Movie Viewer of the World Unite!: Happy Atoms by Boris Pasternak
ComradeHuxley
Donor
Movie Viewer of the World Unite!: Happy Atoms by Boris Pasternak
There is a specter haunting the world, the specter of the critical consumer. Once again the Movie Patriot is going to agitate the film going masses. (Just couldn't resist)
“Everything will be happy, a universe of joy and satisfaction. Those who can't be helped will go into the nirvana (only temporary naturally). Yes we believe in it !”
The Genius Among the People by Konstantin Tsiolkovsky (1918)
Hello, welcome to my newest “project” for the blog. Now the first thing I'm gonna do is breaking my own rules. Originally I had the idea to feature some older, important soveto films that are fairly obscure here. But the movie that inspired me to do so was just released, Terrence Malick's “Happy Atoms”. In short this means our first movie is going to be an obscure/art-house American one based on a soveta book (1).
The movie's and books main character is its own author Boris Pasternak. He was a poet novelist, and literary translator. His anthology "My Sister, Life", is one of the most influential collections ever published in the Russian language.
Pasternak began writing “Happy Atoms” in the last years of his life in the late fifties and early sixties. At that point he was diagnosed with lung cancer and any treatment was in experimental stages at the time. Thus his last book lingered longer and focused closer on the universal questions of love, immortality, and reconciliation with spirituality than any of his previous works.
The cover of Pasternak's book.
As he writes in Atoms: “I was baptized as a child by my nanny, but because of the restrictions imposed on Jews, particularly in the case of a family which was exempt from them and enjoyed a certain reputation in view of my father's standing as an artist, there was something a little complicated about this, and it was always felt to be half-secret and intimate, a source of rare and exceptional inspiration rather than being calmly taken for granted. I believe that this is at the root of my distinctiveness. Most intensely of all my mind was occupied by Christianity in the years 1910-12, when the main foundations of this distinctiveness, my way of seeing things, the world, life -- were taking shape.”
Not any form of Christianity, but one that was itself in the process of reform once again, inspired by the great philosopher Nikolai Fyodorov. His concept of Cosmism and the ideas that branched out of its initial root are the main theme of the book and movie. “Happy Atoms” is a strange and fascinating mix between an autobiography and a science fictional novel.
Terrence Malick created a very faithfully adaption of the book and that gave it the necessary visual gravitas on the big screen. The movie begins with a narration and a series of breathtakingly beautiful shots of nature and animation. This setup introduces us into some basic idea's behind Cosmism, specifically Fyodorov's variety. I discussed them at length here.
Next thing we see is the operation in which Pasternak's brain in thawed and incorporated into a donor body. Back to back we see the scene of his death and resurrection. We hear his last words "I can't hear very well. And there's a mist in front of my eyes. But it will go away, won't it? Don't forget to open the window tomorrow.”
We see the light fading as well as him coming back trough the tunnel. The first half-hour of the movie is spend on his convalescence in the hospital. He has not only learn how to live in his new body, but also that he has a new body in the first place. All of this is possible since the story itself is set in the far future of 2072. Humanity has begun to systematically resurrect all those who were fortunate enough to have their brains preserved in ice.
Part of the routine is the reunion with other deceased family members. Personally some of the most memorable moments of the entire movie come surprisingly not so much from Pasternak meeting with his mistress or his wife but his father .
What makes it so good (aside from an excellent performance of n.n) is that they meet in the hospital's Cosmist-Christian chapel. There they witness people revering the iconographic portrait of Fyodorov.
We see Leonid recalling some past events in form of a flashback. He once in a while was working in the Ruminatsev Museum. There he became intrigued by the appearance and manner of the old man who served in the reading room. He began to make a sketch, but noticed that the old man suspected what Leonid was doing and obviously did not like the idea of being drawn.
So for several days in a row Leonid sat behind a mountainous stack of books and tried to appear to be busy reading them. He kept his sketches, and only later learned that the old man was Fyodorov. These sketches were the basis for all future portraits, such as the iconography now used in this chapel since nobody else ever managed or bothered to immortalize Fyodorov in a visual medium. When his son first found the sketch in the drawing board of his father he was, blissfully unaware that he held the first and last picture of the Cosmist equivalent of Jesus in his hands (2).
Years later the idea of Fyodorov as a Messianic figure seems less strange thou. Gorky already contemplated this possibility in his eulogy of Fyodorov in 1933, thirty years after the man's death (3). Since Leonid lived until 1945 he was at least somewhat aware of the trend in some circles to deity-and mystify “The Sage”.
