The Futurist opera Victory over the Sun, first staged in 1913 in St Petersburg, was a key event of the Russian avant-garde, notorious for its libretto, its unconventional score and its pioneering abstract sets and costumes designed by Kazimir Malevich. The iconic importance of Victory over the Sun as a theatrical event is universally acknowledged. This volume brings together the first fully annotated translation of the libretto of this 'anti-opera' and other important primary source materials, including the score, the set and costume designs and contemporary newspaper reviews. The second part of the volume provides a wide-ranging collection of interpretive essays which explore the artistic, literary and musical dimensions of the staging, its theatrical and historical context, its relationship to Italian Futurism, and its position within the Russian modernist movement. You can read more about the Pushkin House event on 22 November 2012 on the Russian Art and Culture website by following this link http:// www.russianartandculture.com/victory-over-sun-book-launch-pushkin-house/ (will open in a new window). And you can see and hear more in Alexander Kan's report on the BBC Russian site by following this link http://www.bbc.co.uk/russian/multimedia/2012/11/121127_futuristic_dinner.shtml (will open in a new window). In 1913, the year in which the Romanovs celebrated their tercentenary, the premieres of two revolutionary theatrical events brought Russian artists to the forefront of the European avant-garde. With its nonsensical 'trans-sense' libretto by Aleksei Kruchenykh and Velimir Khlebnikov, experimental score by Mikhail Matiushin and pioneering abstract sets and costumes by Kazimir Malevich, the Futurist opera Victory over the Sun may be compared in terms of its radical assault on artistic convention to Igor Stravinsky's ballet The Rite of Spring. This interdisciplinary volume brings together a distinguished team of international scholars to discuss the artistic significance of this epoch-making 'anti-opera', which is now recognised as a key event of avant-garde cultural production, and a turning point in stage history. The book offers new insight into the theatre practice and history of Russian Futurist performance, which, to date, has received little attention from theatre scholars despite its influence on the development of European drama in the twentieth century. As well as an annotated translation of the libretto, the book includes reproductions of the score and contemporary newspaper reviews. Illustrated throughout, and with a colour plate section containing twenty-seven colour images of costume designs, posters and other work by the abstract artist Kazimir Malevich.

This book provides the first fully comprehensive bibliography of English-language literature on what was, arguably, the most important historical event of the 20th century. It brings together for the first time the multitude of monographs, articles, and dissertations on various aspects of the Russian Revolution that have been published from 1905 to mid-1994. While the bibliography conceives the Revolution as the period of transition from tsarist Russia to Soviet Russia, a process that occured between 1905 and 1921, it seeks not only to list works central to that process, but to list all works relevant to that period of Russian history.

The bibliography contains 24 thematic sections covering all subjects from politics and society, to education and the arts. Thus there are categories devoted not only to the tsarist establishment and the Red Army, but to science and technology during the revolutionary years. Most of the thematic sections have subsections which seek to divide the history of the Russian Revolution into its component parts in a manner that will be familiar to specialists and accessible to students. There are indexes of authors and subjects, as well as a detailed list of contents, all designed to facilitate quick and easy use of the bibliography.

The opulent St. Petersburg Imperial Theaters were subsidized and administered by the Russian court from the eighteenth century until the collapse of the tsarist order in 1917. This close association raises many questions about the uses of these theaters and where their loyalties lay in the complex shifting power structure of early twentieth century Russia. This history begins in 1900 with the theater flourishing but undergoing change, then chronicles the impact of war and revolution, as well as audience and administration, leading up to the effective re-establishment of state control over the theaters by the Bolsheviks in 1920. While the theaters were often allied with the forces of change, their grandeur harked back to the age of the tsars, creating an irony that is explored here in depth. Photographs and diagrams of the theaters are included, along with photographs of the central historical figures, and contemporary cartoons referring to the theaters.