View source for Anatoly Lunacharsky

{{Short description|Russian revolutionary, Soviet statesman and writer (1875–1933)}}
{{family name hatnote|Vasilyevich|Lunacharsky|lang=Eastern Slavic}}
{{use dmy dates|date=January 2024}}
{{Infobox officeholder
| name                = Anatoly Lunacharsky
| image               = Anatoliy Lunacharskiy 1925 Crop.png
| imagesize           = 
| caption             = Lunacharsky in 1925
| native_name_lang    = ru
| native_name         = {{nobold|Анатолий Луначарский}}
| office1             = [[Ministry of Education (Soviet Union)|People's Commissar for Education]]
| premier1            = [[Vladimir Lenin]]<br>[[Alexei Rykov]]
| term_start1         = 26 October 1917
| term_end1           = 12 September 1929
| predecessor1        = ''Office established''
| successor1          = [[Andrei Bubnov]]
| office2             = [[List of ambassadors of Russia to Spain|Soviet Minister Plenipotentiary to Spain]]
| term_start2         = 20 August 1933
| term_end2           = 26 December 1933
| premier2            = [[Vyacheslav Molotov]]
| predecessor2        = ''Office established''
| successor2          = [[Marcel Rosenberg]]
| birth_date          = {{OldStyleDate|23 November|1875|11 November}}
| birth_place         = [[Poltava]], Russian Empire
| death_date          = {{death date and age|1933|12|26|1875|11|23|df=y}}
| death_place         = [[Menton]], [[Alpes-Maritimes]], France
| birth_name          = Anatoly Aleksandrovich Antonov
| party               = [[RSDLP]] ([[Bolsheviks]]) {{nowrap|(1903–1918)}} <br/>[[Communist Party of the Soviet Union|Russian Communist Party]] (1918–1933)
| spouse              = 
| children            = 
| alma_mater          = [[University of Zurich]]
| occupation          = {{flatlist|
* Politician
* essayist
* journalist
}}
|module              = {{Listen
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|filename    = Lunacharskiy voice.ogg
|title       = Anatoly Lunacharsky's voice
|type        = 
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'''Anatoly Vasilyevich Lunacharsky''' ({{langx|ru|Анато́лий Васи́льевич Лунача́рский}}, born ''Anatoly Aleksandrovich Antonov''; {{OldStyleDate|23 November|1875|11 November}} – 26 December 1933) was a Russian [[Marxist]] revolutionary and the first Soviet [[People's Commissariat for Education|People's Commissar (minister) of Education]], as well as an active playwright, critic, essayist, and journalist throughout his career.<ref>{{cite book|title=Historical Dictionary of Russian and Soviet Cinema|author=Peter Rollberg|publisher=Rowman & Littlefield|year=2009|place=US|isbn=978-0-8108-6072-8|pages=420–422}}</ref><ref name=EncyclMarx>
{{cite web| title = Anatoly Lunacharsky 1875–1933| publisher = Encyclopedia of Marxism| url = https://www.marxists.org/glossary/people/l/u.htm#lunacharsky-anatoly| access-date = 6 January 2018}}</ref><ref name=Fitzpatrick>{{cite book  |last=Fitzpatrick  |first=Sheila |title=The Commisariat of Enlightenment: Soviet Organization of Education and the Arts under Lunacharsky |publisher = Cambridge University Press |url = https://books.google.com/books?id=aHkkdjbc00UC |pages = 1–2, 11, 14, 130–131, 150, 156, 158, 177, 347 (Krupskaya) |isbn=978-0-521-52438-4 |date = 1970 | access-date = 6 January 2018}}</ref><ref name=NewMinister>{{cite news| first = Anna| last = Kisselgoff| title = The New Minister Of Soviet Culture Takes Truth as Task| work = The New York Times| url = https://www.nytimes.com/1989/12/27/arts/the-new-minister-of-soviet-culture-takes-truth-as-task.html| date = 27 December 1989| access-date = 6 January 2018}}</ref><ref name=Britannica>{{cite news| title = Anatoly Lunacharsky| publisher = Encyclopedia Britannica| url = https://www.britannica.com/biography/Anatoly-Vasilyevich-Lunacharsky| date = 20 July 1998| access-date = 7 January 2018}}</ref><ref>{{Cite journal|last=Bergman|first=Jay|date=August 1990|title=The Image of Jesus in the Russian Revolutionary Movement: The Case of Russian Marxism|journal=International Review of Social History|volume=35|issue=2|pages=220–248|doi=10.1017/S0020859000009883|issn=1469-512X|doi-access=free}}</ref>