Left: Leonid Pasternak Right: The Three Wise Men (Nikolai Fyodorov, Leo Tolstoy and Vladimir Solov'ev)
Before Pasternak is released from the hospital he receives a message from Gorky who invites him to participate in a project he had planned before his death in our reality as well. This leads to the second and longest part of the movie about “The Canal Named Vernadsky”. Somewhere around 1930 Maxim Gorky began developing and advertising his idea to that writers should work in collectives, just as the cooperatives that were established all over the union after the revolution and war. He elaborated on the idea for the book at a meeting at his own home in the presence of Bogdanov. The later found the idea intriguing and very much in line with his own aims for he proletkult movement.
So a brigade of 13 writers led by Maxim Gorky was scheduled to to write a hymn of the greatest piece of Geo-engineering yet to come, the Don-Volga canal. The team included Aleksei Tolstoy, Boris Pilniak, Ilf and Petrov, Viktor Shklovsky, Mikhail Zoshchenko, Velimir Khlebnikov and of course Boris Pasternak. Unfortunately for Gorky this newest monumental fancy was too much for the already strained resources of the Sovetunio and the construction of the canal was delayed until 1944 (Gorky died in 1936).
Now that the channel was finished Gorky planned to revive their effort to do the Don-Volga (or Vernadsky channel as it was known now) justice. Since there isn't much else to do and seeing old comrades again might be fun, Pasternak agrees to join a cruise along the canal. Most of the movie deals with the writers trying to learn all they can about the history of the canal's construction, their own place in this new world as well as the philosophy of Cosmism in general.
All these themes are well interwoven and complex. Therefore I will narrow my analysis down to the three characters and their views Gorky, Khlebnikov and Pasternak himself. Gorky and Khlebnikov both represented already in their first lifetime two main branches of the secular version of Cosmism that had emerged after Fyodorov's death.
Gorky heavily subscribed to an extremist utilitarian interpretation of Cosmism which owed much of its foundations to the works of Tsiolkovsky. The other side of the argument is present in the person of Khlebnikov who during his lifetime tended to fall into the justice for all spectrum of the debate (mostly based on the works of the biocosmist anarchist party leader Alexander Svyatogor).
Ironically Tsiolkovsky who was mentored by Fyodorov deviated far more from the spirit than Svyatogor who explicitly denounced any attempts to conflate his idea's with Fyodorov's. Just for this purpose he dedicated half of his article “Doctrine of the Fathers” in his journal Biokosmist in 1922 to this problem. The other half dealt with him denouncing the old anarchist movement.
Tsiolkovsky agreed with his mentor that it was man's destiny to conquer space and find immortality but he didn't agree with Fyodorov's motives. He neither believed that God gave humanity the mission to resurrect their ancestors, nor did he thinks that such a thing might even be desirable.
In fact he wrote that he recoiled at the thought of their ancient superstitions polluting the progressive new world. Instead of believing in God's commands he wrote in the aptly titled “The will of the universe: Unknown rational powers” (1928) that mankind is “the manifestation of the will of the universe” itself. Human labor he predicts will conquer the world surrounding man, creating a new rational order of things.
In Tsiolkovsky's mind the idea of a “realm of immortal atoms” (gosduarstvo bessmertnych atomov) was the basis of his philosophy. Each atom could be broken down into its component parts and each of these parts was alive with individual existence. Furthermore, Tsiolkovsky considered atoms and their parts immortal, and therefore decayed matter is renewed once again to yield life, a life that is even more perfect, according to the law of progress than before.
Tsiolkovsky believed that in order for utopia to be achieved, all living matter down to the most minute part of an atom must feel happy. The happiness of the matter is of each individual particle, yielding the greatest happiness by arranging them in the optimal shape is the goal. Tsiolkovsky thought was dominated by the question how these “worlds withing worlds” (miry v mirakh), each of which he considered as complex as the solar system itself could find the best possible equilibrium of joy.
By seeing the universe and man in particular as a complex realm of immortal atoms, Tsiolkovsky was able handily to deal with death, considering it only an illusion of the weak human mind. Because the existence of the atom and of inorganic matter is not marked by memory or time, there can be no beginning or end to their existence, hence no “death” as we understand it. When a man “dies” Tsiolkovsky explained the atoms from his particular realm disperse and form new connections in other bodies, thus creating new realms.
They merge from an old life into a new “subjective, uninterrupted happy life” In the foreword to his “Monism of the Universe” Tsiolkovsky assured his readers that this new perception of the universe would bring them unmitigated joy, because “the cosmos contains only joy, satisfaction, perfection and truth” in the end. He explained that there is no death because the individual atoms do not die, only the particular realm they existed in ceases to function as such. The new realm may be formed in another human being , or in a plant, an animal, or even inorganic matter, since atoms are free to travel about the universe at will, combining and recombining.
