The Recurrence of Fate: Studies in Theatre History and Culture

The Recurrence of Fate: Studies in Theatre History and Culture. By Spencer Golub. Iowa City: University of Iowa Press, 1994; pp. x + 277. $14.95 paper.

Both the antagonistic and "collaborative" relationships between the state and the self-martyred intelligentsia in twentieth-century Russia are special emphases of Spencer Golub's The Recurrence of Fate: Studies in Theatre History and Culture. "The state and the intelligentsia," Golub asserts, "have congealed the theme of imminent revolutionary change into the iconography of unchanging appearance and inevitable return" (9). Underlining the main theme of the book-"Russian theatrical memory in the period circa 1900-1980" (1)-Golub argues that "by creating rather than simply retrieving memory, the Russian state and intelligentsia directed history to conform to the recurring patterns and tragic conventions of fate" (1). He demonstrates the tragic role of Russian artist-intellectuals in iconizing and idolizing themselves and society, thus imprisoning themselves within the dangerous process of creating memory, a process that was mostly directed by the state.

In his analysis of the intelligentsia's "iconic self-entrapment," Golub employs two strategies: in some chapters, he bases his argument upon considering "the intersection of theatre and life," the model derived from Yuri Lotman's notion of theatricality as a coded social text expressed through "performative motives, masks, and norms" (1); in others, he discerns the tendency on the part of both the state and intelligentsia towards "theatricalization of their social roles in their courtship of people" (3).

There is an ironic parallel in "Arrivals and Departures" between Chekhov's parodying and Lenin's mythologizing...