==Background==
Lunacharsky was born on 23 or 24 November 1875 in [[Poltava]], in the [[Russian Empire]] (now in Ukraine), as the [[Legitimacy (family law)|illegitimate]] child of [[Active State Councillor|state councillor]] Alexander Antonov and Alexandra Lunacharskaya, née Rostovtseva. His mother was then married to statesman Vasily Lunacharsky, a [[Russian nobility|nobleman]] of Polish origin, whence Anatoly's surname and patronym. She later divorced Vasily Lunacharsky and married Antonov, but Anatoly kept his former name.<ref name=Britannica /> 

In 1890, at the age of 15, Lunacharsky became a [[Marxism|Marxist]]. From 1894, he studied at the [[University of Zurich]] under [[Richard Avenarius]] for two years without taking a degree. In [[Zürich]] he met European socialists, including [[Rosa Luxemburg]] and [[Leo Jogiches]], and joined the [[Russian Social Democratic Labour Party]]. He also lived for a time in France.

==Early career==
[[File:Anatoliy Lunacharskiy in 1899.jpg|thumb|left|Lunacharsky in 1899]]
In 1899, Lunacharsky returned to Russia, where he and [[Vladimir Lenin]]'s sister revived the Moscow Committee of the [[Russian Social Democratic Labour Party]] (RSDLP), until they were betrayed by an informant and arrested. He was allowed to settle in [[Kiev]]<!--See WP:KIEV-->, but was arrested again after resuming his political activities, and after ten months in prison he was sent to [[Kaluga]], where he joined a Marxist circle that included [[Alexander Bogdanov]] and [[Vladimir Bazarov]].<ref>{{cite book |last1=Georges Haupt |first1=and Jean-Jacques Marie |title=Makers of the Russian Revolution, Biographies of Bolshevik Leaders (includes a biographical essay by Lunacharsky published in 1927) |date=1974 |publisher=George Allen & Unwin |location=London |isbn=0-04-947021-3 |page=306}}</ref> 

In February 1902, he was exiled to Kushinov village in [[Vologda Oblast|Vologda]], where he again shared his exile with Bogdanov, whose sister he married, and with the [[Legal Marxism|Legal Marxist]] [[Nikolai Berdyaev]] and the [[Socialist Revolutionary Party|Socialist Revolutionary]] terrorist [[Boris Savinkov]] among others. After the first issue of Lenin's newspaper ''[[Iskra]]'' had reached Vologda, Bogdanov and Lunacharsky organised a Marxist circle that distributed illegal literature, while he also legally wrote theatre criticism for a local liberal newspaper.<ref>{{cite web |last1=Panshev |first1=L. |title=Л. В. Луначарский в Вологодской ссылке (Lunacharsky in exile in Vologda) |url=https://nason.ru/lunacharskiyvssilke/ |website=Насон - История города Вологды |access-date=16 June 2021}}</ref> In March 1903, the governor of Vologda ordered Lunacharsky to be transferred further north, to [[Totma]], where they were the only political exiles.

In 1903, the RSDLP split between the [[Bolsheviks]], led by [[Vladimir Lenin]], and the [[Mensheviks]]. Lunacharsky, who by now had ended his period in exile and was back in Kiev, originally believed that the split was unnecessary and joined the '[[Mezhraiontsy|conciliators]]', who hoped to bring the two sides together,<ref>{{cite web |last1=Lunacharsky |first1=Anatoly |title=Revolutionary Silhouettes |url=https://www.marxists.org/archive/lunachar/works/silhouet/lenin.htm |website=Marxist Internet Archives |access-date=12 August 2020}}</ref> but he was converted to Bolshevism by Bogdanov. In 1904, he moved to Geneva and became one of Lenin's most active collaborators and an editor of the first exclusively Bolshevik newspaper, ''[[Vperyod|Vpered]]''. According to Nadezhda Krupskaya:

{{quote|Lunacharsky turned out to be a brilliant orator and did a great deal to assist in strengthening the Bolshevik positions. From then on Lenin became on very good terms with Lunacharsky, became jolly in his presence, and was rather partial towards him even at the time of the difference with the [[Vpered|''Vpered''-ites]]. And Anatoly Vasilyevich was always particularly keen and witty in Lenin's presence.<ref>{{cite book |last1=Krupskaya |first1=Nadezhda |title=Memories of Lenin |date=1970 |publisher=Panther |location=London |pages=111–12}}</ref>|}}

Lunacharsky returned to Russia after the outbreak of the [[1905 Russian Revolution|1905 Revolution]]. In Moscow he co-edited the journal ''Novaya zhizn'' and other Bolshevik publications, which could be published legally, and gave lectures on art and literature. Arrested during a workers' meeting, he spent a month in [[Kresty Prison]]. 