Tsiolkovsky obviously disregard the fact that the individual consciousness dies in favor of the greater picture.
The same was the case for Maxim Gorky. In 1909 Gorky wrote in his most famous article “The Destruction of Personality” that in the days of his childhood, led by the instincts of self preservation, struggling against nature with his bare hands man created religion out of fear. Everything bad (such as religion and superstition in general) can be traced back to people submission themselves to nature, while anything good (such as enlightened philosophy) comes out of every triumph man manages over it.
In the same article he wrote that socialism, the call for the collective is the answer to the struggle against the dark forces of nature hostile to man. On his own man is doomed to failure but united it can be overcome all obstacles.
He saw the Sovetunio as the “the manifestation of rationally organized will of the laboring masses against the arbitrary forces of nature and also against the atavistic remains of arbitrariness (such as negative genetic mutation) in man.
The hydrofoil cruise ship Olympus.
The spontaneity of stepmother nature so far had only created illness producing microorganisms and bacteria, most dangerous insects such as mosquitoes, flies and lice transporting and injecting the poisons of typhus and fever into the blood of man. Under the new order man would be destined to go forward and upward...will pour the sea out into the desert...
Reducing what once was our source of horror into a joyful playground. Marx comments of “remaking the world” had to be taken literally.
In the book and in reality Gorky was convinced that his prediction that “in fifty years, when things will be a little calmer, the first half of this century will seem like a splendid tragedy, a proletarian epic, it is probable that art as much as history will be able to do justice to the wonderful cultural work of the rank and file staseko in the camps. “ would come true. All the temporary suffering was for the greater good.
Tsiolkovsky gave this abstract struggle against nature a more tangible form. He drafted a program for the future of earth and mankind as part of his “Will of the Universe”. Aside from building space infrastructure it was of great importance to cleanse earth from all imperfections. Man will have to vanquish the chaos that is the current biosphere. All animals would be killed to save them from suffering the predations of each other.
Obviously these things can't all be done in a single instance. First priory is the extinction of the harmful beasts like snakes and the dreaded death spreading insects, all the natural horrors had to be exterminated. The next long term steps would be to replace plants with algae and other more efficient microorganisms as the Hungarian Commissar of Agriculture Ereky was advocating.
Alongside perfecting the human environment man itself had to be freed from suffering. Serebrovsky and the Hokopusanopro's Department of Anthropotechnique was leading the way there, he acknowledged (4).
Nevertheless for all these great men, in the end even they, even himself were only manifestation of higher principle. The blandness of this new world did not trouble Tsiolkovsky, for it would be maximally energy efficient and follow the principle of utilitarianism to its logical and positive extreme. All or nearly all suffering would be eliminated as Tsiolkovsky calculated in a series of formulas that gave him comfort in certainty.
Not everyone agreed with these totalitarian fantasy of course. Another great thinker at the time was the founder of the biocosmist anarchist Alexander Svyatogor who had a rather different view on the future of man. The man that represents his position in Gorky's newly formed writer's collective is Velmir Khlebnikov who belonged to Hylaea, the most significant Russian Futurist group in pre- and post war Russia. He had already written many significant poems before the Futurist movement in Russia had taken shape.
Among his contemporaries, he was regarded as "a poet's poet" (Mayakovsky referred to him as a "poet for producers") and a maverick genius. Khlebnikov very much agreed with Svyatogor more humanistic positions and added even more emphasis on the interdependence of man and nature. He vividly praised Engels “Dialectics of Nature” when it was published in the USS 1925 and wrote his “Landomir” that “the death of death shall govern over time”. Only when we can recreate man out of the most primal substances (atoms and molecules) we will be able to live in all environments and take on all form those environments demand.
Only through re-creation will the cosmos become accessible to man. His vision is one of cooperation, nature and human a separated but equal. Drawn to Buddhist and Hindu idea, especially the concept of brotherhood and equality, the harmony between the lives of men and animals touched him. In an sketch written in 1915 opens with the words: “I went to Ashoka and asked him to lend me some thoughts on quality and fraternity”. The antagonistic approach, the war against “nature” that Gorky saw himself engaged in slightly unnerved Khlebnikov.
If we die – we'll resurrect!
Each will again come to live.
Freedom for all Ages by Khlebnikov (1922)
These two man 's differences provide one but certainly not the only source of conflict during the tour along the Vernadsky canal. The construction of the canal, was hailed at the greatest feat of human Geo-engineering in Pasternak's lifetime. It still is very impressive although the voices, criticizing it are more outspoken today then they ever were.
