{"id":615,"date":"2020-02-05T03:03:35","date_gmt":"2020-02-05T03:03:35","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/courses.bowdoin.edu\/russian-2240-spring-2020\/?p=615"},"modified":"2020-02-05T03:03:35","modified_gmt":"2020-02-05T03:03:35","slug":"appearance-vs-reality","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/courses.bowdoin.edu\/russian-2240-spring-2020\/lmcnett\/appearance-vs-reality\/","title":{"rendered":"Appearance vs. Reality"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">The Tsar\u2019s Bride <\/span><\/i><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">is, on its surface, abuddently beautiful.\u00a0 The scenery, the actors, and, above all, the music result in an opera that exposes the audience to the beauty of Russian culture.\u00a0 In addition, the recurring theme of love is dominant throughout the opera and is amplified by the romantic nature of the music.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">However, once breaking through the facade of beauty, a darker reality reveals itself.\u00a0 The opera takes place during the reign of Ivan the Terrible, a figure known for his oppression as well as manic tendencies.\u00a0 Despite the aura of love present, a deeper examination reveals an overpowering sense of rage and jealousy that consumes the main characters and ultimately destroyesthem.\u00a0 Additionally, Ivan, despite his historical significance, is hardly present in the opera. Rather, it is up to the audience to be aware of the reality of his rule. \u00a0A further discussion about the significance (or lack thereof) of Ivan in the opera could be interesting.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">As seen in the film we watched last class, <\/span><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Ivan the Terrible<\/span><\/i><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">, Soviet-era films made about this time period tend to hide the reality of Ivan\u2019s legacy. \u00a0They are used as an opportunity to showcase a unified Russia and its culture.\u00a0 Additionally, in both films, there is an absence of religion, despite the fact that we are aware Russia was very much Christian at this point in time. Although I\u2019m sure we will discuss this more in length later in the semester, I am fascinated in how the Soviet government impacted films such as these as well as Russian culture generally. \u00a0 What was life <em>actually\u00a0<\/em>like in this time period? Are these films valid glimpses into this time period? Is it full on propaganda, or somewhere in between?<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The Tsar\u2019s Bride is, on its surface, abuddently beautiful.\u00a0 The scenery, the actors, and, above all, the music result in an opera that exposes the audience to the beauty of Russian culture.\u00a0 In addition, the recurring theme of love is dominant throughout the opera and is amplified by the romantic nature of the music. However, [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1024,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-615","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-unit-3-autocracy-takes-hold"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/courses.bowdoin.edu\/russian-2240-spring-2020\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/615","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/courses.bowdoin.edu\/russian-2240-spring-2020\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/courses.bowdoin.edu\/russian-2240-spring-2020\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/courses.bowdoin.edu\/russian-2240-spring-2020\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1024"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/courses.bowdoin.edu\/russian-2240-spring-2020\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=615"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/courses.bowdoin.edu\/russian-2240-spring-2020\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/615\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/courses.bowdoin.edu\/russian-2240-spring-2020\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=615"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/courses.bowdoin.edu\/russian-2240-spring-2020\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=615"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/courses.bowdoin.edu\/russian-2240-spring-2020\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=615"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}