Destroying Individuality: Making Everyone Mediocre

    Like Søren Kierkegaard (1813-1855), Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche (1844-1900) understood the importance of new modes of communication and technologies in the development of modernity. “The press, the machine, the railway, and the telegraph are premises whose thousand year conclusion no one has yet dared to draw.” Moreover, like Kierkegaard, he saw the press and mass culture as engendering a leveling process that was destroying individuality and community while producing a homogenized, herd conformity.  Nietzsche believed that modern society had become so chaotic, fragmented, and devoid of “creative force” that it had lost the resources to create a vital culture and that ultimately, modern society greatly advanced the decline of the human species that had already begun early in Western history. 
    In Nietzsche’s view two trends were evident that were producing contradictory processes of massification and fragmentation---whose extreme consequences would be the central theme of postmodern theory.  On the one hand, modern society was fragmenting into warring groups, factions, and individuals without any overriding purpose or shared goals. On the other hand, modern society is leveling individuals into a herd, bereft of individuality, spontaneity, passion, or creativity.  Both trends were harmful to the development of the sort of free, creative, strong individuality championed by Nietzsche and he sharply criticized each.¹

      The insights offered by Nietzsche were shared by many others as well.  Hannah Arendt (1904-1975), a German-American political theorist, also expressed concerns regarding the destruction of individuality because of the impact it would have on the future of the nation.

   In her novel, The Origins of Totalitarianism, Arendt wrote that after the murder of a moral person and the annihilation of a judicial person, the destruction of individuality is almost always successful…For to destroy individuality is to destroy spontaneity, man’s power to begin something new out of his own resources, something which cannot be explained on the basis of reactions and environment.  Nothing then remains but ghastly marionettes with human faces, which all behave like the dogs in Pavlov’s experiments, which all react with perfect reliability even when going to their own death, and which do nothing but react.  This is the real triumph of the system. ²

   To make human beings superfluous is to eradicate the very conditions that make humanity possible---to destroy human plurality, spontaneity, and individuality. Arendt sums this up in the paragraph which immediate precedes her brief discussion about absolute or radical evil.³

   What totalitarian ideologies therefore aim at is not the transformation of society, but the transformation of human nature itself.  The concentration camps are the laboratories where changes in human nature are tested and their shamefulness, therefore, is not just the business of their inmates and those who run them according to strictly “scientific” standards; it is the concern of all men. Suffering, of which there has always been too much on earth, is not the issue, nor is the number of victims. Human nature is at stake, and even though it seems that these experiments succeed not in changing man, but only in destroying him, by creating a society in which the nihilistic banality of homo homini lupus (man unto man a wolf) is consistently realized, one should bear in mind the necessary limitations to an experiment which requires global control in order to show conclusive results.⁴  

   Parents play a major role in either inspiring or destroying their children individuality.  This is often done under the guise that either the parents know what is best for their child or the parents “meant well”, but the reality is that in many cases the children of these parents are living the lives that their parents wanted them to live with often very unhappy results. 

    Parents often insist that their children conform and not go against the prevailing societal code. Many parents staunchly believe in blind and mindless conformity. They believe that there is safety in following the prevailing and/or majority opinion. They contend that following the majority consensus offers a sense of belonging and security. They stress to their children that it is safer and more feasible to conform to the prevailing groupthink philosophy. They strongly discourage their children's strong individualism and nonconformity because it is believed that if their children refuse to conform to the prevailing groupthink, they would be considered oddballs or worse, being ostracized and alone. A worse scenario according to the parents, these children would be ostracized and denigrated by their neighbors and associates. So if their child/children dare to have a unique, creative, and innovative thought and idea, it is squashed and oftentimes considered outlandish and weird because nobody else thought of it! These parents are killing the dreams of a potential Picasso, Einstein, Mozart, Pushkin, or Tchaikovsky. ⁵

     Schools do the same thing.  Standardized tests, which are very popular in the US, actually serve to “pigeonhole” potential in students and are design to reward averageness.  After taking these tests, the school system often makes determinations about the mental abilities or potential of particular students and those students who are outside of the norm are negatively labeled for the rest of their time in the education system.

     Another problem is that the school system is designed to meet the needs of those who fall within the center of the “bell curve”.⁶   It is highly unlikely that if they had such standardized tests in earlier centuries that people like Mozart, Beethoven, van Gogh, Mussorgsky, Einstein, Pushkin, or Tchaikovsky would have had test scores in the middle range of the bell curve.  Many of these people had difficulty in school and would have perhaps been considered people who would never amount to anything because they could not do well on a standardized test. These people were geniuses and such tests are not designed to encourage genius.

