AS PUTIN CIRCLES ODESSA, A 100-YEAR-OLD FILM LINKS PAST AND PRESENT
The Ukranian people have confronted autocratic tyranny before and, through their sacrifices, made an impact upon world history.
Putin’s assault upon the Ukraine has initially focused on the northern and eastern borders and the capital city of Kyiv. But military strategists believe the turn of the war towards the west is inevitable. The name of one city in western Ukraine should ring a bell, a nautical one. It’s the seaport city of “Odessa,” third largest in the Ukraine, and founded on the coast of the Black Sea in 1794 by Catherine the Great.
“Odessa.” You might know the name if you are a student of history. And strange as it may seem, you might also know the name if you are a student of the cinema — the city of Odessa and the famous “Odessa Steps” are the setting of an early silent film. a film that holds at least three tantalizing links between the Ukraine’s past and its tortuous present.
It was in 1925 that Sergei Eisenstein, already an acknowledged master Russian filmmaker, was commissioned to create a film to commemorate the Russian Revolution. But rather than focus upon the events of 1917 which enabled the rise of communism, Eisenstein chose instead to aim his camera upon a earlier uprising in Russia in 1905.
In Russia? I thought you said this took place in the Ukraine?
Therein lies our first link from a long ago time to the events currently playing out. Back in 1905 the Ukraine was an undisputed part of Russia, much as it’s part of Russia today if only in the currently fevered mind of Russian President Vladimir Putin.
The event that Eisenstein chose as the focal point of his movie was a mutiny of Russian sailors aboard a Russian battleship at the time occupying the Black Sea, hence the film title: “The Battleship Potemkin.” Ok, not a movie you’re going to find streaming tonight on Apple+ or Netflix. As mentioned, Eisenstein’s film is actually among the most famous in all of cinema history, and even created much of the visual “language” that we all know intimately from those Apple+ and Netflix series we’re watching avidly. More on that later.
Back to the Potemkin.
When the ship’s 763-man crew refused to eat bortsch tainted with maggots and their complaints were disregarded, the sailors revolted, violence broke out. When it was over, the protesting sailors had taken command of the ship. And it wasn’t just the Potemkin. The Tsarist regime had already suffered a major uprising in St. Petersburg in January leading to the infamous “Bloody Sunday Massacre.”
Among the Russian navy, anti-tsarist feelings were rampant. According to History.Com, “Morale in Russia’s Black Sea fleet had long been at rock-bottom lows … Many navy ships were teeming with revolutionary sentiment and animosity towards the aristocratic officer class.”
Building on this, the disgruntled sailors aboard the Potemkin had an ambitious goal in mind — a fleet-wide mutiny against the officer class, and an overall revolt to relieve Tzar Nicholas II from power. A tall order for a motley crew of sailors to be sure.
When informed of the mutiny aboard the Potemkin, Tsar Nicholas II called for the crushing of the proto rebellion, something that would have to wait until the battleship docked, as it turns out, at the seaport of Odessa. A second link in our chain linking past and present.
The Tsar’s troops were there, waiting for the aberrant sailors, as were mounted Cossacks, at the time henchmen for the Tsar. All that remained was for the Potemkin to dock and the rebellious sailors to disembark, at which time they would all be either shot or arrested by the Tsar’s troops.
And if it had happened that way, we in the West might never have heard about this skirmish in Russian history. But the mutiny became a “meme.” Or as close to a meme as was possible in 1905, as the Odessans quickly got wind of the sailors’ uprising aboard the Potemkin. The citizenry had grievances of their own against the harsh Tsarist Russian rule. They sympathized with the sailors, and surged to the docks to welcome them, protest signs and all.
While details of the massacre that ensued are disputed, what is acknowledged is that at some point over several days of protests and buildings set afire by protesting citizens, the Tsar’s troops opened fire killing an estimated 2,000 citizens and seriously injuring another 3,000.
The massacre at Odessa could easily have been swept up among other atrocities of Russian autocratic rule in 1905. But it wasn’t forgotten. In fact, along with the “Bloody Sunday Massacre,” the Potemkin mutiny and the massacre at Odessa are today acknowledged as primary predecessors for what was to follow — ten years of turmoil leading to the deposing of Tsar Nicholas II, the return of Vladimir Lenin from exile in Switzerland, and the ensuing Russian Revolution of 1917.
Although Eisenstein’s film was made another full ten years after the Russian Revolution, nevertheless the film links us powerfully back to a time of tsarist tyranny and revolutionary passions of the era. And while much of Eisenstein’s film fictionalizes the events for the purposes of propaganda, the film nevertheless gives us a window into the Ukrainian soul, in their struggle against the oppressive authoritarian tyranny of their time. And thus provides us with the third link in our chain.
In Eisenstein’s narrative, several days of protest and violence are condensed into a single, powerful sequence, “The Odessa Steps,” which comes about three-quarters of the way through the film. Even viewing it today it comes as a shock — brave Ukrainian men, women and children are cut down by gunfire from the Tsar’s troops from above as Cossack swords sweep up from below. The sequence was all the more powerful for viewers of the day since much of our modern film language — the cinematography and editing techniques — was literally “invented” by Sergei Eisenstein.
When the film was later exported, it caused an international sensation both for its historical relevance as well as for the groundbreaking nature of its cinematic techniques. According to Britannica.Com, the release of the film “thrust Eisenstein and his film into the historical eminence that both occupy today.”
The response by audiences, critics and politicians was incendiary and reminiscent of President Woodrow Wilson’s remarks after viewing D.W. Griffith’s “Birth Of A Nation”: “It’s like writing history with lightning.”
“The Battleship Potemkin” also became an inspiration for filmmakers internationally. Along with his other films and writings on the theory of cinema, his work became the basis for film studies all over the world, including here in America, where the enrollment of students interested in cinema was soon to come about. It can be legitimately argued that, without Eisenstein’s foundational contributions to the cinematic medium, modern cinema as we know it would not exist. Perhaps no Marvel movies or Hitchcock thrillers.
Britannica.Com details a final irony, that “the film was eventually banned by Soviet leader Joseph Stalin over fears it might incite a riot against his regime.”
In the current Russian invasion of the Ukraine, a question swirls over the Black Sea — will Putin’s armies ultimately lay siege to Odessa? Perhaps he will spare the city, given Odessa’s important position in Russian culture and history. Still it is a seaport and holds strategic advantages for the Russian advance in the west.
Putin is undoubtedly aware of two things — first, that a hundred years ago the sacrifices of thousands of Odessans arguably led to the downfall of a Tsar. And secondly that, if Mark Twain was right that “history does not repeat itself but it often rhymes,” maybe these modern-day Odessans will stand firm on the Odessa Steps and face down yet another self-styled “tsar.”
You can view the Odessa Steps sequence from Eisenstein’s film, “Battleship Potemkin,” here. A discretionary warning, the sequence depicts the horrors of Russian soldiers murdering thousands of innocent Ukrainians a hundred years ago, and sadly mirrors events taking place in the Ukraine today.