Soon after his release, he faced "extremely serious" charges, and fled abroad, via Finland, in March 1906.<ref>{{cite book |last1=Haupt |first1=and Marie |title=Biographies |page=307}}</ref> In 1907, he attended the [[International Socialist Congress, Stuttgart 1907|International Socialist Congress]] held in [[Stuttgart]].

=== Vpered ===
In 1908, when the Bolsheviks split between Lenin's supporters and Alexander Bogdanov's followers, Lunacharsky supported his brother-in-law Bogdanov in setting up a new ''[[Vpered]]''. During this period, he wrote a two-volume work on the relationship between Marxism and religion, ''Religion and Socialism'' (1908, 1911), declaring that god should be interpreted as "humanity in the future". This earned him the description "god builder". 

Like many contemporary socialists (including Bogdanov), Lunacharsky was influenced by the empirio-criticism philosophy of [[Ernst Mach]] and Avenarius. Lenin opposed Machism as a form of subjective idealism and strongly criticised its proponents in his book ''[[Materialism and Empirio-criticism]]'' (1908). 

In 1909, Lunacharsky joined Bogdanov and [[Maxim Gorky]] at the latter's villa on the island of [[Capri]], where they started a school for Russian socialist workers. In 1910, Bogdanov, Lunacharsky, [[Mikhail Pokrovsky]] and their supporters moved the school to [[Bologna]], where they continued teaching classes through 1911. In 1911, Lunacharsky moved to Paris, where he started his own Circle of Proletarian Culture.<ref name=Britannica />

=== World War I ===
After the outbreak of [[World War I]] in 1914, Lunacharsky adopted an [[Internationalist/Defencist Schism|internationalist]] antiwar position, which put him on a course of convergence with Lenin and [[Leon Trotsky]]. In 1915, Lunacharsky and [[Pavel Lebedev-Polianskii|Pavel Lebedev-Poliansky]] restarted the social democratic newspaper ''Vpered'' with an emphasis on [[proletarian culture]].<ref name="paris">Bernice Glatzer Rosenthal, ''New Myth, New World: From Nietzsche to Stalinism'', Pennsylvania State University, 2002, p.85 {{ISBN|0-271-02533-6}}</ref> From 1915, he also worked for the daily newspaper ''[[Nashe Slovo]]'', sometimes acting as peacemaker between the two editors, Trotsky and the [[Menshevik-Internationalists|Menshevik internationalist]] [[Julius Martov]].<ref>{{cite book |last1=Deutscher |first1=Isaac |title=The Prophet Armed, Trotsky: 1879-1921 |date=1954 |publisher=Oxford U.P. |location=London |page=221}}</ref>

After the [[February Revolution]] of 1917, Lunacharsky left his family in Switzerland and returned to Russia on a [[sealed train]] - though not the same train that Lenin had used earlier. Like other internationalist social democrats returning from abroad, he briefly joined the [[Mezhraiontsy]] before they merged with the Bolsheviks in July–August 1917. He was also the cultural editor of [[Novaya Zhizn (Mensheviks)|''Novaya Zhizn'']], until forced against his will to sever this connection, because the paper took an anti-Bolshevik line. 

Even before he formally joined the Bolsheviks, he proved to be one of their most popular and effective orators, often sharing a platform with Trotsky. He was arrested with Trotsky on 22 July 1917, on a charge of inciting the "[[July Days]]" riots, and was held in Kresty prison until September.<ref name=EncyclMarx /><ref name=Britannica />

==People's Commissariat for Education (Narkompros)==
After the [[October Revolution]] of 1917, Lunacharsky was appointed head of the [[People's Commissariat for Education]] (Narkompros) in the first Soviet government. On 15 November, after eight days in this post, he resigned in protest over a rumour that the Bolsheviks had bombarded [[St Basil's Cathedral]] on [[Red Square]] while they were storming the [[Kremlin]], but after two days he withdrew his resignation. After the creation of the [[Soviet Union]], he was People's Commissar for Enlightenment, which was a function devolved to the union republics, for the Russian Federation only.

Lunacharsky opposed the decision in 1918 to transfer Russia's capital to Moscow and stayed for a year in [[Petrograd]] (now Saint Petersburg) and left the running of his commissariat to his deputy, [[Mikhail Pokrovsky]].<ref>{{cite book |last1=Haupt |first1=Marie |title=Biographies |page=309}}</ref>

[[File:Anatoly Lunacharsky 1927.jpg|left|thumb|Lunacharsky, People's Commissar for Education on 13 Congress of Soviets of the RSFSR, April 1927]]

=== Education ===
On 10 November 1917, Lunacharsky signed a decree making school education a state monopoly at local government level and said that his department would not claim central power over schools. In December, he ordered church schools to be brought under the jurisdiction of local Soviets. 