   Researchers of creative geniuses claim, as a rule, these geniuses were poor students. Perhaps some of them did well in school, but they often found that many of them were bad students.

1. Voltaire's father told Voltaire and his brother: "I raised two fools. One fool in verse and another one in prose.”  

2. Isaac Newton was the worst student in the class until he beat up a fellow student. After that, Newton decided to beat him in knowledge. In a few months he became the best in the class.

3. Otto von Bismarck, the chancellor of the German Empire, was very bad with his studies and his work was even worse.  He could only find a job through patronage.  He would either be fired from every job, leave on his own, or be unable to carry out his assignment.

4. Napoleon was bad in all subjects, except mathematics.

5. Ludwig van Beethoven’s writing was very bad and he was unable to master either division or multiplication.

6. Albert Einstein - the creator of the theory of relativity and Nobel Prize laureate was a very average student. His parents had no illusions about him and hoped that he will at least be able to get a simple job.

7. Pushkin was very poorly managed at the Lyceum, and wept while studying arithmetic. After certification, the presentation of diplomas, he was second from the last.

8. Sergei Korolev, under whose leadership were created geophysical ballistic missiles, the first satellites, and the spacecrafts "Vostok" and "Voskhod", was considered to be a very poor student.

9. Chekhov held back in school twice.  He later went on to become both a medical doctor and highly successful author.

10.  Alexander Dumas, author of The Three Muskateers, was a very poor student in mathematics. 

     In fact, this may be one reason why geniuses very often end up living rather tragic lives.  After examining the biographies of many geniuses I noticed that many of them died at a rather young age from either alcoholism or suicide.  In some cases, excessive use of alcohol could also be seen as a form of suicide.

    Why did the lives of these geniuses often end so tragically? Very often these people were not understood by the society in which they lived and were considered odd as a result.  Some of these people were able to hear music where no one else heard it or have insights into things which others either did not have or could not express.  This makes someone odd?  In a culture which promotes conformity as a virtue, the answer is “yes”. 

    Another challenge facing our society is bullying.  Many children are routinely either physically or emotionally abused by other children simply because they are different.  In some cases, these children are physically and emotionally abused.  It is often true that the person who acting as the bully has many personal problems, but that does not offer encouragement or support to someone who is being beaten everyday by someone simply for being different.

    Bullying would not be as much of an issue if our society was not so intent on producing uniformity and destroying individuality.  It is easy for someone to become a bully and even receive the help of other students simply by declaring a particular student to be “strange”.  Bullying is not an innate behavior.  We are not born with a desire to hate people simply for being different.  This is a learned behavior.  This is something which parents either tell their children or their children absorb based upon their parents’ actions.

     In the 1949 Rodgers and Hammerstein musical, South Pacific, the issue of racial prejudice is addressed in the song, “You’ve Got to be Carefully Taught”.  This song deals with the fact that prejudice is a learned behavior. The fact is that this is true. There would be no prejudice and no bullying if people simply accepted others as being different instead of attempting to force everyone to be the same.  If everyone was “the same” we would have none of the inventions that we take for granted every day because no one would have ever thought of them.  

     I do not see being average as something to strive for.  In fact, it is something to settle for because a person lacks either the talent or intelligence to be better than average.   Hopefully future generations will be able to produce someone of the caliber of Tchaikovsky, Mozart, or Einstein, but this will never happen if we choose to settle for “average” as the social standard and continue to destroy individuality.  Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, creator of Sherlock Holmes, was right when he wrote “Mediocrity knows nothing higher than itself; but talent instantly recognizes genius."

                                                                  End Notes

1)  Best, Steven The Postmodern Turn (NY: Guilford Press, 1997), p. 57

2)   Arendt, Hannah The Origins of Totalitarianism (NY: Schocken Books,  1951) p. 455

3)   May, Larry and Jerome Kohn (eds.) Hannah Arendt: 20 Years Later (MA: MIT Press, 1997), p. 135

4)  Arendt, pp. 458-459

5)  “10 Ways Parents Destroy Their Children’s Self-Esteem” http://gmwilliams.hubpages.com/hub/Ten-Ways-Parens-Destroy-Their-Childrens-Self-Esteem

6)  “The Bell Curve” http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Bell_Curve

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

All Bark and No Bite

    Almost any time we attempt to receive some assistance from a government bureaucrat we find it to be extremely frustrating.  Instead of answering a simple question, these bureaucrats either ignore you or quote government policy which is, more often than not, very unhelpful. 

