Author Archives: Eva Dowd

The Poles are to Blame!

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I noticed many parallels between the ways that Boris Godunov and the Pretender Dmitry and Avraamy Palitsyn’s writings about Pseudo-Dmitry portrayed foreigners, and specifically Poles. Palitsyn is not subtle in his account as to how he feels about the Poles. He describes the Catholic Poles as “that eternal enemy of Christians” and their God as the “Anti-Christ,” although the two religions are, at their root, quite similar (Palitsyn 381). Later, he describes Pseudo-Dmitry’s rule in Moscow by saying, “…the Poles were squandering the ancient treasures of Russia” (Palitsyn 383). Here, Palitsyn equates Pseudo-Dmitry’s irresponsibility as Tsar with the Poles; in Palitsyn’s mind, no one that destructive could possibly be a Russian. Palitsyn clearly portrays in this history the desire to blame the chaos and suffering in Russia at the time on the Poles, as they were a simple target; the Russians were victims of persecution and not at all to blame for their circumstances. The opera’s depiction of Marina, a Polish noblewoman, hit on similar themes. As Pseudo-Dmitry’s love interest in the opera, she directly said she was only interested in his ability to potentially become tsar. She is eager to partake in his fraudulent takeover of the Russian tsar-ship; her calling him “serf” indicates her knowledge of his lack of royal blood. After she expresses these sentiments to him, he calls her “cruel”. However, he is so enthralled with her that her surface-level apologies suffice for him to forgive her. Marina’s portrayal as a soulless temptress fits well with Avraamy’s descriptions of the Pole’s: people without religion who want to contribute to Russian’s downfall.

Women in the Tsar’s Bride

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One of the most striking things I noted about The Tsar’s Bride was the treatment of the two women Liubasha and Martha, specifically the control men in power exert over them.  We learn in the beginning of the film that Liubasha, the boyar Grigory’s mistress, was kidnapped from her family.  One of the other boyars brags that Liubasha addresses him as “Godfather” when he personally beat members of her family.  Striking, too, about this scenario is the fact that Liubasha appears to genuinely love Grigory despite her treatment at his hand.  The one instance that she has agency in the film is when she exchanges Grigory’s love potion meant for Martha with a death potion instead.  However, as soon as this fact is discovered, Grigory instantly kills Liubasha, exerting the final act of control over her body.  The fact that her one independent act is evil and is immediately punished seems to indicate that women cannot be trusted to make decisions for themselves; in contrast to the evil actions of many of them men in the film, her act is not that extreme, yet is treated as such.  Like Liubasha, Martha also has her own decisions superseded by those of men in power.  In her first substantive scene, she expresses her genuine love for the boyar Ivan whom she knew as a child.  However, the Tsar spots Martha from afar; soon thereafter, his oprichniki, identifiable by their “black clothes and hats” and “brushes or brooms tied on the end of sticks,” arrive to take her away to him (A Foreigner Describes the Oprichnina of Tsar Ivan the Terrible, 151-152).  Martha’s agency is taken away a second time when Grigory puts his potion into her wine.  It does not make a difference that she does not consume the potion that he initially intended; either one would have resulted in a change of her mental state without her consent.  Unlike Liubasha, Martha never is able to assert herself against these men.  In her final decaying mental state, Martha is praised by Grigory as a “martyr”.  This expression emphasizes the film’s message that female passivity is morally superior to female independence.  The final shots of the movie pan from the bodies of the two women on the floor to the icons that look down on them from the ceiling.  Perhaps this image is meant to convey what God’s punishments are for sin.

Luxury or Monasticism?

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The beauty and luxury shown in the videos of the Sergiev Posad monastery immediately called to mind the descriptions the Russians used when explaining why they adopted the Greek religious tradition in The Tale of Bygone Years. The embroidered gold vestments of the priests, the vaulted ceilings covered with gold moldings and saints portraits, and the layered choral music all evoked the sentiment of the words, “we knew not whether we were in heaven or on earth…for on earth there is no such splendor or such beauty” (The Tale of Bygone Years 67). However, this “splendor” contrasted sharply with St. Theodosius’s self-abnegation in Life of Our Blessed Father Theodosius. St. Theodosius as a “divine youth” dressed in “poor and patched” clothing as a child against his parents’ wishes for him to look more presentable, because he “willed even more to be like one of the poor” (Life of Our Blessed Father Theodosius 120-121). As he grows older, St. Theodosius does everything in his power to “humble his soul with moderation and mortify his flesh through labor and religious striving” (Life of Our Blessed Father Theodosius 126). Nestor, the monk who authored this story, praises St. Theodosius’s “humility” multiple times throughout the story whenever he describes St. Theodosius’s extreme self-denial. Why is St. Theodosius’s self-deprivation of sensory pleasures so praised in Life of Our Blessed Father Theodosius when the Russian Orthodox services are valued for the presence of sensory pleasures? St. Theodosius’s behaviors were seen by his parents to “bring shame” on his family; perhaps his behavior was on the one hand reviled and on the other revered because it deviated from the cultural norm of appreciating material luxury. Those who understood his holiness were able to be in awe of his almost super-human actions.