Kharkiv Theater of the Revolution

Kharkiv Theater of the Revolution (Харківський державний театр револьції; Kharkivskyi derzhavnyi teatr revoliutsii). An affiliate of the All-Ukrainian Association of Proletarian Writers, it was founded in 1931 to counteract the influence of the Berezil theater. The company consisted of actors from the Odesa Theater of the Revolution, from other Kharkiv theaters, and from the Kyiv Ukrainian Drama Theater. Its artistic director was Marko Tereshchenko; its literary director, Ivan Mykytenko; its composers, Mykhailo Verykivsky and Borys Yanovsky; its choreographer, Pavlo Virsky; and its stage designers, Anatol Petrytsky and Borys Kosariev. Its actors included Yurii Shumsky, Valentyna Varetska, Mariia Dykova, P. Stoliarenko-Muratov, Volodymyr Sokyrko, Varvara Masliuchenko-Hubenko, and Petro Mikhnevych. The repertoire consisted of such plays as Mykytenko's Marusia Churai, Solo na fleiti (A Flute Solo), and Divchata nashoï kraïny (The Girls of Our Country), Ivan Kocherha's Maistry chasu (Masters of Time), and A. Afinogenov's Strakh (Fear). After the closing of Berezil, the Kharkiv Theater of the Revolution was merged in 1937 with the Kharkiv Theater of Working Youth to form the Kharkiv Lenin Komsomol Theater. In 1940 the latter was transferred to Bukovyna and was renamed the Chernivtsi Oblast Ukrainian Music and Drama Theater.

Valeriian Revutsky

[This article originally appeared in the Encyclopedia of Ukraine, vol. 2 (1988)