The Visual Dominant in Eighteenth-Century Russia 9781501757983

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THE VISUAL DOMINANT IN

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THE VISUAL DOMINANT IN0~-{J~~

Marcus C. Levitt

NIU PRESS DeKalb

© 2011 by Northern Illinois University

Published by the Northern Jllinois University Press, DeKalb, Illinois 60115

All Rights Reserved Design by Shaun Allshouse

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Levitt, Marcus C., 1954The visual dominant in eighteenth-century Russia I Marcus C. Levitt. p.cm. Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 978-0-87580-442-2 (clothbound: acid-free paper) I. Russian literature-18th century-History and criticism.

2. Visual perception in literature. 3. Vision in literature. I. Title. PG3007.L486 2011 891. 709'002--dc23 2011016778 Etching by Giacomo Zatta after Pietro Novelli, "Tsar Peter the Great Founds the City of St. Petersburg in Ingria, at the mouth of the Neva on the Baltic, in the Spring of the Year 1703" ( 1797), published by Antonio Zatta e Figli, Venice. 36.6 x 40.8 em. Ashmolean Museum, University of Oxford.

To Betsy and Jesse-you light up my life!

CONTENTS

List of Illustrations

IX

Acknowledgments

xi

Introduction-An Archaeology of Vision

3

1

Prolegomena-Making Russia Visible

2

The Moment of the Muses-Lomonosov :S Odes

3

Bogovidenie-Orthodox Vision and the Odes

4

The Staging of the Self

5

Virtue Must Advertise-The Ethics ofVision

6

The Seen, the Unseen, and the Obvious

7

The Icon That Started a Riot

8

The Dialectic of Vision in Radishchev's Journey

15

271

Index

340

64

78 124

151

195

Conclusion-Russian Culture as a Mirage

Notes

28

253

222

ILLUSTRATIO NS

The cover illustration for the July 1758 issue of Ezhemesiachnyia sochineniia 2 Illustration to Derzhavin 's poem "The Proof of [God's] Creative Being" 152 Pietro Antonio Novelli's Count Gregorii Orlov Visiting Plague Victims in Moscow 199 The Vladimir Bogoliubskaia Mother of God

205

The Moscow Bogoliubskaia Mother of God

208

Contemporary icon of the Bogoliubskaia Mother of God Bogoliuhskaia Mother of God with Scenes from the Life ofSS. Zosima and Savatii ofSolovetskii [Monastery]

A gold-embossed Bogoliubskaia Mother of God

214

209

210

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

A book that has taken this long to produce accumulates debts too numerous to repay but which at moments like this deserve to be made visible. My profound gratitude goes to the many friends and colleagues who have provided advice, encouragement, criticism, and stimulating dialogue over the years. These include: Victor Zhivov, Irina Reyfman, Alexander Levitsky, Gitta Hammarberg, Gary Marker, Ronald Vroon, Joachim Klein, Elise Wirtschafter, Olga Tsapina, Lev Berdnikov, Roger Bartlett, W. Garreth Jones, Petr Bukharkin, Lidiia Sazonova, Tatiana Artem'eva, William Todd, Amanda Ewington, Wendy Salmond, Sarah Pratt, Tatiana Smoliarova, Hilde Hoggenboom, Luba Golburt, Kelly Herold, Maria Shcherbakova, and the late Stephen Baehr and Anna Lisa Crone. Thanks, too, to my colleagues at the Institute of Russian Literature (Pushkin House) of the Russian Academy of Sciences: Natal'ia Kochetkova, NadezhdaAlekseeva, Sergei Nikolaev, Vladimir Stepanov, and the late Galina Moiseeva, Elena Mozgovaia, and Iurii Stennik. My fond gratitude also goes to my colleagues at the University of Southern California, including John Bowlt, Tom Seifrid, Lada Panova, Alik Zholkovsky, Brad Damare, and Susan Kechekian for their continued help, advice, and support. Thanks also go to the publishers for permission (or confirmation of my right) to incorporate sections of previous published works into this one: "Dialektika videniia v Puteshestvii Radishcheva," inA. N Radshchev: Russkoe i evropeiskoe prosveshchenie: materialy mezhdunarodnogo simposiuma, 24 iiulia, 2002 g., ed. N.D. Kochetkova (St. Petersburg: Sankt-Peterburgskii tsentr Rossiiskoi akademii nauk, 2003), 36--47; "The 'Obviousness' of the Truth in EighteenthCentury Russian Thought," in Filosoftkii vek, 24: Istoriiafilosofii kakfilosofii, eds. T. V. Artem'eva and M. I. Mikeshin (St. Petersburg: Sankt-Peterburgskii tsentr istorii idei, 2003), 1:236-45; "Oda kak otkrovenie: 0 pravoslavnom bogoslovskom kontekste lomonosovskikh od," in S/avianskii almanakh 2003 (Moscow: Indrik, 2004), 368-84; "'Vechernee' i 'Utrennee razmyshleniia o Bozhiem velichestve' Lomonosova kak fiziko-teologicheskie proizvedeniia," XVIII vek 24 (2006), 57-70; "Virtue Must Advertise: Dashkova's 'Mon histoire' and the Problem of Self-Representation," in The Princess and the Patriot: Ekaterina Dashkova, Benjamin Franklin, and the Age ofEnlightenment, ed.

