{"id":118,"date":"2016-09-15T18:29:53","date_gmt":"2016-09-15T22:29:53","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/courses.bowdoin.edu\/russian-2240-fall-2016\/?p=118"},"modified":"2016-09-15T19:02:34","modified_gmt":"2016-09-15T23:02:34","slug":"courting-disaster","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/courses.bowdoin.edu\/russian-2240-fall-2016\/russian-culture\/courting-disaster\/","title":{"rendered":"Courting (Disaster)"},"content":{"rendered":"

As I watched this adaption of Modest Mussorgsky\u2019s <\/span>Boris Godunov,<\/span><\/i> I was struck by the (apparent) subtext of Grirogy\u2019s (ie, the \u2018Tsarevich\u2019) courtship scene with the Polish noblewoman Marina Mniszek. Thompson points to the recapture of Moscow in 1612 by a nascent \u2018national movement\u2019 as a clear symbol of Russian determination to regain control over their fate from foreigners and usurpers. Avraamy Palitsyn\u2019s work on \u2018Pseudo-Dmitry\u2019 pulsates with vitriol against foreign, non-Orthodox elements: the False Dmitry gives the hated Catholics a \u2018written promise\u2019 to deliver Russia up to the \u2018Antichrist\u2019 of Papism, as the Poles squander Russia\u2019s \u2018ancient\u2019 patrimony and bathe themselves in various holy vessels. Although the recapture of Moscow takes place after the events of <\/span>Boris Godunov<\/span><\/i>, one could reasonably expect that any work depicting the Time of Troubles, a time charged with swirling crosscurrents of religious and national fervor, would reflect some of these themes. <\/span><\/p>\n

The danger is of reading too much into a portly ex-Monk begging a haughty princess for her hand. Earlier in the class, we talked about the role the feminine played in Russian culture, that eternal incarnation of the ever-loving mat\u2019. The princess mocks this sort of love-her eyes lifts skywards (a parody of \u2018true belief\u2019?), and with glazed eyes she ironically pronounces that her and the tsarevich will live on \u2018love alone.\u2019 Then her face changes, and Grigory is reminded that if love is all he wants, in Russia he\u2019ll find all the \u2018rosy-cheeked women\u2019 he wants. Rosy cheeks, vital with lifeblood and the \u2018feminine\u2019, are to be found in Russia, but Grigory rejects this kind of love with a shrug-it will \u2018smother\u2019 him. He offers the princess a flower, a shred of the vital, natural world, but the foreigner rejects it-only the throne can win her heart. Russia, lost and confused in the form of Grigoriy, seeks the \u2018love\u2019 of the West, tricked by Blok\u2019s \u2018suffocating mortal odor.\u2019 The West (the heretical West!) is not interested, unless Russia will submit in her entirety. Finally, let\u2019s talk about the staging of this scene. Darkness hangs over the stage, and on either side of the center, receding into that darkness, stand two rows of classical-esque toga-bearing statues with their backs turned. Mute idols of the Western tradition, they betray the true fruits of this union-power to the Poles, Russia degraded and left in darkness. This, of course, is not an authoritative reading-it\u2019s just food for thought! (bread and salt, if you will). <\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

As I watched this adaption of Modest Mussorgsky\u2019s Boris Godunov, I was struck by the (apparent) subtext of Grirogy\u2019s (ie, the \u2018Tsarevich\u2019) courtship scene with the Polish noblewoman Marina Mniszek. Thompson points to the recapture of Moscow in 1612 by a nascent \u2018national movement\u2019 as a clear symbol of Russian determination to regain control over […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":372,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[37,41],"class_list":["post-118","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-russian-culture","tag-boris-godunov","tag-pseudo-dmitry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/courses.bowdoin.edu\/russian-2240-fall-2016\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/118","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/courses.bowdoin.edu\/russian-2240-fall-2016\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/courses.bowdoin.edu\/russian-2240-fall-2016\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/courses.bowdoin.edu\/russian-2240-fall-2016\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/372"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/courses.bowdoin.edu\/russian-2240-fall-2016\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=118"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/courses.bowdoin.edu\/russian-2240-fall-2016\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/118\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/courses.bowdoin.edu\/russian-2240-fall-2016\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=118"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/courses.bowdoin.edu\/russian-2240-fall-2016\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=118"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/courses.bowdoin.edu\/russian-2240-fall-2016\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=118"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}