Screen vision of a public funeral ritual before and after the revolution

Beliakov Viktor Konstantinovich ORCID: 0000-0001-5832-0160 PhD in Art History Postgraduate student, Department of Film Studies, Russian State Institute of Cinematography named after S. Gerasimov; Associate Professor of the Sergiev Posad branch of VGIK  141310, Russia, Moscow region, Sergiev Posad, Red Army Avenue, 193 vic.belyakov@gmail.com Other publications by this author

Introduction

Funerals of famous people have always become a public phenomenon. All the newspapers reported about them, and with the advent of photography and cinematography, they began to capture photos and film. In the early period, distributors called them "funeral" films ^{[1, p.154]}.

The films created confirmed the ritual and etiquette norms that existed in Russian society. It was important that these "funeral films" conformed to generally accepted norms and traditions. "We are talking about the intellectual and informational soil of the viewer who perceives the message, about the specifics of his life attitudes, about the originality of the national mentality, stereotypes of information "codes" peculiar to this period of history and national culture." ^{[2, p. 88]}.

             At the official level, the Orthodox ritual dominated – the overwhelming number of statesmen and famous figures of that time were Orthodox. Therefore, the generally accepted canon of funerals of that time can be considered funeral according to the Orthodox rite.

There was a noticeable difference between the funeral ceremony of a private person and a person with the authority of a statesman. But in any case, the ritual had a sacred meaning – it was seeing off on a long journey and at the same time honoring the deceased. At the same time, of course, this was witnessed not by a casual spectator looking at everything from the outside, but by the Supreme Judge himself and the Arbiter of human destinies.

Let's look at what was the peculiarity of the pre-revolutionary funeral ceremony and how it was replaced by a ritual during the transition to a new society after 1917.

Pre-revolutionary funeral ceremony on the screen

In general, the fact of a funeral is quite fleeting, and in various historical times funerals began and ended with the burial of the deceased. With the advent of cinema, the "mystery of cinema" was born, in the words of the modern philosopher Alexander Sekatsky, which means that the dead on the screen do not die. They live endlessly in the beam of the projection apparatus ^[3]. The same applies to any ceremonies and events recorded on film – they unfold like a dream before the eyes of an enchanted viewer and never end, striving to repeat themselves over and over again with each new show.

The dreamlike nature of cinema allows the viewer, again and again plunging into the same circumstances, lasting indefinitely, to experience what is happening as beginning and unfolding ^[4]. This effect began to play a crucial role already in the post-revolutionary period, which we will discuss later.

             Quite a lot of so–called "funeral" films and newsreel plots were shot in the pre-revolutionary period - the famous film historian R. Yangirov counted about three dozen, but not all of them have survived and have reached today. We will consider the most typical and significant visual facts captured on film.

The funeral of Anastasia Vyaltseva in February 1913 was the funeral of a private person, which became unheard of in public. Yes, she was famous all over Russia, gramophone records with recordings of her romances were in every house, but she was neither an official person nor a person of blue blood. She came from the most ordinary peasant family, and in the conditions of that class Russia it even became the subject of a secular scandal: when the Guards officer Vasily Biskupsky married her, the regiment considered it unacceptable, and Biskupsky was forced to resign. S. P. Kizimova, a biographer from Bryansk, tells about this in detail in his book "The Incomparable Anastasia Vyaltseva".

Preserved film footage ("The Funeral of Anastasia Dmitrievna Vyaltseva", JSC A. Khanzhonkov, 1913, Russian State Archive of Film and Photographic Documents - RGAKFD Uch. 12210) shows us people gathered on a frosty day on Nevsky Prospekt waiting for the funeral procession – people are patiently waiting to demonstrate their feelings towards the memory of the great singer – the whole ceremony, as a result, it turns into a public demonstration that violates the generally accepted order. We see close–ups of faces, we see a stiff policeman on a horse - the types of people are etched into our memory.

