p Comrades,

p We are celebrating today the second anniversary of the Veshenskaya Theatre of Collective-Farm Cossack Youth. All of you can remember how matters once stood in these remote stanitsas and farmsteads so far removed from the big cultural centres. There were the occasional travelling troupes, hastily knocked together by some enterprising impressario, whose only concern was to make as much money as they could. These people had no relation to art whatsoever, and what they did was give a sorry imitation of art. Or again a “war invalid" would suddenly appear in our parts. Fed up with manufacturing spoons at some workshop for invalids, he’d decided to become an entertainer and go wandering about the stanitsas and farmsteads showing card and other tricks. Travelling musicians also visited us occasionally, and the music they produced was horrible to hear, it literally made you choke as the local people put it. A great many of the inhabitants had never seen an actor in their lives and had no idea what a theatre was at all. Not just the collective farmers, either. Even our boys and girls went through school and grew up without ever having been to a theatre.

p This theatre has been sponsored by our Party and our Soviet Government in their constant concern for the cultural development of the population.

p At jubilees it is customary to dispense praise, bows and salutations. This jubilee is a joyful occasion. The company has done a good job of work and we, naturally, congratulate and applaud them. But we’ve got to have a serious talk about the further development of our theatre. It is still in its infancy. But like every infant it has to grow up. In our country a person comes 232 of age when he is eighteen, but we have no desire to wait for sixteen years until our theatre comes of age. We are certain that it will grow up much more quickly, and will attain maturity before many years are out.

p What, then, must the theatre do? Work on good plays only— that’s the main thing. Modern plays must be selected with care, because very often an inferior play finds its way to the stage on the strength of its topical subject matter. Not every topical play is a good play. Our spectators want to see the plays of Griboyedov, Gogol, Ostrovsky, and the Western classics. Two of Ostrovsky’s plays have so far been staged, and look how well they have been received!

p The question of how to take our shows to the most remote collective farms needs serious thought. What our theatre should take there are not concerts, a hodge-podge of carelessly selected numbers, but complete, good plays. Your mission is to popularise great, genuine art among the masses.

p The regional arts administration obviously underestimates the importance of this theatre. The frequent change of art directors has a detrimental effect on the quality of the company’s work. It is time the administration appointed an art director who would be prepared to work here for several years, a person who would gladly devote all his knowledge and abilities to the task of building up a really accomplished theatre, and one who would come to love the company and hate to part with it.

p I am sure that the bright little flame of art which has been kindled in our Veshenskaya will soon spread to the district centres of our region as well. And art will penetrate deeper and deeper into the masses.

p The Veshenskaya theatre will justify our hopes, it will become a theatre of socialist realism, a theatre of high-class production.

p Let us wish our theatre to do so well that it will earn even more popularity with the public!

1939