The dissertation conceptualizes the formation of ballet criticism in soviet Ukraine in the 1920s and 1930s, characterizes the artistic and aesthetic views of russian-soviet critics of ballet of this period, reproduces ballet-critical polyphony in assessing the avant-garde search for the form and content of the 1920s soviet performance, the main aspects of ballet-critical reflection on classical dance in the languages of proletarian and avant-garde intentions in soviet Ukraine in the 1920s were clarified, panorama of aesthetic approaches and ballet-critical thought about the formation of choreography within the concept of "socialist realist art", revealed the
main features of ballet criticism of the second half of the 1930s as a translator of socialist realist principles. It is emphasized that the critique of ballet is the foundation of ballet studies as a scientific discipline that includes history and theory. The main functions of ballet criticism are informational, axiological, interpretive, the forms of realization of which depend on the socio-political system and the prevailing aesthetic and philosophical theories. An inherent feature of ballet criticism, in contrast to literary criticism, is 28 "work" in the process of analysis with another sign system of the object of criticism, the implementation of a kind of semantic transformation. It is proved that the principles of Leningrad and Moscow ballet criticism were followed by reviewers of soviet Ukraine, this influence was mostly one-sided, because Leningrad and Moscow in the 1920s and 1930s were ballet centers in the USRR, inheriting traditions from the previous era of imperial ballet recognized in Europe, and accordingly, the ballet-critical discourse there was much larger and more professional. But this did not prevent Ukrainian critics from always adhering to "unison" with Moscow and Leningrad reviewers in evaluating the same performances. It is proved that in the conditions of a wide thematic and lexical palette of ballets in soviet Ukraine in the 1920s the Ukrainian ballet critical discourse was formed, which took into account the soviet political and ideological guidelines. However, among the ballet reviews of this period, we can single out, first, nonideological publications, which mainly use an aesthetic and artistic approach to reviewing; secondly, focused on the formation of monoideology, condemning constructive, corporeal, etc. experimentation. It is noted that the transition from polyphonic art and, consequently, art-critical discourse of the 1920s to the monoideological 1930s is associated with the introduction of socialist realism as a monostyle of soviet culture, which became a
dogma for all arts, including ballet, was realized in criticism. Despite the extreme ephemerality of ballet art, associated with the specifics of creating an artistic image, it had standard socialist realist demands, which were expressed by critics in the media. It is noted that in the 1930s the critique of ballet moved away from evaluative and interpretive pluralism, adhering to clearly regulated requirements within the framework of the socialist-realist canon. There is a threat of loss of criticism of its own identity, because in the absence of free choice of critical judgment, it ceases to perform its artistic evaluation and interpretation functions, becomes a set of
directives. It is established that the article "Ballet Falsehood" (February 6, 1936, criticism of Shostakovich – Lopukhov's ballet "Light Stream" at the Bolshoi Theater, Moscow) became a kind of translator of the aesthetic requirements of the government to the art of ballet and its criticism, a sample of propaganda monoideology the consequences of positive evaluations of ballets without correlating them with the canon of socialist realism. It is shown that the authorities authorized a wide discussion of the article, in particular, in professional centers of theater and musicians. It is emphasized that the new productions of choreographies in Ukrainian ballet were reviewed in strict accordance with the guidelines for criticism expressed in Pravda, in the optics of conformity to the socialist-realist style. It is concluded that during the 1920s and 1930s ballet criticism in soviet Ukraine became a notable phenomenon in art-critical discourse, but no methodology for objective professional ballet criticism was developed and no school was formed, as the reviewers of the time were theater and musicologists, multidisciplinary journalists who had no choreographic or ballet education.
Keywords: ballet criticism, avant-garde art, social realism, choreodrama.