xii

Acknowledgments

Sue Ann Prince (Philadelphia: American Philosophical Society, 2006), 39-56. All but the first of these articles were also reprinted (and the Russian articles translated) in my Early Modern Russian Letters: Selected Articles, Studies in Russian and Slavic Literatures, Cultures, and History (Boston: Academic Studies Press, 2009). Lastly, there is an indebtedness that can never be adequately expressed~to my wife and life companion Alice Taylor, who encouraged me to take up the subject of this book in the first place and who served as my best reader and editor. The book is improved immeasurably due to her help.

Note on Translations Except where indicated, translations are my own. In translating poetry my first concern was to convey the meaning. In translating passages from Lomonosov's odes, for example, I have eliminated many of the syntactical inversions, which makes these works difficult even in the original. I have employed the Library of Congress transliteration system, although I have changed names in "-skii" to "-sky" in the text (e.g., Trediakovsky rather than Trediakovskii), and simplified or anglicized spellings of names (e.g., Ksenia, not Kseniia, Catherine not Ekaterina, Paul not Pavel). In the notes and transliterated Russian quotations I have kept more strictly to the LC system. I have also used standard or simplified English spellings for character names in plays (e.g., Hieronima, Hamlet, Ilmena, Stalverkh, Mohammed, Darius, Cyrus, instead of Ieronima, Gamlet, Il'mena, Stal'verkh, Mogamet, Darii, Kir), giving the original in parenthesis on first mention in cases where there might be confusion. I also use the Germanized forms of names like Kuchelbecker and Staehlin (Stahlin), although the Russianized forms (Kiukhel'beler, Shtelin) are also given at first mention.

THE VISUAL DOMINANT IN

6~/v-{j~~

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~-

This engraving, the cover illustration for the July 1758 issue of Ezhemesiachnyia sochineniia (Monthly Compositions), the journal of the Academy of Sciences, depicts the sun coming up over the globe, which is neatly laid out in a longitudinal-latitudinal grid. More specifically, the sun is rising over RUSSIA-clearly mapped as part of Europe- and over the city of St. Petersburg, and its beneficial rays make Russia and its accomplishments, as broadcast by the journal, visible to the world-"FOR EVERYONE." The celestial vignette is encircled by a laurel garland, suggesting peace and prosperity, as well as imperial political hegemony. It is capped by the traditional double-headed eagle bearing the monogram and crown of Empress Elizabeth. The imperial eagles' motherly perch and cosmic wingspan seem to both protect and support the earth.