The first outlines of the coming Neo-Romantic environmental movement could already be seen at the beginning of the sixties and consequently found its way into the book as well as the film. Here we have one of the few difference between Malick's film version and the book. He chose to replace the less well known proto Neo-Romantic protesters Pasternak described with the more familiar American Hippies.
Just a few words to the canal itself. The large-scale engineering was conducted to improve the hydrological cycle for the region by unleashing the newly discovered powers of the nuclear bomb. The Vernadsky canal was far more than just for shipping traffic. The Don was diverted into the lower Volga and then in the Caspian sea. The increased flow raises the level of the entire Caspian Sea to general sea-level, and the Vernadsky canal became a Dardenelle like waterway connecting the Sea of Azov with the Caspian. My home city of Volgograd turned into a Russian Constantinople overlooking the vital connection (5).
The effect is a moderated climate in the Central Asia (large bodies of water make winters warmer and summers cooler for surrounding regions) with more rainfall on the Kirgiz Steppe (more Sea-surface evaporation leading to rainfall downwind to the East) leading to less-arid conditions. Lake Balkash also rises with increased rainfall in the area. This makes the area more arable (the reason the Aral was almost killed, but by other means.
Aside from this re-molding of the landscape many media at the time although emphasized the remodeling effort of society and man itself. The propaganda proudly promoted the redeeming effect of forced labor of prisoners into good socialists (even if it often meant death by exposure to high doses of radioactivity in the uranium mines or trough fallout at the construction sites).
Mikhail Zoshchenko
In the canal camps themselves, the at the time well established Cultural-Educative Division (Kedd) functioned, along with a newspaper produced by prisoners,and exhibitions, theatrical productions. as part of the humanized rehabilitation focused prison system. The camp newspaper was called Reforgi, literally "re-casting" or "re-moulding". One of the editors was the writer Ivan Bunin,who as prisoner had helped build the canal. Once a friend of Gorky and guest at Capri during the Capri school era of the Bolshevik he broke with them and
Gorky died before Bunin was released from prison and became one of the most well known and celebrated dissidents and critics of the new state and society. Thus Bunin is not only the one author in the collective who knew the situation from the inside but also the one who has a very troubled personal history with Gorky himself.
Beyond this social approach to the new man, also lay the bioengineering of the human race, anthropotechnique. The American-Soveta scientist Hermann J. Muller had already found a connection between radioactivity and cancer when the work began. His concerns were noted but in the end dwarfed by the vision of the new generation of cancer resistant human (products of the Dvalinn program) colonizing the former deserts.
This middle part of the movie ends with a short entry Zoshchenko writes in his personal journal: “Long Journey ends. All agreed to disagree.”
For the short last part we jump back to the beginning of the movie. Pasternak is reunited with his family but asks what happened to his daughter Ekaterina. We find out that she died in a gas explosion and that her body couldn't be recovered. Thus the only thing left of her is a tomb at the old style cemetery far outside the city. Pasternak anticipated, that thinking about the “unpreserved” as they are called in his novel, will have been become more painful the less finite death became for everybody else.
The last few scenes deal with Pasternak reconciling himself with God, asking him to take care of his Katenka until she will come home again. In the film as well as in real life he reconciled with the idea and faith in a more personal, biblical god, but without judging those who don't believe.
A very powerful novel which Malick translated into a gorgeous and thoughtful movie. I can only recommend watching it.
Notes and Sources
(1) This is a blog post written from an ITL perspective and a little more role playing than usual.
(2) Leonid Pasternak was also responsible for the creation of Fyodorov death mask which was printed in the journal Vesy. He manged to perfectly capture Fyodorov's intense meditative expression even in his death. Plenty of time for Boris to get more familiar with him as well.
(3) Gorky wrote in about Fyodorov's death ITL and OTL, respectively 1933/1928. In both timelines his body was buried in the Skorbiashchenskii Zhenskii Monastery where, his grave was marked by a cross engraved with the word “Chris has Risen”. In OTL the monastery was closed and razed but ITL it became a holy shrine were some pilgrims go as far as worshiping Fyodorov as a Saint or even Prophet. “Christ has Risen” is also the title of Gorky's eulogy ITL.
(4) The People's Commissar for Public Health Protection/Homaj Komisariato pri Publika Sano Protekto/Hokopusanopro
(5) The Aral Sea never dried out ITL and would have been restored trough this project anyway. Oh and the fictional guy writing this ITL is from Volgograd himself so a little bit of local patriotism there.
