Ближний Восток и его соседи

g 146 h Firuza Melville Nights’). The Russian impressionist and nationalist piece by Rimsky-Korsakov was abandoned together with Diaghi- lev-Benois’ libretto, as well as Bakst’s costumes and stage designs. The sea suite rearranged for the massacre in the harem was replaced by the music spe- cially composed in Soviet classical style by Fikret Amirov, who a year later was awarded the State prize of the USSR for this piece. The main rule of the Soviet cultural policy in the non-Russian republics was based on the rule, according to which every Soviet socialist republic had to have its own cultural identity, comprised of a number of compulsory elements, equal to all others. They would include national literature, visual art, drama, music, dance, cinema, etc. If there was no such element at the time when the re- public was founded as a state entity, this element had to be created. This struc- ture was based on the Russian template. Among those compulsory elements of the cultural programme were national opera and ballet, which had to be created in the Central Asian republics of the Soviet Union. The achievements in this field were encouraged and supported at governmental level. For example, the second Stalin prize list of 1941 presented ‘a neat parade of the five national republics that were recognized as most cul- turally advanced’ 22 , namely Georgia (Kiladze), Armenia (Khachaturian), Azer- baijan (Hajibeyov), Ukraine (Revutsky), Belarus (Bogatyrev). Operatic culture in Georgia and Azerbaijan On the contrary, in the Caucasus, by the end of the nineteenth century there were already several centres, which were significantly Europeanized and Rus- 22 Frolova-Walker M. Stalin’s Music Prize: Soviet Culture and Politics. New Haven: Yale Uni- versity Press, 2016. P. 60. Pl. 17. Poster of Fikret Anirov’s ballet ‘One thousand and one night’, Burya- tia State Academic Theatre of Opera and Ballet