    Everyone deals with such frustrating experiences in a different way.  Some people will write a letter to the manager of the office, others will complain to their elected officials, others will simply do nothing, and some people will respond with either humor or sarcasm. 

    Frustration with bureaucracy is nothing new.  I am sure that there were many people who found the Roman government or those appointed by Alexander the Great (356-323 BC) to be very difficult to deal with when these two empires were in control of much of ‘the known world”. 

   In Russian literature, Nikolai Gogol (1809-1852) expressed such frustration in his stories The Government Inspector, The Nose, The Overcoat, and Diary of a Madman.  Another Russian author, Ivan Andreyevich Krylov (1769-1844)¹, expressed his frustration using fables. 

    A fable is defined as “a narration intended to enforce a useful truth; especially: one in which animals speak and act like human beings.”  One such fable is “The Elephant and the Pug Dog”².  One of the great things about using fables as a way of conveying a message is that everyone can relate to the message and people will often be able to see some character in the fable who reminds them of someone they know in real life. 

    Krylov wrote this fable as a way of dealing with his frustration regarding the bureaucracy in Moscow, but this story could just as easily be discussing two nations dealing with each other or the way that some people act when they are afraid. 

    Unlike fairy tales, fables have a “moral” which is clearly expressed at the end of the story.  A fairy tale can also have a “moral”, but it is contained within the story instead of expressed simply at the end.  One of the most famous fabulists, one who tells fables, was Aesop (c. 620-564 BC)³ of ancient Greece.  Ivan Krylov and other fabulists would borrow Aesop’s fables and then rewrite them so they would appear to be written for a particular audience or based upon a particular situation. 

    Humor can be a wonderful way of dealing with frustration since it does not produce anger and helps people to realize that what they are experiencing at that moment.  The same is true when it comes to dealing with difficult people. Being able to see someone as either an elephant or a pug dog allows one to place a given situation in its proper context.  If this person is truly acting like the pug dog, why get upset about it?  If this person is truly the elephant then no amount of anger or frustration will affect them.

                                                  End Notes

1)    “Ivan Krylov” http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ivan_Krylov

2)    “Elephant and Pug Dog” http://marika-eva.blogspot.com/2009/08/russia-and-georgia-as-elephant-and-pug.html

3)    “Aesop” http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aesop

Anna Karenina: A Cinematic Journey on the Silver Screen from 1927 to 2012

  "All happy families resemble one another, each unhappy family is unhappy in its own way." "Все счастливые семьи похожи друг на друга, каждая несчастная семья несчастна по-своему."¹ It is with this quote that Lev Nikolayevich Tolstoy (1828-1910) began what is considered, by many, to be his most famous novel, Anna Karenina.

   Based upon the number of film adaptations which this novel has undergone, it would appear that this novel is a favorite among filmmakers as well.  The first Pathé version appeared in 1911² (just one year after Tolstoy’s death) and the most recent one made by Joe Wright in 2012. ³ Meanwhile, numerous other versions were produced: two films starring Greta Garbo (1905-1990)⁴, the silent film Love (1927), and Clarence Brown’s Anna Karenina (1935); two versions starring British actresses, the 1947 version with Vivien Leigh and the television production of 1985 with Jacqueline Bisset ; five Russian adaptations, including two silent films (one by Vladimir Gardin, starring Vera Vasilyevna Kholodnaya in 1914), the filmed performance at the Malyi Theatre, with Alla Tarasova as Anna in 1953, Aleksander Zarkhi’s Anna Karenina (1967), with Tatiana Yevgenyevna Samoilova and the creatively interesting hybrid of 1974: the film ballet with Maya Mikhaylovna Plisetskaya (b. 1924) ⁵

    In this article I will examine how Anna is presented in these various films by comparing the films of 1935, 1948, 1967, and 2012 in terms of how closely these various plots correspond to one another and to the original text of the novel.   

    When examining the various ways in which Anna Karenina has been interpreted in film it is important to keep in mind the country which the director is from.  In the 1927 and 1935 films, the directors were from the United States. There would have been very little known about life in Russia in the United States in either 1927 or 1935, so these directors were interpreting Anna as an American woman living in Russia.

