Shapes of Apocalypse: Arts and Philosophy in Slavic Thought

286 Pages·2013·1.8 MB·English

by  Andrea Oppo

S h a p e s o f A p o c a ly p s e
Arts and Philosophy in Slavic Thought
Myths and taboos in Russian CultuRe
Series Editor:
Alyssa DinegA gillespie—University of Notre Dame, South Bend, Indiana
Editorial Board:
eliot Borenstein—New York University, New York
Julia BekmAn ChADAgA—Macalester College, St. Paul, Minnesota
nancy ConDee—University of Pittsburg, Pittsburg
Caryl emerson—Princeton University, Princeton
Bernice glAtzer rosenthAl—Fordham University, New York
marcus levitt—USC, Los Angeles
Alex mArtin—University of Notre Dame, South Bend, Indiana
irene mAsing-DeliC—Ohio State University, Columbus
Joe pesChio—University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, Milwaukee
irina reyfmAn—Columbia University, New York
stephanie sAnDler—Harvard University, Cambridge
Shapes of Apocalypse
Arts and Philosophy in Slavic Thought
Edited by
Andrea OppO
BOSTON / 2013
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data:
A bibliographic record for this title is available
from the Library of Congress.
Copyright © 2013 Academic Studies Press
All rights reserved.
ISBN 978-1-61811-174-6 (cloth)
ISBN 978-1-618111-968 (electronic)
Book design by Ivan Grave
On the cover: Konstantin Juon, “The New Planet,” 1921.
Published by Academic Studies Press in 2013
28 Montfern Avenue
Brighton, MA 02135, USA
[email protected]
www.academicstudiespress.com
C
ontents
Foreword 7
Preface 9
Acknowledgements 15
List of Contributors 16
Part One: Philosophy
Introduction 20
Andrea Oppo
The Tilted Pillar: Rozanov and the Apocalypse 34
Giancarlo Baffo
Salvation Without Redemption: 68
Phenomenology of (Pre-)History in Patočka’s Late Work
Riccardo Paparusso
Part Two: Literature
The Sacrament of End. The Theme of Apocalypse 89
in Three Works by Gogol’
Vladimir Glyantz
Apocalyptic Imagery 122
in Dostoevskij’s The Idiot and The Devils
William J. Leatherbarrow
Black Blood, White Roses: 134
Apocalypse and Redemption in Blok’s Later Poetry
Irene Masing-Delić
Apocalypse and Golgotha 153
in Miroslav Krleža’s Olden Days:
Memoirs and Diaries 1914-1921/1922
Suzana Marjanić
Part Three: Music and Visual Arts
The Apocalyptic Dispersion of Light into Poetry and Music: 175
Aleksandr Skrjabin in the Russian Religious Imagination
Polina Dimova
From the Peredvižniki’s Realism to Lenin’s Mausoleum: 203
The Two Poles of an Apocalyptic-Palingenetic Path
Chiara Cantelli
Theatre at the Limit: 225
Jerzy Grotowski’s Apocalypsis cum Figuris
Andrea Oppo
On Apocalypse, Witches and Desiccated Trees: 244
A Reading of Andrej Tarkovskij’s The Sacrifice
Alessio Scarlato
List of Works Cited 265
Index 278
F
oreword
The system of transliteration I have used throughout this book—
except where book titles or citations were taken from other sources—is the
ISO/R 9 (1968) system. The reason for this choice is that, while it may be
less accessible for the non-specialist reader because of its many diacritical
marks, it is more suitable to the specific needs of this collection. It was
necessary, in fact, to standardize names and references taken from a variety
of Slavic languages as well as from the essays of this volume themselves—
which in some cases were originally written in languages other than English.
The chapters contributed by Giancarlo Baffo, Riccardo Paparusso,
Chiara Cantelli, and Alessio Scarlato were translated from the original
Italian by Karen Turnbull, who also collaborated with Olga Selivanova
on the translation of the Russian text contributed by Vladimir Glyantz,
and with Natka Badurina on the translation from Croatian of the chapter
written by Suzana Marianić. She also made a general revision of the English
language within the book where it was needed.
Andrea Oppo
“I know your works: you are neither cold nor hot.
Would that you were either cold or hot! So, because you
are lukewarm, and neither hot nor cold, I will spit you
out of my mouth.”
(Revelation 3: 15-16)
P
reFaCe
Slavic thought has embodied—as perhaps no other thought has—the
myth of the “end of all things” as an actual event with a precise meaning
in relation to the present. From the Christian icon to avant-garde painting,
from the nineteenth-century novel to the poetry of the twentieth century,
and not omitting theatre, cinema, or music, but above all within the entire
domain of Slavic thought, there is a specific contemplation of the concepts
of “end of present time” and “end of history” as conditions for a redemptive
image of the world. It is not only St. John’s Apocalypse—with its roots
deeply entrenched in the artistic sensitivity of the Slavic people—which is
to be considered here, but also a more general idea which is widespread
at all levels of Slavic culture: the apocalypse, as “filtered” through Slavic
sensitivity, is largely a form of artistic imagery which suggests, at its very
heart, that the highest hope necessarily passes through the annihilation, or
transfiguration, of a kind of perspective on “earthly things.” To understand
this idea means to understand an essential part of Slavic culture, which,
however divergent and variegated it may be in general, converges on this
specific myth in a surprising manner.
The intent of this collective volume is to investigate the philosophical,
literary, and aesthetic idea of apocalypse within some key examples in the
arts and thought of the “Slavic world” during the nineteenth and twentieth
centuries. The book, however, does not aim to demonstrate a univocal point
of view about this topic—which would indeed be a hard task to undertake.
The harking back to the apocalyptic myth, in Russian and Slavic authors,
often turns out to be a private, almost idiosyncratic need. In this sense,
the conclusions each author has in mind may well be very different, if not
antithetical, to those of other authors. This book demonstrates, in fact,
the extent of variation between the different shapes in which apocalypse
has worked in Slavic culture: as an idea, as a narrative text, as an artistic
experience. Nonetheless, the reader will easily acknowledge a common,
underlying apocalyptic sensitivity, as it were, “applied” to any of these