He faced determined opposition from the teachers' union. In February 1918, the fourth month of a teachers' strike, he ordered all teachers to report to their local soviets and to stand for re-election to their jobs. In March, he reluctantly disbanded the union and sequestered its funds. Largely because of the opposition from teachers, he had to abandon his scheme for local autonomy.

He also believed in polytechnic schools, in which children could learn a range of basic skills, including manual skills, with specialist training beginning in late adolescence. All children were to have the same education and would automatically qualify for higher education, but opposition from Trotsky and others later compelled him to agree that specialist education would begin in secondary schools.

In July 1918, he proposed that all university lecturers should be elected for seven-year terms, irrespective of their academic qualifications, that all courses would be free, and that institutions would be run by elected councils made of staff and students. His ideas were vigorously opposed by academics.

In June 1919, ''The New York Times'' decried Lunacharsky's efforts in education in an article entitled "Reds Are Ruining Children of Russia". It claimed that he was instilling a "system of calculated moral depravity [...] in one of the most diabolical of all measures conceived by the Bolshevik rulers of Russia".<ref>
{{cite news
| title = Reds Are Ruining Children of Russia: Lunacharsky's System of Calculated Moral Depravity Described by Swiss Teacher: Aims to Destroy the Home
| work = New York Times
| url = https://www.nytimes.com/1919/06/13/archives/reds-are-ruining-children-of-russia-lunacharskys-system-of.html
| date = 13 June 1919
| access-date = 6 January 2018}}</ref>

=== Culture ===
[[File:1924-Mayak-mos-red.jpg|thumb|right|Lunacharsky alongside [[Vladimir Mayakovsky]] in 1924]]
A week before the October Revolution, Lunacharsky convened and presided over a conference of proletarian cultural and educational organisations, at which the independent art movement [[Proletkult]] was launched, with Lunacharsky's former colleague, Bogdanov, as its leading figure. In October 1920, he clashed with Lenin, who insisted on bringing Proletkult under state control. But though he believed in encouraging factories to create literature or art, he did not share the hostility to "bourgeois" art forms exhibited by [[Russian Association of Proletarian Writers|RAPP]] and other exponents of proletarian art. 

In the week after the revolution, he invited everyone in Petrograd involved in cultural or artistic work to a meeting at Communist Party headquarters. Although the meeting was widely advertised, no more than seven people turned up, though they included [[Alexander Blok]], [[Vladimir Mayakovsky]], [[Vsevolod Meyerhold]] and [[Larissa Reissner]].<ref>{{cite book |last1=Woroszylsk |first1=Viktor |title=The Life of Mayakovsky |date=1971 |publisher=Grossman |location=New York |pages=186–87}}</ref>

==== Art ====
Lunacharsky directed some of experiments in public arts after the Revolution, such as the [[agit-train]]s and agit-boats that circulated over all Russia spreading Revolution and revolutionary arts. He also gave support to [[Constructivism (art)|constructivism]]'s experiments and the initiatives such as the [[ROSTA posters|ROSTA Windows]], revolutionary posters designed and written by Mayakovsky, [[Alexander Rodchenko|Rodchenko]] and others. With his encouragement, 36 new art galleries were opened in 1918-21.

==== Cinema ====
[[Mayakovsky]] stimulated his interest in cinema, then a new art form. Lunacharsky wrote an "agit-comedy", which was filmed in the streets of Petrograd for the first anniversary of the Bolshevik revolution. Soon afterwards, he nationalised the film industry and founded the State Film School. In 1920, he told [[George Lansbury]]: "So far, cinemas are not much use owing to shortage of materials. ... When these difficulties are removed ... the story of humanity will be told in pictures".<ref>{{cite book |last1=Leyda |first1=Jay |title=Kino, A History of the Russian and Soviet Film |date=1973 |publisher=George Allen & Unwin |location=London |isbn=0-04-791027-5 |pages=126, 132;, 137}}</ref> He also wrote scrips for several [[agitprop]] films, such as ''[[Cohabitation (film)|Cohabitation]]'' (1918).

