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Sergei Eisenstein's Ivan the Terrible and the Renaissance: An Example of Stalinist Cosmopolitanism?

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  20 January 2017

Katerina Clark
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Abstract

In this article Katerina Clark argues that Sergei Eisenstein's Ivan the Terrible trilogy should not be taken as an unambiguous example of the revival of the national in Stalinist culture of the 1930s and 1940s. Clark identifies Eisenstein as a “cosmopolitan patriot” and proposes that the film can be interpreted, inter alia, in terms of this orientation, focusing on the role of the west European Renaissance in the film. This link is explicit in the Prologue and in an article by Eisenstein, which equate Ivan's ruthless exercise of power and use of violence with the record of such Renaissance giants as Henry VIII and Catherine de Medici. But the link is also implicit in some of the visual imagery and the plot structure (which draws on the Elizabethan revenge tragedy). In such allusions to the Renaissance, Clark contends, Eisenstein was effectively entering into European debates of the fascist era about “humanism,” “cosmopolitanism,” and internationalism, with a position that emerges as both nuanced and conflicted.

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Articles
Information
Slavic Review , Volume 71 , Issue 1 , Spring 2012 , pp. 49 - 69
Copyright
Copyright © Association for Slavic, East European, and Eurasian Studies. 2012

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References

1. Clark, Katerina and Dobrenko, Evgeny, eds., Soviet Culture and Power: A History in Documents, 1917-1953 (New Haven, 2007), 440.Google Scholar

2. Tsivian, Yuri, Ivan the Terrible (London, 2002), 66.Google Scholar

3. Ibid., 7.

4. See, for example, Immanuel Wallerstein's discussion of the interdependence of “national,” “universal,” and “cosmopolitan“: “The National and the Universal: Can There Be Such a Thing as World Culture?” in Anthony D. King, ed., Culture, Globalization and the World System: Contemporary Conditions for the Representation of Identity (Minneapolis, 1997), 90-103.

5. Greenfeld, Liah, Nationalism: Five Roads to Modernity (Cambridge, Mass., 1992), 14 Google Scholar; Cheah, Pheng, Spectral Nationality: Passages of Freedom from Kant to Postcolonial Literatures of Liberation (New York, 2003), 8, 2CrossRefGoogle Scholar; see also Perry Anderson's historical overview of the interrelationship in “Internationalism: A Breviary,” New Left Review 14 (March-April 2002): 5-25.

6. Brandenberger, David, National Bolshevism: Stalinist Mass Culture and the Formation of Modern Russian National Identity, 1931-1956 (Cambridge, Mass., 2002), esp. 56-62 and chap. 5.Google Scholar

7. After coming up with this term I discovered that Kwame Anthony Appiah uses it in “Cosmopolitan Patriots,” in Pheng Cheah and Bruce Robbins, eds. Cosmopolitics: Thinking and Feeling beyond the Nation (Minneapolis, 1998).

8. “'Ivan groznyi': Kinostsenarii S. M. Eizenshteina,” Novyi mir, 1943, no. 10-11: 67. Emphasis in the original. The traditional historiography has it that the monk Filofei set out this doctrine in a series of letters in the sixteenth century, though the number, addresses, and dates of the letters are the subjects of controversy.

9. Eizenshtein, S. M., “'Ivan Groznyi': Fil'm o russkom renessanse XVI veka” (1942), Izbrannyeproizvedeniia v shesti tomakh (Moscow, 1964-65), 1:193, 194 Google Scholar; Rossiiskii gosudarstvennyi arkhiv literatury i iskusstva (RGALI), f. 1923, op. 1, d. 530,1. 2.

10. Another reason for pointing to Giuliano specifically was because he was stabbed to death in the cathedral, as was Ivan's simpleton cousin Vladimir in Part 2 of Eisenstein's film. Tsivian, Ivan the Terrible, 67. Also, Jane Sharp has pointed out to me that many of Eisenstein's frames are organized by Renaissance principles of perspective. Jane Sharp, conversation in Los Angeles, 19 November 2010.

11. Eizenshtein, “'Ivan Groznyi': Fil'm o russkom renessanse XVI veka,” 189-95.

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15. This is not in the first draft of the script.

