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.

In “First Epistle to Tsar Ivan,” various motifs are employed to express the theme of suffering and imbue such suffering with religious significance. One of the most salient motifs in the text is that of the shedding of “christian blood like water.” This motif is also seen in the painting of Ivan the Terrible and his son, showing Ivan’s depraved and inhumane nature and the depth of suffering he caused. Blood is a physical manifestation of the suffering of the Russian people caused by Tsar Ivan’s autocratic rule. But by equating blood to water, it also has a religious and moral connotation. Water plays a role of cleansing and baptizing, and blood in this text takes meaning of duty and loyalty to one’s faith and country; the text states “if it is true that your blood has been spilled by the enemy, then you have done your duty to your country” (376). If one does not perform their duty to their country they would not be a true Christian, using the motif of blood and suffering as a way to mutually express devotion to both country and religion. The shedding of blood and self sacrifice are a way for Christians to prove one’s devotion and therefore play a spiritually cleansing and baptizing role, and thus tie religious faith to the idea of suffering for one’s beliefs. Blood also serves to highlight the relationship between Tsar Ivan and the Russian people; blood is spilled by Tsar Ivan, but “cries out against another,” implying that this suffering is not in vain and each life lost serves as a cry to the Lord against Ivan’s barbaric rule (376). The imagery of the blood of an innocent man stained on the church floor, representing suffering being literally stained into the physical site of worship, also shows how each death has religious significance. The implications of such imagery provide an almost hopeful tone to the otherwise bleak and morbid story. Every person’s suffering contributes to the greater moral opposition to Ivan and acts as a way to reach out to God for help and salvation. In this way, blood has the potentially to cleanse and wash away evils and to potentially end suffering for the rest of the Russian peoples, thereby imbuing blood and suffering with a universal and religious significance.