Isaac Babel’s My First Goose is a very interesting short story highlighting the acceptance of a new propaganda officer into a Cossack regiment. When the narrator arrives, he is struck by Commander Savitsky’s size. While the commander gives the narrator a hard time, making fun of his glasses and calling him a ‘mama’s boy’, the majority of the harassment he receives comes from his peers—those in the sixth division of equal rank to the narrator. When reading Pravda, Lenin’s announcements for the day, he becomes too distracted and commands an old, blind woman to make him food. She voices her discontent with the Cossacks, saying all of this makes her want to kill herself. He shouts an expletive at her. Then, he accidentally kills a goose on the street in a very gory fashion, shouting another expletive at the now brainless and dead goose.

Interestingly, this causes the narrator’s peers to stop messing with him, one claiming that he will “fit in with us”. They even sleep together. Thus, an overreaction, a byproduct of the narrator’s rage, wins the Cossacks over. Judging by his awe of the Commander’s size in the beginning and distractedness in reading Lenin, one would think the narrator would be content with this new acceptance. However, the last line of the story is very important in proving the contrary. While the narrator, “saw women in my dreams”, a superficial ‘win’ for him, like the killing of the goose, “my heart, bloodstained from the killing, whined and dripped misery”, alluding to more structural discontent and shamefulness.

Battleship Potemkin is an outstanding work, as the film’s propagandistic power is undeniable. Eisenstein’s clear-cut and intentional filmmaking made the movie, and symbolism is rampant throughout the film. The film is full of scenes of revolution and riots, but one of the most powerful (and iconic) is that of the Odessa Steps.
The psychological power this part alone has in carrying a propagandistic story is breathtaking. The audience watches as Russian soldiers march down the steps, firing into the ground, seemingly marching down forever. The endless march of the Russian soldiers is powerful, as it portrays them not only has never-ending, but a mechanic. The sight of the mighty tsarist militia marching down on innocent citizens serves as a powerful incentive to remain angry and resentful.
However, what is truly striking, even after finishing the film, is the baby carriage (with the infant still inside) rolling down the long and endless set of steps after the baby’s mother had been shot and killed. The framework of a mother attempting to protect her baby evokes strong emotion across all cultures, no matter where in the world. Seeing the baby roll down the stairs after his mother’s death, surrounded by fear and death, adds on to this propagandistic ideology. It becomes even more comfortable to associate the tsarist militia as an evil group, one that tears a mother and her baby apart. The separation is a prominent part of the film, creating a final, blatant attempt at creating a clear right and wrong side in the revolution.

The second poem of Alexander Blok’s The Twelve was intensely chilling in the way it illustrated Russia’s revolutionary War with Religion. The repetition of “down with the cross” was a line which seems rather basic in the English Language (which is why I wish I could absorb the original Russian) but conveys an brilliant image with some strong symbolic meaning. The poem actually ties the old Russia in with religion, or at the very least, it illustrates how the revolutionaries tied old Russia with religion. It tells the story of how the revolutionary’s nail mother Russia to the cross before chopping it down.

What seemed a bit less clear upon first reading this poem (as well as the other twelve) was the profound sense of irony which was being injected into the narratives. There relatively very little direct criticism of the revolution itself, outside of painting pictures of its extremities. The narration of the poem almost seems to mockingly accept the anti religious and generally destructive tenants of the revolution, and it does so seemingly with a sort of self-aware blindness. The language is at times downright feverish in its narration of revolutionary fervor. In a sense, without questioning the revolution, it transforms it into a sort of perverse religion in and of itself. Poetry is one of the few things capable of such a feat.

*****I did not finish the movie before midnight, so I will be adding a second section to this journal once I do.*****

I found the “Battleship Potemkin” intriguing in the way that the dialogue was presented. Usually, I do not stay interested in silent films or non speech films. Although, as the film progressed I started to read the body language which is done to any silent film and noticed presentation of dialogue. The way in which the dialogue was shown, black background with big white letters, placed emphasis on the speech. The dialogue was also emphasized because there was less dialogue shown than was actually being said through the movement of lips. The emphasis on the speech in the play kept me intrigued in the film and the overall plot.