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19. For example, for Pushkin, see Brodskii, N. L., A. S. Pushkin: Biografiia (Moscow, 1937), 891.Google Scholar

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22. For example, Rodchenko's Spatial Construction no. 9 (1920-21).

23. “[Kniga-shar],” in Sergei Mikhailovich Eizenshtein, Montazh (Moscow, 2000), 475.

24. Kleiman, “Problema Eizenshteina,” esp. 5-7, 9, 12-13, 15.

25. I am grateful to Paul Bushkovitch, Will Ryan, and Carolyn Pouncy for help in reaching this conclusion.

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27. RGALI, f. 1923, op. 1, d. 561 contains extensive notes from Vipper, but also from Vasilii Kliuchevskii, Aleksandr Pypin, Igor Grabar', and Aleksandr Veselovskii. R. Iu. Vipper, Ivan groznyi (Moscow, 1922), xxi, xlvi, xlvii; Vipper, R. Iu., Ivan groznyi (Moscow-Leningrad, 1944), 24-25, 30, 106-7.Google Scholar

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29. Eizenshtein, S. M., “Krupneishii gosudarstvennyi deiatel',” Izbrannye proizvedeniia v shesti tomakh, 1:199.Google Scholar

30. Vipper, Ivan groznyi (1922), xxix, xxxii, respectively; Vipper, Ivan groznyi (1944) has a slightly different formulation as compared with xxix, omitting in particular “semi- Asiatic” (107).

31. Eizenshtein, “'Ivan Groznyi': Fil'm o russkom renessanse XVI veka,” 190; Vipper, , Ivan groznyi (1922), xxvii.Google Scholar

32. Vipper, , Ivan groznyi (1922), xxiv Google Scholar; Vipper, , Ivan groznyi (1944), 148-49.Google Scholar

33. For example, Mann, G., lunost’ korolia Genrikha IV, trans. Krymova, N. M. (Moscow, 1937)Google Scholar; and Mann, Zrelost’ korolia Genrikha IV, trans. N. Kasatkina, Internatsional'naia literatura, 1939.no. 3-4.

34. Naum Kleiman, interview, Moscow, 1 July 2011.

35. Linn, Rolf N., Heinrich Mann (New York, 1967), 115.Google Scholar

36. Palladio, Andrea, Chetyre knigi ob arkhitekture v dvukh tomakh, trans. Zholtovskii, I. V. (Moscow, 1936, 1938)Google Scholar; Leon Battista Al'berti, Desia( knig o zodchestve, vol. 1, trans. V P. Zubov (Moscow, 1935). See also “Novye knigi: Teoriia arkhitektury,” Arkhitektura SSSR, 1937, no. 2: 78; “V izdatel'stve Akademii arkhitektury,” Akademiia arhhitektury, 1934, no. 1-2:128; Mitrovic, Branko, Studying Renaissance Architectural Theory in the Age of Stalinism (Florence, 2009).Google Scholar

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38. [Editorial], “Vragi naroda unichtozheny,” Internatsional'naia literatura, 1937, no. 1: 6

39. A perhaps significant difference between Eisenstein's representation of Ivan and Mann's of Henry IV is that Eisenstein does not emphasize the cultural achievements of his ruler's reign (with the possible exception of the armillary sphere). Also, Henry, unlike Ivan, takes delight in carnal pleasures.

40. Lukács, György, The Historical Novel, trans. Hannah, and Mitchell, Stanley (London, 1962), 320.Google Scholar

41. Renan, Ernst, “What Is a Nation?” (1882), trans. Thorn, Martin and reprinted in Babha, Homi K., Nation and Narration (New York, 1990), 11 Google Scholar. Benedict Anderson also emphasizes the importance of selective amnesia in the formation of the national narrative. See the section, “The Biography of Nations,” in the final chapter of his Imagined Communities: Reflections on the Origin and Spread of Nationalism, rev. ed. (London, 1991).

42. Bowers, Fredson Thayer, Elizabethan Revenge Tragedy, 1587-1642 (Gloucester, Mass., 1959), 43.Google Scholar James Goodwin also notes that Eisenstein has used the conventions of revenge tragedy in his trilogy. Goodwin, Eisenstein, Cinema and History (Urbana, 1993), 186-87.