==== Theatre ====
In the early 1920s, theatre appears to have been the art form to which Lunacharsky attached the greatest importance. In 1918, when most Bolsheviks despised experimental art, Lunacharsky praised Mayakovsky's play [[Mystery-Bouffe]], directed by Meyerhold, which he described as "original, powerful and beautiful".<ref>{{cite book |last1=Braun |first1=Edward |title=The Theatre of Meyerhold, Revolution on the Modern Stage |date=1986 |publisher=Methuen |location=London |isbn=0-413-41120-6 |page=149}}</ref> But his main interest was not experimental theatre. During the civil war, he wrote two symbolic dramas, ''The Magi'' and ''Ivan Goes to Heaven'', and a historical drama ''Oliver Cromwell.'' In July 1919, he took personal charge of the theatre administration from [[Olga Kameneva]], with the intention of reviving realism on stage.

Lunacharsky was associated with the establishment of the [[Tovstonogov Theater|Bolshoi Drama Theater]] in 1919, working with Maxim Gorky, [[Alexander Blok]] and [[Maria Fyodorovna Andreyeva|Maria Andreyeva]]. He also played a part in persuading the [[Moscow Art Theatre]] (MAT) and its renowned directors [[Konstantin Stanislavski]] and [[Vladimir Nemirovich-Danchenko]] to end their opposition to the regime and resume productions. In January 1922 he protested vigorously after Lenin had ordered that the [[Bolshoi Ballet]] was to be closed, and succeeded in keeping it open.<ref>{{cite book |last1=Katerina Clark |first1=and Evgeny Dobrenko |title=Soviet Culture and Power, A History in Documents, 1917-1953 |date=2007 |publisher=Yale U.P. |location=New Haven |isbn=978-0-300-10646-6 |pages=24–29}}</ref>

In 1923 he launched a ''Back to [[Alexander Ostrovsky|Ostrovsky]]'' movement to mark the centenary of Russia's first great playwright.<ref>{{cite book |last1=Gorchakov |first1=Nikolai A. |title=The Theatre in Soviet Russia |date=1957 |publisher=Columbia U.P. |location=New York |page=205}}</ref> He was also personally involved in the decision to allow the MAT to stage [[Mikhail Bulgakov]]'s first play, ''[[The Days of the Turbins]]'' (usually known by its original title, ''[[The White Guard]]'')<ref>{{cite book |last1=McSmith |first1=Andy |title=Fear and the Muse Kept Watch, The Russian Masters - from Akhmatova and Pasternak to Shostakovich and Eisenstein - Under Stalin |date=2015 |publisher=New Press |location=New York |isbn=978-1-59558-056-6 |pages=64, 68}}</ref>

==== Literature ====
Despite his belief in 'proletarian' literature, Lunacharsky also defended writers who were not experimental, nor even sympathetic to the Bolsheviks. He also helped [[Boris Pasternak]]. In 1924, Pasternak's wife wrote to his cousin saying "so far, Lunacharsky has never refused to see Borya".<ref>{{cite book |last1=McSmith |first1=Andy |title=Fear and the Muse |page=138}}</ref>

==== Music ====
Lunacharsky was the first Bolshevik to recognise the value of the composer [[Sergei Prokofiev]], whom he met in April 1918, after the premiere of his ''[[Classical Symphony]]''. In 1926, he wrote "the freshness and rich imagination characteristic of Prokofiev attest to his exceptional talent".<ref>{{cite book |last1=Nestyev |first1=Israel V. |title=Prokofiev |date=1960 |publisher=Stanford U.P. |location=Stanford, CA |page=219}}</ref> He arranged a passport that allowed Prokofiev to leave Russia, then in July 1925 he persuaded the [[Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union]] to invite Prokofiev, [[Igor Stravinsky]], and the pianist [[Alexander Borovsky]] to return to Russia. Stravinsky and Borovsky rejected the offer, but Prokofiev was given permission to come and go freely while Lunacharsky was in office. In February 1927, he sat with Prokofiev during the first Russian performance of [[The Love for Three Oranges]], which he compared to "a glass of champagne, all sparkling and frothy".<ref>{{cite book |last1=Prokofiev |first1=Sergei |title=Soviet Diary 1927 and Other Writings |date=1991 |publisher=Faber and Faber |location=London |isbn=0-571-16158-8 |pages=103–04}}</ref>

In 1929, Lunacharsky supported a change in the [[Russian alphabet|Russian]] alphabet, [[Latinisation in the Soviet Union|latinizing]] it from [[Cyrillic script|Cyrillic]] to [[Latin script|Latin]].<ref name=Britannica />