Nikolai Zabolotsky by Darra Goldstein
Collected Works of Velimir Khlebnikov: Selected Poemsby V. Chlebnikov
India In Russian Literature by Robert H. Stacy
Soviet Geo-engineering by Dutchie In alternatehistory.com
There is a specter haunting the world, the specter of the critical consumer. Once again the Movie Patriot is going to agitate the film going masses. (Just couldn't resist)
“Everything will be happy, a universe of joy and satisfaction. Those who can't be helped will go into the nirvana (only temporary naturally). Yes we believe in it !”
The Genius Among the People by Konstantin Tsiolkovsky (1918)
Hello, welcome to my newest “project” for the blog. Now the first thing I'm gonna do is breaking my own rules. Originally I had the idea to feature some older, important soveto films that are fairly obscure here. But the movie that inspired me to do so was just released, Terrence Malick's “Happy Atoms”. In short this means our first movie is going to be an obscure/art-house American one based on a soveta book (1).
The movie's and books main character is its own author Boris Pasternak. He was a poet novelist, and literary translator. His anthology "My Sister, Life", is one of the most influential collections ever published in the Russian language.
Pasternak began writing “Happy Atoms” in the last years of his life in the late fifties and early sixties. At that point he was diagnosed with lung cancer and any treatment was in experimental stages at the time. Thus his last book lingered longer and focused closer on the universal questions of love, immortality, and reconciliation with spirituality than any of his previous works.
The cover of Pasternak's book.
As he writes in Atoms: “I was baptized as a child by my nanny, but because of the restrictions imposed on Jews, particularly in the case of a family which was exempt from them and enjoyed a certain reputation in view of my father's standing as an artist, there was something a little complicated about this, and it was always felt to be half-secret and intimate, a source of rare and exceptional inspiration rather than being calmly taken for granted. I believe that this is at the root of my distinctiveness. Most intensely of all my mind was occupied by Christianity in the years 1910-12, when the main foundations of this distinctiveness, my way of seeing things, the world, life -- were taking shape.”
Not any form of Christianity, but one that was itself in the process of reform once again, inspired by the great philosopher Nikolai Fyodorov. His concept of Cosmism and the ideas that branched out of its initial root are the main theme of the book and movie. “Happy Atoms” is a strange and fascinating mix between an autobiography and a science fictional novel.
Terrence Malick created a very faithfully adaption of the book and that gave it the necessary visual gravitas on the big screen. The movie begins with a narration and a series of breathtakingly beautiful shots of nature and animation. This setup introduces us into some basic idea's behind Cosmism, specifically Fyodorov's variety. I discussed them at length here.
Next thing we see is the operation in which Pasternak's brain in thawed and incorporated into a donor body. Back to back we see the scene of his death and resurrection. We hear his last words "I can't hear very well. And there's a mist in front of my eyes. But it will go away, won't it? Don't forget to open the window tomorrow.”
We see the light fading as well as him coming back trough the tunnel. The first half-hour of the movie is spend on his convalescence in the hospital. He has not only learn how to live in his new body, but also that he has a new body in the first place. All of this is possible since the story itself is set in the far future of 2072. Humanity has begun to systematically resurrect all those who were fortunate enough to have their brains preserved in ice.
Part of the routine is the reunion with other deceased family members. Personally some of the most memorable moments of the entire movie come surprisingly not so much from Pasternak meeting with his mistress or his wife but his father .
What makes it so good (aside from an excellent performance of n.n) is that they meet in the hospital's Cosmist-Christian chapel. There they witness people revering the iconographic portrait of Fyodorov.
We see Leonid recalling some past events in form of a flashback. He once in a while was working in the Ruminatsev Museum. There he became intrigued by the appearance and manner of the old man who served in the reading room. He began to make a sketch, but noticed that the old man suspected what Leonid was doing and obviously did not like the idea of being drawn.
So for several days in a row Leonid sat behind a mountainous stack of books and tried to appear to be busy reading them. He kept his sketches, and only later learned that the old man was Fyodorov. These sketches were the basis for all future portraits, such as the iconography now used in this chapel since nobody else ever managed or bothered to immortalize Fyodorov in a visual medium. When his son first found the sketch in the drawing board of his father he was, blissfully unaware that he held the first and last picture of the Cosmist equivalent of Jesus in his hands (2).
Years later the idea of Fyodorov as a Messianic figure seems less strange thou. Gorky already contemplated this possibility in his eulogy of Fyodorov in 1933, thirty years after the man's death (3). Since Leonid lived until 1945 he was at least somewhat aware of the trend in some circles to deity-and mystify “The Sage”.
