Spartacus and His 
Early Soviet Theatrical 
Representation
Oleksii Rudenko*
Everyone who is fighting for freedom, for a better future for 
humanity, will put on their placard just one word – and this word 
will be Spartacus.
   Vladimir Mazurkevich, 1920.1
INTRODUCTION
In some respects, the year 1918 predetermined the future of the 
Classics in the early Bolshevik republics. It was in that year that 
Lenin’s plan of “Monumental Propaganda” emerged, which provided 
the first official list of Bolshevik heroes of the past and indicated 
to whom new monuments should be erected. This plan originally 
comprised two documents: an April statement that demanded the 
destruction and removal of monuments to the czars and their ser-
vants, and a July decree that enlarged the list and ordered the design 
of new monuments to the socialist revolution.2 This task was pri-
1 Finishing this article would have been far easier in times of peace. Russia 
began a full-scale invasion of Ukraine on February 24, 2022. I dedicate this 
article to my colleague, the historian Dmytro Yevdokymov (b. 1998), who gave 
his life defending the Ukrainian people in late March 2022, and to everyone 
defending and supporting Ukraine today. I am grateful to Henry Stead for 
inviting me to the workshop in October 2021 and for his attentive remarks 
and kind suggestions when editing this article. My anonymous reviewer/s 
significantly contributed to the final shape and methodology of this essay.
2 Stead and Paulouskaya, “Classics, Crisis and the Soviet Experiment to 1939,” 
128–36; “Decree on Monuments of the Republic,” 95–7; “Decree on the 
Approval of the List of Monuments to the Great People,” 118–9.
DOI: https://doi.org/10.4312/clotho.4.2.69-99
* Central European University, Quellenstraße 51, 1100 Vienna, Austria;
 Rudenko_Oleksii@phd.ceu.edu.
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OLEKSII RUDENKO70
marily entrusted to a special committee comprising the Commissar 
of Enlightenment (Education), the Commissar of the Property of 
the Republic (Finances), and the chair of the art department at the 
Commissariat of Enlightenment.
One of the Soviet leaders responsible for the politics of re-
membrance, Anatoly Lunacharsky (1875–1933), soon announced: 
“We begin to erect in the public gardens and other districts of the 
capital monuments which will rather pursue the purpose of wide 
propaganda than immortalization.”3 Early in August of 1918, a list of 
monuments that were supposed to be erected in Moscow and across 
socialist Russia was published.4 The list included six categories. 
The first, entitled “Revolutionaries and Public Leaders,” began with 
Spartacus, followed by Tiberius Gracchus and Marcus Junius Brutus. 
No monuments, however, to Gracchus or Brutus appeared within 
the next two decades, and even Spartacus remained a rare subject 
of Soviet sculpture, appearing only in the later periods of the Soviet 
era.5 Although it was easy enough for the classically-educated Marx 
and Engels to establish continuity between these ancient figures and 
the proletarian revolution, it was clearly more problematic for their 
Soviet descendants to harness any such continuity to propagandistic 
ends.6 This difficulty ensured that Spartacus, Brutus, and Gracchus 
were kept on the margins of communist monumental politics. The 
politics of monumental commemoration was rather biased toward 
the heroes of the modern world. Especially common were statues 
commemorating Karl Marx (1818–1883); communist and military 
leaders, such as Vladimir Lenin (1870–1924) and Joseph Stalin 
(1878–1953); poets like Taras Shevchenko (1814–1861) or Mikhail 
Lermontov (1814–1841); French revolutionaries, including Maximilien 
Robespierre (1758–1794), Georges Danton (1759–1794) and Jean-Paul 
Marat (1743–1793); Red Army soldiers; and abstract “Heroes of the 
Revolution.”
3 Lunacharsky, Ob Izobrazitel’nom Iskusstve, 51–2; translation mine.
4 “The List of Figures to Whom Monuments Should Be Erected in Moscow and 
Other Cities of RSFSR.” See also Dekrety Sovetskoy Vlasti, T. III, 118–9; Michalski, 
Public Monuments, 109; Stites, Revolutionary Dreams, 89. There were no other 
Greco-Roman heroes than Spartacus, Gracchus, and Brutus on the list.
5 For instance, one of the very few monuments to Spartacus in Ukraine was 
erected in Odesa as late as 1988.
6 See selected mentions about Marx and Engels reading the Classics: Marx and 
Engels, Collected Works 41, XXIII, 265; Marx and Engels, Collected Works 42, 17, 
31, 52. For a recent overview of Marx’s knowledge of ancient history, see Nippel, 
“Marx and Antiquity,” 185–208.
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SPARTACUS AND HIS EARLY SOVIET THEATRICAL REPRESENTATION 71
Nevertheless, unlike Gracchus or Brutus – who never quite captu-
red the Soviet imagination as they might have – Spartacus remained 
firmly on the Bolshevik agenda, entering public discourse by other 
means than visual monuments. His prominent representation in 
history-writing and textbooks, toponymy, onomastics, and sport7 all 
contributed to Spartacus’ unrivaled reputation in the early Soviet era 
as a precursor to the Bolshevik hero.
Theater and mass performances beginning in the 1920s also helped 
shape the proto-Soviet image of Spartacus. Such spectacles were espe-
cially effective in conveying simple messages to large audiences. They 
proliferated in the revolutionary era primarily due to the “vacuum of 
authority and control” that followed the October Revolution.8 Censor-
ship principles and practices were rapidly changed. Together with the 
ostentatious willingness of the Bolsheviks to create a new proletarian 
culture, such changes sparked many artistic and theatrical experiments, 
including those engaging with the image of Spartacus. It is important 
to remember that until the late 1920s, Soviet culture was open to 
new, experimental tendencies in art, literature, cinema, and theater. 
In the 1930s, however, this all stopped. The repression of Ukrainian 
non-conformist authors, poets, and intellectuals, for example, was in 
line with the wider curtailment of artistic freedoms throughout the 
Soviet Union and Soviet-inspired states.
Theater and cinema had long been considered entertainments for the 
bourgeoisie. After the revolution, these media forms were opened up 
to the proletariat. Tickets became affordable and new cinemas opened 
across the cities of the Soviet Union.9 While their programming was 
not yet extensive, the sheer number of films, frequently experimental, 
produced by such artists as Dziga Vertov (1896–1954, ca. 26 films), 
Sergei Eisenstein (1898–1948, 14 films), and Oleksandr Dovzhenko 
(1894–1956, c. 15 films), who began their careers in the 1920s and 1930s, 
indicates the high status that cinematography acquired in the newly 
founded Bolshevik state. Film and performance art more broadly 
became key mechanisms for promoting Bolshevik ideas.10 This essay 
7 In Soviet sport, Spartacus gave his name to the famous Spartakiads (Spartacus 
competitions) and to “the people’s team” Spartak, e.g., the famous FC Spartak 
Moscow (est. 1922).
8 For the concept of the “vacuum of authority and control,” see John Von Szeliski, 
“Lunacharsky and the Rescue of Soviet Theatre,” 416.
9 Maksakov, “Teadelo na Ukraine,” 20. In 1928, the price for a theatre ticket in 
Ukraine was 73 kopecks compared to 1 ruble 43 kopecks before 1914.
10 Maksakov, “Teadelo na Ukraine,” 20.
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OLEKSII RUDENKO72
will concentrate mainly on theater, with some attention paid to mass 
performances, where the material remains are comparatively scarce.
HISTORICAL CONTEXT AND METHODOLOGY
Mass propaganda, or controlling the minds of the crowd, has been 
crucial for achieving specific political goals since antiquity.11 In the 
aftermath of the Bolshevik coup in 1917, the role of mass performances 
and theater was reconsidered as they achieved new significance in 
their capacity for influencing the citizens of the newly established 
Soviet republics.12 Although these republics were officially independent 
states under separate Bolshevik governments, Ukraine, Belarus, and 
the Caucasian republics were under the implicit control of the central 
government in Soviet Russia. A decision made in Moscow on a particu-
lar matter promptly became a guiding light for other republics.13 The 
Greco-Roman classics and the educational discipline founded upon 
them, which in the czarist era (as in contemporary Western Europe) 
was considered a marker of high cultural achievement and intellectual 
esteem, also experienced a new fate.14 As Stead and Paulouskaya have 
shown, before the Stalinist suppression of a cultural practice widely 
associated with the ancien régime, revolutionary Russia experienced a 
flood of classical culture, as the wave of the so-called Slavic renaissance 
broke on the seemingly impervious shores of the emerging Soviet 
republics.15 This article explores how and why the image of Spartacus 
was employed in early Bolshevik propaganda.