== Personality ==
Though he was influential in setting Soviet policy on culture and education, particularly in the early years while Lenin was alive, Lunacharsky was not a powerful figure. Trotsky described him as "a man always easily infected by the moods of those around him, imposing in appearance and voice, eloquent in a declamatory way, none too reliable, but often irreplaceable."<ref>{{cite book |last1=Trotsky |first1=Leon |title=History of the Russian Revolution, volume two |date=1967 |publisher=Sphere |location=London |page=46}}</ref> But [[Ilya Ehrenburg]] wrote: "I was struck by something different: he was not a poet, he was engrossed in political activity, but an extraordinary love of art burned in him", and [[Nikolai Sukhanov]], who knew him well, wrote that

{{quote|The great people of the revolution - both his comrades and his opponents - almost always spoke of Lunacharsky with sneers, irony or scorn. Though a most popular personality and minister, he was kept away from high policy: 'I have no influence,' he once told me himself ... But that is his historical role; for the brilliance of talent, to say nothing of culture, he has no equal in the constellation of Bolshevik leaders.<ref>{{cite book |last1=Sukhanov |first1=N.N. |title=The Russian Revolution, 1917 |date=1962 |publisher=Harper & Brothers |location=New York |page=375}}</ref>|}}

==Later career==
Lunacharsky avoided taking sides when the Communist Party split after Lenin's death, but he almost became embroiled in the split by accident by publishing his selection of ''Revolutionary Silhouettes'' in 1923, which included portraits of Trotsky, [[Grigory Zinoviev|Zinoviev]], and [[Julius Martov|Martov]], but failed to mention [[Joseph Stalin|Stalin]]. Later, he offended Trotsky by saying at an event in the Bolshoi Theatre to commemorate the second anniversary of Lenin's death, that "they" (he did not say who) were willing to offer Trotsky "a crown on a velvet cushion" and "hail him as Lev I".<ref>{{cite book |last1=Carr |first1=E.H. |title=Socialism in One Country, volume 2 |date=1970 |publisher=Penguin |location=Harmondsworth, Middlesex |pages=187–88}}</ref>

After about 1927, he was losing control over cultural policy to Stalinists like [[Leopold Averbakh]]. After he was removed from office, in 1929, Lunacharsky was appointed to the Learned Council of the Soviet Union Central Executive Committee. He also became an editor for the Literature Encyclopedia (published 1929–1939).{{citation needed|date=December 2020}}

Lunacharsky represented the [[Soviet Union]] at the [[League of Nations]] from 1930 through 1932.<ref>{{Cite web |title=Anatoli Lunacharsky |url=https://spartacus-educational.com/RUSlunacharsky.htm |access-date=2022-07-11 |website=Spartacus Educational |language=en}}</ref>

In 1930, Anatolii Lunacharsky established a government commission to research satirical genres in all kinds of art.<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Haxhi |first=Tomi |date=2019-10-02 |title=Devastation and laughter: satire, power, and culture in the early Soviet state, 1920s–1930s: by Annie Gérin, Toronto, ON, University of Toronto Press, 2019, 255 pp., $60.00 (hardback), ISBN 978-1-487-50243-0 |url=https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/00085006.2019.1669397 |journal=Canadian Slavonic Papers |language=en |volume=61 |issue=4 |pages=465–466 |doi=10.1080/00085006.2019.1669397 |issn=0008-5006|url-access=subscription }}</ref>

In 1933, he was appointed [[List of ambassadors of Russia to Spain|ambassador to Spain]], a post he never assumed, as he died ''en route''.<ref name=EncyclMarx /><ref name=Britannica />

===Death===
Lunacharsky died at 58 on 26 December 1933 in [[Menton]], France, while travelling to Spain to take up the post of Soviet ambassador there, as the conflict that became the [[Spanish Civil War]] appeared increasingly inevitable.<ref name=EncyclMarx /><ref name=Britannica /><ref name="BrownCollinson2003">
{{cite book
|author1=Stuart Brown
|author2=Diane Collinson
|author3=Robert Wilkinson
|title=Biographical Dictionary of Twentieth-Century Philosophers
|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=Cz-P7i-0VCIC&pg=PA481
|date=1 September 2003
|publisher=Taylor & Francis
|isbn=978-0-203-01447-9|pages=481–}}</ref>
[[File:Memorial to Anatoli Lounatcharski.jpg|thumb|right|A monument to Lunacharsky in [[Menton]], France]]

==Personal life==
In 1902, he married Anna Alexandrovna Malinovskaya, [[Alexander Bogdanov]]'s sister. They had one child, a daughter named Irina Lunacharsky.<ref name=Fitzpatrick /> In 1922, he met [[Natalya Rozenel]], an actress at the [[Maly Theatre (Moscow)|Maly Theatre]]. He left his family and married her.{{citation needed|date=December 2020}} Sergei Prokofiev, who met her in 1927, described her as "one of his most recent wives", and as "a beautiful woman from the front, much less beautiful if you looked at her predatory profile".<ref>{{cite book |last1=Prokofiev |title=Soviet Diary |pages=21–22}}</ref> He claimed that Lunacharsky had previously been the lover of the ballerina [[Inna Chernetskaya]].

