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International Journal of Arts 2019, 9(1): 17-25 DOI: 10.5923/j.arts.20190901.03 The Power of the Picture, Poem, Prayer, and Person: Mythic Consciousness and Russian Sensibilities from the Icon and Pushkin, to Malevich and Mayakovsky Mark Lipton University of Guelph, Ontario, Canada Abstract Within Stalin's regime, elements of mythical idealism run parallel, though somewhat invisibly, to those of dialectical materialism in the modes of cultural production. It is especially difficult to pinpoint these elements, for they lie in a world opposed to the scientific and thus must be regarded in part as illusory. Yet this illusory spirit constantly marks Russia's history and therefore I chart a course into such domain to question the relationship between Russian spirituality and Russian creative expression in the period of the utopian dream. Susanne Langer in Feeling and Form describes "mythic consciousness" as the means of understanding the world in primitive phases of social development. From a Marxist-Stalinist perspective, as a shift from the primitive toward the cultured, idealism represented a continuation of the primitive. And as the shift toward Marxist ideology during the periods of great revolution was a movement away from the primitive, it marked a shift towards the perfection of discursive forms. Yet, through all this strife and shifting, a common element runs through all Russian/Soviet Literature and the Arts; regardless of era or art form, that difficult concept to define known as the Mysterious Russian Soul is what marks the greatness of Russia's contribution to Arts and the Humanities. Keywords Russian Soviet Literature and the Arts, Soviet Identity, Pushkin, Mayakovsky, Malevich “There is apparently nothing easier and world. This double-bind is not nihilist in its formal sense; at actually nothing more difficult than to write first, nihilism seemed to be the most natural term linking about Russian literature” (Belinsky, 1956, p.9). Russian and Soviet works when materialism opposed “We are prepared to destroy that which we idealism. In fact, on close inspection, what I discover are less have created because we believe more than any the distinct elements of works according to the time period or of them in the power of the picture, the poem, school of thought and more the similarities which sketch a the prayer, of the person” (Towes, 2016, p. national sensibility emerging from the intense tensions and 291). frictions of daily life. This paper aims to connect the combustion of any kind of Let me begin with a prediction that I will later dismiss: Russian national identity or sensibility to its towering Petersberg will soon rise as the new nation’s capital. attention and loving compassion of its literature and arts. I combine arts, here, including traditional icon painting and Whether ideologically motivated, Russian ‘social thought’ great Constructivist and Suprematist accomplishments in leading to either dialectical materialism or transcendental order to highlight the intersections of aesthetic values idealism, the works I consider in this paper seek to unify a (opposed to literary forms), which direct my analysis away Russian sensibility whereby extreme notions are both from political boundary lines, examining instead, what might doubled and duplicitous; the paradoxical approach to life and be called Russia's "mythic consciousness." That is, those aesthetics—Russian double-binds, tortures Russian mythic symbols linked with linguistic and habitual (or ways intellectual and aesthetic identities leading to or simply of being in the world) elements of aestheticism that help describing this unique and distinct manner of being in the identify and make tangible this towering sensibility. For me, an understanding of Russian culture begins with * Corresponding author: the Russian symbol, the icon and the axe. It is the one [email protected] (Mark Lipton) cultural symbol that intrigued my sense of heritage; my Published online at http://journal.sapub.org/arts mother's family is of Russian descent and as a child my Copyright © 2019 The Author(s). Published by Scientific & Academic Publishing This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution International prized possession was my grandfather's pin of an icon and an License (CC BY). http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ axe. I saw this pin as a cosmological symbol encompassing 18 Mark Lipton: The Power of the Picture, Poem, Prayer, and Person: Mythic Consciousness and Russian Sensibilities from the Icon and Pushkin, to Malevich and Mayakovsky and enjoining the heights of heaven to the depths of hell. But negation or ‘antithesis,’ and in the course of the these extreme fail as boundary lines, resisting my standard struggle created a higher unity or ‘synthesis.’” (p. 200) Aristotelian logic. As James Billington (1966) explains in Rather than describing an ironic world, Hegel’s interpretive history of Russian culture, these two