It is worth saying that such a peculiar demonstration of violation of generally accepted funeral norms in Russia originates from the funeral of the famous artist Alexander Martynov in 1860, when the usual movement of the funeral procession was accompanied by a mass march of thousands of people along Nevsky Prospekt, which became an outright anti-government demonstration. Martynov's biographers wrote about this in detail, for example, the theater critic Altshuler A.Ya. in his book.

         The funeral of the great Leo Tolstoy in November 1910 turned out to be the same. Despite the fact that Lev Nikolaevich was a count, his position in Russian society at that time made any official ceremonies impossible. He was buried, one might say, in an arbitrary manner outside the cemetery fence ^[5].

This is how his funeral differs, say, from the funeral of Adjutant General N. P. Linevich, who was very authoritative among the military - he suppressed the boxer rebellion in China, took Beijing, and subsequently commanded troops during the Russian–Japanese war of 1905. His funeral was accompanied by a grand funeral ceremony with observance of all the proper ritual.   

         Several cameramen filmed the ceremony, and soon a film called "Funeral of Adjutant General Linevich" (A. Drankov, 1908, RGAKFD Uch. 839) was shown in the capital's cinemas.

         The film reproduces in sufficient detail on the screen the procession of the funeral cortege along the embankment of the Neva River. In front are the Life Guards Mounted Regiment in shiny helmets, the Life Guards Mounted Grenadier Regiment, followed by the master of ceremonies with a baton (it was customary to call him a major), torchbearers, clergy, singing boys, officers with awards of the deceased on pads, and finally, the hearse itself follows on a gun carriage, behind which the walking ones are guessed representatives of the Imperial Court, headed by the Sovereign. Soldiers are standing in a cordon along the houses, behind which some onlookers are barely visible in not very large numbers. Occasionally, a funeral director or policeman passes by the camera. The film ends there, and we do not have time to consider the people behind the carriage.

In many "funeral" films, the procession was limited to showing, it was not accepted to show a grave with a coffin in it.

         At that time, there were well-known censorship restrictions on the demonstration of certain ceremonies, including church ones. Therefore, strict requirements were imposed on the created "funeral" film, namely, the speed of projection (then it was manually adjusted by a projectionist) should correspond to the course of the ceremony itself, and various shots depicting cases of inappropriate behavior of the participants of the motorcade should have been excluded ^{[1, p. 153]}.

When it became known from the newspapers at the end of October 1910 about the illness of Leo Nikolaevich Tolstoy and his stop at Astapovo station, several different companies sent their operators there. The company of the Pathe Brothers shot a lot of material, which was designed in several versions. One of the preserved films in the archive is "The Events in Astapov and the funeral of Leo Tolstoy" (Br. Pathe, opera. J. Meyer, 1910, RGAKFD Uch. 12643). The other is "The Funeral of Leo Tolstoy in Yasnaya Polyana on November 9th" (Br. Pathe, opera. J. Meyer, 1910, RGAKFD Uch. 12537). Also, some fragments of films from different companies are found in the collection of film materials collected by the Gosfilmofond of Russia in 1960 (a copy of it is also kept in RGAKFD Uch. 16737) ^[6].

         The funeral of Leo Tolstoy itself became part of the circle of those civil funerals that took place outside of any Christian or official canon.

         By this point, having already faced a number of funerals of famous people, when the events themselves began to be openly anti-government in nature, the Russian government began to take measures to counteract this in advance. At the funeral of the writer Dostoevsky in 1881, everything was done to introduce the ceremony into a religious framework, although the crowd of one hundred thousand people on Nevsky Prospekt, which formed after the funeral procession, was still a big surprise for the metropolitan police.