Since the role of toponymy, sport, and history-writing in shaping 
the image of Spartacus is relatively well explored, other key issues shall 
be the focus here.16 First, the utility of the ancient hero in Bolshevik 
propaganda will be investigated. Second, the way Soviet theater and 
mass performance became an important site for experimentation 
11 See several classical works on the topic, beginning with Republican Rome: Mou-
ritsen, Plebs and Politics in the Late Roman Republic; Morstein-Marx, Mass Ora-
tory and Political Power in the Late Roman Republic; Yakobson, Elections and 
Electioneering in Rome; Edwards Jr., Luther’s Last Battles.
12 Stites, Revolutionary Dreams, 93–7.
13 Heller and Nekrich, Utopia in Power, 70–7.
14 Stead and Paulouskaya, “Classics, Crisis and the Soviet Experiment to 1939,” 142; 
Fitzpatrick, The Cultural Front, 37–64.
15 Stead and Paulouskaya, “Classics, Crisis and the Soviet Experiment to 1939,” 
128–47.
16 Phillis, “Spartacus and Sports in the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe”; 
Rudenko, “The Making of a Soviet Hero.”
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SPARTACUS AND HIS EARLY SOVIET THEATRICAL REPRESENTATION 73
with the classical will be demonstrated. Third, the representation 
of Spartacus and his uprising in the most important Soviet plays 
and performances created in the first few years after the October 
revolution will be analyzed. The greatest attention will be paid to 
the two most popular dramas about Spartacus’ uprising, which were 
written by Vladimir Mazurkevich (1920) and Vladimir Volkenstein 
(1921).17 Where available, contemporary critical reviews will be used 
in determining how the plays were received. Finally, the narratives of 
Spartacus’ uprising will be compared in order to show how each writer 
reflects upon the events surrounding the 1917 Revolution through the 
lens of the ancient world.
Given the centrality of classical education among the intelligentsia 
and Czarist cultural practice more broadly, it is perhaps unsurprising 
that classical antiquity should have played a crucial role in Bolshevik 
propaganda after 1917. Classical culture’s associations with Czarism 
and aristocratic power made it an attractive area to turn upside down. 
Revolutionary examples from antiquity would help the Bolsheviks 
implement their proletarian narratives into the public sphere. These 
narratives emphasized several key features: class struggle, modest descent 
as a defining factor of a human’s worth, the destruction of the state, 
the dictatorship of the proletariat, and the fight against the bourgeoisie 
(broadly defined).18 It was, however, not easy to find a proletarian or 
socialist hero in the distant past. The democratic system of Athens or 
the military devotion of Sparta did not align with Bolshevik political 
concepts, which primarily praised the dictatorship of the proletariat.19
Where then to look for heroes of antiquity, suitable for symboli-
zing seemingly eternal proletarian ideals? The solution was clear to 
the Bolshevik leaders: in figures opposing those regimes. Hence the 
appearance of the three ancient heroes in Lenin’s above-mentioned 
plan: Tiberius Sempronius Gracchus, Spartacus, and Marcus Junius 
Brutus.20 Both Gracchus and Brutus originated from aristocratic 
families, and despite the simplified historical narrative about their 
resistance toward the optimates and Caesar, neither of them could 
serve as a convincing example in a discourse of class struggle. A slave, 
17 When referring to the plays about Spartacus, I use “drama” and “play” inter-
changeably, bearing in mind that the plays about Spartacus’ uprising were only 
dramas. 
18 Heller and Nekrich, Utopia in Power, 50–77. Lenin formulated these key postu-
lates in his State and Revolution, written in August–September of 1917.
19 Chiesa, “Lenin and the State of the Revolution,” 106–31.
20 A hero, in this case, does not imply any axiological value.
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OLEKSII RUDENKO74
however, a gladiator with humble Thracian origins, thus descending 
from the “periphery” of the ancient world, without any preserved 
images or detailed biography, absolutely could. As Frederick Ahl 
bluntly put it, “Spartacus was the historical proof that these people 
could rise and menace any society which had wealthy employers 
and mistreated employees, even though his rebellion was ultimately 
crushed.”21 The Bolsheviks henceforth considered themselves as the 
revolutionaries who successfully managed to convert the actions of 
their revolutionary predecessors, including the Spartacists, into a 
new society. The image of Spartacus therefore became that of a heroic 
proto-Bolshevik revolutionary in the Soviet republics in the first two 
decades of their existence.
SPARTACUS AND THE CLASS STRUGGLE
In the unofficial competition between the “big three” ancient revo-
lutionaries, Spartacus acquired several other advantages over Gra-
cchus and Brutus. In a frequently cited letter to Engels, Marx called 
Spartacus “the most capital fellow in the whole history of antiquity” 
and a “real representative of the proletariat of ancient times.”22 Con-
sequently, according to the quasi-religious adherence of Soviet society 
to the writings of Marx, Spartacus’ uprising became a seminal and 
exemplary revolutionary event in world history. Furthermore, in a 
speech at the Polytechnic Museum in Moscow in 1918, none other 
than Lenin referred to Spartacus as an initiator of the war, “fighting 
against the yoke of capitalism.”23 With the advocacy of both epony-
mous fathers of Marxism-Leninism, who both readily projected the 
language of capitalism and class struggle back into antiquity, it is no 
wonder Spartacus was so widely celebrated in the Soviet republics. 
Lenin’s speech and the general attitude of the Bolshevik leaders toward 
Spartacus defined the future image of Spartacus in the Soviet era both 
inside and beyond the academy.
21 Ahl, “Spartacus, Exodus, and Dalton Trumbo,” 77.
22 “Spartacus emerges as the most capital fellow in the whole history of antiquity. 
Great general, of noble character, a real representative of the proletariat of 
ancient times.” See Marx and Engels, Collected Works 41, 265. 
23 All translations from the Russian are mine unless otherwise stated. Lenin, “The 
State: A Lecture Delivered at the Sverdlov University,” 470–88. George Hanna’s 
translation seems to be slightly incorrect as in its original version Lenin claimed 
that Spartacus began the war “in the defence of the suppressed class.” For Rus-
sian original see Lenin, “Rech na mitinge v Politekhnicheskom muzee,” T. 37, 
65–70.
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SPARTACUS AND HIS EARLY SOVIET THEATRICAL REPRESENTATION 75
Yet, the transition of historiographical discourse toward a uni-
form class-struggle narrative was not entirely smooth. It began to 
be implemented in the 1920s, when it was adopted in the first So-
viet textbooks, but it became predominant only in the 1930s.24 This 
period of transitioning from Russian imperial scholarship to the 
newly established Soviet historiography was not merely academic 
but heralded serious real-world implications. This era, for example, 
brought with it significant changes in the composition of ancient 
history departments at institutes and universities.25 It also led to 
the substitution of leading historians from the Czarist era with the 
newly-emerging ‘stars’ of Greco-Roman studies in the USSR, such as 
Alexandr Mishulin (1901–1948) – who named his nephew Spartak 
– and Sergei Utchenko (1908–1976).26
Finally, by naming their revolutionary movement after Spartacus, 
the German communist movement Spartakusbund (the Spartacus 
League), created in 1916, attempted to establish historical continuity 
in the Bolshevik struggle for power.27 In a powerful act of invoking 
ancient exemplarity, Rosa Luxemburg (1871–1919) even conflated the 
name of Spartacus with German communism in her 1918 speech: “We 
of the Spartacus Group, we of the Communist Party of Germany, are 
the only ones in all Germany who are on the side of the striking and 
fighting workers.”28 Hence, the broad lacunae in Spartacus’ own biog-
raphy, his ostensibly modest (or at least unknown) descent – which 
fitted within the narrative of the centuries-long struggle in defense of 
the “oppressed class,” his recognition in the Marxist-Leninist scriptures 
as one of the key symbols of the ancient proletariat, and his invoca-
24 Rubinsohn, Der Spartakus-Aufstand, 14–5, 48.
25 Mishulin, “Drevniaia istoriia v srednei i vysshei shkole,” 9–15; Braginskaya, 
“Studying the History,” 35–50. On the fate of classical pedagogy in the early 
Soviet Union, see, e.g., the contributions of Braginskaya, Budaragina, Fayer 
and Yasinovskyi in Movrin and Olechowska, Classics and Class; Takho-Godi 
and Rosenberg, “Classical Studies in the Soviet Union,” 123–27. For Soviet 
classics, see Baryshnikov, “New Threats, Old Challenges,” 3–6, with a full 
bibliography of Russian language sources. See also Karpyuk and Malyugin, 
“Soviet antiquity, view from the 21st century,” 459–64; Krikh, Obraz drevnosti 
v sovetskoy istoriografii: konstruirovanie i transformatsiya, 118–41.