     It may not have been their intention to interpret her as an American woman, but that was the result of the film.  For example, in the 1935 film, Greta Garbo comes across as a very strong minded, independent woman.  She is driven to despair by her husband who tells their son, Sergei, that his mother is dead and refuses to allow Anna to see him. 

     Fredric March (1897-1975), who played Count Vronsky, was initially a very supportive character, but soon had a great deal of difficulty understanding Anna’s mood swings and became eager to return to his comrades who were on their way to war. 

    It was somewhat surprising, and a bit strange, to hear the chorus “Glory, Glory to you, holy Rus'!” played after Anna’s tragic death in the 1935 film.  What point was the director attempting to make by choosing that song?  Was he attempting to show that life continued on in Russia even though Anna was gone or that Vronsky was beginning his new life without Anna?  Suicide is not understood as a heroic act, especially to an American audience, so this choice of music was certainly not meant to glorify Anna’s suicide as some sort of heroic act for her country.   This chorus was originally presented in the opera, A Life for the Tsar, by Mikhail Ivanovich Glinka (1804-1857) about Ivan Susanin who gave up his own life to save Czar Mikhail Romanov from the Polish Army in 1613.⁶

       In fact, this music only appears at the end of the 1935 film.  There is no triumphant music at the end of any other film version of “Anna Karenina”.  This can certainly lead one to believe that this music was chosen for a very specific purpose, but I have not been able to locate any information about such a purpose.  Was this music meant to indicate that Anna had given her life for the glory of Russia?   We do not know.  Neither Clarence Brown (1890-1987), the film director nor Herbert Stothart (1885-1949) spoke about why this music was chosen at the end of the film.

     The 1948 film was produced in England and, not surprisingly, Anna and the other characters in the film come across as very British.  Throughout the film, Anna comes across as almost emotionless.  Kieron Moore (1924-2007), who plays Count Vronsky, does not give the impression that he does not love Anna, but neither does he give the audience the impression that she can turn to him for any kind of emotional support. 

    Throughout the film it was very easy to ask the question, “How will the director show us why Anna kills herself?”  Vivien Leigh (1913-1967), who played Anna, came across as a rather logical woman with a “stiff upper lip”.  She showed very little emotion, even when she calls her husband to her bedside and announces that she could die at any moment. 

    However, everything changes after the scene where Anna appears at the opera theater by herself.  Anna sees Count Vronsky sitting with his mother and a young woman in his mother’s theater box.  Anna is being accosted by those around her and Vronsky is nowhere to be found.  Then, as she is preparing to leave, Vronsky shows up.

    Later, Vronsky and Anna leave St. Petersburg and go to Italy.  While in Italy, he receives a telegram from his mother who asks him to return home.  Vronsky is emotionally distant at this point.  Anna has become convinced that Vronsky does not love her and that his mother is trying to arrange a marriage between Vronsky and the young woman from the opera theater.  However, Instead of saying or doing something to assuage Anna’s fears, Vronsky leaves her a very emotionless note that he had returned to St. Petersburg and would be back in two days. 

    At this point, Anna believes that all hope is lost.  She can no longer see her child, her marriage is over, and her lover now loves another woman.  It is all very logical.  She boards a train for St. Petersburg and when the train stops at a certain station, Anna leaves the train to get some air.  She begins to reflect upon her life while standing on the train tracks and we see her get run over by the train.  She does not utter a sound prior to being struck by the train.

    The 1967 film is understood, by many, as the finest film adaptation of Anna Karenina because the film is produced in the Soviet Union and is in Russian. It is quite true that Tatiana Yevgenyevna Samoilova (b. 1934), who plays Anna, is a very different personality than either Garbo or Leigh.   However, does that necessarily mean that her portrayal of Anna was the most accurate according to the novel?   Anna’s character is certainly much more emotional than the character portrayed by Vivien Leigh, but there are times when this character is almost at the point of hysterics in the 1967 film. 

     One of the first things that must be acknowledged is that the film’s primary goal was to shoot the stars, not the novel. This approach inevitably affected the structure of the film. In all of these films, the novel is reduced to the Anna-Vronsky connection. Karenin plays a largely subsidiary role.  It appears that his only purpose is making his wife’s love story romantically doomed.⁷

     In the 1935 film, Alexei Karenin is played by Basil Rathbone (1892-1967), who later became famous playing Sherlock Holmes in a series of films.  Karenin came across as a very strict man who cared only about public appearances.  He was very heavily influenced by rules of social etiquette and seemed to care very little about Anna’s feelings.  After Anna told him that she loved Vronsky, Karenin not only told Anna that he would never grant her a divorce, but that she was forbidden to ever see their son, Sergei, again.  This was too much for Anna to accept. It was very easy to dislike this character and understand why Anna fell in love with Vronsky.  

