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Article Excerpt
This article makes a contribution to hermeneutic explorations in global politics. Taking as its points of departure the growing body of work on film and the turn to aesthetic and intertextual IR, the article argues that a further conversation with cinema and poetics can be used to develop the interpretive canon in global politics. In particular, the analysis draws upon the idea of cinematic poetics, and more generally the work of Andrei Tarkovsky, who, throughout his films and written work, articulates a particular form of Russian interpretivism. The article explores Tarkov-skian cinema and engages in debates about artistic creativity and aesthetics, filmic representations of belonging and spiritualism, all shaped by a Russian hermeneutic tradition. The final sections apply these themes, illustrating how the icon presents a way to read the themes of suffering and salvation, inscribing the formation of identities in global politics. KEYWORDS: Tarkovsky, hermeneutics, Russia, cinematic poetics, aesthetics, The Icon
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Russia's postrevolutionary period was one of disruption and instability, reflected in both the artistic and philosophical questioning of meaning. The two hundred years before the Bolshevik revolution, did, however, impact significantly on the formulation of Soviet aesthetics. The work of the Romantics, Decadents, and Symbolists--and indeed, the Golden and Silver Age--epitomized a unique Russian literary and artistic heritage. (1) At around the same time as the Bolshevik revolution, the philosophical critiques of Bakhtin and the Voloshinov group began to address changes in poetics and literary art, enriching further the longstanding folkloric narratives and mystical aesthetics that had shaped Russian interpretivism. Indeed, many of the philosophical and aesthetic themes embodied in this interpretive work were to resurface in the school of poetic cinema that emerged in 1960s Russia. The cinematographer Andrei Tarkovsky was on the periphery of this group of filmmakers, and his work was to become increasingly influential for confreres and artists in the West throughout the 1970s and 1980s.
Russian cinema and poetics are of interest for studies of global politics, especially given recent debates concerning the use of film within the "aesthetic turn." (2) Interestingly though, theoretical analysis in International Relations (IR) has, as yet, refrained from exploring the specifics of Russian cinema, and although some theorists in IR have recognized how film might be used as a textual source and have drawn upon film in some of their most recent work, questions remain about the location of non-Western cinema in global politics. (3) Of course prior to these interventions a range of scholars on the edge of the field of IR had drawn on film as a source, as part of the growing awareness of both the visual aspects of politics and the role played by other textual sources. (4) Elsewhere, even though the discipline of international relations has an embryonic interpretive movement linked to the turn to poetics and aesthetics, these interventions rest, for the most part, on Germanic scholarship linked to Kantian aesthetics, Heideggerian phenomenology, and Gadamerian hermeneutics. (5) In contrast, as I argue here, there is a Russian tradition of hermeneutics, and also of aesthetics, which offers insight into contemporary Russian politics.
This Russian hermeneutic tradition is exemplified by the cinematic work of Andrei Tarkovsky, and, further to readings of particular films such as Stalker, analysis of his work as an artist gives access to Russian interpretivism. (6) Indeed, the scope of Tarkovsky's work, from the Soviet war genre to science fiction, as well as the tension between the artist and the Communist system that he personified, his numerous reflections on film aesthetics, spiritualism, and Russian identity, and his reaction to the politics of aesthetics deployed by the Soviet authorities, all serve as drivers behind the decision to explore his work in more depth here. (7) Evidently though, there are a set of unanswered questions that arise when IR theory turns to examine the influence of Russian hermeneutics: What should be made of the visual and cinematic in IR, and how does this shed light on different aesthetic traditions? What is the relationship between the representation of the icon, and discourses of spirituality within Russian culture? How do the languages of politics and religion talk to each other? What are the implications for reading dignity, grace, suffering, and salvation as central themes in global politics?
The article begins by placing Tarkovsky's work within a broader tradition of Russian hermeneutics. Albeit in an exploratory fashion the article then moves on to situate Russian interpretivism--and more generally visual poetics--via a conversation between Bakhtinian dialogism and Gadamerian hermeneutics. The essay then turns to consider Tarkovskian aesthetics and cinematic poetics. Finally, the article moves on to offer a reading of suffering and salvation linked to the depiction of the icon in Russia, before concluding with an examination of belonging and spiritualism as themes that operate within the Russian interpretive tradition.