Left: Leonid Pasternak Right: The Three Wise Men (Nikolai Fyodorov, Leo Tolstoy and Vladimir Solov'ev)
Before Pasternak is released from the hospital he receives a message from Gorky who invites him to participate in a project he had planned before his death in our reality as well. This leads to the second and longest part of the movie about “The Canal Named Vernadsky”. Somewhere around 1930 Maxim Gorky began developing and advertising his idea to that writers should work in collectives, just as the cooperatives that were established all over the union after the revolution and war. He elaborated on the idea for the book at a meeting at his own home in the presence of Bogdanov. The later found the idea intriguing and very much in line with his own aims for he proletkult movement.
So a brigade of 13 writers led by Maxim Gorky was scheduled to to write a hymn of the greatest piece of Geo-engineering yet to come, the Don-Volga canal. The team included Aleksei Tolstoy, Boris Pilniak, Ilf and Petrov, Viktor Shklovsky, Mikhail Zoshchenko, Velimir Khlebnikov and of course Boris Pasternak. Unfortunately for Gorky this newest monumental fancy was too much for the already strained resources of the Sovetunio and the construction of the canal was delayed until 1944 (Gorky died in 1936).
Now that the channel was finished Gorky planned to revive their effort to do the Don-Volga (or Vernadsky channel as it was known now) justice. Since there isn't much else to do and seeing old comrades again might be fun, Pasternak agrees to join a cruise along the canal. Most of the movie deals with the writers trying to learn all they can about the history of the canal's construction, their own place in this new world as well as the philosophy of Cosmism in general.
All these themes are well interwoven and complex. Therefore I will narrow my analysis down to the three characters and their views Gorky, Khlebnikov and Pasternak himself. Gorky and Khlebnikov both represented already in their first lifetime two main branches of the secular version of Cosmism that had emerged after Fyodorov's death.
Gorky heavily subscribed to an extremist utilitarian interpretation of Cosmism which owed much of its foundations to the works of Tsiolkovsky. The other side of the argument is present in the person of Khlebnikov who during his lifetime tended to fall into the justice for all spectrum of the debate (mostly based on the works of the biocosmist anarchist party leader Alexander Svyatogor).
Ironically Tsiolkovsky who was mentored by Fyodorov deviated far more from the spirit than Svyatogor who explicitly denounced any attempts to conflate his idea's with Fyodorov's. Just for this purpose he dedicated half of his article “Doctrine of the Fathers” in his journal Biokosmist in 1922 to this problem. The other half dealt with him denouncing the old anarchist movement.
Tsiolkovsky agreed with his mentor that it was man's destiny to conquer space and find immortality but he didn't agree with Fyodorov's motives. He neither believed that God gave humanity the mission to resurrect their ancestors, nor did he thinks that such a thing might even be desirable.
In fact he wrote that he recoiled at the thought of their ancient superstitions polluting the progressive new world. Instead of believing in God's commands he wrote in the aptly titled “The will of the universe: Unknown rational powers” (1928) that mankind is “the manifestation of the will of the universe” itself. Human labor he predicts will conquer the world surrounding man, creating a new rational order of things.
In Tsiolkovsky's mind the idea of a “realm of immortal atoms” (gosduarstvo bessmertnych atomov) was the basis of his philosophy. Each atom could be broken down into its component parts and each of these parts was alive with individual existence. Furthermore, Tsiolkovsky considered atoms and their parts immortal, and therefore decayed matter is renewed once again to yield life, a life that is even more perfect, according to the law of progress than before.
Tsiolkovsky believed that in order for utopia to be achieved, all living matter down to the most minute part of an atom must feel happy. The happiness of the matter is of each individual particle, yielding the greatest happiness by arranging them in the optimal shape is the goal. Tsiolkovsky thought was dominated by the question how these “worlds withing worlds” (miry v mirakh), each of which he considered as complex as the solar system itself could find the best possible equilibrium of joy.
By seeing the universe and man in particular as a complex realm of immortal atoms, Tsiolkovsky was able handily to deal with death, considering it only an illusion of the weak human mind. Because the existence of the atom and of inorganic matter is not marked by memory or time, there can be no beginning or end to their existence, hence no “death” as we understand it. When a man “dies” Tsiolkovsky explained the atoms from his particular realm disperse and form new connections in other bodies, thus creating new realms.
They merge from an old life into a new “subjective, uninterrupted happy life” In the foreword to his “Monism of the Universe” Tsiolkovsky assured his readers that this new perception of the universe would bring them unmitigated joy, because “the cosmos contains only joy, satisfaction, perfection and truth” in the end. He explained that there is no death because the individual atoms do not die, only the particular realm they existed in ceases to function as such. The new realm may be formed in another human being , or in a plant, an animal, or even inorganic matter, since atoms are free to travel about the universe at will, combining and recombining.
Tsiolkovsky obviously disregard the fact that the individual consciousness dies in favor of the greater picture.