26 See more in Rubinsohn, Der Spartakus-Aufstand; Rudenko, “The Making of a 
Soviet Hero,” 342–46. See also Shaw, Spartacus and the Slave Wars, 17. Spartak 
Mishulin (1926–2005) became a celebrated Soviet actor.
27 Rubinsohn, Der Spartakus-Aufstand, 9. 
28 Luxemburg, “On the Spartacus Programme (December 1918),” 87–90; Rubin-
sohn, Der Spartakus-Aufstand, 9.
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OLEKSII RUDENKO76
tion by the German radical left, all reserved for the humble Thracian 
gladiator a central place in the front rank of early Soviet pageantry.29
Raffaello Giovagnoli’s novel Spartaco (1874) was translated into 
Russian in 1881. It has been cited by Richard Stites as one of the key 
“radical propaganda stories” to which “conscious workers” in the Soviet 
Union were regularly exposed. As we shall see, this novel contributed 
significantly to the subsequent shaping of Spartacus’ image, since it 
became an important source and model for the Soviet Spartacus plays 
and films in the 1920s.30 A few decades after its composition, Giova-
gnoli’s tale was to become in the Soviet Union an exemplary historical 
novel narrating an ancient uprising.
However, the plot of Giovagnoli’s novel was more complex than any 
of the early Soviet plays. The plot begins during Sulla’s dictatorship 
(82–79 BC) and features both Catiline and Julius Caesar as glorious 
heroes of the ancient struggle against the aristocrats. Giovagnoli 
introduced dozens of characters, both Roman and gladiator rebels. 
Thus, Spartaco may be seen as providing the sequence of events or 
the blueprint for the early Soviet dramas. Furthermore, we ought to 
remember that Giovagnoli presented Spartacus as a “parallel character 
to Garibaldi.” His focus, therefore, was more on unification in the face 
of a common danger rather than exclusively on the social demands of 
freedom.31 For Giovagnoli, unity was the keyword of his novel, but for 
the Soviet authors, the key idea was the confrontation between slavery 
and freedom. Each playwright had to decide how closely his script 
would resemble the well-known Italian novel. There was considerable 
room for experimentation.
EDUCATING THE MASSES
Theater, mass performance, and cinema became essential channels 
of Bolshevik propaganda and communication for enlightening the 
masses.32 Immediately after the revolution, the very idea of the theater 
was reconsidered. The theater was now required primarily to convey 
29 Michalski, Public Monuments, 108–12. 
30 Siegelbaum and Sokolov, Stalinism as a Way of Life: A Narrative in Documents, 
83; Gross, Like a Bomb Going Off: Leonid Yakobson and Ballet as Resistance in 
Soviet Russia, 244–5; Stites, Revolutionary Dreams, 31. Further work on Giovag-
noli’s novel would be welcome given its importance in Soviet receptions. Short 
discussions appear, e.g., in Shaw, Spartacus and the Slave Wars, 20–22, and 
Rudenko, “The Making of a Soviet Hero,” 340–2.
31 Lapeña Marchena, “The Stolen Seduction,” 175; Hardwick, Reception Studies, 41.
32 For a discussion on mass performances, see Leach, Revolutionary Theatre, 39–46.
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SPARTACUS AND HIS EARLY SOVIET THEATRICAL REPRESENTATION 77
Bolshevik narratives to the masses in a clear and simple manner. 
Anatoly Lunacharsky, the People’s Commissar of Enlightenment for 
the Russian Federation (1917–1921), recognized the theater’s utility in 
shaping the minds of the people.33 He implemented the idea of “new 
content in old forms” and promoted ways of rethinking the classics of 
world culture in diverse formats: dance, theater, poetry, art, and trans-
lation.34 Going to the theater became cheaper (sometimes free) in the 
1920s, and the theater section of the Commissariat of Enlightenment 
was established as early as 1918.35
Participation and accessibility were key factors in the prominence 
of theater in the broader cultural landscape. With levels of illiteracy 
remaining relatively high in some regions, the audiences for performed 
spectacles were significantly larger than the readerships of printed 
works. The key differences between theater and mass performance 
were: 1) the venue where the play was staged (i.e., in a theater build-
ing or in open spaces, such as public squares) and 2) the topic. Mass 
performance had the potential for large-scale and creative audience 
participation, which could produce an immersive effect.36 As Natalia 
Murray has underlined, mass performances promised to bring art 
to common people, giving them a chance to participate in their very 
creation. Mass performances – even more than theater and cinema – 
brought a sense of belonging and immersion in the events the actors 
were reenacting.37 Such grand spectacles were deemed revolutionary 
since they eliminated the border between the spectator and the par-
ticipants, creating a mysterious, quasi-spiritual entity by the end of 
the performance. Mass spectacles in the early Bolshevik era fostered 
a specific sense of belonging and collective identity, similar to the role 
of mass celebrations or carnivals in the Middle Ages.38
Soviet mass performances, however, never focused exclusively on 
the figure of Spartacus: he was merely one figure among many other 
revolutionaries. But due to his centrality in revolutionary history, 
he was one that could not easily be overlooked. These performan-
ces often had a peculiar, pageant-like format and their content was 
33 Fitzpatrick, Cultural Front, 20–2. For more on Lunacharsky, see Fitzpatrick, 
Cultural Front, 90–5.
34 Von Szeliski, “Lunacharsky,” 419; Stead and Paulouskaya, “Classics, Crisis and 
the Soviet Experiment to 1939,” 129.
35 Von Szeliski, “Lunacharsky,” 416; Leach, Revolutionary Theatre, 24.
36 Fischer-Lichte, Transformative Power of Performance, 37–39, 138.
37 See also Leach, Revolutionary Theatre, 23.
38 Leach, Revolutionary Theatre, 39–40; Stites, Revolutionary Dreams, 97–100. See 
also Fischer-Lichte, Transformative Power of Performance, 32.
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OLEKSII RUDENKO78
propagandistic, yet the role of contingency, or unpredictability, was 
significantly higher than in any theatrical play. For example, Spar-
tacus frequently appeared alongside revolutionaries of different eras 
– French or early modern Muscovite rebels, and the viewers in the 
streets or city squares gladly joined in singing or marching during 
the performances. Such performances strove for grandeur and impact 
rather than historical accuracy, which resulted in historical events 
being presented in a simplified and unidimensional manner, easily 
digested by the new mass audience.
New theater journals and magazines were published, highlighting 
the elevated role the Bolshevik leaders assigned to drama. These in-
cluded: Zrelishcha [Spectacles] (1922–1924), Vestnik teatra [Bulletin of 
Theater] (1919–1921), Vestnik teatra i iskusstva [Bulletin of Theater and 
Art] (1921–1922), Kultura teatra [Culture of Theater] (1921–1922), Zhizn 
iskusstva [Art Life] (1923–1929), Sovremennyi teatr [Contemporary 
Theater] (1927–1929), Novyj zritel [The New Spectator] (1924–1929), and 
Vestnik rabotnikov iskusstva [Bulletin of Cultural Workers] (1920–1926), 
to name a few. Zrelishcha announced: “We are expecting from the 
theater something saturated with ideas and meaningful in a drama-
tical way. We are expecting a theater of a new organizational thought. 
A play should be a trumpet of new thoughts and feelings, a herald of 
the new universe.”39 Theater critic Aleksandr Kugel (1864–1928) – who 
sometimes used the pen name Homo novus – claimed that the aims of a 
theatrical director and performance were “to amaze the audience with 
something previously unseen and with the originality, or the beauty 
and amusement of the show.”40 These principles were implemented in 
Soviet plays based on the story of Spartacus.
