Tag Archives: Sacrifice

Hope and Acceptance Under Stalinism

While literary figures such as Anna Akhmatova and Nadezhda and Osip Mandelstam presented the bleak realities and oppression of the Stalin era, they also were able to detail the ways in which an unjust reality forced them to adapt. This involved both a tactful acceptance of life under High Stalinism and the maintenance of hope. These two aspects helped drive Akhmatova and the Mandelstam’s to produce authentic artistic works that detailed the progression of the conscious under Stalin’s tyrannical rule.

Nadezhda Mandelstam details the two arrests of her husband Osip in 1934 and 1938 in her book Hope against Hope. Her and her husband’s preparedness is striking, as she explains, “We never asked, on hearing about the latest arrest, ‘What was he arrested for?’ but we were exceptional.” She later claims that Akhmatova would answer, “‘What do you mean what for? It’s time you understood that people are arrested for nothing!'”  if anyone asked “What for?” In this way, Mandelstam reveals that some of those who knew themselves to be at risk had internalized the external threats that they faced into internal logic. How then, could they maintain the motivation of hope to carry on?

Mandelstam speaks of her role to represent something more eternal than the current turmoil that she faced. She claims: “Terror and depotism are always short-sighted.” Through frustration and suffering, Mandelstam persevered because of what she explains as the says is the task for which she has lived. She had to preserve the constrained consciousness of Osip and of the oppressed art of life under Stalin. This task proved to sustain her, as she explains, “There was nothing I could do to alter M.’s fate, but some of his manuscripts had survived and much more was preserved in my memory. Only I could save it all, and this was why I had to keep up my strength.

In “Introduction,” Anna Akhmatova says of the time, “It was a time when only the dead / smiled, happy in their peace.” The mission of Akhmatova, Mandelstam, and so many others was to capture this smile for subsequent generations to see. First they had to accept the ill-fated status of their own individuality. But the hope to capture their own suffering and artistic pursuit for sake of future peace kept them on their course.

Eluding Happiness

In the 1958 movie production of the opera Eugene Onegin, Onegin answers, “I am stronger to happiness,” when responding to Tatyana Larina’s love letter. He, just as Tatyana expected, derides Tatyana and condemns her for her lack of self-control, regarding himself as too wise to value frivolous joy . Tragically, over the course of the opera, Onegin eludes both self-control and happiness.

What does this say about how young or fleeting love was viewed in Russian culture and by Pushkin? Both Vladimir Lensky and Tatyana Larina are struck by love’s spontaneity in the first portion of the opera. Lensky proclaims that he does not fear eternity, yet by the second half of the play he has renounced his love for Olga. Tatyana expresses her adoration for Onegin, asking, “are you my guardian angel?” However, she also expresses fear and shame at her expressiveness, and in the final scene of the play, even subdues her admission of love in favor of stability. She deliberately chooses to elude her desires for happiness, if those are to be equated with her lingering love for Onegin. Likewise, Onegin destroys the only sources of happiness in his life. He trifles with Tatyana’s feelings for him and with Vladimir’s feelings for Olga and as a result of these actions, finds himself in a duel with Vladimir wherein Onegin kills his best friend. Ultimately, this opera presents an even bleaker message than many Russian movies and stories. In most tragedies happiness is absent in reality, fate, situations, etc.; In Eugene Onegin happiness knocks on the door of characters, only to be rejected and eluded by them.

They Who Rise Again

As has been reiterated numerous times during class, Russian culture is obsessed with what it means to be “Russian”. It is an ironic and cyclical phenomenon. As the Russian citizen ponders their identity, they are including themselves in the long Russian tradition of doing so, and asking such broad cultural questions. It is unsurprising, however, to see several common elements emerge when analyzing the collective Russian psyche. Chief among those is an incredible resilience of spirit, and the belief that triumph is  won through sacrifice. Many instances of Russian history have established and cemented these themes. It is often in the darkest of night that the Russian spirit truly reveals itself, and prevails.

Perhaps most famous among Russia’s  triumphs was the halt of Nazi Germany by Russian forces just 5 miles from Moscow. Until this point in World War II, the Red Army had lost hundreds of thousands of men to German rifles, and thousands died from starvation. Previously, and almost equally well known, Napoleon encountered much the same narrative in his invasion of Russia. The Russian Army essentially sacrificed itself in a climatic battle outside of Moscow, taking with them a large percentage of Napoleon’s force. The French were only able to hold Moscow for a few months, until the Russian Army crawled back from the grave and expelled the intruders west of the Dnieper. Tchaikovsky chronicled this musically in The 1812 Overture.

Themes of sacrifice before triumph lie deeply in the Russian literary canon, a direct result of an extensive history of such. In Tale of the Destruction of Riazan, the Russians suffer catastrophic defeat, losing one prince and city after another. The extent of the loss is exhibited explicitly, when it is written “Prince Ingvar Ingvareveich found his fatherland devastated, and learned that all his brothers had been killed by the impure, lawbreaking Batu.” Later, however, Ingvareveich rises above his loss when he “Took the throne of his father […]. And he restored the land of Riazin and he erected churches and monasteries.” Ingvareveich, after assuming the throne, is also described as a “great joy for the Christians”. The text emphasized the unyielding character of the Russian spirit, and the eventual triumph of Russia and her Christendom over all invading forces. The famed Russian film director, Eisenstein, uses these themes in overwhelming fashion in his seminal  Alexander Nevsky,  which depicts the titular hero’s victory over invading Teutonic Knights. In its purest sense, the aforementioned theme is nowhere more present than in Sergei Prokofiev’s score for Alexander Nevsky. The score moves from utter despair to incredible triumph, perfectly encapsulating a central element of Russian identity over the last one thousand years.