On 26-27 November, the RSAL hosted the conference “The Ninth International Mikhoels Readings. National Theatre in a Multicultural Context.” The conference was attended by famous Russian and international art critics, theatre and cultural experts, philologists, historians, and specialists in libraries, museums, and archives.
Mikhoels Readings is the only conference about issues, which, on one hand, are directly related to the history of art and theatre, cultural studies, and other humanities, and on the other hand, is dedicated to source resources, collections, and archives. And it is also the world’s only scientific symposium dedicated to the life and work of the great actor and director Solomon Mikhoels and to the history of Jewish theatre. Mikhoels Readings has become a regular international forum for research in which the art history associated with national theatre is updated by a large volume of research.
Among the reports presented at the conference was research on the features of drama directors, historical plays, the study of archival materials related to the biographies of artists, and National Theatre activities. Active discussion was prompted by the reports of Irina Goryunova PhD, Artistic Director of the International Centre of Solomon Mikhoels; Professor Vassili Schedrin, Research Associate of the Center for Jewish Studies at the University of Florida; Alan Jones PhD, Librarian of the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland; I. Gerasimov, Director of the Museum of Jewish History and Culture in Belarus (to 2012), and other conference participants.
Great interest was roused by the conference exhibition “Destroyed, But Not Forgotten ... From the History of the State Jewish Theatres in the USSR,” which presented unique materials from the collections of the RSAL and the Jewish Museum and Tolerance Centre.
At the conference, Boris Maftsir’s documentary film Keepers of Memory (Israel—Belarus, 2015), dedicated to the reconstruction of the tragic events of the Holocaust in the Soviet Union, was shown. During the meeting, the RSAL presented the new compendium of the 11th International Scientific Conference Theatre Books Between the Past and Future on the theme of theatrical memoirs.
“The Tenth International Mikhoels Readings” will take place in November 2017.