   Ralph Richardson, a British actor, played Karenin in the 1947 film and he was likewise more concerned about social etiquette than Anna’s feelings.  This character was not as harsh as Rathbone’s character, but it was also easy to dislike him.  What we often fail to take into consideration is that Karenin had every right to respond the way that he did.  If Vronsky were a female, he would be referred to as a “home wrecker”, but since he is a man this is simply seen as a love story between a dashing military man and a wealthy housewife whose husband does not understand her. 

    In the 1967 film, the character of Karenin is portrayed by Nikolai Gritsenko and this character was also rather unlikeable.  He also refuses to grant Anna a divorce, but when Anna sends him a message that she is dying, Karenin actually forgives Anna and has a rather understanding conversation with Vronsky outside of Anna’s bedroom. 

    This portrayal of Karenin as a rather nasty, angry man is not in keeping with the novel; however, such a film portrayal appears necessary if the director wants the audience to sympathize with the main character.  The fact is that in the novel Karenin does not come across as a difficult man at all.  He does make an issue about the divorce; however, it is important to keep in mind that in Russia in the 1870s, a decree of divorce was only granted by the czar and if the family was wealthy it was done for very specific reasons. 

    That is why during the conversation between Karenin and the lawyer there is so much time spent talking about Karenin having evidence to prove Anna’s infidelity.  Such evidence could be seen as a legitimate reason for divorce, but the other problem was the possibility of public scandal.   The issue of scandal is mentioned in the various film versions, but there is no discussion about the difficulty of obtaining a divorce.⁸ 

     The 1997 film “Anna Karenina” which was produced by Bernard Rose (b. 1960) and stars Sophie Marceau (b. 1966) in the title role, is a very interesting adaption of Tolstoy’s novel.  It was obvious that Rose had borrowed several ideas from the 1948 film with Vivien Leigh, but he also added some new elements which were not present in the earlier films.  For example, the story, in this film, is told by Lev Tolstoy through the character of Constantine Levin. 

     Some of the elements of the earlier films, such as the difficulties between Stepan and Dolly at the beginning of the film, are not present.  It appears that Bernard Rose is quite familiar with classic Russian literature given the fact that he directed at least two other films based upon Tolstoy’s stories, including a film entitled “Kreutzer Sonata”.  

     Sir Georg Solti’s (1912-1997) choice of music also had a profound impact on the film.  Pyotr Illyich Tchaikovsky’s (1840-1893) Sixth Symphony, which he wrote prior to his own death, the choice of Tatiana’s aria from the opera “Evgeny Onegin”, and the music of Sergei Rachmaninoff (1873-1943) helped to tell the story, even without words. 

     After seeing the 1997 film, the 2012 British film by Joe Wright (b. 1972) does not even appear to be based upon the same novel.  It is true that this film won an Academy Award for “Best Costume Design”, but in regard to the story of Anna Karenina it was more of a spoof than a remake of the novel. 

     It is true that Keira Knightley (b. 1985) is a very attractive woman, but this is not Anna Karenina.  Her character is one dimensional.  She seems to almost take delight in making the life of her sainted husband, played by Jude Law (b. 1972), miserable. Aaron-Taylor Johnson (b. 1990), who played Vronsky, actually came across as more of a spoiled rich child than an officer in the Czar’s guard.  He was rather devoted to Anna as the two of them were destroying Anna’s marriage, but he quickly became rather indifferent to her.   This was very obvious in the scene where Anna is confronted by people at the opera theater and Vronsky offers her no support at all. 

    Jude Law’s character came across as a saint.  I began to ask myself, “How could any woman be so stupid as to leave this man for Vronsky?”  Not only was Alexei Karenin not mean-spirited, but at the end of the film he is seen raising the child that Anna and Vronsky had while she was still married to Karenin.  There is no mention of this anywhere in the novel and I am not quite sure why Joe Wright felt the need to add that into the film. 

      I do understand that poetic license comes into play when making a movie, but it is still important that the director remain as faithful as possible to the novel, unless, of course, he begins by stating that the film is “based upon Anna Karenina”, which means that this film will bear only a slight resemblance to the film. 