Introduction An Archaeology of Vision

"The forming of the five senses is a labor of the entire history of the world down to the present." -Karl Marx, Economic and Philosophical Manuscripts

"Could a greater miracle take place than for us to look through each other's eyes for an instant?" -Henry David Thoreau, Walden

h e Enlightenment emphasis on vision as the privileged means of understanding the world played a particularly important role in the development of modem Russian culture, for which the imperative to become visible, to be seen was a central motivation and goal. This, in short, is the central proposition of this book. The French philosopher Bruno Latour has written that "a new visual culture redefines both what it is to see, and what there is to see," 1 and the goal of this book is to demonstrate the new Russian eighteenth-century mode of vision- how Russians saw the world, the special power they accorded sight- and, correspondingly, to reconstruct what they saw. The trauma of the French revolutionary and Napoleonic period, which had a profound intellectual impact on Russia, led to the discrediting of Russia's quintessential Enlightenment "ocularcentrism." 2 This occasioned the remarkable inability of later generations to see what had earlier seemed so self-evident and undeniable. By the 1830s, eighteenth-century Russian culture had become irrelevant, unworthy of consideration, and invisible, as if it had never existed. The goal of this work is to clear away some of the

4

THE VISUAL DOMINANT IN EIGHTEENTH-CENTURY RUSSIA

anachronistic barriers to sight and to begin to reconstruct that era-to try, as far as possible, paraphrasing Thoreau, "to look through their eyes for an instant." This archaeological project aims to reconstruct the eighteenth-century Russian paradigm of sight as a unique formation, to explore this era's mode of vision and to recover a cultural tradition heretofore largely unseen. Since ancient Greece at least, and in the Judeo-Christian tradition in general, sight has been a privileged means of cognition, pervading our language and thought patterns. The words for truth and vision, sight and knowledge, are connected throughout the Indo-European tongues. 3 In ancient Greek, knowledge (eidenai) is "the state of having seen," and in various Germanic and Slavic languages, the verbs for "to see" and "to know" are related (in Russian, videt'/vedat'). 4 In Russian as in English, our everyday language and intellectual discourse are saturated with sight metaphors such as "speculating," "clarifying," "reflecting," and "illuminating." These terms are so omnipresent as to have themselves become unseen, felt as culturally neutral, and taken for granted. In order to adequately understand the past, the cultural historian must discern the dynamic modulations and shifts within the hierarchy of the senses over time and appreciate their changing cultural valences. For sight is neither neutral, biologically determined, automatic, nor natural, but a complex, culturally conditioned phenomenon, historically specific and hence in need of decoding. 5 While the connection of sight and knowledge is deeply embedded in the classical and Judeo-Christian tradition, it has often been taken as a key to the "century of light," the "Enlightenment" (as these labels themselves suggest). Broadly speaking, Enlightenment culture was inspired in this regard by Cartesian philosophy and in the political and artistic realms by the brilliant court of Louis XIV, the "Sun King."6 The problem of vision in the Enlightenment is central, for example, to the works of the distinguished French critic Jean Starobinski, who saw in Rousseau's "quest for transparency" a starting point for modem self-consciousness.7 The "ocularcentric" eighteenth century has also served as a starting point for the critique of the Western philosophical and cultural tradition, as traced most notably by Martin Jay in Downcast Eyes: The Denigration of Vision in Twentieth-Century French Thought. 8 The issue of sight and its problematic status has come to be seen as a central thread in modem Western philosophy, from Descartes, Kant, and Hegel, through Nietzsche, Heidegger, Sartre, and Merleau-Ponty, as well as Benjamin, Foucault, and Derrida.9 The American philosopher R. J. Snell traces the roots of the modem disillusionment with philosophy even further back to Plato, and