Theater directors were, of course, crucial intermediaries between 
the script and the staging of the play. Their roles in early Soviet theater 
deserve critical attention.41 Due in part to the difficulty – caused by 
the Russian aggression against Ukraine and the continuing silence 
from many Russian scholars – in accessing sources, the following 
analysis limits its focus to the available published materials. The first 
Soviet-era Spartacus play appeared before the institutionalization 
of the image of Spartacus in the Soviet republics. Its author, Yurii 
Sandomyrskyi (c. 1870–1927), published his play Spartacus in five acts 
in Odesa in 1917. It is said to have been closely based on Giovagnoli’s 
39 Mass, “Nakaz Zimnemu Sezonu,” 4; translation mine.
40 Kugel, “Teatralnyie zametki,” 4; translation mine.
41 For performance reception studies see, e.g., Hall and Harrop, Theorising Perfor-
mance.
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SPARTACUS AND HIS EARLY SOVIET THEATRICAL REPRESENTATION 79
Spartaco. Sandomyrskyi’s play became the first Spartacus play to be 
staged in Soviet theaters.42 In his play, Sandomyrskyi appears to have 
employed the same characters, tropes, and narrative lines as Giovag-
noli. Giovagnoli’s text also stood as a key source for several subsequent 
dramatic portrayals of the Soviet Spartacus. The 1917 Spartacus play 
did not gain nearly as much popularity as the following one, written by 
Vladimir Mazurkevich (1871–1942) and published in Petrograd in 1920.
MAZURKEVICH’S SPARTAK
Giovagnoli’s Spartaco was at the beginning of Bolshevik represen-
tations of Spartacus, yet his word was not the last to be said on the 
matter. Mazurkevich’s Spartacus: The Slave Uprising was a short 
one-act drama (20 pages) about Spartacus and his revolt that craftily 
depicted the ancient gladiator as the main leader of a great slave revolt. 
While it was based on the famous novel, its truncated form granted it 
significant freedom from its source.
The first edition of the published play contains a four-page intro-
duction of unknown authorship, which provided a brief overview 
of the historical circumstances of the Late Republic. It served as a 
justification for referring to the figure of Spartacus and established 
the link between the ancient gladiator uprising and the Bolshevik 
revolution. The author of the introduction focused on the social di-
vision between the patricians and the plebeians and emphasized the 
emergence of a separate “class of people who had nothing”43 – i.e., a 
proletarian class (free but impoverished).
After an explanation of the division between patricians and ple-
beians, the author stated: “in fact, the entire population of Rome was 
divided into freemen and slaves,” underlining once more the Bolsheviks’ 
image of a bipolar world (divided into owners and slaves).44 Beyond 
the inaccurate dating of the beginning of Spartacus’ uprising (73–71 
BC) as 72 BC, the introduction also provided a simplistic interpretation 
of Roman history. For example, the author claimed that together with 
seventy other gladiators, Spartacus headed to Southern Italy and de-
stroyed the cells and prisons on their way, liberating the slaves. Soon 
after, Spartacus had command over an army of 50,000 soldiers, including 
42 Unfortunately, the only readily available edition of Yurii Sandomyrskyi’s play 
can be accessed at the Russian National Library in Saint Petersburg, so at the 
time of writing, an analysis of the play is impossible.
43 Mazurkevich, Spartak, 3; all English translations of the text are mine. 
44 Ibid., 4.
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OLEKSII RUDENKO80
shepherds and peasants who were “languishing under the oppression 
of the landowner-patricians” and “joining Spartacus who saved them 
from slavery and dependence.”45 Unlike Giovagnoli’s novel, credited 
as its source, the active phase of Spartacus’ uprising was, according to 
this introduction, limited to 72–71 BC; the introduction also does not 
go into details of battles, successes, and the various factions within 
Spartacus’ army.
The final battle, the reader is told, happened during “the siege of 
Rome” [sic], after the rebels persuaded Spartacus to attack the city, yet 
as it was unsuccessful, Spartacus died and six thousand of the slaves 
were crucified along the road leading to Rome.46 The conclusion of 
the introduction states:
Spartacus fell, but the enterprise he began is alive and throughout the 
thousands of years it is resurrected every time in the fire of people’s 
uprisings. Today, Spartacus’ name is written on the banner of German 
communists who are leading their proletariat to a social revolution.47
The brief historical introduction provided not only general contextu-
alizing information but also offered a vision of continuity between the 
ancient ideas and the revolutionary reality. This imagined continuity 
argued for the play’s contemporary relevance, explaining why the figure 
of Spartacus should matter to the people supporting the Bolsheviks. 
There is no clear indication of who penned the introduction, since 
its title is simply “Introduction to Vladimir Mazurkevich’s play.” 
Given the numerous mistakes in dating and a schematic explanation 
of Spartacus’ uprising, it seems that the introduction was crafted by 
someone with limited knowledge of ancient Roman history – or with 
a desire to simplify the course of events for the audience.
Inconsistencies between the stated source text (Spartaco), the intro-
duction, and the text of the play itself occur several times, making it 
highly unlikely that the introduction was written by Mazurkevich. 
For instance, in a discussion about the next steps of the gladiator 
army, Oenomaus (mistakenly called Oknoman) persuades Spartacus 
that in the beginning of the uprising there were 150 gladiators who 
escaped from Capua, but their army now consists of 73,000 soldiers. 
45 Mazurkevich, Spartak, 5.
46 Ibid., 5–6. Mazurkevich preferred historical accuracy – for instance, his version 
of the final battle happens in Southern Italy instead of Rome – to the impression 
the play might have on the viewer.
47 Ibid., 6. 
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SPARTACUS AND HIS EARLY SOVIET THEATRICAL REPRESENTATION 81
The introduction, however, had counted 70 gladiators in the beginning, 
and their band had grown to an army of 50,000 soldiers; Giovangnoli, 
on the other hand, amasses an army of 60,000 from 600 gladiators.48 
Nevertheless, such inconsistencies need not have been conveyed to the 
viewer, due to the script’s intensive focus on the last days of the uprising.
The play offered only a few protagonists: Spartacus, his sister 
Mirza (a fictional character adopted from Giovagnoli’s novel), three 
gladiators of Gallic, German, and Greek origins, the Roman consul 
Lucullus, and two unnamed gladiators in the guard.
Mazurkevich continuously emphasized Spartacus’ noble goal of 
world liberation, resembling Giovagnoli in the description of Spar-
tacus’ aims (“to install justice and equality in the entire world”) and 
the illustration of treachery and infighting among the gladiators, 
which led to his ultimate downfall in the battle against the Romans.49 
Mazurkevich completely ignored the romantic relationship between 
Spartacus and Valeria Sulla that shines through Giovagnoli’s text.50 
During negotiations with a Roman legate (who turned out to be 
consul Lucullus – another plot twist adopted from Giovagnoli’s 
novel), Spartacus explicitly argues against the institution of slavery, 
harking back to times when “everyone worked their own land” in a 
world with “no proprietors, no slaves, no owners, and no servants.”51
Mazurkevich presented Spartacus’ agenda in clearly Bolshevik 
terms: it was a fight against slavery and landlords, and a struggle for 
equality among the people. Mirza expresses her opinion of her brother 
thus: “You, Spartacus, devoted your whole life to the noble aim of 
liberating the suppressed.”52 The anthem that the gladiators sing when 
they are heading to their final battle transmits similar ideas, asking 
(rhetorically) whether the gladiators would prefer to die in the arena 
“for the entertainment of the flatulent rich” or during the fight for 
their freedom.53 This anthem was Mazurkevich’s invention. It does 
not appear in Giovagnoli’s novel.
For reader and viewer of the play alike, the comparison between 
the Roman patricians and Russian imperial landlords must have been 
obvious. In the introduction, however, the author preferred to make 
the connection explicit using the technical terms patritsii [patricians] 
48 Mazurkevich, Spartak, 5, 10; Giovagnoli, Spartaco, 196.
49 Ibid., 270.
50 Ibid., 129–32.
51 Mazurkevich, Spartak, 15; Giovagnoli, Spartaco, 264–70.
52 Mazurkevich, Spartak, 13.
53 Ibid., 20. 
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OLEKSII RUDENKO82
and pomeshchiki [landlords], a word used to define the landlords of 
the Russian Empire, thus a clear symbol of the fallen regime. Sur-
rounding the 1917 Revolution, the theme of land ownership was crucial 
for the Bolsheviks.54 This is perhaps why the vocabulary of landlordism 
features prominently in the introduction, while in the play the topics 
of freedom and slavery have center stage.
