Monthly Archives: September 2013

Malevich and the Avant-garde

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Kazimir Malevich was an impressionist, pointillist, cubo-futurist, supremist, avant-garde painter, and patron of early avant-garde theater. His early career focused on the picturesque life of the peasantry, his primitivist works drew the attention of popular avant-gardist Mikhail Larionov. He invited Malevich to exhibit his works in the upcoming “Jack of Diamonds” show in Moscow. By 1910, Malevich had joined a number of art circles within Moscow including a pointillist group, an impressionist, and Larionov’s avant-garde group.   After his appearance at “Jack of Diamonds”, in 1913, Malevich moved to Saint Petersburg and joined an avant-garde cell called the “Union of Youth”. Here, with the help of painters and futurist poets, he worked to produce futurist operas. By 1915 Malevich had entered a ‘suprematist’ period where he felt “Color and form are the only things that should matter for the painter: any painted surface is more vivid than a face with a pair of eyes and a smile on it.” This period led to the production of  the famous series of “squares” and his suprematist work made him famous abroad and across Russia.

black squareSuprematismHe would teach in Moscow for a time before dying St.Petersburg in 1935. Eventually, his grave was lost due to the rapid suburban expansion during and following the Second World War but his remains were rediscovered quite recently during construction in the area.

 

Arkhip Kuindzhi

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Arkhip Ivanovich Kuindzhi was born in January 1841 in Mariupol, which is now Ukraine, to a Greek shoemaker. Arkhip grew up in the city of Taganrog. When he was six, he was orphaned and raised cattle and worked construction to make a living. From 1860 to 1865 he worked in a photo studio and later attempted to own a studio himself, but this plan failed. So Arkhip moved to Saint Petersburg and began studying painting on his own until he joined the St. Petersburg Academy of Arts in 1868. He also formed a realist artist group called Peredvizhniki, which later became known as the Society for Traveling Art Exhibitions. Arkhip left the academy in 1872 to pursue a freelance career and was featured in several art galleries in Russia. He received the bronze medal at the 1874 International Art Exhibition in London. During this time frame he also focused his art on landscapes and panoramas. He experimented with color and illuminating nature as he matured as an artist and later lectured at the same academy he once attended. From 1892 to 1897, he was a professor at the St. Petersburg Academy of Arts and was fired for supporting student protests. Some of his students include Arkady Rylov Nicholas Roerich and Konstantin Bogaevsky. Arkhip founded an artists group called the Society of Artists in 1909 but it was renamed for him after his death in July 1910.

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arkhip_Kuindzhi

 

http://www.wikigallery.org/paintings/391501-392000/391516/painting1.jpg

 

Arkhip Kuindzhi

Arkhip Kuindzhi

 

Mazower and Battleship Potemkin’s Violent Overthrow in Russia

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Mark Mazower’s book Dark Continent and the film Battleship Potemkin provide insights into the causes of the Russian Revolution and the victory of the Bolsheviks over the other political parties of the time.  Although the film does not go into as much depth as Mazower’s book, both address the motivations behind the violent overthrow that occurred in Russia after World War I.

Mazower details the different types of governments that succeeded each other during the interwar period in Europe, from the autocratic Tsarist Empire to Bolshevism to communism.  The Tsarist Empire was the highest authority in Russia but the working class and peasant population of Russia no longer wanted to accept an autocratic, repressive government.  The workers and peasants of Russia believed that their voices were never heard and were suffering from massive food shortages and lack of land rights.  After the overthrow of the Tsar, Russian liberals thought that the lower classes would accept a constitutional government, but as Mazower points out: “ Russia’s liberals turned out to be the first, but not the last, to assume mistakenly that a deep-rooted social crisis could be solved by offering “the people” constitutional liberties. Such liberties were not what “the people”- and especially Russia’s fifteen million peasant conscripts—wanted. (Mazower 11). The people of Russia wanted land, food and respect.  The liberal bourgeoisie did not offer a solution to these needs and the workers and peasants opted for a radical revolution that claimed to vest power in the proletariat, or working class.

