Author Archives: Xander Werkman

Nature in “The Bronze Horseman”

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“The Bronze Horseman” starts with a prologue giving background to Peter the Great and St. Petersburg. A young child, Yevgeny, is pointed out to be a hero in the story and save the town. As the story continues, St. Petersburg is destroyed by the great storm and flood. Every man-made object in the town is destroyed including cabins, town halls, and many others. Even people of the town were killed in the disaster. The story kept going back to Yevgeny and I anticipated a wondrous act that would save the town from such disaster. The girl that Yevgeny is in love with was killed in the storm. Yevgeny could not do anything to stop this or save something important to him. He becomes very angry and lives in anguish for a year following it. The story doesn’t end with a tremendous event that saves the town of St. Petersburg from the wrath of nature. The relationship between nature and humans is completely one sided. Humanity cannot stop nature and the weather that can whipe out an entire town in one night. Nature has all the power in the relationship and can choose to assert it whenever.

I noticed that the architecture of St. Petersburg was different that of Moscow. The Cathedral in Moscow had the pointy, tear drop structures more often in the architecture. The palaces in St. Petersburg are massive and beautiful. It is interesting to see the difference in architecture between St. Petersburg and Moscow.

Love in “The Tsar’s Bride”

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I enjoyed watching the opera, The Tsar’s Bride. The voices of the cast were beautiful, and I realized that opera sounds much better in Russian than in English. The opera is driven by love. The main action is Grigory’s love for Marfa. Grigory is very determined to gain the love of Marfa even though she is already engaged. He even employed a magician for a potion to give her. I think the opera’s singing and choreography exemplified the love in the story. One example of this is the scene between Grigory and Lyubasha when she finds out that Grigory does not love her anymore. Lyubasha’s love for him was presented very well through her voice and body language. There are many more instances with love influencing the action of a character. At the end of the opera, many characters die due to love. Grigory, Marfa, Boyar and Lyubasha were killed because of the irrational actions that were prompted by love. The opera displays the struggle of love and the destruction of life that is left in its past. The artistic aspects of the opera help exemplify the emotion of someone that is in love.

The travel video of Moscow was very interesting because I have never been there or seen a video of it. I didn’t realize how many historical landmarks were in the city. The video made the city look very beautiful. It was very apparent that Russian history was rich is Moscow and important to Russian culture.

Theme of Religion in “Tale of the Destruction of Riazan”

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The “Tale of the Destruction of Riazan” presents as a legend story to be told and passed down to future generations. I found this as a major theme of the Tale. There are battles fought with glory and passion to protect the homeland of Riazan. I found that this paralleled many previous stories we have read in class.

A theme of religion was tied into the Tale as well. The main identification was the battle between the good, Russia, and the evil, the godless emperor Batu. The godless emperor Batu showed no mercy in the slaughter of the city of Riazan. Although, god had a plan for the people and land of Russia. The saying, “And all this happened for our sins” was repeated many times in the story after death. All death happened for a reason. The story is ended by the land of Raizan being restored to god.  This restoration of the land was expected due to the theme of religion in the Tale. Everything in the Tale occurred for a reason and in accordance to god so the loss and death of many people occurred to sacrifice for the greater power of Russia.

I found it interesting that the format and theme of the “Tale of the Destruction of Riazan” was similar to many other texts that we have read in class. Do all classic Russian stories have a theme of legend and religion?