ИСТИНА

Noise as the neglected form in the classical European culture was reconsidered fully only in the avant-garde sound experiments of the 1910’s–1920’s. In the history of the Russian avant-garde they were as much diverse as almost completely forgotten. One may recall at least endeavours to include noise in the music of Alexander Mosolov, Dmitry Shostakovich and some others. However, it was rather not a professional music composers scene, but mostly theatrical productions, where noise music was performed frequently as a separate act: Mastfor, The Blue Blouse, TRAM, Theatre of the Moscow Proletcult etc. What was the idea behind all these noise performances and what were the instruments and the repertoire? Partly the answers one may find in Sergei Eisenstein’s archives. Especially in the papers of his early theatrical career in Proletcult. It was Eisenstein who introduced noise music laboratory in the theatrical education in 1922 and under his guidance some extraordinary noise music projects were undertaken, such as Proletcult noise orchestra. The exchange of ideas between Proletcult ideologists and Eisenstein from the perspective of sound utopias highlights the moment, when futurism, constructivism and the clowning so typical of early Eisenstein were mutually connected. It is particularly interesting to trace how exactly Eisenstein considered noise theoretically and how it gave a common ground for his both propaganda grotesques and industrial plays (i.e. “Gas Masks”). Another question raised in the paper is the role of the avant-garde noise aesthetics in his later works in cinema as well as in theatre. In this sense the paper seeks to reassess noise music experiments of the 1920’s in the early Soviet Russia within the scope of largely underestimated part of Eisenstein’s legacy.