The 1925 silent Russian propaganda film, Battleship Potemkin, depicts the oppression of sailors on the battleship and of common Russian by the Tsar’s armed forces in Odessa.  The film shows the resilient behavior of the sailors and Odessans (workers) as they stand up for themselves in the face of Tsarist repression.  The sailors rebel against their officers at sea, while workers and common Russians oppose the Tsarists on land. Throughout the movie, the quote “All for one, one for all” appears frequently, demonstrating that as early as the Potemkin mutiny of 1905, the people of Russia began to unify against the tyranny of the Tsarist government.  The most dramatic depiction of that tyranny is the violent massacre of innocent Odessans by the soldiers of the Tsar.

In both the book and the film, one can see that the common people of Russia were crying for help. They wanted to be heard, but the Tsarist autocracy turned a deaf ear to their appeals.  After the overthrow of the Tsar, the liberal provisional government did nothing to reassure the people that its voice would be heard.  The people ultimately opted for a radical political solution proposed by the Bolsheviks that promised them a central role in the division of property and wealth.

Battleship Potemkin

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Battleship Potemkin accurately reflects the description of Russia during this era that Mazower writes in Dark Continent. Mazower discusses briefly the living conditions of the Russian peasants as being the worst across europe. The beginning of Battleship Potemkin begins with the sailors being extremely unhappy about their conditions of living. The meat they are expected to eat is ridden with maggots, and they are told to wash it off with brine.

Mazower also discusses the anti-semitic sentiments that were spreading across Europe towards due to catholicism having more influence on the government with the rise of christian nationalism which started in portugal but also had influences which spread to Austria and beyond, where “Violent anti-semitism was the corollary” (Mazower, 31). Although Russian anti-semitism may have had other roots. When the people realized that the sailor had been killed over a bowl of soup, one of the revenge shouts was “Kill the Jews!”, which seemed random but was just part of the overall sentiment.

The mutiny on the ship projects the tensions between the Russian peasants and the government during the era of industrialization when the peasants were not getting adequate care from the state, and were tools of the states progression. This was representative of the Russian revolution

Chekov and Sustainability

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Sustainability in Chekov’s Cherry Orchard is represented by the relationship between Madame Ranevsky, Lopakhin, and the orchard itself. Madame Ranevsky is poor and cannot afford to pay her mortgage, while she is sitting on top of a very expensive estate. The cherry orchard itself, under Madame Ranevsky, is not being harvested or used, it is also not being sold. Although you cannot put a price on sentimental value, Ranevsky’s situation is desperate.

From Ranevsky’s point of view, the only way for her to sustain her family’s financial situation is through selling the cherry orchard. She also asks other for money to help her pay for her mortgage, which just further enables her to avoid the inevitability of having to sell her orchard.

Meanwhile, Lopakhin is a wealthy neighbor who can buy the land and make use of the property by capitalizing on the real estate. This would be sustainable for Lopakhin in the long run, because in time the orchard may pay for itself.

At the end of the play, Lopakhin purchases the orchard in an auction. From a sustainability standpoint, this is a good decision because the land can be utilized for means of productivity.

Mazower’s Dark Continent compared to Eisenstein’s October

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                                                               Martin Zahariev

Throughout the human history there were revolutions which affected the political climate, brought progress and changes- positive, and negative. One of the most important of them, which broke out in the 20th century was the October revolution. The movie October: Ten Days That Shook the World (1928) by Sergei Eisenstein, and the Mark Mazower’s Dark Continent: Europe’s Twentieth Century present this event in two different ways.

                The first one is a Russian propaganda movie created by Eisenstein for a specific audience- the people from the Soviet Union. Its focus is narrow-the struggle of the poor, and the oppressed against the Provisional Government. In the beginning of the movie we see the destruction of the statue of Alexander III. It is clear that Russians want change, wish to be treated like people, to change their lifestyles, to get out of the misery. However are they really fighting for the creation of the Soviet Union? Eisenstein tries to convince his audience in that false direction. The movie is like a twisted reality of the events of 1917. It is obvious that the author omits certain events, and facts. His purpose is clear- to make people believe in the greatness of the newly established political regime.

                Mazower’s book Dark Continent: Europe’s Twentieth Century is not a propaganda work, but a detailed, objective and deep analysis of the events that led to the Bolsheviks coming to power. Unlike Eisenstein his focus is not narrowed, and his purpose is to depict the real events rather than manipulate his readers. He tells us how Lenin managed to gain his power, thanks to his political acuteness, and to the blunders his political rivals made. The author does not express any political preferences.