Introduction

5

attributes the erosion of the classical Platonic-Cartesian-Kantian philosophical tradition precisely to the presumed link between seeing and knowing, which he describes as based on "intuitionism," the assumption of a "God's-eye view." Snell sees the challenge to modem philosophy as establishing the possibility of knowing on some alternative basis. 10 It is precisely this core intuitionist belief in the transcendent power of vision, reinforced by central tenets of Eastern Orthodox theology, that offers a key to eighteenth-century Russian thought and self-image. In contrast to the sizeable and sophisticated recent body of literature on Western paradigms ofvision, however, the visual in Russian culture has attracted scant attention, and the works that have considered the intersections of Russian literature and the visual in recent years have dealt almost exclusively with the modem period (the nineteenth and especially early twentieth centuries), or with icons. 11 The few scholars who have attempted broad comparisons of Russian and Western paradigms of sight generally concur that Russian culture thoroughly rejected the Cartesian Enlightenment paradigm as alien. I. A. Esaulov, for example, trying to define Russia's ''visual dominant," contrasts Russia's traditional, medieval "iconic type ofvisuality" (ikonichnost'), which he considers central to Russian culture, to a Western (i.e., non-Russian) illusionistic paradigm deriving from the Renaissance. 12 Esaulov's opposition derives from the work of the theologian Pavel Florensky (1882-193 7), who made a pathbreaking case for both the religious and aesthetic nature of the icon as a visual artifact. 13 Russia's "visual dominant"-its culturally privileged mode of seeing and representation-is thus defined in neo-Slavophile terms as a reversal of modern, Western, Renaissance visual values that are founded on "the rationalization of sight." 14 Esaulov's term "visual dominant" suggests a conception of seeing that defines an epoch's cultural consciousness; it differs in emphasis from the related notion of a "scopic regime," used to define the visual distinctiveness of a particular medium, gender, or culturally specific mode ofvision. 15 While Esaulov's concept is valuable, the received wisdom that defines Russian culture as exclusively anti-ocularcentric is inaccurate. This view suggests that "the path of secularizing the invisible, its domestication or justification by means of the visible, in a word, the path that was considered Western in Russia, was unacceptable for Russian thought." 16 To classify Russian culture in this way is understandable insofar as "Russian thought" is defined as the Russian philosophical school that formed in the later nineteenth century, a tradition that as a rule rejected the eighteenth century out of hand as un-Russian and Western (a neo-Slavophile position represented by such thinkers as Florensky,

6

THE VISUAL DOMINANT IN EIGHTEENTH-CENTURY RUSSIA

Semen Frank, and Lev Shestov). 17 In fact, however, the visual was uniquely privileged in eighteenth-century Russian culture, and as such provides a vital key to that culture's hierarchy of values. The visual-with an emphasis on visibility, the need to be seen and appreciated-played a crucial role in the formation of early modem Russian identity. The challenge posed by Peter the Great's opening a "window to Europe" was to see, to make others see, and to be seen. 18 Furthermore, eighteenth-century Russia's visual dominant was not merely a Western import or a passing infatuation, but had deep indigenous roots in Orthodox culture and theology; one cannot fully appreciate the later nineteenth-century anti-ocularcentric, logocentric tradition without taking into account the fact that it represents a profound dialectical negation of the preceding cultural configuration. While the notion of such a dialectical scheme is more or less a commonplace in cultural history, in this case the negation was so remarkably profound as to have practically erased (made invisible) its originary traces. Nineteenth-century Russia fiercely turned away from sight in favor of the word, retreating from grandiose imperial far ru:eAphr MHe If JIIOThJ. KaK!fMif HMory HaJBaTI> CHH MHHYThr? Hec4aCTHhiMH rroqecTI>? Mne MHoro C4aCThH B HHx! 3a C4aCTJI11Bhl IIplf}!Tb? liTO 3Jl51H MMHYT MHe CHX?! (DS 43) [What is desired and what is so pleasant for us I Always seems to be so improbable, I Seen as if in a dream. But oh, what a most horrible dream! I How many obstacles to this happiness! I Pleasant hours! You are generous to me, and cruel. I How should I refer to these minutes? I Consider them unhappy? How much happiness they contain! I Regard them as happy? How could they be more hurtful (evil) to me?!]