Later, quarrels in the camp between the gladiators and mistrust 
and accusations of treachery lead to an unsuccessful battle and the 
death of Spartacus.55 Spartacus, wounded in the battlefield, delivers 
a speech more consistent with a Bolshevik politician bent on the 
emancipation of the international proletariat than with a leader of a 
slave uprising in ancient Rome:
A day will come when in the whole world the suppressed will rise 
against their oppressors … They will destroy the old world … And on 
the ruins of the past they will build a new world, bright and pleasant, 
where everyone will be equal, where liberty and equality will reign. 
Everyone fighting for freedom, for the better future of humanity, need 
put only one word on their placard – and this word is Spartacus.56
This final speech appears to engage with Spartacus’ speech from 
Giovagnoli’s novel. Ahead of the final battle, Spartacus claims that 
“when we die, we will leave as revenge to our successors the flag of 
freedom and equality, stained with our blood as our legacy.”57
Mazurkevich’s play bears several traces of traditional plays of 
the Russian Empire. As a transitional play, it is not yet fully fluent 
in communist parlance. Sometimes the author employs old spelling 
conventions, and his execution of these conventions is not always free 
from error. For example, years are counted as the Russian equivalent 
of BC “before [the birth of] Christ” [do Rozhdestva Khristova], in-
stead of BCE “before the Common Era” [do nashei ery]; similarly, the 
interpretation of the goals and motives of the rebellion is simplified. 
Nevertheless, Mazurkevich was successful in conveying the main action 
of the Spartacus uprising to a large audience in a short one-act play.58
54 Fitzpatrick, Cultural Front, 17–9.
55 In Giovagnoli’s novel, quarrels occur between a Greek woman, Eutibida, and 
German and Gallic gladiators. In Mazurkevich’s play, the German gladiators 
are at the origin of the quarrelling.
56 Mazurkevich, Spartak, 22.
57 Giovagnoli, Spartaco, 399; Hutcheon and O’Flynn, A Theory of Adaptation, 20.
58 The publication of Mazurkevich’s play went almost unnoticed until the first 
plays were staged. It was published “on spec,” or as literature, i.e., ahead of any 
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SPARTACUS AND HIS EARLY SOVIET THEATRICAL REPRESENTATION 83
VOLKENSTEIN’S SPARTAK
The same year as Mazurkevich’s play was published, Vestnik Teatra 
announced a competition for authors to write a play about a revolutio-
nary character, and Giovagnoli’s Spartaco was again mentioned as the 
primary example.59 We should not, however, jump to the conclusion 
that the winner fully adopted Spartaco as a template without making 
his own unique contribution. The prize money was significant: 30,000 
rubles for the runner-up and 40,000 rubles for the best revolutionary 
play. Next year, Kultura Teatra notified that the state printing agency 
accepted Vladimir Volkenstein’s (1883–1974) tragedy Spartacus (5 acts 
in ca. 70 pages) for print and for staging in the First Theater of the 
Russian Socialist Republic.60 Reinhold Gliere (1875–1956), one of the 
most famous composers of the era, was commissioned to arrange a 
musical accompaniment for the play’s production in Moscow’s Bolshoi 
Theater.61
Volkenstein based his Spartacus on Plutarch’s biography of Crassus, 
but he also refers to information sourced from other ancient texts.62 
Volkenstein’s sources might have been especially diverse because he 
was a graduate of Saint Petersburg University and spent a year at Hei-
delberg University in Germany, famous for its classical scholarship.63 
He mentions, for example, the wars with Mithridates and the figures 
of Lucullus and Gaius Marius, whose description is found in the works 
of Plutarch, Appian, Sallust, and Livy.64 But he also worked from his 
imagination, creating several of his own characters, including two 
female advisers to Spartacus, Melissa and Julia, who do not feature 
in Giovagnoli’s novel.65
theatrical production. No significant reviews appeared following its publication. 
Although the play was later staged in some local theatres, it was not reprinted, 
and thus only a few copies of the 1920 edition have been preserved.
59 “Konkurs Proletkulta,” 19.
60 “Tragedii V. M. Volkensteina,” 52.
61 “Bolshoi Teatr,” 53.
62 Plutarch, Life of Crassus, 8–11.
63 Henry, “Les Errants de Vladimir Volkenstein au premier Studio du Théâtre 
d’Art,” 80.
64 Plutarch, Life of Pompey 21.1–4; Plutarch, Life of Crassus 8–11; Appian, Roman 
History: The Civil Wars 1.14.116–21; Sallust, Histories 3, fr. 90–94, 96–102, 106; 4, 
fr. 22–23, 25, 30–33, 37, 40–41; Livy, Summaries 95–97; Shaw, Spartacus and the 
Slave Wars, 130–51.
65 Volkenstein, Spartak, 8–107. This edition was based on the original play staged in the 
Theatre of the Revolution in 1923 with only minor details changed since 1920 version.
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OLEKSII RUDENKO84
The play takes place between 73–71 BC and unlike Mazurkevich’s 
play or Giovagnoli’s novel, they begin in the gladiator school in 
Capua. Here, Spartacus is ordered to kill his best friend Berisad 
in the gladiators’ playfield – another departure from Giovagnoli’s 
plot.66 Berisad, however, persuaded Spartacus before the battle 
to make an oath that in case the bloodthirsty crowd of Romans 
should demand him to kill Berisad, Spartacus will organize a 
revolt and force the gladiators to escape their slavery.67 In re-
sponse Spartacus claims that “freedom must return to us; the 
sky and earth will be ours,” defending personal [sic] freedom as 
the highest value.68
Counterposing Spartacus to the “old regime,” Volkenstein de-
picts the Romans as crude, petty and greedy people. Giovagnoli, 
by comparison, shows a fascination with the Roman army in his 
novel. In Volkenstein’s Spartak, for example, the main concern 
of the praetor Toranius upon hearing of Spartacus’ revolt is that 
it will result in the cancelation of the gladiatorial games that he 
was traveling to Capua to see.69 Additionally, the least frivolous 
news discussed among the aristocratic characters is that Crassus 
has bought himself a new mansion.70
The Romans are also characterized as cowards. Several candidates 
for consulships withdraw themselves for fear of Spartacus’ army.71 
The only Roman who dared undertake the military campaign against 
the slaves was Crassus, but even he was motivated more by envy of 
Pompey, who had been called back to Italy by the Senate, than by 
patriotism.72 The Romans exhibit no sense of patriotism or honor 
throughout: Crassus even claims that if Spartacus were to capture 
Rome, he would simply escape to his new estate on Crete.73 Such 
a disparaging characterization of the Romans was a significant 
departure from Giovagnoli’s novel.74 In the latter, the Romans are 
66 Volkenstein, Spartak, 24–26.
67 Ibid., 20–21.
68 Ibid., 28–29.
69 Although Toranius was a quaestor at the time, Volkenstein mistakenly calls 
him a praetor. See Sallust’s account in Shaw, Spartacus and the Slave Wars, 
145.
70 Volkenstein, Spartak, 32, 38, 73.
71 Ibid., 39–41.
72 Ibid., 75–77.
73 Ibid., 76.
74 Discrepancy between Volkenstein’s and Giovangioli’s representation of the 
Roman commanders became a reason for Stepun’s critique of Volkenstein’s 
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SPARTACUS AND HIS EARLY SOVIET THEATRICAL REPRESENTATION 85
described as worthy opponents of the gladiators, putting the two 
armies on par. Spartacus invests much effort, for example, to model 
his army on the Roman legions. Moreover, he considered Crassus 
to be one of the most notable Roman commanders.75
Meanwhile, Volkenstein describes Spartacus’ intentions with 
a great deal of pathos, following the tradition established by Gio-
vagnoli.76 In Volkenstein’s narrative, Spartacus’ main desire was 
not merely to free the slaves who had joined his army, but rather 
to trigger the overthrow of slavery and tyranny worldwide and put 
power in the hands of the slaves. This would be a slave revolution 
to match the Bolshevik drive toward a worldwide proletarian revo-
lution. Beyond simple freedom, Spartacus believed that “the world 
ought to belong to the slaves. The ground is fortified with their work, 
they created the roads, buildings, and temples.” “Let the decrepit 
structure of Rome fail,” implores Spartacus, “It was cruel. On its 
wicked ruins, I will erect a glorious state.”77 The desire to build a 
new state is shown more explicitly here than in Mazurkevich’s short 
play. Spartacus, however, remains the key political agent compared 
to the depersonalized historiographic concept of a slave revolution 
(or mass agency) that would become more common in the 1930s. 
