Complicity and Conflict: GDR Theatre Censorship, 1961-1990

戏剧本质上是不稳定的：它不提供固定的产品，与观众进行现场交流，因此对审查人员和研究人员都提出了特别的挑战。这也许可以解释为什么在民主德国灭亡18年后，关于戏剧审查的学术研究落后于文学方面的同等出版物。我的专著将提供第一个详细的调查如何民主德国戏剧审查制度的发展在1961年和1990年之间，它是如何在不同地区实行，以及它如何影响不同的流派，从古典悲剧到当代戏剧。自1990年以来，学者（例如，达恩顿，1995年）都强调，需要取代冷战的价值判断与审查作为一个谈判过程的一个更微妙的理解。然而，大多数关于东德表演的最新出版物都来自那些既得利益者，他们希望通过回忆录、访谈或内部戏剧出版物来维持戏剧作为抵抗政权中心的神话。通过关注引人注目的争端，即使是学术研究（例如Braun，1995年）也倾向于使艺术家和官员之间的冲突是常态的观念永久化。我通过审查具有不同结果的案例来挑战这些假设，从生产禁令，到令人不安的妥协，再到受到官员欢迎的分期付款。我探讨了戏剧从业者如何参与审查，并表明冲突沿着沿着多条线，在党和国家机构内部和之间，以及剧院本身。我的项目的历史范围使我能够比较戏剧从业者在不同争议中的角色，在这些争议中，忠诚度往往是逐案决定的。这本专著将通过探索执政党拒绝审查如何影响戏剧监管和文化官员的决定来开辟新的领域。这种否认的根源在于该政权希望与赖希的做法保持距离，并在与联邦共和国对抗时表现出民主的形象。由于审查制度并不正式存在，官僚们可以要求剧院从业人员对已经通过演出前检查的作品负责。这种明显的责任下放使戏剧从业者面临相当大的风险，鼓励他们进行自我审查。戏剧从业者面临着审查制度的所有控制，却没有任何保障，这解释了为什么东德的戏剧家（不像小说家和诗人）在1987年为审查制度的合法化而斗争。该项目是基于对联邦和地区国家档案馆、剧院档案馆和斯塔西档案馆的广泛研究，为历史、文化和表演分析提供了基础。证据包括中央和地方国家和党当局的记录，从政策文件和电话交谈记录到对剧院，剧本和制作的评估;与表演有关的材料，如剧本，排练笔记，视听录音，布景设计和演出后讨论的记录;以及Stasi文件。我还采访了导演、演员、评论家和前SED官员。“共谋与冲突”将为多个领域的学术研究做出重大贡献：审查制度，戏剧研究，文学批评以及民主德国和其他社会主义政权的历史记录。它的历史和地理范围使它有别于现有的少数几个关于戏剧审查的讨论（Braun，1995; Baker，2007），其详细案例研究的地理范围甚至对于东德的学术研究来说也是不寻常的：它将东柏林的审查与德累斯顿、什未林、莱比锡、哈勒和新勃兰登堡的做法进行了比较。虽然东德传统上被视为高度中央集权的国家，但戏剧审查制度的巨大区域差异表明其政治文化的多样性尚未得到承认。

Theatre is intrinsically unstable: it provides no fixed product, communicates live with its audience, and therefore presents particular challenges to both censors and researchers. This may explain why, eighteen years after the GDR's demise, scholarship on theatre censorship lags behind equivalent publications on literature. My monograph will offer the first detailed investigation of how GDR theatre censorship developed between 1961 and 1990, how it was practised in different regions, and how it affected different genres, from classical tragedy through to contemporary drama.Since 1990, academics (e.g. Darnton, 1995) have emphasized the need to replace Cold War value judgements with a more nuanced understanding of censorship as a process of negotiation. Yet most recent publications on GDR performance come from practitioners with a vested interest in maintaining the myth of theatre as a centre of resistance to the regime, whether through memoirs, interviews, or in-house theatre publications. By focusing on high-profile disputes, even academic studies (e.g. Braun, 1995) tend to perpetuate the notion that conflict between artists and officials was the norm. I challenge these assumptions by examining cases with different outcomes, ranging from production bans, through uneasy compromises, to stagings welcomed by officials. I explore how theatre practitioners were involved in censorship and show that conflicts ran along multiple lines, within and between Party and state institutions, and within theatres themselves. The historical scope of my project allows me to compare theatre practitioners' roles in different disputes, where loyalties were often decided case by case.The monograph will break new ground by exploring how the ruling Party's denial of censorship affected the regulation of theatre and the decisions made by cultural officials. This denial was rooted in the regime's desire to distance itself from the practices of the Third Reich and to project a democratic image during its confrontation with the Federal Republic. As censorship did not officially exist, bureaucrats could hold theatre practitioners accountable for productions that had already passed through pre-performance controls. This apparent devolution of responsibility exposed theatre practitioners to considerable risks, encouraging them to practise self-censorship. Theatre practitioners faced all the controls of censorship without any of the guarantees, explaining why GDR dramatists (unlike novelists and poets) campaigned in 1987 for censorship's legalization. This project is based on extensive research in federal and regional state archives, theatre archives, and the Stasi archives, providing the basis for historical, cultural and performance analysis. The evidence includes the records of the central and regional state and Party authorities, ranging from policy documents and notes of telephone conversations to assessments of theatres, scripts and productions; performance-related material such as scripts, rehearsal notes, audiovisual recordings, set designs, and minutes of post-show discussions; and the Stasi files. I have also interviewed directors, actors, critics and former SED officials.'Complicity and Conflict' will make a substantial contribution to scholarship across several fields: censorship, theatre studies, literary criticism, and historical accounts of the GDR and other Socialist regimes. Its historical and geographical scope sets it apart from the few existing discussions of theatre censorship (Braun, 1995; Baker, 2007), and the geographical range of its detailed case studies is unusual even for scholarship on the GDR: it compares censorship in East Berlin with the practice in Dresden, Schwerin, Leipzig, Halle and Neubrandenburg. Although the GDR has traditionally been seen as a heavily centralized state, the substantial regional variations in theatre censorship point to a diversity in its political culture that has yet to be acknowledged.