15 Facts About Platon Kerzhentsev

Platon Kerzhentsev was the first Soviet historian of Ireland and was considered the leading expert on Ireland in the Soviet Union.

Platon Kerzhentsev's father, Mikhail Dimitrievich Lebedev, was a deputy in the State Duma.

Platon Kerzhentsev studied at the Faculty of History and Philology of the Moscow University however was expelled from the university for being involved in underground revolutionary activity.

Platon Kerzhentsev gained experience of mass theatre in Europe and anglophone countries during a period of exile.

Platon Kerzhentsev was influenced by Percy MacKaye, Richard Wagner and Alexandr Bogdanov.

Platon Kerzhentsev was in New York City in 1916, living in the same boarding house as Padraic Colum.

Platon Kerzhentsev had articles published in Vestnik Teatra, the Journal of the Theatre Department of Narkompros based in Moscow.

In 1921, when Proletkult was taken under party control, on Lenin's instructions, and its founder, Alexander Bogdanov was ousted, Platon Kerzhentsev was appointed Ambassador in Sweden.

Platon Kerzhentsev returned in 1923, and criticised Bogdanov in Pravda where he focused on The Organizational Principles of a Uniform Economic Plan a text submitted to the First Conference on Scientific Organization of Labour.

Platon Kerzhentsev opposed piece work and other incentives which he believed would create a 'working class aristocracy.

In 1928, Platon Kerzhentsev was appointed deputy head of Agitprop and head of the culture and science department of the VKP Central Committee, and for the next ten years was a major figure in the administration and censorship of the arts.

Platon Kerzhentsev then wrote an article that appeared in Pravda on 7 February 1929, alleging that the Ukrainian people were being insulted by a play performed at the Moscow Arts Theatre, his obvious target being Bulgakov's first and best known play, The Day of the Turbins known to western audiences as The White Guard, set in Kiev, and attacked the People's Commissar for Enlightenment, Anatoli Lunacharsky for allowing it to be staged.

Platon Kerzhentsev resumed his campaign against Bulgakov, whose latest play, Moliere, the first two performances of which, in February 1935, had sold out.

Platon Kerzhentsev wrote to Stalin, alleging that the play was an allegory which drew a parallel between Moliere's humiliating treatment by Louis XIV and the treatment of Soviet artists - which very likely was Bulgakov's intention.

Platon Kerzhentsev was dismissed in 1938 as chairman of the State Committee on arts.