Literature & Cinema - Moscow - page 426

Literature & Cinema
Of Russia's rich cultural offerings, none is more widely appreciated than her
traditions of literature and cinema, much of which originates in Moscow. The
classics - War and Peace by Leo Tolstoy, Battleship Potemkin by Sergei Eisen-
stein - are masterpieces that have earned the admiration of international audi-
ences across the ages. Contemporary Russian culture may be lesser known,
but the electric atmosphere in the creative capital continues to stimulate the
creation of innovative and insightful literature and film.
Literature
A love of literature is an integral part of Russian culture, and Ivans and Olgas will wax rhaps-
odic on the Russian classics without hesitation. With the end of Soviet censorship, the literati
have figured out what to do with their new-found freedom and new authors have emerged,
exploring literary genres from historical fiction to science fiction.
Romanticism in the Golden Age
Among the many ways that Peter the Great and Catherine the Great Westernised and modern-
ised Russia was through the introduction of a modern alphabet. As a result it became increas-
ingly acceptable during the Petrine era to use popular language in literature. This develop-
ment paved the way for two centuries of Russian literary prolificacy.
Romanticism was a reaction against the strict social rules and scientific rationalisation of
previous periods, exalting emotion and aesthetics. Nobody embraced Russian romanticism
more than the national bard, Alexander Pushkin (1799-1837). Pushkin was born in Moscow
and it was here that he met his wife, Natalia Goncharova. The two were wed at the Church of
Grand Ascension and lived for a time on ul Arbat.
Pushkin's most celebrated drama, Boris Godunov, takes place in medieval Muscovy. The
plot centres on the historical events leading up to the Time of Troubles and its resolution with
the election of Mikhail Romanov as tsar. The epic poem Yevgeny Onegin is set, in part, in im-
perial Moscow. Pushkin savagely ridicules its foppish, aristocratic society, despite being a
fairly consistent fixture of it himself.
Tolstoy is one of the most celebrated novelists, not only in Russia but in the world. The
depth of his characters and the vividness of his descriptions evoke 19th-century Russia. His
novels War and Peace and Anna Karenina, both of which are set in Moscow, express his