Spartacus, in the more pageant-like mass performances, for example, 
would feature as merely one of the many historical figures involved 
in an ancient fight for the “new order,” which closely resembled 
Bolshevik aspirations.
The play presents the slave camp as internally divided on the 
question of Spartacus’ motivation: Is he motivated by revenge or the 
desire to construct a new world? Predictably, as a heroic leader of the 
revolution and as a tragic hero, Spartacus is shown to follow the second, 
idealistic path, driven as he is to “create a new law” and urging his 
comrades that even if their uprising fails, “another army will gloriously 
finish our affair,” again hinting at the Bolshevik present.78 Similarly 
to Mazurkevich’s play, Volkenstein’s drama depicts the camp of the 
slaves as being ravaged by mistrust and treason, resembling the earlier 
description in Giovagnoli.79 The Gauls and the Germans are strongly 
drama, reviewed below. See Stepun, “O Suschnosti Tragedii,” 37–43.
75 Lapeña Marchena, “The Stolen Seduction,” 175; Giovagnoli, Spartaco, 265, 386.
76 “Is it the freedom we are bringing to all the slaves?” wondered Spartacus in 
Giovagnoli’s Spartaco, 210.
77 Volkenstein, Spartak, 43–44, 52, 103.
78 Ibid., 72, 98–99.
79 Giovagnoli, Spartaco, 314–27.
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OLEKSII RUDENKO86
implicated, although Volkenstein also describes drunkenness and 
the abuse of wine as the key factors which led to the slaves’ defeat.
Unlike Mazurkevich, Volkenstein did include a romantic line in 
his plot. He introduced Julia, the daughter of an unnamed Greek free-
man, who rebels against the Romans and is killed by the gladiators 
because of her tremendous impact on Spartacus’ decision-making.80 
By inventing Julia, Volkenstein moved closer to representing Spar-
tacus as a tragic hero, driven both by his high ideals of liberating the 
oppressed and his more mundane romantic feelings for his lover. 
Julia’s role mirrors Giovagnoli’s Valeria, who presents Spartacus with 
a letter containing an appeal to abandon the uprising in favor of their 
love.81 Spartacus, however, driven by idealistic beliefs and the pursuit 
of a noble aim, declines Valeria’s offer.
Volkenstein’s play was performed regularly in the largest theaters 
of the Soviet republics, such as Moscow’s Theater of the Revolution 
(whose director at the time was Vsevolod Meyerhold), where it was 
staged on September 6, 1923, directed by Valery Bebutov.82 Volkenstein’s 
Spartacus was well received as a literary text and was reprinted in the 
USSR in 1921, 1927, 1962, and 1971.83 However, the critical reception of 
the play on stage (and through it Volkenstein’s text itself) was mixed. 
One of the first reviews, published in October 1923 about the production 
in the Theater of Revolution, claimed that the play was “boring and 
does not possess any specific merits … It is staged in such a way that 
not only is the modest artistic dignity of the play not sustained, but 
its revolutionary sense is also darkened. The hero of Rome, Publius 
Crassus, is depicted as a foolish Polizeimeister or a petty tyrant.”84 This 
perception of 1923 play was backed up by 1922 review of the text itself, 
written by the philosopher and sociologist Fyodor Stepun (1884–1965), 
who began his attack on Volkenstein with a remark on the presentation 
of Roman backwardness: if the Romans were so backward, why had 
Spartacus lost and what was the value of his entire uprising?85
80 Volkenstein, Spartak, 52–53.
81 Giovagnoli, Spartaco, 392–93.
82 Leach, Revolutionary Theatre, 153.
83 Vladimir Volkenstein, Spartak: Tragediia (Moscow: Gosudarstvennoe izda-
telstvo, 1921); Vladimir Volkenstein, Spartak; Novyi Prometej; P’esy (Moscow: 
Sovetskij pisatel, 1962); Vladimir Volkenstein, Spartak – Papessa Ioanna – Smert 
Linkolna: Tragedii (Moscow: Sovetskij pisatel, 1971).
84 Kugel, “Teatralnyie Zametki,” 3–4.
85 Stepun, “O Suschnosti Tragedii,” 40–41. The discrepancy in the representation 
of the Romans as backwards in Volkenstein compared to Giovagnoli’s Spartaco 
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SPARTACUS AND HIS EARLY SOVIET THEATRICAL REPRESENTATION 87
It is not clear whether Volkenstein’s play was billed as a tragedy per 
se. Even so, drawing loosely on Aristotle’s Poetics and the European 
philosophical tradition engaging with it,86 Stepun argued that Vol-
kenstein’s play was not a tragedy “from the point of view of theatrical 
tradition,” since the tragic hero is always “guilty without guilt,” unlike 
Spartacus, who had no sin.87 Stepun followed the Aristotelian tradition, 
where “authentically tragic guilt is ambiguously ‘guiltless,’” and there-
fore could not comprehend Volkenstein’s ignorance of this factor.88
Moreover, Spartacus in Volkenstein’s play did not have a strong 
opponent (such as Crassus in Giovagnoli) and important causes for 
which he was fighting, hence Stepun concluded that “no unsolvable 
problem is solved with Spartacus’ death” and the drama “turns out 
to be an artistically defective thing, not a bronze but a plaster cast 
painted like bronze.”89 This criticism, combined with Stepun’s general 
opposition toward Bolshevik policy, led to his forced exile in 1922 
together with other representatives of the early Soviet intelligentsia.90 
The negative review, however, did not diminish the popularity of Vol-
kenstein’s play, which was henceforth called “a heroic drama” rather 
than a tragedy. Twenty-five years later (1947), under the oppressive 
cultural doctrine of Zhdanovism, the play would be criticized for its 
simplistic ideas of drama and incorrect “social characteristics.”91
Other magazines and reviewers were more generous. For instance, 
the review in the September 1923 issue of Zhizn iskusstva praised the 
experimental character of the drama, asserting that: “Spartacus staged in 
the Theater of Revolution is the first cornerstone in the construction of 
a new theater. The staging, play, and acting are marked on a completely 
might possibly fuel Stepun’s dismay. Unfortunately, there is no way of knowing 
if Stepun was acquainted with Giovagnoli’s novel.
86 The leading figures on the side of that tradition, on whom Stepun also appears 
to be leaning, are Hegel and Kierkegaard – Phenomenology of Spirit (1807) and 
Either/Or (1843), respectively. For discussion on both philosophers and their 
engagement with tragedy, see Billings, Genealogy of the Tragic, esp. 143–45 and 
161–88, and Greenspan, The Passion of Infinity, 140–57, with full bibliography.
87 Stepun, “O Suschnosti Tragedii,” 40. Daniel Greenspan aptly formulated this 
concept for ancient Greek tragedy as follows: “Tragic guilt must be of a specific 
kind and its parameters are a matter of character and action.” See Greenspan, 
Passion of Infinity, 92.
88 Ibid., 144–5.
89 Stepun, “O Suschnosti Tragedii,” 40–41.
90 See his memoirs, Stepun, Byvshee i nesbyvsheesja, 617–28.
91 Osnos, Sovetskaja istoricheskaja dramaturgija, 46; Fitzpatrick, Cultural Front, 
177–81.
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OLEKSII RUDENKO88
different scale.”92 In October 1923, the Theater of Enlightenment in 
Petrograd (now Saint Petersburg) also staged “the revolutionary play 
Spartacus [by Volkenstein], written in sincere, lively, colorful tones, 
rich with beautiful and courageous claims, saturated with activity.” 
The reviewer suggested that it might be difficult to stage, “yet it has 
brilliantly organized mass scenes,” an important demand for plays, 
which became even more prominent in the 1930s when the concept 
of the slave revolution rather than the heroic uprising of Spartacus 
became the preferred narrative.93
The play, therefore, corresponded to the growing requirement 
for the presentation of mass agency, in contrast to a revolution led 
by a single intellectual. This was the revolution of the proletarian/
enslaved masses. While scholars argue that early Soviet plays tended 
to emphasize the success of any enterprise coming from the efforts 
of a collective of people rather than a single individual,94 Spartacus 
was a figure who attempted to lead a proletarian uprising alone and 
thus always deserved a separate, idealized, and somewhat awkward 
place in Soviet theater. This feature marked both Mazurkevich’s and 
Volkenstein’s dramas. Spartacus is alone in his struggle, especially 
after the treason. In Giovagnoli’s novel, Spartacus is surrounded by 
advisers and friends in the gladiator camp. In the 1930s, a solitary hero 
like Spartacus did not fully represent the participation of the people 
to the level the Bolsheviks aspired to achieve.
