“From gloom to lightness. From fight to the book. From sorrow to happiness”: leisure of the city dwellers of the Middle Volga region in the 1920s

The aim of the article is to look on such widespread leisure activities of the citizens of the Middle Volga Region as reading, visiting theatre and sport in the period of 1920s under the prism of socio-economic and cultural changes and to identify the influence of challenges of the given time on cultural practices of people. The basic group of historical sources comprise current records of the fonds of State Historical Archive of the Chuvash Republic, National Archive of the Republic of Tatarstan, State Archive of the Mari El Republic. They include reports on the activity of theatres, art departments and also plans of investigations and information on economic and cultural life of different groups of population. Some of the materials are introduced into scientific circulation for the first time. Publications of periodicals (“Izvestiya TatTsIKa”, “Krasnaya Tatariya”, “Mariyskaya derevnya”, “Trudovaya gazeta”), written by the witnesses and participants of the events, reflect emotional reaction of population and help in the reconstruction of the spirit of the 1920s. In the beginning of the 1920s hard socio-economic position of population caused by the bad harvest and famine of 1921 in the Middle Volga Region had influence on the cultural life of cities. State carried out social campaigns accompanyed by different recreational events, the revenues from which were used for famine relief. As a rule, such events were practially unaccessible for starving persons. In connection with quite a low level of education of citizens spectacular leisure activities gain popularity. In some theatres classical repertoire was still present, others, keeping up with the times, released performances on revolutional and social-class themes. In this case new experimental forms were used and means of expression which not always contributed to the increase of the quality of performances. Within the scope of the policy of abolition of illeteracy the number of libraries increases, the citizen dwellers were acquainted with the achievements of world and domestic literature through the “judgements” on the given subject. Hard consequences of wars, bad harvests, epidemies were felt also in the second half of 1920s. This caused necessity to involve citizens with sport. However the work in this direction was on the stage of establishment. In connection with the lack of financing and low level of organization, sport as one of the types of leisure was not widely widespread. Summarizing the above it is important to note that the leisure of citizens reflected the transitory character of the given historical period. On the one hand, pre-revolutionary types of leisure preserved, on the other hand, new ones in form or in content, having revolutionary connotation arose. Agitation and propaganda accompanied practically all cultural events and was aimed at the formation of a Soviet style of life with leisure practices which became “classical” ones in the following decade.

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