    The audience for each film is also introduced to the characters of Stepan, Dolly, Kitty, and Constantine Levin.  Stepan and Dolly are there simply as a way of introducing us to Anna since Stepan, Anna’s brother, picks Anna up at the train station in Moscow very early on in the film.   Kitty is introduced to us because she is a rival love interest of Vronsky, but that fades quickly after Vronsky meets Anna. 

     In almost all of the films, except for the 1997 version, Constantine Levin is a rather one dimensional character.  He appears very rarely in the films and the audience has no indication that in the novel he plays a very major role as a personality contrast to Anna.  In fact, Anna Karenina is actually a novel about two major figures, Anna and Levin. The novel does not end with the death of Anna, but each film ends with her dying at the train station, either by falling in front of or being hit by a train.  

    Instead of seeing the contrast between the failed marriage of Karenin and Anna and the loving conversion experience undergone by Constantine Levin, the audience is simply left to believe that Anna was a wealthy misunderstood housewife who had a romantic fling with a dashing young military man, but finally killed herself when she realized what she had actually given up. 

     This overly simplistic explanation of the story of Anna Karenina does a tremendous disservice to both the novel and its author.  It has been said that Anna Karenina may have been an autobiographical novel by Tolstoy.  He had many personal difficulties in his marriage, including being accused by his wife, Sophia, of being a homosexual (even though he fathered thirteen children).⁹  

     Based upon this view that Tolstoy is like Anna, that means that Sophia is like Karenin.  It should not surprise us that when Tolstoy was dying, the one person that he did not want to see was Sofia.  He died near the train station where he left the train and the one person he did not want to see what his wife. 

     There is also a belief that Tolstoy is similar with Constantine Levin.  Levin is a wealthy man living on an estate outside of the city and works with the serfs living on his land.  This point was made in several versions of the film.   In fact, the 1967 version spent at least five minutes focusing on Levin’s serfs working in the fields. 

     The connection between Tolstoy and Levin was never fully addressed in any of the films; however, the role of Levin is extremely important in the novel.  I understand that the novel is called Anna Karenina, but even the author felt that the story of Kitty and Levin was important enough that he spent a great deal of time exploring this relationship and the positive change that Levin underwent as a result of his relationship with Kitty. 

     As I said earlier, poetic license aside, when working with a classic novel it is important that the film director remain as faithful to the novel as possible.  Stories such as Anna Karenina and other classic novels are timeless and can speak to audiences in various periods of history without having to change the story.  

                                                       End Notes

1. Lev Nikolayevich Tolstoy Anna Karenina (NY: International Collectors Library) [trans. by Constance Garnett], p. 4

2. This film, which began the history of the numerous cinematic adaptations of Tolstoy’s works in world cinema, has not survived.

3. “Anna Karenina 2012”  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anna_Karenina_(2012_film)  This film won an Academy Award in 2013 for “Best Costume Design”. 

4. She received the Best Actress Award from the New York Film Critics for playing Anna in the 1935 film.

5. In Irina Makoveeva’s “Cinematic Adaptations of Anna Karenina” (Studies in Slavic Culture, University of Pittsburgh, pp. 111-134) In her dissertation, The Modes of Storytelling: A Rhetorical Analysis of Film and Television Adaptations of Arthur Conan Doyle’s The Hound of the Baskervilles and Leo Tolstoy’s Anna Karenina, Beata Jurkowska-Krupa compares the setting, plot, characters, point of view, and use of literary tropes in the 1935 film and the TV version of 1985. She analyzes how the structures of film and television influence the choice of rhetorical devices used in the stories they tell. I disagree with some of her conclusions: for example, the statement that television adaptations follow the narrative devices of the literary texts more closely than do film adaptations. In the case of the Anna Karenina versions, she is misled by her focus on the 1935 film, for a comparison with the Russian version of 1967 could have given opposite results.

6. “A Life for the Tsar” http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Life_for_the_Tsar

7. Irina Makoveeva “Cinematic Adaptations of Anna Karenina” (Studies in Slavic Culture, University of Pittsburgh, p. 118.