SPARTACUS IN THE EARLY SOVIET REPERTOIRE  
AND MASS PERFORMANCE
Plays about Spartacus were popular in early Soviet theaters. Soon the-
atrical seasons, especially the autumn season, were being opened by 
one of the three Spartacus plays (i.e., Sandomyrskyi, 1917, Mazurkevich, 
1920, and Volkenstein, 1921) in many theaters across the Soviet republics. 
The famous Bolshevik theatremaker Vsevolod Meyerhold (1874–1940) 
invited Valery Bebutov (1885–1961) to produce Volkenstein’s play in 
Moscow on September 6, 1923, at the Theater of the Revolution.95 When 
the new Khamovnicheskii district theater was opened in Moscow in 1923, 
Yurii Sandomyrskyi’s Spartacus was selected for production as the key 
92 IA. A., “Moskva: Teatr Revolyutsii ‘Spartak,’” Zhizn Iskusstva, September 18, 
1923, no. 37: 21.
93 S. M., “Teatr Prosvescheniya,” Zhizn Iskusstva, October 16, 1923, no. 41: 16.
94 Michalski, Public Monuments, 114; Von Szeliski, “Lunacharsky,” 417.
95 Leach, Revolutionary Theatre, 153. 
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SPARTACUS AND HIS EARLY SOVIET THEATRICAL REPRESENTATION 89
dramatic play.96 The selection of which version of Spartacus to produce 
is likely to have been dictated by practical issues. Mazurkevich’s play 
would have been considerably easier to stage than Volkenstein’s. Smaller 
theaters tended to prefer shorter plays, involving fewer characters and 
requiring less elaborate set design.
The First State Moscow Circus in 1924 announced the staging 
of a “propagandistic-educational” pantomime called Spartacus.97 
Smaller theaters followed suit. In 1924, the Proletarian studio at the 
Theatrical College performed a preview of Spartacus in Odesa, and in 
Ivanovo-Voznesensk one of the few plays staged in the local theater 
was Spartacus (although the play’s author is not mentioned).98 A new 
small district theater in Petrograd in 1923 also staged Spartacus.99 In 
1928, a letter to the editor of Novyi Zritel [The New Spectator] from 
Kharkiv, which was the capital of Ukraine at the time, announced that 
Spartacus would soon take place in the Odesa Opera House.100 Such 
dispersed archival findings are not the result of an exhaustive survey, 
but they do suggest that Spartacus enjoyed a central position in the 
early Soviet repertoire.
The figure of Spartacus appeared not only in the theater but also 
in the streets and other urban spaces as a part of broader mass per-
formances. He might not have received as much attention as in the 
dramas dedicated solely to him, but his appearances still form an 
important aspect of his reception.101 In the main square of Astrakhan, 
on May 1, 1921, the Second City Theater initiated a performance en-
titled A Revolutionary Mystery.102 Around 500 workers and Red Army 
soldiers were dressed as rebels from the times of Spartacus and the 
insurrections led by Stenka Razin (1630–1671) and Yemelyan Pugachev 
(1742–1775). As the local journalist described:
At 9 p.m., the signal came. The director and writer comrade Dolev 
made an introduction and the 10,000- to 15,000-person crowd began to 
contemplate [the spectacle]. The mystery, of course, was not a literary 
work, but it recounted, in an epic manner and using a very primitive 
96 “Khronika: Moskva,” Zhizn Isskustva, 1923, no. 31: 28.
97 “Khronika,” Rabochii i Teatr, 1924, no. 4: 20.
98 M. Shumskij, “Po Federatsii: Odessa,” Zhizn Isskustva, 1924, no. 4: 24; “Iva novo-
Voznesensk,” Zhizn Isskustva, 1924, no. 3: 27.
99 “Kto-Gde,” Zrelishcha, 1923, no. 60: 25;
100 Maksakov, “Teadelo na Ukraine,” 20.
101 Leach, Revolutionary Theatre, 23.
102 “R.S.F.S.R. Pervoe Maya v Provintsiyah,” Vestnik Teatra, June 15, 1921, no. 91–92: 
5.
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OLEKSII RUDENKO90
and non-developed dialogue, the events of separate moments in the 
Russian, French, English, and other revolutions. But the impression 
was great. Every tirade against the yoke of the capitalists caused a 
storm of applause. In the final moment, when the slaves rush on the 
czar, his family, and the ministers, the crowd of workers and children, 
inspired by the revolutionary spirit, joined the choir in singing the 
proletarian anthem The International.103
A similar performance, involving around one thousand participants, 
took place in Moscow in 1928, when the Bolshoi Theater organized 
a pantomime about Spartacus during the Spartakiad competition.104 
However, the grandest and the most famous mass performance 
was The Mystery of Liberated Labor, staged in Petrograd on May 1, 
1920.105 The aim, as Natalia Murray points out, was to “legitimise the 
revolution, implying that it was inclusive and mass in nature.”106 The 
Mystery employed strong symbolism and an emphasis was placed 
on the quintessentially Marxist division between the “oppressors” 
and “oppressed.” A number of figures from unrelated historical eras 
(“Roman slaves led by Spartacus ran toward the red banners, followed 
by peasants with Stenka Razin ahead of them …”) were united under 
an imagined umbrella of fighting for proletarian ideals.107 This eclectic 
symbolism was underlined when “in the grand finale, the Kingdom 
of Socialism was revealed in the form of a rising sun, a red star, a 
tree of liberty around which the victors reveled, red banners and a 
figure of Liberated Labor in front of which the soldiers exchanged 
their weapons for the implements of peace.”108 Reports claim that 
thirty-five thousand people watched the mystery, and this was 
exactly the kind of impact the Bolsheviks envisioned for outdoor 
mass performances.109 While Spartacus did not hold a leading role 
in such cases, the mere presence of his figure in mass performances 
and mysteries strengthened that image of his which the theater was 
promoting in the 1920s.
103 “R.S.F.S.R. Pervoe Maya v Provintsiyah,” Vestnik Teatra, June 15, 1921, no. 91–92: 
5.
104 “Teatralnaya Zhizn v Moskve,” Sovremennyi Teatr, July 29, 1928, no. 30–31: 
519.
105 Also translated as The Mystery of Freed Labour. See its description in Leach, 
Revolutionary Theatre, 40–1, and Stites, Revolutionary Dreams, 94–5.
106 Murray, “Street Theatre,” 230.
107 Leach, Revolutionary Theatre, 40; Murray, “Street Theatre,” 236.
108 Murray, “Street Theatre,” 236.
109 Leach, Revolutionary Theatre, 40; Murray, “Street Theatre,” 236.
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SPARTACUS AND HIS EARLY SOVIET THEATRICAL REPRESENTATION 91
CONCLUSION
Spartacus served as a symbol of the revolutionary proletarian myth 
throughout the Soviet era. His name became so widely disseminated 
throughout early Soviet popular culture that newborn babies were 
often named Spartak. In the utopian sci-fi novel The Coming World 
(1923) by Yakov Okunev (1882–1932), for example, Spartacus is used 
as a revolutionary name.110 Spartacus’ name even became celebrated 
in lullabies. The following was sung to a child in a 1928 play:
Sleep Spartacus, my dear boy, hush-hush,
From the wall Bukharin looks into your cradle.111
Theatrical plays, mass performances, and numerous reprintings of Giova-
gnoli’s novel promoted a specific image of Spartacus: a brave leader of 
the slaves, a hero acting in the name of the ancient proletariat, and the 
only ancient precursor to the Bolsheviks.
To define the early Soviet dramas about Spartacus as mere adaptations 
of Giovagnoli’s Spartaco would risk underestimating the creativity of 
the 1920s playwrights, especially Volkenstein. The setting and political 
coloring of Giovagnoli’s novel (a tale intended for its own historical 
moment) did not align with the propaganda needs of early Bolshevism, 
therefore significant levels of originality were required by both Soviet 
writers.112 Mazurkevich’s Spartacus turned to his Italian source for se-
veral plot points and inspiration for his eponymous hero’s programmatic 
speeches. Volkenstein’s text followed Giovagnoli’s novel more closely, yet 
he still diverged significantly from it, engaging also with other sources, 
including ancient historical ones. He excluded certain elements that would 
have been impractical for staging and completely omitted Giovagnoli’s 
final battle scene.