artifacts do perspective suggests a structuralist universe. It is, in fact, a not illustrate the Russian “split between the saintly and the metatheory regarding the construction of theories; insisting demonic . between holy pictures and unholy weapons. For on the assumption that an object of study as a structure is icons have been used by charlatans and demagogues, and valid; a world view which believes in the equal flow of the axes by saints and artists” (p. vii). Billington emphasizes this positive and the negative; and one which functions within the symbol as a site of irony as his history of Russian culture scientific paradigm which reflects Newton’s laws of illustrates the many apparent oppositions which form a thermodynamics 1 . This structuralist perspective throws cultural through-line in Russia's history. Billington’s misuse of irony into relief due to his inability to My argument aims to emphasize Billington’s attention to see the constant struggle between opposites that plague ironic duality. Clearly, an ironic duality outlines the great Russia’s history as rich examples of both the Hegelian quest schisms of Russian culture, whether between the icon and the for synthesis and the Newtonian order of the universe. With axe; the theocratic and the fundamentalist; the east and the the metaphor of Minerva’s owl, Billington implies irony west; the aristocrat and the peasant; or the state and the onto oppositions like dialectical materialism and mystical intelligentsia. However, I accuse Billington of idealism without seeing the paradoxical nature of such benevolence—perhaps, too much hope—in his descriptions oppositions and without inscribing this nature, which of ironic duality because I read his understanding of irony as resonates throughout the history of Russia, onto many of the a supplication to the perplexities of Russia’s history. Within sign-posts of cultural meaning which he describes as hopeful. the context of Russian history Billington's optimism brims Billington's thick description of events, though hopefully with hope eternal: interpretative, continues to function as thoroughly detailing “Irony is a hopeful, though not a reassuring concept. Russia’s history. As a primary text of Russian cultural Man is not a helpless creature in a totally absurd world. history, Billington’s information is valuable even if his He can do something about ironic situations, but only if analysis of irony leaks. he becomes aware of their paradoxical nature and Frequently irony is employed to edify and illustrate such avoids the temptation to conceal incongruities with contradictions, the irony of Hamlet’s equivocation for complete explanations. The ironic view contends that example. However, irony cannot function as the sole element history laughs at human pretensions without being worthy of study or examination. I can identify irony in hostile to human aspirations. It is capable of giving man Shakespeare because that is how my ninth grade teacher hope without illusion.” (p. 590) made it accessible. But I was not as interested in the concept In his survey of Russian cultural history, from the rise of of irony as I was in the self-conscious dialectic that haunted Eastern Orthodoxy to Stalinism, irony is Billington’s prayer poor Hamlet. “To die, to sleep; To sleep; perchance to dream; for the future of Russia. He writes, “Life out of death, ay, there’s the rub; For in that sleep of death what dreams freedom out of tyranny—irony, paradox, perhaps too much may come” (p. 107). The irony of dead men’s dreams can to hope for” (p. 596). Moreover, Billington ignores much of only be considered when the context of the Elizabethan the actual hostility of Russia’s past; the weakness of World Order (and of a ghost!) is understood and accepted. Billington’s history is its aversion to those displeasing facts Context is necessary to understand irony, but a paradoxical which darken the glory of Russia. His failure to include such context often serves to illustrate the limits of our language facts as Russian suffering, discrimination, and deaths in his and thought. interpretative history of Russia is itself an indictment of the Anton Chekhov’s (1860-1904) dramatic juxtaposition of author by his own terms. Irony conceals the incongruities of laughter and despair, though a late example, illustrates the Russia's history. struggle between oppositions in Russian culture, and the Billington dismisses many of the oppositions with necessity for such struggle to continue. Walter Kerr explains: rear-view mirror logic. “History does make sense, though “He [Chekov] wrote comedies of the mind, comedies our understanding of it tends to come too late” (p. 590). He in which the most serious issues were reduced to quotes Hegel's famous phrase, "The owl of Minerva spreads absurdity by the malfunctioning of the instrument that his wings only at the gathering of dusk" (p. 590), yet forgets ought to have been able to resolve the issues effectively.

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