Word: tsarist
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When my friend told me that Nicholas II had been recently canonized by the Russian Orthodox Church, it all seemed to make sense. Ever since the fall of the Soviet Union in the early 1990s, Russians have been looking back more fondly on tsarist days. Old Russian typography is becoming increasingly popular in Russian advertising. Books on Nicholas that would have never made it to print 20 years ago now fill the history section of the city’s central book store, Dom Knigi (“House of Book”). Portraits of the last tsar...
...country—have begun to provide a new historical legacy to guide post-Soviet Russia. Nicholas, the loving and faithful father who was murdered with his wife and children, is the poster boy for those Russians who now cling to the values of the old tsarist regime...
...with that knowing, helpless smile he put to such attentive use in the recent revival of "The Real Thing") loves the play of ideas, loves the possibility for constructive social change, loves his wife and children more. The discovery of an infidelity wounds him like the news of a Tsarist outrage; the shipwreck of his deaf child collapses upon him like the failed revolutions...
...Schmemann recognizes both the faults of tsarist Russia and the positive aspects of the communist dream. He leaves us with sympathy for the trials of the Russian countryside and with the recognition that, accustomed to changing forms of oppression and persecution, the people of a Russian village are understandably averse to individual risk. Pursuing new and uncertain methods of production, even if successful, could lead to punishment if the government's idea of what is acceptable in production again changes--all of which implies that a successful transition to democracy in Russia will be difficult atbest...
...with Konstantin's play, there's nothing wrong with the idea. In fact, it's fresh and unaffected, to coin a phrase. Alison Carey's analogy of a vineyard in Napa for a rural estate outside Moscow, and of Hollywood glitterati for Tsarist Russia's belle lettristes gives the play a contemporary edge without sacrificing any of its subtlety. The primitive set places the dialogue and acting center stage. But like Chekhov's antihero, the Cornerstone takes it all too far. At one point, the director, Bill Rauch, injects a gratuitous mime sequence, in which Konstantin...