Maryian Krushelnytsky’s Pedagogical Activities.
Background, îbjectives, methods. Lately, the problems of creative pedagogy gain special importance in the Ukrainian art criticism. Issues of the continuity of traditions, the transfer of artistic experience are extremely important for understanding of the laws of cultural development, in particular, the theatrical process, where analysis is complicated by the impossibility of full fixation of the object of art. The article deals with pedagogical activities of Marian Krushelnytsky, the prominent Ukrainian theatre actor and producer of the first half of the 20th century. The purpose of the present study is to determine the importance of M. Krushelnytsky’s pedagogical activities for the formation of professional theater director’s education in Ukraine. Pedagogical activity of M. Krushelnytsky is what that is almost not covered in the Ukrainian theater studies, although his acting and directing work is deeply studied. The system-historical and comparative-historical methods have been used in the study. Results. As a result of the study, it is possible to distinguish the main features of M. Krushelnytsky’s directing-pedagogical system and to prove their connection with the well-known directing concepts. M. Krushelnytsky’s work at the Kharkiv Music and Drama Institute, the teaching staff of which has been replenished by many representatives of the theatre “Berezil” since 1926, should be considered as the beginning of his pedagogical activities. It is known that M. Krushelnytsky as a teacher was also involved in the work of the dramatic studio opened at the “Berezil” in 1930. In this early period of his pedagogical activities, Krushelnytsky taught disciplines pertinent to acting (in particular, it is known that at the Kharkiv Music and Drama Institute he taught the art of makeup). Such direction was conditioned by the practical creative work of M. Krushelnytsky at this time – in the 1920s he was, above all, an outstanding actor of the theatre “Berezil”, one of the best comedians of this famous troupe. An important feature of M. Krushelnytsky’s pedagogical activities was his close relationship with the theatre where he worked, and the direct influence of Les’ Kurbas’s ideas on the formation of position of the young teacher is evident. Theater producing became the next sphere of M. Krushelnytsky’s pedagogical activities. His name is related to the establishment of higher producing education in Kharkiv – opening of the theater directing department at the Kharkiv Theatre Institute in 1947. Here in 1947–1952 M. Krushelnytsky headed the Theater Producing faculty and was an artistic director of the first course which was enrolled for this faculty. As for the education and experience in directing of M. Krushelnytsky himself, we should pay attention to his relationship with the “Berezil” tradition. M. Krushelnitsky attended the classes of the Directing Laboratory (“Rezhlab”) founded by Les’ Kurbas at “Berezil” in 1923, which was in fact the first professional theater producers’ school in Ukraine, but he was not a member of the Laboratory. We do not have enough information to analyze in full the teaching methods of M. Krushelnytsky, we can only guess a lot. In printed and handwritten materials on this topic there is a lot of evidence of general nature, and many statements sodden with ideology of the Soviet art canons, common for that time. The more little evidences are available about the later period of M. Krushelnytsky’s pedagogical activities, when he worked at the I. K. Karpenko-Karyi Kiyev Institute (1952–1963). It is known that at that time the teaching of theater directors was carried out in the framework of general courses for actors and directors. At that more attention was paid to the work with actors, rather than the work aimed at mastering specific directing skills and methods. Of course, Krushelnytsky was not satisfied with this, he was more attracted by deep analytical, theoretical work with students. M. Krushelnytsky adhered to the teaching methods used at “Rezhlab”, where much attention was paid to theoretical issues and discussions, but he could not realize these methods at the Kiev Theatre Institute. We can assume that at the Kharkov Institute, on the newly established faculty, the head of the faculty had more freedom and opportunities to influence the formation of curricula and requirements. It is worth noting that the period of 1940s–1950s was the time when theater staging in the USSR was just forming as a specific profession with a complex of inherent features and problems. Although theater staging, of course, had already its own history, but because of strong ideological influence it only fought for its independence, seeking to prove the right to independence from a literary source. There are materials on the basis of which it is possible to establish the subject of lectures by M. Krushelnytsky. They can be divided into blocks that already define his methodology in a certain way, a kind of structure of his staging theory: an idea of a performance, a producer’s plan for the performance, image of the performance, disclosure of the action, composition of the performance and work with actors. Many of the ideas put forward by M. Krushelnytsky in his pedagogical practice may seem obvious to us today, but it was extremely important to formulate such ideas at the time of the formation of systematic education in theatre stage-directing field at the State level, to understand the categories that producers should use, and to formulate the specific terminology. M. Krushelnytsky stressed that a producer in fact creates a new piece, which differs from the original play, because the producer acts here as an artist with his own worldview, his own characteristic temperament, his own convictions and social position. One of the central points of M. Krushelnytsky’s directing-pedagogical system is the «doctrine of three planes». This doctrine was given special importance in different years of teaching both at Kharkov and at Kiev institutes. In M. Krushelnytsky’s lecture notes we see a holistic, sound theory of directing, where concepts and terms related to the theory of drama and acting, aesthetics and psychology are used. However, this theory is not absolutely unique, but relies on principles that were developed by different creators; in particular, the intersections are obvious with the «Stanislavsky system», which was considered canonical in the Soviet theatrical education of those years. This is not surprising, because it would be impossible to use a fundamentally different methodology in a State institute. Among M. Krushelnytsky’s pupils there were many famous theatrical figures, interesting creative personalities, which were formed under the influence of their teacher as deep thinkers with own aesthetic beliefs and ideals. An important aspect of M. Krushelnytsky’s pedagogical activities is its direct relationship with the aesthetics of the «Berezil» theatre. Certainly, he cannot be called a direct continuator of the artistic program of Les’ Kurbas. First of all, because the flowering of producing and pedagogical activities of M. Krushelnytsky falls on the second half of the 1930s–1950s, the period when Kurbas’s aesthetics was crushed. However, certain methodological foundations in both directing and pedagogical work, of course, were borrowed by M. Krushelnytsky from his outstanding teacher. Conclusion. We come to the conclusion that the activities of M. Krushelnytsky played a significant role in the development of theatre education in Ukraine in the middle of the 20th century.