Revolutionary Mass Festivals
From The Art and Popular Culture Encyclopedia
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Revolutionary Mass Festivals (in Russian массовые праздники), or Mass Spectacles, were participatory, staged cultural events held in the Soviet Union. They were held during the period of the Russian Civil War following the October Revolution of 1917. Experimental in nature, they united the Marxist-Leninist ideology of re-education of the masses and the aesthetics of the Russian avant-garde. The revolutionary mass festivals were built upon the tradition of fairs and carnivals, and were part of the subsequently institutionalized public holidays and their official celebration in the Soviet Union. In contrast to these earlier versions of public festivals, the early revolutionary mass festival were often produced ad hoc without a distinct guideline. However, they became crucial events in the active construction of historical myths.