Is their love a dream or a nightmare? Whereas this rhetorical problem underscores the fragility of Khorev's position, for Kii the problem of seeing and understanding is central to the well-being of the state and of the other characters. In Khorev and many Russian tragedies of the era, seeing correctly or being blinded by appearances-whether intentionally or not-emerges as one of the fundamental problems of being a good ruler. Kii himself acknowledges

96

THE VISUAL DOMINANT IN EIGHTEENTH-CENTURY RUSSIA

this challenge early on and vows to avoid deception, pledging to verify the truth with his own eyes. When Stalverkh comes to him with his suspicions, Kii responds: Cmnsepx! Thi sepeH MHe, HO ,11eno TaKOBO BOCXO,IIHT Bhiiiie CHJI IIOHRThR MOero. KoMy Ha CBeTe ceM B.llpyr seprrm B03MO)I(Ho? Xoqy pasHo rr JJO)I(h rr HCTHHY BHHMaTh I1 CJieiiO HHKOf'O He 6y.11y OCJ)I(.IIaTb. M51TJCh, HJJIOToro 3JIO.IIeR BH.IIR s rope. KH513h-KOpMII\HK Kopa6JIR, BJiaCTh KHR)I(ecKaR-Mope, f,11e BeTphi, KaMHH, MeJih rrpeiiRTCTBYIO'f Cy,llaM, )l{enaiOII\HM rrpHcTaTh KrroKOHHhiM 6eperaM. Ho qacTo KIDKYTCR H o6naKH ropaMH, JleTaH B,llaJieKe 110 He6y Ha,ll BO,IIaMH, KoTophiX KOPMII\HKY He ,IIOJJ)I(HO o6eraTh; Ho ropbl Jib TO HJih HeT, HCKYCCTBOM pa36rrpaTb. XOTh BCe 6 Bell\aJIH MHe, TaM ropbl, MeJJH TaMO, Kor,11a He BH)I(J caM, IIJihiBY 6e1 cTpaxa rrpRMO. (DS 48) [Stalverkh! You are loyal to me, but this matter I Exceeds my power of understanding. I Who on this earth can believe something so unexpected? I I want to be equally aware of both truth and falsehood I And I will not condemn anyone blindly. I I am disturbed, and in my grief see [myself] a fierce evildoer. I A prince is the pilot of a ship, and princely power-the sea, I On which winds, rocks, shoals all offer obstacles to those I Who wish to reach peaceful shores. I But clouds flying across the sky far off above the waters I Often only appear to be mountains I Which the pilot does not have to avoid; I But it takes skill to figure out what they are. I Even if I have been told to beware of mountains and shoals, I Ifl do not see them for myself, I will sail fearlessly ahead.]

The tragedy for Kii is that despite his best efforts to avoid error, including interviews with eyewitnesses, so as to be assured that "the course of events [be] completely visible" (tok deistva viden ves'), his passions still gain the upper hand. The importance of this problem is underscored by the fact that the traditional image of the "ship of state" is one of the few metaphors Sumarokov employs. 37 Kii only comes to see truly when it is already too late, and the final catastrophe of the play is charted in terms of vision, blindness, and revelation. Each of the three main male protagonists-Kii, the now twice-defeated

