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Donald J. Raleigh, Soviet Baby Boomers: An Oral History of Russia's Cold War Generation (New York: Oxford University Press, 2012).
"Soviet teachers were among the strongest believers in socialist values." (page 94)
From the Young Pioneer manual: "'It will be the best, the most just and the happiest society on earth.'" (page 110)
"influence, connections, and pull -- blat in Russian." (page 118)
Soviet schools: "They instilled in their charges basic human values that would be appreciated in most societies." (page 118)
A Soviet Baby Boomer about living in the 1960s: "'We always had decent food; we went to the theatre, to the movies, to the circus, and to whatever else was of interest. We didn't differ from other average people of our time.'" (p. [120]).
Many Soviet Baby Boomers developed an "identification with a larger global youth culture;" guys in particular tinkered with space-related themes (page 121).
"Many female Baby Boomers loved theatre, ballet, dancing, reading, hanging out with friends . . . Olga Gorelik liked to read, draw, go to the movies, and spend time with her girlfriends." (page 122)
Many enjoyed sporting events. Pioneer palaces gave people places to hang out. (pages 122-124) Kids loved to play in apartment courtyards (dvor), too. (page 125)
On social relationships, Raleigh notes: "Friendship lacks a definition that works for all times, places, and peoples, because the phenomenon is a cultural and historical one that changes over time: the type of society determines the nature of friendships." (page 126) Soviet friends provided emotional and practical support for each other, and they could counter or at least alter government and family controls (pages 126-127). A fair number of high school friends remain friends for life. (page 127)
"The Soviet Union prided itself in being the 'most reading' nation," and many continue to read heartily long after the collapse of the USSR. Friends traded books and they also utilized libraries, like many sensible people still do wherever they are available. "Reading conferred status" (page 129). During an interlude in the 1960s, Mikhail Bulgakov (Master and Margarita), Solzhenitsyn (One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich) Kafka and Kierkegaard were published (pages 130-131). Samizdat (underground writings produced in the USSR) and tamizdat (things smuggled into the country from the outside) also made the rounds (page 131) -- and made reading all the more exciting, no doubt. Eventually, photocopy machines sped up the process of underground writing production. (page 132)
Movies opened up portals to other worlds (as T. Bone Burnett, an American Baby Boomer, has put it, after growing up in conservative Fort Worth, Texas). These were real social events: "it was always something you simply had to see. . . not only so that you could take part in conversations but also because they really were worth seeing" (such as Andrei Arsenyevich Tarkovsky films) . Through cultural diffusion, in came American jazz, Western fashion and music, and exotic tastes. (page 135)
"'[B]ut it was difficult to get hold of such things. . . and we need to "get hold of" them. The meaning of the very "get hold of" is probably uniquely Russian' . . . it means acquiring something with great difficulty." (page 136)
Tape recorders became popular when they were made available -- music could be recorded and shared, especially underground material: "'forbidden fruit is always sweet.'" (page 140)
[To be continued.]
Today's Rune: Possessions.
Andrei Tarkovsky's Андрей Рублев / Andrei Rublev (1966) plunges us into Russian devotion and turmoil in the early 1400s. This astonishing mostly black and white film carves out a place for cinema as distinct from other forms of art. It is highly esoteric, in this way rivaling films by Werner Herzog and Jean-Luc Godard. A list of its closest cousins would include Ingmar Bergman's Det sjunde inseglet / The Seventh Seal (1957) and Monty Python and the Holy Grail (1975).
Steve Rose's "Andrei Rublev: The best arthouse film of all time" (The Guardian, October 20, 2010) covers the film nicely: "For the next three hours, we're down in the muck and chaos of medieval Russia, carried along on the tide of history through gruesome Tartar [Tatar] raids, bizarre pagan rituals, famine, torture and physical hardship. We experience life on every scale, from raindrops falling on a river to armies ransacking a town, often within the same, unbroken shot. . . At times the screen resembles a vast Brueghel painting come to life, or a medieval tapestry unrolling."
For the full article, here is a link.
The Russian medieval backdrop is wild: historically, the Tatar raids and invasions lasted for something like five centuries. If anyone wants to understand the Russian psyche, think about that! There was no savior to get them out of it, no "7th Cavalry." It was what is was: grim and provisional, the Myth of Sisyphus writ large.
All the while, the Tatars were basically enjoying themselves, not unlike the Vikings: raiding, plundering, regrouping, then raiding again. Tarkovsky is masterful at showing them in action: they ride into a village, then with great relaxation almost, they go about wrecking things, killing some people, carrying off others, joking all the way. It's an absolute nightmare for homebodies. They leave things only partially destroyed. Why? So the villagers can repair the damage and then be raided again by the same or different Tatars.
Here, the aftermath of a Tatar raid. A church is torn up and burning, while Andrei Rublev is left to pray. If you look carefully, you can see a black cat enter from the right side of the screen. Horses had trampled through earlier. Beautiful icon paintings are going up in smoke.
In the end, looking back from the 21st century, the Tatar raids were finally put to an end. Some of Andrei Rublev's icon paintings remain, and they are beautiful. Is life on earth worth it? You tell me.
Today's Rune: Harvest.
Andrei Tarkovsky's Солярис / Solaris (1972) uses windows, mirrors, water, color and intermittently, black & white film to enhance its existential themes, to great effect.
"This is my wife." So says Kris Kelvin (played by Lithuanian actor Donatas Banionis) to his colleagues, formally introducing them to Ocean-created Hari / Khari (played by Russian actor Natalya Bondarchuk).
There is a cool driving scene featuring a Japanese cityscape that manifests complexity and pattern recognition in human social relationships.
The Library on the Solaris space station is a key meeting point; it's also where a gorgeous scene of zero gravity takes place. Solaris explicitly cites Pieter Bruegel the Elder, Miguel de Cervantes, Fyodor Dostoyevsky and Leo Tolstoy, among other cultural touchstones.
Bruegel, Jagers in de Sneeuw (1565), a copy of which Hari examines with great intensity, looking for clues about human nature.
To date, there are multiple versions of Solaris, starting with Stanislaw Lem's 1961 novel and proceeding through movies, plays, radio programs, albums and operas as recently as 2012. It's a compelling story.
In this case, let's consider Andrei Tarkovsky's 1972 movie version, Солярис / Solaris. This is a very cool film. The basic setup is this: a research station, mostly depopulated due to Earth-bound decision making, hovers above Solaris, a planet with super consciousness by way of Ocean. Ocean can create human beings out of cosmonauts' memories, and put them on the space station. How the different beings relate to each other is the nexus of the story. Spectacular!
Today's Rune: The Mystery Rune.