Lunacharsky was known as an art connoisseur and a critic. Besides Marxist dialectics, he had been interested in philosophy since he was a student. For instance, he was fond of the ideas of [[Johann Gottlieb Fichte]], [[Friedrich Nietzsche]] and [[Richard Avenarius]].<ref>{{cite web|url=http://taina.aib.ru/biography/anatolij-lunacharskij.htm |title=Анатолий Васильевич Луначарский биография |access-date=2010-02-25 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20100201205344/http://taina.aib.ru/biography/anatolij-lunacharskij.htm |archive-date=2010-02-01 }}</ref> He could read six modern languages and two dead ones. Lunacharsky corresponded with [[H. G. Wells]], [[George Bernard Shaw|Bernard Shaw]] and [[Romain Rolland]].{{citation needed|date=February 2013}} He met numerous other famous cultural figures such as [[Rabindranath Tagore]]<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://www.rbth.com/arts/people/2016/11/24/russian-culture-and-soviet-education-left-a-deep-imprint-on-tagore_650625|title=Russian culture and Soviet education left a deep imprint on Tagore|last1=Kalandarova|first1=Mastura|last2=RIR|first2=specially for|date=2016-11-24|website=www.rbth.com|access-date=2019-01-07}}</ref> and [[Nicholas Roerich]].<ref>{{Cite web|url=http://www.themontrealreview.com/2009/Exile-and-Utopia-Nicholas-Roerich-Shortcut-to-Promised-Land.php|title=Exile and Utopia: Nicholas Roerich's Shortcut to Promised Land|website=www.themontrealreview.com|access-date=2019-01-07}}</ref><ref>{{Cite journal|last=Archer|first=Kenneth|date=1990-09-01|journal=Art History|volume=13|issue=3|pages=419–423|doi=10.1111/j.1467-8365.1990.tb00407.x|issn=1467-8365|title=Nicholas Roerich: An Idol with Feet of Clay?}}</ref>

Lunacharsky once described [[Nadezhda Krupskaya]] as the "soul of Narkompros".<ref name=Fitzpatrick />

Friends included [[Igor Moiseyev]].<ref>
{{cite news
| first = Anna
| last = Kisselgoff
| title = A Visionary of Balletic Folk Dance Turns 100
| work = New York Times
| url = https://www.nytimes.com/2006/01/21/arts/dance/a-visionary-of-balletic-folk-dance-turns-100.html
| date = 12 January 2006
| access-date = 6 January 2018}}</ref>

==Legacy==
[[File:Kremlin Wall Necropolis - Lunacharskiy, Anatoliy 02.jpg|thumb|Grave of Anatoly Lunacharsky in the [[Kremlin Wall Necropolis]]]]
Lunacharsky's remains were returned to Moscow, where his urn was buried in the [[Kremlin Wall Necropolis]], a rare privilege during the Soviet era. During the [[Great Purge]] of 1936–1938, Lunacharsky's name was erased from the Communist Party's history and his memoirs were banned.<ref>[[Roy Medvedev]], ''Let History Judge'', 1971.</ref> A revival came in the late 1950s and 1960s, with a surge of memoirs about Lunacharsky and many streets and organizations named or renamed in his honour. During that era, Lunacharsky was viewed by the Soviet [[intelligentsia]] as an educated, refined and tolerant Soviet politician.
[[File:1975 CPA 4514.jpg|thumb|left|Soviet stamp portraying Lunacharsky in 1979]]
In the 1960s, his daughter Irina Lunacharsky helped revive his popularity.  Several streets and institutions were named in his honour.{{citation needed|date=December 2020}}

In 1971, Asteroid 2446 was named after Lunacharsky.{{citation needed|date=December 2020}}

Some Soviet-built orchestral [[harp]]s also bear the name of Lunacharsky, presumably in his honour. These concert pedal harps were produced in Leningrad (now [[Saint Petersburg]], Russia).