Another part of the film that I found very interesting was the scene of the town of Odessa gathering and walking to the pier. I noticed that there was a lot of film focused on the town walking of stairs and pathways together. These were powerful images that emphasized the unity of the town. These images were paralleled to when the public were chased by Russian soldiers. The child shot in cold blood, stroller rolling down the stair without a mother, and overall terror of the people were images focused on. These images indicated the breaking of the unity that was shown in the previous scenes.

Overall, “Battleship Potemkin” had great film work and amazing scenes that are all essential to the film.

Sergei Eisenstein’s Battleship Potemkin is unmistakably a propaganda film. Central to its messaging is a contrast between the solidarity among class-conscious workers and the oppressive tsarists who cling to power through division and atrocities. What struck me about the film was how it sold this message through violent imagery. Lines of Cossack soldiers massacre civilians, leaving multiple children on-screen orphaned or dead, in a clear display of contempt for human life. A gunshot wound leaves a woman’s swan brooch drenched in blood, a clear sign of the assailants’ contempt for love and purity. Before the Cossack detachment arrives in Odessa, a man attempts to sublimate the revolutionary fervor through a pogrom, conspiring to murder the city’s Jewish residents. These disturbing plot developments accompany an undercurrent of violent images such as shots facing down the barrels of turrets, a metal cross penetrating the lower deck of the eponymous ship like a knife, the first act concluding with soldiers shattering a plate because of its hypocritical message, and the final shot being a sharp ship bow passing over the camera at water level. Clearly, the violent and menacing presentation work to humanize the revolutionaries and other victims of the tsar’s regime while vilifying the propagandistic targets. What perplexes me is how physical violence within Battleship Potemkin is pervasive in the film than in the contemporary poems we have studied (In both concept and execution).

In a sense, I am more reminded of much older works such as “The Lay of Igor’s Campaign.” Perhaps the fact that both works emerged during periods of conflict might reflect an audience desensitized to armed struggle. I see an alternative hypothesis as more likely; Eisenstein understands that violence in film can shock the naive viewer on a more visceral level than other media, especially one living around the dawn of cinema. It is thanks to this media literacy that such a menacing presentation emerges.

Sergei Eisentein does it again! His depiction of the triumph of the crew of the Potemkin works to exalt the efforts of the revolutionaries and diminish the moral code of the tsarist regime. Each shot seems to have been meticulously chosen to add to the overall narrative. I’m going to discuss a few cinematic techniques I noticed throughout the film.

Eisenstein’s uses of asynchronous sound, reaction shots, and fast motion elevate this historical account into the realm of heroic drama. Throughout the film, the characters seem to be speaking, but none of their words are heard. Instead, the viewer is told the story through written word, visuals, and orchestral music. This asynchronous sound synthesizes a more story-like tone and adds a melodramatic atmosphere to the narrative. Even though this is a historical drama, this cinematic tool makes the viewer feel as if they are watching a hero’s tale. Though no spoken word is heard, a skillfully crafted operatic soundtrack rises and falls with the story.  Additionally, Eisenstein makes use of reaction shots throughout the film to demonstrate a narrative that really builds upon itself and give the impression that each action of the players in the story has an important role to play in the creation of the narrative. No movement is made without reason. Fast motion refers to manipulation of frames to make action seem more rapid than normal pace. This manipulation creates a hectic atmosphere and adds a level of action to the already lively film. 

Eisenstein is really a master at frame composition. There is no shot in this entire film that seems unintentional or wasted. Every single shot has a meaning within the sequence of the rest, as well as every shot, in its own right, is visually interesting and dynamic.

However, I think one of the most iconic shots and the one that lasted the longest in my head after watching the film was that in the beginning of the film of the sailors hanging in hammocks together in the ship. This ship is not only incredibly visually stimulating with many diagonal lines leading the eyes to different edges of the frame, but more importantly it depicts the proletariat work force as a connected web. Each hammock seems to connect to another, linking the workforce. More so, the shirtless men are depicted as vulnerable individually in this state (think of the shot of the young man’s bare back), but because of their numbers and mass in the small room seem imposing. Once the young recruit is whipped, the ripples of that impact echo throughout the whole mass of hammocks, showing how mistreat of one member effects the whole group.