The Staging of the Self 97

Zavlokh, and Khorev-successively confront the sight of the dead Osnelda. "What do I see?!" asks Kii, upset at "such a spectacle" (zrelishche takoe) of his mistake; "Hide the horrible world from my eyes!" ("Sokroisia ot ochei moikh protivnyi svet!"), he declares, describing himself as now left "in darkness" (vo t'me). Like defeated armies in the odes, those who have done evil try and hide their shame from the light of day. Similarly, Stalverkh goes off and drowns himself-a clearly unheroic end, like that which Kii pictures for himself at the mere thought of the shame Khorev's alleged treason would bring: Xopes! Kor.[la TaKOB Boqax MOHX Thi 3perrcH?! [... ) [.L(e CKphiTh 6ecqecTHe? 0 rpa.[l! 0 KHH)I(eCK .L(OM! IIycTHTe y6e)lorHHH HawcH ycTaMn 3aKOHhl Be'lHhie maCHT (8:794) [Blessed are we, that we are obedient to her: I Submission is our path to salvation! I Oh you, unanimous country, I A single breast in harmony, I Accustomed to live by the monarch's will, I Rejoice! Truth is on the throne, I And Wisdom sits with her, I Her divine eyes sparkling, I And speaks divine laws I Through the lips of our goddess]

The tragedies interrogate the limitations of this ideal, although in them the "great soul" combines the odic ruler's unity of self with political virtues, and the challenges to it serve to demonstrate its inflexibility. As Zamir explains in Sorena and Zamir: BcmtKaH L~ywa ccli KpaliHOCTH He 3HaeT. 0Ha BCer):(a paBHa KaK B C'laCThlf, TaK B 6e,11;ax. He BJiaCTh THpaHCKaH ee rrpHBOL\HT B cTpax;

The Staging of the Self 103 B ce6e HMeli see, oHa He 3HaeT rmeHa, fipHBO,[(HT B CTpax ee CB060,[(e JIHIIIh H3MeHa. (Trag. 476) [The great soul does not know this extreme (of giving in to necessity). I It is always the same, in happiness as in misfortune. I It is not a tyrant's power that can inspire terror in it; I Having everything within, it knows no restriction; I It is only terrified of betraying its freedom.]

Here, the suggestion of a tyrant that the hero "give in to necessity" is itself spurned as "an extreme," and the great soul's total adherence to virtue-to the point of welcoming death-is, in contrast, presented as the behavioral norm. Similarly, Artistona declares the great soul to be independent of the external world: IIycKail: B 3JlO):Ieil:cTBHH BCR rrnasaeT sceneHHa, OpKaHTOBa .[(yiiia qHcTa H HerrpeMeHHa. (DS 140) [Let the entire universe swim in evildoing, I Orkantov's soul is pure and undeviating.]

Or as Malmira advises the betrayed Fedima in the same play: OcTaBh BJIYKaBCTBe MHp, Thi c HHCTHHOH )!(HBH. Kor,[(a yro.[(Ha )!(H3Hh rro pa.L\OCTRM KaTHTCR, BenHKHR .LIYIIIH Toma erne He 3pHTCli. [... ] IIycTh cqacne 3sepCTsyeT, Thi 6e.L~CTBhl rrpe3Hpail:. (DS 137) [Leave the world to its deceptions, you live with truth. I If life were content to roll along with gratifications, /No great soul would be seen.( ... ) I Let happiness brutalize, you should disdain misfortunes.]

Or, to go even farther, as we have noted in cases of the double negative, persecution of the great soul merely serves to highlight its greatness, a badge of honor. As Gostomysl puts it in Sinav and Truvor: Konh qHcTaH .L~yrna He XO'IeT 6biTh rrpespaTHa, 3a ):I06po.[(eTeJ1H H MyKa eil: IIpHliTHa. (DS 106) [If a pure soul does not want to be sullied (false, transformed, inverted), I Even torment is pleasant in the name of virtue.]

At moments like these, tragic heroes may gravitate toward a quasi-Stoic selfcontainment, which might also suggest a retreat from the political arena. 41 In

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THE VISUAL DOMINANT IN EIGHTEENTH-CENTURY RUSSIA

Lomonosov's Tamira and Selim, virtue stands alone as the ultimate arbiter and witness of correct vision, whatever external calamities may come: E,ruma BHLIHT TO c rrpe3opcTBOM LI06po):leTeJih; Cpe):IH rpoMoB H 6yph He):IBHJKHMO CTOHT CaMa ce6e xsana, caMa ce6e CBH,LieTeJih; XoTh MHp o6pymHTCM, 6eccTpamHy rropa3HT. (8:344) [Virtue alone sees with perspicacity; I Amid thunder and storms it stands unmovable, I Praise unto itself, witness unto itself; I Even if the world crumbled, it would remain fearless.]