                Mazower’s book Dark Continent: Europe’s Twentieth Century and Eisenstein’s movie October,  created with different purposes, clearly look at the Russian Revolution under two different angles.

October and the Dark Continent

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Matthew Goldstein                                                   Inter War History

The film October: Ten Days that Shook the World by Sergei Eisenstein was another in the series of grand Soviet Propaganda films produced by the director Eisenstein. It’s highly dramatized portrayal of the November Revolution, is in stark contrast to the straight forward writings of Mazower in the Dark Continent.

The title to the film and its background were taken from Jack Reed’s highly popular novel Ten Days that Shook the World, which gives a first hand account to the happenings of the Russian Revolution in St. Petersburg during that faithful Revolutionary period. Reed’s sympathy with the Communist revolutionaries makes it impossible to call his book a straight forward honest portrayal of the events in St. Petersburg. Its a exciting work that makes you feel as if all of Russia was behind the communist pusch, with stories of soldiers revolts and the great bravery of common supporters of the Soviet against the bourgeois officers and aristocrats that supported the Provisional government. Eisenstein’s film fills you with this same emotion. His grand scenes of the supporters storming the Winter Place make you feel as if all of Russia was there on the faithful night. Eisenstein’s movie was created as a propaganda film, and it’s purpose was to prop up men like Stalin who was taking control of Russia at this time and ruin the reputation of men like Trotsky who had fallen out of favor with the leadership. As a result this film has little validity to a student of the actual occurrences of the Revolution.

Mazower’s passage on the Russian Revolution is in a totally different vein then the film. It isn’t slanted so heavily to the side of the Revolutionaries, like Ten Days that Shook the World and October are. Mazower looks back to the period before the Revolution and the politics involved in the entire arch of time. This examination puts a different spin on the Revolution. Instead of being strictly a spontaneous uprising of the people, we see that the actions of the Communists were planned much further in advance and that their success was a much more calculated move. The Communist party “gained under one forth of the total votes cast”. (Mazower p.10) The Communist party did not have the rousing support shown in the movie but it was smart enough to seize power when it could. That is abundantly clear in The Dark Continent. Although October and Ten Days that Shook the World vary greatly from The Dark Continent, both works are able to give you a perspective and insight into the Russian Revolution.

Comparison between Mazower’s Dark Continent and and Eisenstein’s Potemkin

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The 1925 film The Battleship Potemkin by Soviet director Sergei Eisenstein portrays a 1905 mutiny of the Russian naval ship Potemkin based on a true story. Set outside Odessa during the 1905 revolution Eisenstein shows the narrative of the social cultural history of time through a settled Soviet Russia viewpoint. Mark Mazower’s Dark Continent follows many of same issues of the Russian revolution and later political instabilities of Europe discussed through the film.
The causes of the mutiny portrayed in the film track the themes but not completely time specifics of Mazower’s history of the Russian revolution. The low quantity and low quality of food available on the ship created issues between the officers and the crew. This issue is similar to the food shortages seen by the peasants and proletariat in 1905. The film notes the failures of the Russo-Japanese war and the undesirable conditions leading to such poor moral. A picture of Tsar Nicolas in the officers’ cabin over top of the piano is subtly inserted with the goal of showing the overall enemy or “executioner” that is not truly labeled in the movie.
Mazower describes many of the overall sentiments and goals of the communist revolutionary movement primarily later in 1917. First you can see the same class structures social differences experienced on the battleship. The separation between classes discussed by Mazower is mirrored with the disgust for which the officers have for their soldiers, and how the people are angered at the wealthy man in Odessa (which is possibly religious based anti-Semitism). Second the common use of violence as a first mean of control is brought up in Mazower speaking to the Cheka and use of state terror. In 1905 the bloody Sunday event of state terror was a catalyst for the first revolution and the history of the Potemkin. In the film the command to kill the sailors came fairly easily and the Cossacks to put down a rebellion killed citizens indiscriminately, accurate to some Tsarist policy.
Some of the things I found difficult to understand were who, besides the officers that tried to execute the sailors, were the opposition that the public was upset with? While they blame the Jews and yell at what appears to be the bourgeoisies group, the people look to be an eclectic group of society including both spectrums of social classes. Obviously the Cossacks showed extreme violence as to show the Tsar again to be the enemy but as a film it was never said the antagonist outright. Also the religion aspect of the film seemed to the excess of Soviet propaganda. Mazower’s work does not describe that much hatred of clergy and Orthodox Church by 1905. I instead understood later anti religious politics to be the intellectuals’ policy for a more efficient communist system.