43. Perrie, , Cult of Ivan the Terrible, 163, 171-78.Google Scholar

44. Eizenshtein, Metod, 1:271-74; Metod, vol. 2 (Moscow, 2002), 107, 256; “Montazh u Shekspira,” Montazh, 242-51.

45. See the contributions of several authors including Eisenstein with “Esse ob esseiste” (311-12) in Natal'ia Adaskina, comp., and I. A. Aksenov, ed., Iz tvorcheskogo naskdiia (Moscow, 2008), 2:295, 311 (Eisenstein), 314, 327, 335, 405-7.

46. Aksenov, I. A., Elizavetintsy: Stat'i i perevody (Moscow, 1938).Google Scholar Published posthumously in 1938 it includes some of his essays on the subject and four of his translations. As Eisenstein himself acknowledged, another source for Ivan the Terriblewns Pushkin's play Boris Godunov, itself modeled on Shakespeare.

47. Maus, Katharine Eisaman, “Introduction,” in Maus, , ed., Four Revenge Tragedies: The Spanish Tragedy. The Revenger's Tragedy. The Revenge of Bussy D'Ambois. The Atheist's Tragedy (Oxford, 1995), xiv-xv, xix.Google Scholar

48. Bowers, , Elizabethan Revenge Tragedy, 73, 131.Google Scholar

49. Aksenov, I. A., Gamlet i drugie opyty, v sodeistvie otechestvennoi shekspirologii… (Moscow, 1930), 102-10.Google Scholar

50. Bowers, , Elizabethan Revenge Tragedy, 72.Google Scholar

51. The death of Ivan's wife could also be seen as a reference to the death of Stalin's (second) wife, Nadezhda, in 1932, before the murder of Sergei Kirov and the Great Purge.

52. Bowers, , Elizabethan Revenge Tragedy, 47, 48, 68, 76, 107.Google Scholar

53. Maus, “Introduction,” xi.

54. Vipper, Ivan groznyi (1922), liv. In Vipper, Ivangroznyi (1944) “sense of measure” has been replaced by vspylchivyi (56), and zloba by chuvstva perelivaiutsia cherez krai, strast’ Vet kliuchom (58).

55. Vipper, Ivan groznyi (1922), lv; Vipper, Ivan groznyi (1944), 120. Vipper in Ivan groznyi (1944), Vipper uses “power” (derzhava) rather than “empire” (imperiia) in the corresponding sentence in the 1922 edition, but he does refer to Ivan's enlarged state as an empire on 146.

56. Tsivian, , Ivan the Terrible, 77-81 Google Scholar; see also in Lovgren, Hakan, Eisenstein's Labyrinth: Aspects of a Cinematic Synthesis of the Arts (Stockholm, 1996), esp. chaps. 3-5Google Scholar, a discussion of Eisenstein's use of Rank's theories about the making of the psyche from Rank's Das Trauma der Geburt (The Trauma of Birth, 1924).

57. Eliot, T. S., The Sacred Wood: Essays on Poetry and Criticism (London, 1920), 102.Google Scholar The same passages are in Eliot's Elizabethan Essays (London, 1934), 62-63.

58. Sergei Eizenshtein, “O stroenii veshhchei,” Iskusstvo kino, 1939, no. 6: 15.

59. Bowers, , Elizabethan Revenge Tragedy, 172.Google Scholar

60. RGALI, f. 1923, op. 1, d. 561,11. 42,132, and RGALI, f. 1923, op. 1, d. 554,1. 61.

61. Maus, “Introduction,” xxii, xxvii.

62. Clark, and Dobrenko, , eds., Soviet Culture and Power, 441 Google Scholar; Perrie, , Cult of Ivan the Terrible, 174,176.Google Scholar

63. Maus, “Introduction,” xxi.

64. Sergei Mikhailovich Eizenshtein, ‘“Pervobytnost” v materiale i situatsii,” Metod, 1:257,477.

65. For the analogies between figures and events in the trilogy and in Stalin's time, see Evgeny Dobrenko, , Stalinist Cinema and the Production of History: Museum of the Revolution (New Haven, 2008), 51-52 Google Scholar; Perrie, , Cult of Ivan the Terrible, 159, 160, 168-69, 173, 176-77.Google Scholar

66. Eizenshtein, ‘“Pervobytnost” v materiale i situatsii,” 1:257, 477.

67. Eizenshtein, Metod, 1:87, 454, 456. Ivan invokes the principle of rodovaia krov’ in Part 2 during his conversation with his simpleton cousin, Vladimir, before the latter's murder.