The same was the case for Maxim Gorky. In 1909 Gorky wrote in his most famous article “The Destruction of Personality” that in the days of his childhood, led by the instincts of self preservation, struggling against nature with his bare hands man created religion out of fear. Everything bad (such as religion and superstition in general) can be traced back to people submission themselves to nature, while anything good (such as enlightened philosophy) comes out of every triumph man manages over it.
In the same article he wrote that socialism, the call for the collective is the answer to the struggle against the dark forces of nature hostile to man. On his own man is doomed to failure but united it can be overcome all obstacles.
He saw the Sovetunio as the “the manifestation of rationally organized will of the laboring masses against the arbitrary forces of nature and also against the atavistic remains of arbitrariness (such as negative genetic mutation) in man.
The hydrofoil cruise ship Olympus.
The spontaneity of stepmother nature so far had only created illness producing microorganisms and bacteria, most dangerous insects such as mosquitoes, flies and lice transporting and injecting the poisons of typhus and fever into the blood of man. Under the new order man would be destined to go forward and upward...will pour the sea out into the desert...
Reducing what once was our source of horror into a joyful playground. Marx comments of “remaking the world” had to be taken literally.
In the book and in reality Gorky was convinced that his prediction that “in fifty years, when things will be a little calmer, the first half of this century will seem like a splendid tragedy, a proletarian epic, it is probable that art as much as history will be able to do justice to the wonderful cultural work of the rank and file staseko in the camps. “ would come true. All the temporary suffering was for the greater good.
Tsiolkovsky gave this abstract struggle against nature a more tangible form. He drafted a program for the future of earth and mankind as part of his “Will of the Universe”. Aside from building space infrastructure it was of great importance to cleanse earth from all imperfections. Man will have to vanquish the chaos that is the current biosphere. All animals would be killed to save them from suffering the predations of each other.
Obviously these things can't all be done in a single instance. First priory is the extinction of the harmful beasts like snakes and the dreaded death spreading insects, all the natural horrors had to be exterminated. The next long term steps would be to replace plants with algae and other more efficient microorganisms as the Hungarian Commissar of Agriculture Ereky was advocating.
Alongside perfecting the human environment man itself had to be freed from suffering. Serebrovsky and the Hokopusanopro's Department of Anthropotechnique was leading the way there, he acknowledged (4).
Nevertheless for all these great men, in the end even they, even himself were only manifestation of higher principle. The blandness of this new world did not trouble Tsiolkovsky, for it would be maximally energy efficient and follow the principle of utilitarianism to its logical and positive extreme. All or nearly all suffering would be eliminated as Tsiolkovsky calculated in a series of formulas that gave him comfort in certainty.
Not everyone agreed with these totalitarian fantasy of course. Another great thinker at the time was the founder of the biocosmist anarchist Alexander Svyatogor who had a rather different view on the future of man. The man that represents his position in Gorky's newly formed writer's collective is Velmir Khlebnikov who belonged to Hylaea, the most significant Russian Futurist group in pre- and post war Russia. He had already written many significant poems before the Futurist movement in Russia had taken shape.
Among his contemporaries, he was regarded as "a poet's poet" (Mayakovsky referred to him as a "poet for producers") and a maverick genius. Khlebnikov very much agreed with Svyatogor more humanistic positions and added even more emphasis on the interdependence of man and nature. He vividly praised Engels “Dialectics of Nature” when it was published in the USS 1925 and wrote his “Landomir” that “the death of death shall govern over time”. Only when we can recreate man out of the most primal substances (atoms and molecules) we will be able to live in all environments and take on all form those environments demand.
Only through re-creation will the cosmos become accessible to man. His vision is one of cooperation, nature and human a separated but equal. Drawn to Buddhist and Hindu idea, especially the concept of brotherhood and equality, the harmony between the lives of men and animals touched him. In an sketch written in 1915 opens with the words: “I went to Ashoka and asked him to lend me some thoughts on quality and fraternity”. The antagonistic approach, the war against “nature” that Gorky saw himself engaged in slightly unnerved Khlebnikov.
If we die – we'll resurrect!
Each will again come to live.
Freedom for all Ages by Khlebnikov (1922)
These two man 's differences provide one but certainly not the only source of conflict during the tour along the Vernadsky canal. The construction of the canal, was hailed at the greatest feat of human Geo-engineering in Pasternak's lifetime. It still is very impressive although the voices, criticizing it are more outspoken today then they ever were.
The first outlines of the coming Neo-Romantic environmental movement could already be seen at the beginning of the sixties and consequently found its way into the book as well as the film. Here we have one of the few difference between Malick's film version and the book. He chose to replace the less well known proto Neo-Romantic protesters Pasternak described with the more familiar American Hippies.