''The New York Times'' dubbed [[Nikolai Gubenko]], last culture commissar of the Soviet Union, "the first arts professional since Anatoly V. Lunacharsky" because he seemed to "identify" with Lunacharsky.<ref name=NewMinister />

==Works==
Lunacharsky was also a prolific writer. He wrote literary essays on the works of several writers, including [[Alexander Pushkin]], [[George Bernard Shaw]] and [[Marcel Proust]]. However, his most notable work is his memoirs, ''Revolutionary Silhouettes'', which describe anecdotes and Lunacharsky's general impressions of Lenin, [[Leon Trotsky]] and eight other revolutionaries. Trotsky reacted to some of Lunacharsky's opinions in his own autobiography, ''[[My Life (Trotsky autobiography)|My Life]]''.

In the 1920s, Lunacharsky produced [[Lyubov Popova]]'s ''The Locksmith and the Chancellor'' at the Comedy Theater.<ref>
{{cite news
| first = Michael
| last = Kimmelmann
| title = When Soviet Art Tried to Remake The World
| work = New York Times
| url = https://www.nytimes.com/1991/02/24/arts/art-when-soviet-art-tried-to-remake-the-world.html
| date = 24 February 1991
| access-date = 6 January 2018}}</ref>

Some of his works include:
* ''Outlines of a Collective Philosophy'' (1909)<ref name=Britannica />
* ''Self-Education of the Workers: The Cultural Task of the Struggling Proletariat'' (1918)<ref>
{{cite book
| first = Anatoly
| last = Lunacharsky
| author-link = Anatoly Lunacharsky
| title = Self-Education of the Workers: The Cultural Task of the Struggling Proletariat
| publisher = The Workers’ Socialist Federation
| place = London
| url = http://www.marxists.org/archive/lunachar/1918/self-education.htm
| date = 1923
| access-date = 6 January 2018}}</ref>
* ''Three Plays'' (1923)<ref name=Britannica />
* ''Revolutionary Silhouettes'' (1923)<ref>
{{cite book
| first = Anatoly
| last = Lunacharsky
| author-link = Anatoly Lunacharsky
| title = Revolutionary Silhouettes
| url = https://www.marxists.org/archive/lunachar/works/silhouet/index.htm
| date = 1923
| access-date = 6 January 2018}}</ref>
* ''Theses on the Problems of Marxist Criticism'' (1928)<ref>
{{cite book
| first = A. V. 
| last = Lunacharsky
| author-link = Anatoly Lunacharsky
| title = Theses on the Problems of Marxist Criticism
| url = https://www.marxists.org/archive/lunachar/1928/criticism.htm
| date = 1928
| access-date = 6 January 2018}}</ref>
* ''Vladimir Mayakovsky, Innovator'' (1931)<ref>
{{cite book
| first = Anatoly
| last = Lunacharsky
| author-link = Anatoly Lunacharsky
| title = Vladimir Mayakovsky, Innovator
| url = https://www.marxists.org/archive/lunachar/1931/mayakovsky.htm
| date = 1931
| access-date = 6 January 2018}}</ref>
* ''George Bernard Shaw'' (1931)<ref>
{{cite book
| first = Anatoly
| last = Lunacharsky
| author-link = Anatoly Lunacharsky
| title = George Bernard Shaw
| url = https://www.marxists.org/archive/lunachar/1931/gbshaw.htm
| date = 1931
| access-date = 6 January 2018}}</ref>
* ''Maxim Gorky'' (1932)<ref>
{{cite book
| first = Anatoly
| last = Lunacharsky
| author-link = Anatoly Lunacharsky
| title = Maxim Gorky
| url = https://www.marxists.org/archive/lunachar/works/gorky.htm
| date = 1932
| access-date = 6 January 2018}}</ref>
* ''On Literature and Art'' (1965)<ref>
{{cite book
| first = Anatoly
| last = Lunacharsky
| author-link = Anatoly Lunacharsky
| title = On Literature and Art
| publisher = Progress Publishers
| url = https://www.marxists.org/archive/lunachar/index.htm
| date = 1965
| access-date = 6 January 2018}}</ref>

== See also ==
* [[God-Building]]
* [[New Soviet man]]
* [[Working-class culture]]
* [[Proletkult]]
* [[Proletarian literature]]
* [[Proletarian novel]]

== References ==
{{reflist}}

== Further reading ==
* [http://www.marxists.org/archive/lunachar/ Works by Lunacharsky at Marxist internet archive]
* Robert C Williams, 'From Positivism to Collectivism: Lunarcharsky and Proletarian Culture', in Williams, ''Artists in Revolution'', Indiana University Press, 1977
* [https://archive.org/details/vasilisawisedram00lunaiala ''Vasilisa the Wise''] (A play by Lunacharsky, in English)
* {{IMDb name|0526101}}

==External links==
{{Commons category|Anatoliy Lunacharskiy}}
* {{PM20|FID=pe/011743}}

{{Authority control}}

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