykola Sadovskiy. Shortly, after a year or something Les Kurbas created a group of young actors. Soon this group grew. It became known as Molodyi teatr (Young Theater). 

Theater Berezil

Les Kurbas (sitting second from left to right) and theater Berezil.

Berezil Theater is the project of the life of Les Kurbas. What is the meaning of the name? It refers to the name of the first spring month in Ukrainian — Berezen`(March). The name of the month comes from the word bereza (birch tree).   So the meaning is obvious! Berezil was something new, fresh, and pioneering. It really was! Since 1922 when Berezil was founded Les Kurbas and his creative team produced more than a dozen plays. Here are just a few of them:  

  • October, authorship is collective, 1922;
  • Jimmy Higgins, based on the novel by Upton Sinclair, 1923;
  • Gaydamaky, based on the poem by Taras Shevchenko, 1924; 
  • Macbeth, by Shakespeare, 1924;
  •  The Golden Belly, by Fernand Crommelinck, 1926;
  •  "Maklena Grasa" by Mykola Kulish, 1933.

Theater was founded in Kyiv but soon in 1926 according to the decision of the People's Commissariat of Education of Ukrainian soviet republic moved to Kharkiv.

Sidenote: In 1919 –1934  Kharkiv was the “capital” of Soviet Ukraine.

The end of Berezil and Arest of Kurbas

Building of a drama theater in Kharkiv where Berezil performed.

Maklena Grasa was Berezol's last play. It was a time of Holodomor and political persecution in Ukraine. Before the premier, Kurbas had a conversation with Pavel Postyshev who was a a second secretary of the communist party of Ukraine (He wasn`t Ukrainian though). Kurbas refused to condemn the activity and ideas of Mykola Hvyliovyi (writer) and Mykola Skrypnyk (one of Ukrainian communist leaders who believed that it`s possible to be a Ukrainian communist and patriot).Mykola Hvylovyi, Ukrainian writer, and author of the slogan “Away from Moskow”

Sidenote: Postyshev was one of the main architects of Holodomor and other crimes of the communist regime. But he also ended pretty badly. He died in Butyrka prison in Moscow (1939). In extremely hard conditions the premiere of the play took place in September 1933. 

Reconstruction of scenes from M. Kulish's play Maclena Grasa. "Berezil, 1933, directed by Les Kurbas  Watch on Youtube 

After two weeks Maklena Grasa was banned despite huge success. Kurbas was forcefully fired from his position as the Berezil director.  

Persecutions and death

 25th December 1933 Kurbas was arrested by fake accusations of being a member of a terroristic and counterrevolutionary (As if it`s something bad) organization. This part of the story seems close to what Oleg Sentsov went through. So nothing new in the practices of Russian special services and oppression structures.
Kurbas the first day after being arrested by Joint State Political Directorate, ODPU

After long and tough interrogations combined with tortures and beatings, he confessed of being counterrevulutionarist (a weird soviet word, hard to translate properly).   From 1934 Kurbas spent several years as a prisoner and building Belomor kanal (channel between White Sea and the Baltic Sea). On October 9, 1937, a special trio of the NKVD Department of the Leningrad Oblast of the RSFSR sentenced 1,825 people held in the Solovetsky camp, including Kurbas, to death in one list. Kurbas was shot on November 3, 1937, in the Sandarmokh wooded area. It was one of the darkest days for Ukraine and for our culture. Novelists, actors, and writers were executed just for being Ukrainians. So when people ask you… where are famous Ukrainian writers, you can answer them now. In the next articles, I`ll tell you more about the generation of Executed Renaissance.

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