Two Portraits of Revolution (Re-post)

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Revolution has proven to be an incendiary topic throughout history, thus becoming the subject of countless different interpretations across various mediums.  Mark Mazower’s Dark Continent, a rigorous portrait of early twentieth-century European governments, and Battleship Potemkin, a Russian propaganda film relating the story of a Russian sailing crew’s mutiny against the ship’s oppressive officers, present two equally informative images of the Russian revolution that vary drastically in perspective.

Mazower’s text revisits the topic of interwar European government from a perspective that does not presuppose the primacy of democracy.  Consequently, he presents the Russian revolution as a quasi re-imagination of liberal democracy.  The author recounts the revolution’s optimistic origins as a move toward the unification of Russia behind the “‘universal democratic soul’” described by Prince Lvov (Mazower, 10).  However, Mazower acknowledges the divisions that arose due to the ambiguity of the revolution’s goal (i.e. “‘bourgeois democratic’” vs. “‘proletarian socialist’”) and how this ultimately led Russia to be “squeezed increasingly tightly between the twin extremes of communism and fascism” (Mazower, 10 & 13).

Conversely, in Battleship Potemkin, the sobering relative objectivity that pervades Mazower’s work vanishes into overt propaganda.  The plot is simple and quickly established by the on-screen dialogue, which is dominated by rallying cries for revolution such as “All for one and one for all!” and “Let nothing divide us!”  These lines originate in the mouths of the mutinous sailors and eventually find their way to the people of Odessa, who rally against the Tsarist regime upon hearing the story of the death of sailor Vakulinchuk (“Killed for a plate of soup”).  This text in conjunction with the insistently dramatic bombast of the score and several poignant images (the destruction of the Odessa Opera House, a baby carriage careening down a flight of steps in the midst of a riot) creates a poignant albeit transparent appeal to the pathos of the viewing audience in an attempt to glorify the concept of a Russian revolution.

Ultimately, Mazower’s view of the Russian revolution is one of factual pragmatism that benefits from several decades of hindsight and research, while Battleship Potemkin (much like Triumph of the Will) is equally useful as an image of one faction’s ambitions created in the climate of the revolution it advocated.

Battleship Potemkin and Mazower

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Watching Battleship Potemkin confronted me with the raw power of a political film with no three dimensional characters. Each individual possesses individuality only inasmuch as they represent a certain aspect of a cause or argument. The child shot by the czarist soldiers and crushed by the stampeding crowd careening down the steps facing the Odessa harbor matters because of the innocence he comes to embody in the face of czarist barbarity. The same goes for the film’s protagonist, the sailor and revolutionary Vakulinchuk, whose life, death, and words all act to symbolize the fundamental goodness of the communist cause, the heroism of its leaders, so unwilling to submit to fear in the face of their totalitarian enemy that their martyrdom suffices to drive crowds into a revolutionary frenzy.

The men and women move as crowds, but we do not for a second imagine that they lack individuality; it simply does not matter. Here I find myself reminded of Prince Lvov’s declaration of March 1917, on the subject of the Russian people’s role in the European democratic movement, cited by Mark Mazower in the first chapter of Dark Continent. “The soul of the Russian people,” he proclaims, “turned out by its very nature to be a universal democratic soul…prepared not only to merge with the democracy of the whole world, but to stand at the head of it and lead it along the path of human progress…” While the rebellious citizens and sailors of Battelship Potemkin do not stand for the Social Liberalism advocated by Levov, their bristling mass of clenched fists represents something similar: the helm of a movement in the name of human liberation.

The attack of the Cossacks left the strongest impression on me of all the scenes. It reminded me of Mazower’s section on the failure of Russian liberalism.  Unlike the liberals, Russia’s rural peasants and urban working class wanted peace and a higher standard of living, neither of which the liberals offered. “In the factories, in the countryside, social order was collapsing, and the middle ground in Russian politics disappeared”. Nothing indicates this state of affairs better than the facelessness of the Cossacks in Battleship Potemkin. As the shock troops of czarism, they stand for nothing, save the brutality of power. Nothing denotes impotence better than repression.