Author Archives: John Sweeney '20

Individualism in Petersburg

The satirization of power structures looms large over the works of “The Nose,” “A Guide to a Renamed City,” and Lietenant Kizhe. In the midst of a new city, St. Petersburg, that incorporated aspects of all of Europe, and an increasingly centralized and powerful political structure, wherein collectivism and obligation to the state was of paramount importance, I’d like to focus on the concept of the individual. How is he or she presented in each of these works, and to what extent does he or she matter?

Lietenant Kizhe both opens and closes with a sleeping Tsar. Paul’s unawareness positions him as the center of ridicule in the movie, yet also makes a statement on the importance of an individual: namely, that there is none. The individual is merely a scapegoat for the masses in Lietenant Kizhe. When faced with exile, Count von Pahlen and his uncle uphold the fictional character of Kizhe. Yet, when the guardsmen send Tsar Paul an insulting letter, they have no individual to load there problems unto. Tsar Paul claims that a “state is lonely without faithful servants.” Ironically, his one faithful servant is no more than an apparition in Tsar Paul’s world, where personal connection and individualism counts for less than nothing when compared with rules, positions, and respect. Thus the film presents a lonely reality, not because of the absence of society, but because of the absence of an individual.

Joseph Brodsky claims that St. Petersburg “is the city where it’s somehow easier to endure loneliness than anywhere else: because the city itself is lonely”. This is not because there is an absence of people or culture, but rather because there is an absence of an individual identity for the city. It is split between Leningrad and Peter, many different Western influences, capital or disconnected city.

In “The Nose,” by Nikolai Gogol, we see the effects of a part dismembered from a whole, on an individual anatomical scale. Kovalyov loses his nose and subsequently loses his identity as a confident man looking for a promotion and young ladies to seduce. The Nose is able to completely break off from the whole and hide as an individual. To what extent does this mean that the part needs the whole, or that the whole needs the part? Furthermore, how much does the individual need the state? How much does the state need the individual?

Distinctions of Desire

The opera of Boris Godunov by Modest Mussorgsky presents several different depictions of the morality of desire.

Early in the opera, just before Tsar Boris exits the stage after his first entrance, two children crawl up to him and touch his extravagant garments. They hold their hands out for help, yet Tsar Boris not only denies them, but also seems deeply disturbed. Is it their neediness and desire that causes this reaction, or their mere disrespect? To what extent are these all the same things?

In the depiction of Grigory and the older monk Pimen, Pimen aims to educate Grigory on how to be a moral individual. Grigory has selfish temptation for glory; he wishes not to be a monk for life and perhaps to have fought for Russia and the Tsar as Pimen did). Pimen at once chastises Grigory for this desire and still himself glorifies past leaders. He speaks of Ivan’s repentance in the same monastery, and of Feodor converting the Tsar’s rooms into a monks cell. While Pimen holds royalty in high esteem, he finds love to be a more problematic aspiration and talks of the “treachery of woman’s love.”

Later, Grigory assumes the position of the fake Tsarevich Dmitry and courts a Polish noblewoman named Marina. Here, he makes an entirely different distinction about desire than Pimen did. He claims that he wants Marina to love him and regards her love of his political aspirations as somewhat distasteful initially. Even as Marina saves the argument, she says she says to Grigory that she feels “love and desire for your glory.” But does that mean she has a desire for his glory, or that she desires him to be glorious? How might these different interpretations be regarded in Grigory’s  or Pimen’s mind, and how might they have been regarded in the time when Boris Godunov was written?

Suffering: a Sign of Shame or a Badge of Honor?

In our readings for Session 5, I found the theme of Russian suffering to be the focal point from which religious and nationalistic undertones arose. More specifically, the depiction of such great suffering seemed to pose the question: should Russians be proud or ashamed of the causes and realities of their past hardship?

Within the language Tale of the Destruction of Riazan, suffering seems to be a both an shelter and a result of Russian sin. In section five, as Prince Ingvar begins to complete the task of burying his relatives who have been killed by Batu and the Tatar warriors, the response in the text to these “untimely deaths” is that “all this happened because of our sins”. However, earlier in section three, the author writes a slightly different response to the utter destruction of Riazan: “this happened for our sins.” Is this difference merely do to translation? If not, suffering for sins conjures the phrase, “Jesus died for our sins,” and would seem to signal to Russians that they should be proud of and grateful for their ancestors and religion for absorbing the ugly suffering of the sins of all Russians. If, however, the Mongol invasion occurred because of the sins (perhaps too much bloodthirst or fighting between princes) of those living in the Kievan Rus society, modern Russians would have reason to be ashamed of their predecessors.

In Alexander Blok emphasizes nationalistic pride from Russian suffering in The Scythians. He boasts that, “We, like obedient lackeys, have held up / a shield dividing two embattled powers — / the Mongol hordes and Europe.” John Thompson directly refutes this point in our textbook, claiming that the Russians had nothing to do with stopping the advance of Mongol expansion to the West. Nevertheless, from reading The Scythians, Russians may be compelled to regard their ancestors’ suffering with patriotic pride. I look forward to discussing further the Russian perspective on suffering with particular respect to their founder’s hardships at the hands of the Mongols.