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[ANTI-CAPITALIST COMEDY] Bog i birzha: Sb. revolyuts. p’yes [i.e. God and The Market: A Collection of Revolutionary Plays]

Reisner, M.

Moscow: Gos. izd. 1921. Item #1166

140 pp. In original wrappers. Very good, signature on the front cover and t.p., some tears of the spine, small part of the front cover is detached from the spine.

First edition. Scarce.
A collection of plays against religion and capitalism.
Printed in 1921, this book represents a collection of 6 satirical plays written by the noted Russian scientist, lawyer, and playwright Mikhail Reisner (1868-1928). The edition, which was aimed at enhancing the socialist and revolutionary spirit of Russian society, houses plays dedicated to the pillars of Bolshevik politics - antireligion and the vices of the capitalist world. The collection includes the following dramaturgical works: Vselenskaya birzha [i.e. Universal Market], Kak Ivan-durak pravdu iskal [i.e. How Ivan the Fool Sought the Truth], Nebesnaya mekhanika [i.e. Celestial Mechanics], Yesli kapital pobedit [i.e. If Capital Wins], Tri Iisusa [i.e. Three Jesuses], and Prorok [i.e. Prophet]. In the preface to the edition, the author notes that some of the plays allow extensive revision, further insertions, and additions in the style of Commedia dell’arte, which, after years of flourishment and active promotion by the directors Vsevolod Meyerhold, Vakhtang Mchedlov, and Yevgeny Vakhtangov, entered a new phase of decline in early-1920s Russia. By the time the book was published, the first three of the plays had already been performed on the stage of the Vol’naya komediya [i.e. Free Comedy] theatre in Petrograd. In fact, the play Nebesnaya mekhanika, directed by the noted Russian theatre director Nikolay Evreinov (1879-1959) (he also directed Vselenskaya birzha and Kak Ivan-durak pravdu iskal), was the performance that opened the first season of Vol’naya komediya in 1920-1921. Yet, the collaboration between Reisner and the Free Comedy theatre, distinguished with the wide use of parody, artistic grotesque, and infiltration, turned out to be short-term. Following the death of Mchedlov and Vakhtangov, as well as Meyerhold’s shift of focus towards modernist tendencies, Commedia dell’arte gradually went out of style and the theatre was shut down in 1924.
One of the most influential figures of the early-20th century Russian law, Mikail Reisner graduated from the law faculty of Warsaw University in 1892. In 1903, after being dismissed from the role of extraordinary professor at the Department of State Law in Tomsk University, Mikhail left for Germany. Abroad, Reisner turned to the study of Marxism, became close with the leaders of the German Social Democracy, and entered into correspondence with Lenin. He returned to the Russian Empire in 1907 and joined the ranks of Bolsheviks. After the October Revolution, at Lenin’s suggestion, Mikhail headed the department of legislative assumptions at the People’s Commissariat of Justice. An active promoter of atheistic ideas, Reisner was the author of the decree on the separation of church from state and took part in drafting the first Soviet constitution - the Constitution of the RSFSR (1918). Mikhail also penned a number of plays mainly echoing his political and anti-religious views.

Worldcat shows copies of the edition at Columbia University Libraries, Ohio State University Libraries, and Stanford University.

Price: $750.00