An additional introductory remark should be made here to further locate the analysis that follows: the article is not intended to be viewed within the broader remit of cinema studies per se, nor should the exploration of Tarkovskian cinema be positioned solely within Russian or Soviet Studies; finally, the analysis does not seek to move beyond the more specialized body of work that focuses upon Andrei Tarkovsky as a film director. (8) Instead, the article is designed to enrich conversations within the interpretive canon of global politics by building on existing work and offering new points of departure for hermeneutic readings of international relations. So, can other artistic and aesthetic interventions offer a platform for further dialogue within the interpretive movement in the analysis of international relations?
Tarkovsky and Cinema: Tracing Russian Hermeneutics
Andrei Tarkovsky was born on 4 April 1932 in the village of Zavrash'e, in a southern republic of the former Soviet Union. His father, Arsenii, was well known in the Soviet Union as a lyrical poet, having become associated with the likes of Anna Akhmatova. Even though many details of his childhood remain unclear, his upbringing and his interest in classical music and art are referenced throughout his films. (9) According to others, a series of important events, such as the separation of his parents and his experiences at the Institute of Cinematography in Moscow (VGIK) can also be traced in his films. (10) Although his cinematic output was a relatively poor return on both his talent and the financial investment in his films, his work was to span three decades beginning in I960." Unable to overcome the cancer that afflicted him in the early 1980s, Tarkovsky died in self-imposed exile in 1986, the same year The Sacrifice was first publicly screened.
Tarkovsky's work in cinema fitted into a much broader Russian aesthetic--often referenced in culture, which in itself forms a kind of interpretive reservoir--that evolved prior to the Bolshevik revolution. The themes which came to the fore in Russian culture, and which reproduced themselves in various literary genres, included a tendency to compare "us" to "them" as part of the milieu of empire-building throughout Russia, as well as privileging the ability of the artist to protest against a given system of power. In this way artists, but more particularly writers, became involved in a dynamic process of exchange as their work produced and formed a distinctive aesthetic culture, which itself gave meaning to Russian identity claims. (12)
This artistic heritage has led some scholars to note that Russian culture is "fundamentally hermeneutic," based on "self-interpretation," precisely because the "act of reading has often been foregrounded in Russian aesthetic theory and practice." (13) This is to say, a reading of art emerged within Russian culture as a way to mediate between the mystery of emotions, spiritualism, and individual experience that, together, impacted upon the idea of Russian politics. Although in very different ways, the written work of Alexander Herzen, Vissarin Belin-sky, Vyacheslav Ivanov, Fydor Dostoevsky, Leo Tolstoy, or more recently Alexander Solzhenitsyen, to name but a few, offer important markers that stake out the antecedents and features of Russian culture informed by aesthetics. (14) Again in different ways, Pushkin, Lermontov, Gogol, Turgenev, Chekov, Blok, Akhmatova, or others like Chaadaev and Bakhtin, provide evidence of this rich artistic heritage in Russia. (15) Within these culturally specific aesthetic parameters, a sense of Russianness and an identity produced through art also became intimately interwoven with spiritual overtones and moral ideals, perhaps best represented in the eschatological work of Nicolas Berdiaev, Vladimir Solov'ev, Pavel Florensky, Aleksei Losev, Sergei Bulgakov, and more recently Sergei Averintsev. This is not to say that global politics has failed to appreciate the works of these artists. Instead, it is to say that the plurality of Russian literary art was, in part, transformed by cinematic aesthetics.
In their account of Tarkovky's position in Russian aestheticism, Andras Balint Kovacs and Akos Szilagyi note that he
also revives one of the characteristics of the Russian intelligentsia: a tendency to depict an interior life striving towards perfection. [Moreover, Tarkovsky] wishes to demonstrate the continuity of Russian history and culture. Unlike most of his contemporaries he does not return to the classic tradition in order to contrast politically the old and new cultures. His films give the impression that he does not admit to the existence of two different cultures, since he plainly refuses to judge from any political point of view. (16)
In other words, Tarkovskian cinema retained a sense of Russianness, while simultaneously expanding the scope of Russian aestheticism, linking literary traditions with a cultural narrative, representing them through film. As Anna Lawton notes, the...
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