Soviet circus: pages of history

Most of those who were born in the USSR did not at all doubt that the Soviet circus is the best in the whole world. It is our illusionists that are the most "magical", the clowns are funny, and the trainers and acrobats are brave and brave. Trekking in the circus was a great holiday for both adults and children. But Soviet circus art did not come from scratch. About how the Soviet circus developed, we will tell in this article.

History of Russian circus art

Even in the times of Kievan Rus in our country were laid the first "seeds" of circus art, as evidenced by the frescoes in the St. Sophia Cathedral in Kiev , dating from 1070-1075 years. They depict competitions of horses and fisticuffs, equilibrists with poles. In those distant times, such skilled craftsmen as stray acrobats and guides of bears, buffoons and jugglers, performed at city squares, fairs and folk festivals, surprising and amusing people. The flourishing of the buffoonery in Russia was the 15th-16th centuries.

Thanks to the efforts of Tsar Peter I in the XVIII century in the capital and major cities began to form a secular life and began to appear touring Europe's circus, which contributed to the rapid development of circus art.

The heyday of the Russian circus is considered to be the 19th century. It is at this time that many fairground performances take place with the participation of athletes and gymnasts, jugglers and acrobats, dancers and magicians, as well as artists of other genres. With the performance in the fairgrounds, the artistic career of the brothers Nikitin and Durov began, as well as many others. An important milestone in the development of the Russian circus was the opening of the first stone buildings: in St. Petersburg, on the Fontanka Embankment, in 1877, in Moscow, on Tsvetnoy Boulevard, in the 1880s.

The emergence of the Soviet circus

After the October events of 1917, significant changes occurred in the fate and history of Russian circus art. The Bolsheviks, in carrying out the cultural revolution, provided circus with state support and made it a powerful ideological tool through which the masses of the people were exposed. An important influence on the development of the Soviet circus was given by the decree On the Unification of the Theatrical Work, signed in August 1919 by Ulyanov-Lenin. According to this document, all the circus and theatrical property was subject to nationalization. However, the matter progressed rather slowly, and by 1922 the domestic circus consisted of only two state-owned Moscow circuses. Then quite quickly, in just three years, another 15 circuses in various Soviet cities became state. The first of these was the Soviet circus tent opened at the Nizhny Novgorod fair. Then they were nationalized, repaired and began to give performances of circuses in Leningrad, Tver, Rostov-on-Don, Orel, Kiev, Ivanovo-Voznesensk, Kazan, Tula. Most of the numbers presented were foreign, as their own artistic staff was not enough, and the level of their preparation left much to be desired. To solve the problem in 1926, courses were organized for circus art, which later became a technical school, where the first artists of the Soviet circus were trained.

Becoming

In the late 1920s and early 1930s, many new numbers appeared on the domestic circus arena, prepared taking into account the changed ideology and outlook of the audience. After the release in 1936 of a film about spectacular art, a generation of young artists inspired and hungry for glory came to the Soviet circus. It was at this time that the first peak of the popularity of the great clown of Pencil (MN Rumyantsev) took place, the magnificent numbers of Valentina and Mikhail Volginykh, the gymnasts of Valentine and Mikhail Volgin, and Semyon Basta appeared, and the cable-walkers of the brothers Svirina and Pavel Tarasov were amazed by their craftsmanship. It can be safely asserted that in the thirties and forties of the twentieth century the Soviet circus developed its own unique and easily recognizable style.

War and the post-war years

Circus arena brings up in the artists of any genre such qualities as endurance and endurance, courage and perseverance in achieving the goal. All of them manifested themselves in difficult military conditions. Marshal Chernyakhovsky not casually described circus performers as people of steel character.

The Soviet circus suffered great losses during the Great Patriotic War. As a result of bombing, many buildings were destroyed, but even during the most difficult years of the war, the Soviet government took measures to support circus art.
They became pilots, paratroopers, sappers, artillerymasters of the arena. On the second day of the war the ensemble of equestrians, led by M. Tuganov, joined with the horses in the cavalry corps of Dovator. The remaining artists continued performances in the composition of artistic teams that gave concerts on the front lines and in hospital wards, railway stations and military enlistment offices. Both the fighters and the workers were very popular with the satirical numbers shown by the clowns of the Soviet circus Mikhail Nikolayevich Rumyantsev (Pencil), Boris Vyatkin, Konstantin Berman.

Many of the artists died on the fronts, and those who survived, in the postwar years, along with young cadres began to restore and develop circus art, which was later recognized as the best in the world.