While it might seem from this that virtue stands alone, as will be argued at greater length in the next chapter, in eighteenth-century Russia, virtue was not its own reward-it still had to be seen, staged, and appreciated. Still, the divine perspective remained the ultimate criterion of value, because God's vision is by definition perfect and uniform: CseT MOJKHO o6MaHYTh, HO liora HHKOr):la. 3JIO,LieHCTBO rrepe,LI HllM 3JIO):IeHCTBO eCTh BCer,Lia. (Trag. 481) [The world may be deceived, but God-never. I Evildoing to him is always evildoing.]

Nevertheless, virtue demands to be seen in classicist tragedy, whose fundamental mission-however isolationist the sentiments it may have at times expressed-is to reveal the retrospectively mirrored self in a very public way, to put its innermost values out on stage so that they could be seen and their nobility appreciated.

Psychology and Physiognomy Greatness of soul is revealed in situations of psychological stress, although the use of the word "psychology" with reference to classicist tragedy-and to the eighteenth-century Russian conception of the self in general-requires qualification. There was no notion yet of the "psyche" as unconscious arbiter of action, and questions of motivation that arose referred rather to the qualities and status of the soul (dusha), so-called "pneumatology," and thus fell into a category of philosophy and metaphysics. 42 In theater and beyond, the driving forces behind human behavior were all to be seen on the surface, and the

The Staging of the Self lOS motives that contemporary thinkers might discuss in terms of deep or hidden psychological conflicts were conceptualized, rather, as moral ones, choices that defined different categories of "sou1"-velikodushie versus malodushie-a clash between passion and reason, good and bad sight. The hidden or unseen was connected to things that were shameful and dishonorable. Furthermore, inner qualities of soul were held to manifest themselves externally, through the eyes, the traditional "windows to the soul," and also through the face (litso, litse, lik), which in the Orthodox tradition had the additional connotation of reflecting one's divine image (like the face-/ik-on an icon, an image ofthe divine). The ancient idea that inner qualities of character could be read in a person's looks made a dramatic comeback in the eighteenth century in the newly popular "science" of Lavater's physiognomy, which enjoyed some popularity in Russia. 43 The problem of externalized essence (and perceived disjunctions between the inner and outer self) is a common one in Russian tragedy, in which the characters typically expect physiognomy to reveal the inner truth. When Gostomysl confronts the unhappy lovers Ilmena and Truvor in Sumarokov's Sinav and Truvor, for example, he can quickly read the truth in their eyes: Ham-IcaHo )')ICe Ha saiiiHX MHe oqax; CoKpbiTO TaHHCTBO so o6oHx cepJJ:n:ax.

(OS 93)

[The secret hidden in both of your hearts I Is already written for me in your eyes.] On the other hand, in Rzhevsky's The False Smerdius, Otan does not realize that Smerdius [Smerdii]-who looks just like the real one-is a fake, and he cannot reconcile the man's face and soul. Someone with Smerdius 's good face should act like Smerdius, in a good way: OT caMhiX )J;eTCKHX JieT » 3pen H 3HaJT ero, Ho HhlHe )')K He 3piO B HeM CMepJJ:HH mro. Be» IlepcH» TOMY, secb JJ:BOp H » CBHJJ:eTeJTh, CKOJib OH OTC'ICCTBO JII06HJT If )J;06pO)J;CTCJTh, CKOJTb cepJJ:n:e THxoe H LIYIIIY OH HMeJT,

I1 B CBeTe

HHKOfO OH oropqaTb He CMeJT,

HarmcaHo scerl\a s oqax ero TO 6hiJTO, qTo cepl\n:e KpOTKoe eMy HH rosopHno. [ ... ] Ho L\HeCb

y)l( OH He TOT, OKpOMe JTHIIIb JTHU,a.