8.”Tsarist Russia and the Women’s Movement” http://gem.greenwood.com/wse/wsePrint.jsp?id=id576

9. “Issues in the Tolstoy Marriage” http://marriage.about.com/od/thearts/a/leotolstoy_3.htm

 

The Need for a Hero

   Every society needs heroes. In fact, every society has them. The reason we do not often see them is because we don't bother to look. There are two kinds of heroes. There are heroes who shine in the face of great adversity and/or who perform an amazing feat in a difficult situation. There are also heroes who live among us, who do their work unceremoniously, unnoticed by many of us, but who make a difference in the lives of others. Heroes are selfless people who perform extraordinary acts. The mark of heroes is not necessarily the result of their action, but what they are willing to do for others and for their chosen cause. Even if they fail, their determination lives on for others to follow. The glory lies not in the achievement, but in the sacrifice. Heroes serve to remind us of the higher purpose of self and society.¹

   One such hero was Taras Bulba, a legendary figure immortalized in the novella Taras Bulba by Nikolai Vasilievich Gogol (1809-1852).  This novella tells the story of Taras and his two sons, Ostap and Andrei.  Taras is a Ukrainian Cossack living in the seventeenth century and his two sons are students at the Orthodox seminary in Kiev.  Andrei and Ostap return home from seminary and go off with their father to the Cossack camp at the Zaporozhian Sich.  Taras attempts to inspire the Cossacks to go to war against various groups.  The Cossacks finally agree to go to war against the Polish after hearing that the Polish people have been trying to convert the people of west Ukraine to Roman Catholicism and that they were attacking beliefs of the Orthodox Church.  

   Taras’ son, Andrei, is in love with the daughter of the Polish governor of Kovno.  At one point the Cossacks trap this young woman and the rest of the people inside their castle and prevent supplies from reaching the people.  One of the servants of this young woman appeals to Andrei for help and Andrei brings bread to the young woman and her family inside the castle. When Andrei sees what is happening inside the castle he abandons his fight against the Polish people and actually joins them in their fight against the Cossacks. 

   Taras makes a decision which most people would find extremely difficult to make and decides that he must kill his son, Andrei, as a result of Andrei’s disloyalty to the cause of the Cossacks.  He confronts Andrei in person and kills him with a single shot from his pistol. 

   Taras Bulba is a legendary inspirational figure who has little difficulty inspiring others to follow his lead.  He is faithful to Cossack traditions, well known among the Cossack leaders, and will engage in combat as quickly as he would send others to do so.  There are few other qualities that someone would look for in a leader. 

    At one point he is fighting along with his son, Ostap, when Taras is knocked unconscious and Ostap is taken prisoner by the Poles.  Turning to Yankel, a Jewish merchant, for help Taras explains that he must go to Warsaw in order to offer moral support for Ostap. 

    Taras is smuggled into Warsaw in a pile of bricks and with the help of other Jewish merchants and providing bribes to some guards, he is able to be present as Ostap is tortured.  Following his father’s example, Ostap does not say a word as all of his limbs are broken one at a time, but simply cries out at the end and asked, “Father, do you see this?”  Unable to control himself, Taras shouts out, “I do see this” and then quickly disappears. 

    Upon his return to Ukraine, Taras finds that all of the men he knew were now dead and a new Hetman (leader) has taken over.  This new leader wants to make peace with the Poles, but Taras protests and explains that the Poles cannot be trusted and they will not abide by any peace agreement.

   He fails to convince the new Hetman and forms his own band of soldiers who continue in their fight against the Poles.  At one point, Taras is taken prisoner, nailed to a stake, and burned alive.  Like Ostap, he does not cry out in pain, but simply declares that the glory of Russia will remain forever and a new czar will arise to continue this glory. The story ends with the Cossacks recalling the great deeds of Taras Bulba and his devotion to the spirit and cause of the Ukrainian Cossacks. 

    This same period of history was also written about in With Fire and Sword by Henryk Sienkiewicz (1846-1916).  This novel discusses these same events, but tells the story from the standpoint of the Poles instead of the Cossacks.  It is not surprising that Taras Bulba is not seen as a hero in this novel.  In fact, it has often been said that one man’s hero is another man’s terrorist. 

     The novel, Taras Bulba, originally written in 1835 was considered to be “too Ukrainian” by the Russian government and Gogol was forced to revise the novel.  A second addition was published in 1842.  Even with the revision, there is no denying that this novel is about Ukrainian life and culture.  The Ukrainian people can look to someone like Taras Bulba as a hero even in this period of history. 