Neither of the Soviet writers drew upon Giovagnoli’s description 
of Spartacus’ learning from the example of the Roman army: the old 
world could not offer anything beneficial for the new order under con-
110 Stites, Revolutionary Dreams, 174–5; Heller and Nekrich, Utopia in Power, 
217.
111 Arkhangelskii, Pustynin, Alekseev, “Konkurs na Luchshuyu Semyu,” 25. 
Bukharin was a member of Politburo and one of the Soviet leaders of the 
era.
112 “This explains why, even in today’s globalized world, major shifts in a story’s 
context – that is, for example, in a national setting or time period – can change 
radically how the transposed story is interpreted, ideologically and literally.” See 
Hutcheon and O’Flynn, A Theory of Adaptation, 28. 
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OLEKSII RUDENKO92
struction by Spartacus, and thus the Bolsheviks.113 Both Mazurkevich 
and Volkenstein changed the primary focus: the concept of unity, while 
remaining essential, became secondary to the theme of fighting for the 
liberation of the oppressed masses. The Soviet authors also tended to 
divert attention away from Spartacus’ idealistic image toward the ideals 
for which he was fighting.114
While theater, toponymy, and sport were important in shaping the image 
of Spartacus in the Soviet epoch, there were also attempts to introduce 
Spartacus to ballet and cinema,115 both of which would deserve critical 
attention. The libretto for Spartacus the ballet was completed as early as 
1933, but it was not be performed until the celebrated Leonid Yakobson’s 
premiere in 1956.116 In the 1920s, it was generally believed that ballet could 
not fulfill the aims of Bolshevik propaganda in terms of accessibility and 
appeal for the masses.117 As the practice and performance of dance was 
state-sponsored in the early Soviet Union, the importance and utility of 
ballet was reconsidered in the decades following World War II.118
The first Soviet films telling the story of Spartacus were also pro-
duced during the 1920s. In 1926, the All-Ukrainian Photo Cinema 
Administration (1922–1930) filmed its own version of Spartacus, based 
on Giovagnoli’s novel. Sadly, the film is now lost.119 The premiere took 
place in December 1926 in Kyiv and more than a year later (January 1928) 
in Moscow. After several favorable reviews, Soviet theatrical reviewer 
Khrisanf Khersonskii (1897–1968) criticized the film for being “an opera, 
high-style product.” He denounced its superficial handling of the subject 
and its “oversimplification of the gladiators, their causes and aims.”120 
His review was part of a general shift of attitude, coinciding with Stalin’s 
113 Lapeña Marchena, “The Stolen Seduction,” 175.
114 Hardwick, Reception Studies, 41.
115 One of the first mentions of the ballet on the theme of Spartacus and his uprising 
is in Sovremmenyi Teatr 1928, no. 36. See also Searce, “The Recomposition of 
Aram Khachaturian’s Spartacus at the Bolshoi Theater, 1958–1968,” esp. 362, 368.
116 Fernández, “Choreographies of Violence,” 111; Janice Gross, Like a Bomb Going 
Off, 48. For more on Yakobson’s ballet Spartacus, see ibid., 241–300.
117 Murray, “Street Theatre,” 239. Ballet dancers were involved in several mass per-
formances, such as The Storming of the Winter Palace in 1920.
118 Stead and Paulouskaya, “Classics, Crisis and the Soviet Experiment to 1939,” 
136–37.
119 “Spartacus,” VUFKU (All-Ukrainian Photo Cinema Administration), available 
online. See also the brief analysis in Rudenko, “The Making of a Soviet Hero,” 
340–2. 
120 Khrisanf Khersonskii, “Cinema: VUFKU at the Break,” (1928), VUFKU, available 
online. See also an overview of the reaction to the movie in Rudenko, “The 
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SPARTACUS AND HIS EARLY SOVIET THEATRICAL REPRESENTATION 93
accession to power during the 1920s and 1930s, when several earlier 
artistic innovations were abandoned.121 What had been a prerequisite 
for the early-1920s “proletarian” theatrical depiction of Spartacus, i.e., 
the simple clarity of ideological messaging, was therefore condemned 
less than a decade later in the new medium of film.
The October revolution had provided both the stimulus and 
opportunity to radically rethink society’s relationship with antiquity. 
More work is required, but the general pattern may already be per-
ceived. From the mid-1930s “Spartacus’ uprising” gave way to the idea 
of a slave revolution, i.e., it went from the narrative of an individual 
hero to one of mass agency and the overthrow of a whole economic 
system. Government policy, scholarly practice, and public perception 
rarely work in unison, but this general pattern tracks suggestively if 
not definitively with contemporary discussions among Soviet histo-
riographers.122 It was no accident that this shift occurred in the early 
1930s when the idea of building socialism in one country replaced the 
idea of the worldwide proletarian revolution.123
Early propagandists (and utopian revolutionaries alike) wanted to 
open up the previously restricted cultural realm of classical antiquity 
and make it accessible to the people. All three plays appearing in 
the first few years after the 1917 coup – written by Sandomyrskyi, 
Mazurkevich, and Volkenstein, respectively – remained popular for 
the next few decades of Soviet theater. Theater and mass performances 
(and later cinema and ballet) continued to shape and transform the 
image of Spartacus after cementing his popularity in the 1920s. Early 
Soviet theater showed Spartacus striking the flint for a worldwide 
proletarian revolution in the modern era. Gracchus and Brutus, 
Spartacus’ parallel figures on Lenin’s list of heroes, could not estab-
lish the continuity that the Bolsheviks sought to create between the 
“ancient proletariat” and the oppressed workers of the modern world. 
On the other hand, Spartacus (or at least his theatrical image in the 
early 1920s) could. His heroic example would shape the perception 
of Greek and Roman antiquity in the popular imagination for several 
decades to follow.
Making of a Soviet Hero,” 340–2. [In this article, the transcription of Kherson-
skii’s surname is corrected.]
121 Platt and Brandenberger, Epic Revisionism, 8–9.
122 Rudenko, “The Making of a Soviet Hero,” 337, 344–6.
123 Ibid., 343–6.
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OLEKSII RUDENKO94
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OLEKSII RUDENKO98
ABSTRACT
Spartacus became one of the key figures of Soviet dramaturgy in 
the 1920s. He was presented as the only ancient predecessor of the 
Bolsheviks and his theatrical image significantly shaped the later icon 
of the gladiator as a brave leader of the oppressed masses and a hero 
acting in the name of the proletariat. This article explores the image of 
Spartacus in early Soviet theater and mass performance and outlines 
the correlation between the template of Spartacus’ portrayal, Raffaello 
Giovagnoli’s novel Spartaco (1874), and the first dramatic adaptations 
by Vladimir Mazurkevich (1920) and Vladimir Volkenstein (1921). The 
article examines the use of the ancient hero in Bolshevik propaganda 
and traces the ways in which Spartacus’ image morphs and maps onto 
wider shifts of Soviet political and cultural policy in the early decades 
of the USSR.
kEYWORDS: Spartacus, Soviet Union, Raffaello Giovagnoli, Vladimir 
Mazurkevich, Vladimir Volkenstein
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SPARTACUS AND HIS EARLY SOVIET THEATRICAL REPRESENTATION 99
Spartak in njegova zgodnjesovjetska gledališka reprezentacija
IZVLEČEK
Spartak je v dvajsetih letih prejšnjega stoletja postal ena ključnih 
osebnosti sovjetske dramatike. Predstavljal je edinega antičnega 
predhodnika boljševikov in njegova gledališka podoba je pomembno 
oblikovala poznejšo ikono gladiatorja kot pogumnega voditelja 
zatiranih množic in junaka, ki deluje v imenu proletariata. Članek 
raziskuje podobo Spartaka v zgodnjem sovjetskem gledališču in mno-
žičnih predstavah ter sledi povezavam med predlogo za upodobitev 
Spartaka, romanom Raffaella Giovagnolija Spartaco (1874), ter prvima 
dramskima priredbama Vladimirja Mazurkeviča (1920) in Vladimirja 
Volkensteina (1921). Članek tudi prikazuje, kako so antičnega junaka 
uporabljali v boljševiški propagandi, in preučuje, kako se je Spartakova 
podoba spreminjala in prilagajala širšim premikom sovjetske politične 
in kulturne politike v prvih desetletjih ZSSR.
kLjučNE BESEDE: Spartak, Sovjetska zveza, Raffaello Giovagnoli, 
Vladimir Mazurkevič, Vladimir Volkenstein
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