68. RGALI, f. 1923, op. 1, d. 572,11. 35, 3, and RGALI, f. 1923, op. 1, d. 554,1. 86.

69. Holbein first encountered Erasmus in Basel where he did illustrations for Erasmus's famous book In Praise of Folly, an attack on the Catholic Church. The cluster of intellectuals in London associated with Erasmus and Holbein extends to Sir Thomas More, the author of Utopia (1516), who, like several of Erasmus's close associates, was executed for sticking to the Catholic faith.

70. RGALI, f. 1923, op. 1, d. 554, 1. 64. Later in that file Eisenstein says that the English resident is to be in Holbein's costume and “half-'Erasmus“’ (86).

71. Neuberger, “Eisenstein's Cosmopolitan Kremlin,” 85, 82.

72. Eizenshtein, S. M., “Charlie the Kid” (1943-44), hbrannye proizvedeniia v shesti tomakh, 5:521.Google Scholar

73. On the centrality of The Prince for Eisenstein, see RGALI, f. 1923, op. 1, d. 561, 1. 4; Neuberger, Ivan the Terrible, 71. On Machiavelli's importance in Bolshevik writings, see, for example, Karl Radek, “Razgovor Nikolo Makkavelli s Zh.-Zh. Russo o demokratii i diktature,” hvestiia, 7 November 1934.

74. Neuberger, , Ivan the Terrible, 3, 78, 81Google Scholar; see also her slighdy different formulations in “Eisenstein's Cosmopolitan Kremlin,” 85-87, 89-91, 93.

75. Another possibility, since the emissary is given spectacles, is that he represents Lev Trotskii though those who seek counterparts in Stalinist figures generally consider that Kurbskii represents Trotskii and Fedor Kolychev Nikolai Bukharin.

76. Zweig, Stefan, Triumph und Tragik des Erasmus von Rotterdam (Vienna, 1934)Google Scholar; G. Lukach, “Novelly S. Tsveiga,” Literaturnoe obozrenie, 1937, no. 8: 22-27.

77. Zweig's Erasmus was not published in Russian translation during the 1930s, though several of his other books were, nor was it in Eisenstein's personal library. But the Foreign Languages Library in Moscow contains a French translation from 1934, an English translation from 1934, and an edition in the original German of 1934, all three of which entered the collection in the 1930s. Also, Margarita Rudomino, the library's then director, allowed Eisenstein to take books home from their collection. Naum Kleiman, interview, Moscow, 1 July 2011. Thanks to Vladimir Skorodenko for research in the Foreign Languages Library.

78. For example, Mikhailovich Eizenshtein, Sergei, Memuary (Moscow, 1997), 1: 78-85.Google Scholar

79. Iuliia Markovna Zhivova, interview, Moscow, 19July 2001; Stefan Tsveig, “'Motsart’ Bela Balasha,” Sovetskoe iskusstvo, 24 August 1939 (i.e., just after the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact).

80. Zweig, Stefan, Erasmus of Rotterdam, trans. Eden, and Paul, Cedar (New York, 1934), 64,4,8,15,116-17,237,240.Google Scholar

81. Aksenov, , Gamlet, 166.Google Scholar

82. RGALI, f. 1923, op. 1, d. 569,1. 33. Also, Eisenstein calls Kurbskii's defection to Sigismund a zapadnii uklon (RGALI, f. 1923, op. 1, d. 69,1. 56).

83. This article was published in Literatura i iskusstvo, 1942, no. 27 (4 July).

84. I am grateful to Kevin Piatt for sharing his sleuthing work on this with me.

85. Naum Kleiman, interview, Moscow, 1 July 2011.

86. Lukács, , Historical Novel, 266, 268.Google Scholar

87. Machiavelli, Niccolo, The Prince, trans. Skinner, Quentin (Cambridge, Eng., 1988), esp. 51-52 (chap. XIV), 89-90 (chap. XXVI).Google Scholar

88. Ibid., 59 (chap. XVII).

89. Eisenstein, Sergei, Nonindifferent Nature: Film and the Structure of Things, trans. Marshall, Herbert (Cambridge, Eng., 1987), 324-25.Google Scholar