This single shot cements the character group of the working force in the film. Amazingly, it groups together individuals, showing their power as a collective.

The God/ religious character in the earlier parts of the movie “Battleship Potemkin” is a very interesting symbol. We first see the struggle with religion in the end of the first part where a crew member read the line “Give us this day, our daily bread.” The crew member became enraged with the statement and destroyed the plate. The symbol of bread is an interesting one as it is something very important to the revolutionist. Food scarcity is a real issue and the men were being served rotten meat. Hence the guarantee of bread is portrayed as a lie in the movie to the crew members. The god character is first introduced when the defenseless crew members were going to be shot by the black coats. The god character seemed to go along with the black coats’ decision and almost helped signal a shot with his cross. When the revolt breaks out this same cross is seen to be flung into the ground almost as if it was sharp. Finally when the doctor is being carried away he reaches for the god character who pretends to play dead. These moments and metaphors in my opinion serve to show that the film portrays religion as a friend of the aristocracy. Religion helps with instituted power, seen by the sharp cross. The cross has no need to be sharp unless it is to be viewed as a weapon or something to be afraid of. The most revealing moment with regards to religion is that the god character plays dead when called for. This moment serves to portray religion as a flawed institution, portray god as an aristocratic figure, but a figure that doesn’t help when the going gets rough. Since the movie is a propagandist force for revolution it obviously works to demolish the image of god/religion as that wasn’t supported or like by the socialists. Overall it was very interesting aspect of the movie.

In Tsveataeva’s “Longing for the Motherland,”m the poet uses the physical manifestation of the female body to represent Russia. I think that this has fascinating implications, as the poem’s main character/speaker is yearning for maternal care and belonging from the past. The main character has been isolated from their “motherland” and wants to return home. Their native language is not understood by the people they encounter, increasing this sense of isolation of attempting to find their way back home. The attempt to journey back to the places of one’s “birth” represents an attempt to remember and keep history from being erased. I think the theme of motherhood has dual implications: a longing for the past, a childhood in which one receives maternal care and comfort, and also the physical aspect of a journey to return to one’s home and their place of birth. The poem carries an overt sense of nostalgia. Yet it is interesting that the apparent present is only characterized by this feeling of isolation and helplessness. This demonstrates, potentially, an inability to move on from the past and separate oneself from the comfort of the “mother” figure. This poem, along with many others we have analyzed, illustrate the transience of the time period they were written in. The nostalgia and longing for “Mother Russia” evoke this attempt to go back to the past and the comfort of familiarity. Yet I also think these themes express a sense of longing for a national identity and sense of belonging in a time of tumult and national unrest. 

I think this poem portrays a man’s response to the passing of time with nostalgia and grief in coping with growing older and inevitably insignificant. In the poem, the narrator refers to his age as a beast that has experience in both the older and new centuries. The poem reads:

 “A creature, as long as life persists/ Must bear its backbone and exist/ And a wave rolls and plays / Down invisible vertebrae/ Like a child’s soft cartilage/ The era of the infant earth / Life’s brainpan has been offered up / Like a sacrificial lamb”(56).

I think these lines of the poem may serve as a criticism of society in the 20th century. These lines show that the most recent century is born without any knowledge from the past, making it as pure as “a child’s soft cartilage.” 

The poem also address blood springs from the throat of earthly things (56). The blood of life is not as fruitful as how the beast remembered the older century. For me, I feel that there is an air of nostalgia that Mandelstam addresses. If time continues to pass, and if age expands with the passing of years, there is a natural wave of human emotion like grief and longing. There is also a heightened sense of fragility and weakness involved with the “building blood from earthly things.”(56).

As the poem continues in its descriptions of the beast and temporality, Mandelstam brings about an air of renewal and hope.  He writes, “And once again the buds will swell/ And nature will explode in green/ But your spinal cord is snapped / My wonderful but sorry age” (56). He emphasizes the rebirth of a new century while also acknowledging that the body will not be able to keep up with the changes brought by a new age. Nonetheless, he remains in awe of life’s eternal change. I believe that he is also saying that life is beautiful and ruthless. Although life has created humans, there is still the presence of apathy and indifference for death.