106

THE VISUAL DOMINANT IN EIGHTEENTH-CENTURY RUSSIA

IJoqTO B HeM He JIHQe Bhl, 6orH, rrpeMeHHJIH I1 nyqiiie 6hr ero Bhi .riYIIIY coxpaHHJIH. (Trag. 228) [I knew and saw him from our childhood years, I But today I do not see that Smerdius in him. I All of Persia, the entire court and I are witness I How he loved virtue and the fatherland, I What a gentle heart and spirit he had, I And that he never gave offense to anyone. I Whatever his humble heart dictated I Was always written in his eyes./( ... ) But now he is not the same, apart from his face. I Would it not have been better, gods, if you had made changes in his face I And preserved his (quality of) soul?]

Similarly, in Kheraskov's The Venetian Nun, Zaneta comes to a judge to plead for the life of Korans, who, it turns out, is the judge's own son. Their resemblance suggests to her (wrongly) that the judge will have mercy on the poor boy: HMeeiiih Thi JIHQe c KopaHCOM cxo.r~Ho, I1 Cep,J:~Qe MO)l(eiiih Tbl HMeTb eMy IIO):I06HO. (... ) 51, MO)l(eT 6hiTh, rrpoiiiy roHHTemr ero, 06MaHyra TBOHM Hap~HhiM IIOCT051HCTBOM. (Trag. 346-47) [If you have a face resembling Korans's I You may have a heart like his.( ... ) I Perhaps I will be able to forgive his persecutor, I Deceived as I was by your external likeness (literally, "constancy")] Kor.r~a

Deception poses a direct challenge to true judgment. As suggested in the analysis of Khorev, the problem of seeing correctly and making the truth manifest is central to tragedy's overall mission, as the probity of the great soul is continually tested. This extends to the integrity of its sight, the harmony of inner and outer, physical and spiritual vision. Many tragic plots hinge on purposeful deceptions, as when trickery is used to usurp thrones or conspiracy is used to overthrow them. 44 Tyrannical rule is associated not only with bad seeing but also with attempts to mislead others's sight. In Lomonosov's Tamira and Selim, for example, the evil Mamai attempts to disguise the fact that he has been defeated by the Russians, hoping to recoup his losses by means of an advantageous marriage. In Rzhevsky's The False Smerdius and Sumarokov's Dimitrii the Pretender, the villains are bogus tsars, usurpers concerned with maintaining their deception, and the tyrannical conqueror Mstislav in Sorena and Zamir tries to use an evil ruse to entrap the virtuous Polovetsian princess Sorena. In other tragedies, plot turns often involve positive characters who are forced to use deception

The Staging of the Self 107

and disguise for noble ends. For example, in Maikov's Femist and Hieronima (Femist i Ieronima), royal survivors of the Ottoman conquest of Constantinople pretend to be Turks in order to restore the Paleologues to power. In plays like Kheraskov's Venetian Nun and Sumarokov's Artistona, positive characters also use ruses, this time to deceive other good characters, but for altruistic motives. Plots of deception and revelation bring the problem of seeing and being to center stage, as both great souls and evil ones debate the merits of openness and transparency. The use of deception poses a direct moral challenge for those of great soul, who in general spurn all subterfuge. In Femist and Hieronima, the evil Mohammed (Mogamet Vtorii, i.e., Sultan Mohammed II) has ordered his trusted servitor Soliman-who is actually Femist, of the Byzantine Comnenus (Komnin) clan in disguise-to kill Hieronima, daughter of the overthrown Paleologue emperor, for her refusal to give in to his amorous overtures. However, Hieronima is also Femist's long-lost love, and Soliman-Femist sends her away to try and save her. He wonders what he will say to Mohammed: IlyrH KcnaceHHIO y Hac OThHThi scroJ~;y, II HeT cnaceHHH HaM 6oJihiiie HHOTI