     If history had been different, there would be no mention of men such as a George Washington as patriotic American heroes.  Instead, he would have been considered another in a line of anti-British terrorists.  Everyone needs a hero and the Ukrainian people certainly have one in Taras Bulba.

                                                     End Notes

 

1)    “The Making of a Hero” by Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono  http://www.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,2054335,00.html#ixzz2HkfrCHsE

 

The Hero’s Quest

   The hero’s journey is a pattern of narrative identified by the American scholar Joseph Campbell (1904-1987) that appears in drama, storytelling, myth, religious ritual, and psychological development. It describes the typical adventure of the archetype known as The Hero, the person who goes out and achieves great deeds on behalf of the group, tribe, or civilization.¹

   This pattern was certainly present in Ruslan and Lyudmila, a poem written in 1820 by Alexander Sergeyevich Pushkin (1799-1837).  After winning a major battle for his people, Ruslan marries Lyudmila, the daughter of Prince Vladimir of Kiev, and on their wedding night Lyudmila is abducted by an evil wizard.   Ruslan attempts to explain to Prince Vladimir what had happened and the prince immediately dissolved the marriage because Ruslan was unable to protect his wife.

    Ruslan then begins his journey to return Lyudmila to their home and encounters numerous obstacles along the way, but is successful in every test that he faces.  He receives assistance from an old man with magical powers who offers Ruslan guidance in his quest to find Lyudmila.  Years earlier this old man had tried to win the love of a beautiful young woman named Naina.  He cast a spell in order to win Naina’s love, but quickly found out that Naina was not a beautiful young woman, but an old witch in disguise.  After being rejected by this man, Naina vowed revenge against him.  Naina was now working with the evil wizard, Chernomor, in an effort to destroy Ruslan.

    One aspect of the hero’s journey involves leaving the ordinary world and entering a special world.  In the case of this poem, that special world was the forest.  The forest is a place where one comes face-to-face with the forces of nature and must begin to turn inward as a way of making use of the hero’s internal fortitude which will sustain him on this journey and allow him to be successful.  This journey is as much about self-discovery as it is about accomplishing some external goal.   

    Ruslan is a great warrior who shows no fear when confronting external enemies who threaten to attack Kiev, but now he must face his own internal fears and “demands” as he attempts to find his wife and bring her home safely. It is much easier to confront an enemy which you can see, but confronting internal enemies is part of the hero’s journey and part of everyone’s life experience at one time or another. 

    Not only is Ruslan searching for Lyudmila, but three other knights are also searching for her in the hope that they will become her husband once she is brought home.   One by one Ruslan’s rivals disappear and he is the only person capable of being Lyudmila’s husband. 

     After facing many adventures, Ruslan finally finds Lyudmila.  However, he is left for dead by one of the other knights, Farlaf, who rides off to Kiev to return Lyudmila to her father.  There is one major problem.  Lyudmila has been placed under a spell and is asleep.  Prince Vladimir tries everything to wake Lyudmila from this spell, but to no avail. 

    Initially Farlaf told Prince Vladimir that he had fought for three days to save Lyudmila, but his finally admits that he killed Ruslan in order return Lyudmila to Kiev and he is banished from the kingdom forever. 

    Prince Vladimir has little time to think about his daughter’s condition because Kiev is under attack from their enemies.  The old man finds Ruslan dead and restores him to life using magic waters.  He then gives Ruslan a ring and tells him that the ring has the power to wake up Lyudmila, but first Ruslan must defeat the enemies of Kiev. 

    Always the great warrior, Ruslan returns to Kiev, singlehandedly defeats his enemies, and quickly goes to Lyudmila.  In the presence of Prince Vladimir and all those in the court, Ruslan uses the power of the ring to awaken Lyudmila and Prince Vladimir makes an official announcement that Ruslan and Lyudmila are once again married. 

    Each of us will have to undergo a hero’s journey at some point.  We may not encounter wizards or knights, but we will have to come face to face with what we truly believe and who we truly are.  Daily life often forces us to wear many masks throughout the day; however, there comes a time when all the masks must be put aside and we must confront ourselves.

    Stories such as Ruslan and Lyudmila may be only stories, but they tell us something about the journey of self-discovery and follow a pattern which is prevalent in countless stories throughout the world.   The fact that these stories follow such a similar pattern and are known throughout the world should be an indication that there is some degree of truth in these stories and that they can assist us in our own journey as well. 

                                                     End Notes

 

1)    Hero’s Journey http://www.thewritersjourney.com/hero's_journey.htm