Just a few words to the canal itself. The large-scale engineering was conducted to improve the hydrological cycle for the region by unleashing the newly discovered powers of the nuclear bomb. The Vernadsky canal was far more than just for shipping traffic. The Don was diverted into the lower Volga and then in the Caspian sea. The increased flow raises the level of the entire Caspian Sea to general sea-level, and the Vernadsky canal became a Dardenelle like waterway connecting the Sea of Azov with the Caspian. My home city of Volgograd turned into a Russian Constantinople overlooking the vital connection (5).
The effect is a moderated climate in the Central Asia (large bodies of water make winters warmer and summers cooler for surrounding regions) with more rainfall on the Kirgiz Steppe (more Sea-surface evaporation leading to rainfall downwind to the East) leading to less-arid conditions. Lake Balkash also rises with increased rainfall in the area. This makes the area more arable (the reason the Aral was almost killed, but by other means.
Aside from this re-molding of the landscape many media at the time although emphasized the remodeling effort of society and man itself. The propaganda proudly promoted the redeeming effect of forced labor of prisoners into good socialists (even if it often meant death by exposure to high doses of radioactivity in the uranium mines or trough fallout at the construction sites).
Mikhail Zoshchenko
In the canal camps themselves, the at the time well established Cultural-Educative Division (Kedd) functioned, along with a newspaper produced by prisoners,and exhibitions, theatrical productions. as part of the humanized rehabilitation focused prison system. The camp newspaper was called Reforgi, literally "re-casting" or "re-moulding". One of the editors was the writer Ivan Bunin,who as prisoner had helped build the canal. Once a friend of Gorky and guest at Capri during the Capri school era of the Bolshevik he broke with them and
Gorky died before Bunin was released from prison and became one of the most well known and celebrated dissidents and critics of the new state and society. Thus Bunin is not only the one author in the collective who knew the situation from the inside but also the one who has a very troubled personal history with Gorky himself.
Beyond this social approach to the new man, also lay the bioengineering of the human race, anthropotechnique. The American-Soveta scientist Hermann J. Muller had already found a connection between radioactivity and cancer when the work began. His concerns were noted but in the end dwarfed by the vision of the new generation of cancer resistant human (products of the Dvalinn program) colonizing the former deserts.
This middle part of the movie ends with a short entry Zoshchenko writes in his personal journal: “Long Journey ends. All agreed to disagree.”
For the short last part we jump back to the beginning of the movie. Pasternak is reunited with his family but asks what happened to his daughter Ekaterina. We find out that she died in a gas explosion and that her body couldn't be recovered. Thus the only thing left of her is a tomb at the old style cemetery far outside the city. Pasternak anticipated, that thinking about the “unpreserved” as they are called in his novel, will have been become more painful the less finite death became for everybody else.
The last few scenes deal with Pasternak reconciling himself with God, asking him to take care of his Katenka until she will come home again. In the film as well as in real life he reconciled with the idea and faith in a more personal, biblical god, but without judging those who don't believe.
A very powerful novel which Malick translated into a gorgeous and thoughtful movie. I can only recommend watching it.
Notes and Sources
(1) This is a blog post written from an ITL perspective and a little more role playing than usual.
(2) Leonid Pasternak was also responsible for the creation of Fyodorov death mask which was printed in the journal Vesy. He manged to perfectly capture Fyodorov's intense meditative expression even in his death. Plenty of time for Boris to get more familiar with him as well.
(3) Gorky wrote in about Fyodorov's death ITL and OTL, respectively 1933/1928. In both timelines his body was buried in the Skorbiashchenskii Zhenskii Monastery where, his grave was marked by a cross engraved with the word “Chris has Risen”. In OTL the monastery was closed and razed but ITL it became a holy shrine were some pilgrims go as far as worshiping Fyodorov as a Saint or even Prophet. “Christ has Risen” is also the title of Gorky's eulogy ITL.
(4) The People's Commissar for Public Health Protection/Homaj Komisariato pri Publika Sano Protekto/Hokopusanopro
(5) The Aral Sea never dried out ITL and would have been restored trough this project anyway. Oh and the fictional guy writing this ITL is from Volgograd himself so a little bit of local patriotism there.
Nikolai Zabolotsky by Darra Goldstein
Collected Works of Velimir Khlebnikov: Selected Poemsby V. Chlebnikov
India In Russian Literature by Robert H. Stacy
Soviet Geo-engineering by Dutchie In alternatehistory.com
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p) for the hydrological conditions of large areas as soon as water starts to flood it.