         In anticipation of Leo Tolstoy's death, a police circular with recommendations was issued, and immediately after his death, contact was established with the writer's family in order to coordinate the funeral procedure to a certain extent. On the eve of the funeral, which took place on the second day after his death, on November 8, by order of Stolypin, all trains that ran from St. Petersburg to Tula were canceled in order to prevent the arrival of any famous people who could also start performing there. Because of this, for example, the famous Duma figure P.N. Milyukov was late for the funeral, who arrived in Yasnaya Polyana only the next day in the morning. It was allowed to send only 2 trains with students (large student rallies of 8 thousand people had already begun in the capital, so it was decided to allow some of the students to leave for Yasnaya Polyana), who, in fact, turned out to be in a fairly large representation at the funeral. Of the famous people at the funeral, only the poet Valery Bryusov, the actor A.I. Sumbatov-Yuzhin and the theater director L.A.Sulerzhitsky, who became the funeral director, were there. Among the officials, in addition to police officers, was the Tula governor D.D. Kobeko ^[5].

         What is interesting about the films created on the basis of filming?

     Firstly, these films are interesting precisely because they were shot – in fact, they are interesting for their informational component.

         The very fact of the arbitrariness of the funeral leads to the fact that most of the actions are performed in an improvisational manner.

The authors of the company of the Pathe Brothers guess to start the film with a photograph of Leo Tolstoy on his deathbed. Then suddenly find yourself in the midst of a crowd of people carrying a coffin out of the station house. As a result of such an accident, the viewer, perhaps for the first time in the practice of early cinematography, gets the opportunity to clearly see the faces of the people involved in carrying the coffin to the carriage and individual details of the action itself. For example, in front of the very doors of the carriage, they carefully place the coffin on the ground so that they can be replaced by commoners who can lift the coffin and push it through the open doors.

The filming itself in Yasnaya Polyana begins with a procession from the railway station to the house on the estate, where for a while you could walk past the coffin.

It is the crowd of the most ordinary people that is interesting, some of whom look away from the procession with simplicity and stare at the cameraman filming them.

I would like to say that no one crosses themselves, but actually, during any funeral, no one has ever made the sign of the cross and does not make the sign of the cross - this is not a service in the temple. And I still want to notice it. Graves, it must be said that according to eyewitnesses, during the procession to the grave and during the burial itself, most of the students sang "Eternal Memory" - then one of the official figures found it even outrageous.

Interestingly, cameramen with great attention on the eve of the funeral filmed not only several types of the manor park, but also those few peasants who contracted to dig the grave itself – they were filmed just standing with shovels, and started digging and chopping roots around (in the place where the "green stick" was buried in Tolstoy's childhood grave ) and standing with the same shovels at the already dug grave. Why did the cameramen film these people in particular? Was it a spiritual feat that they imagined, since they took up this case? Of course, it can be answered that these were the very simple peasants who cherished Tolstoy himself so much and mourned his loss. But this answer becomes meaningless if we recall the psychology of these very simple peasants. What did they realize about Tolstoy during his lifetime and after his death? They have always lived within the paradigm of their rural civilization and could hardly feel anything like the lord's considerations and feelings. They were arranged differently. And the cameramen filmed them, I think, very mistaken about them.

Graves In general, it must be admitted that when looking closely at these shots, even some confusion becomes noticeable among people standing and moving around the manor house and near the grave. Many people look around forlornly, stare at the cameraman, wander around aimlessly. I think it was because the very fact of the improvisational nature of the funeral confused the people present so much that they were lost and did not know what to do and what to express when what was happening in front of their eyes. The canon of official funerals entails some kind of formal observance of the ritual and formal expression of feelings, but here, when the external habitual shell of the ritual is torn off and the moment of sincerity has come, it becomes unclear what this sincerity should consist of.

Scrapping of the funeral ceremony in 1917

The devaluation of the ritual received an unexpected development in March 1917, when a situation arose with the funeral of the so-called victims of the revolution. So far, only assumptions have been made about some of those buried on the Field of Mars in Petrograd, who were they and as a result of which they fell victim? Revolutionary battles? Revolutionary skirmishes? Random shots? It is not known for certain.

Several films have been made about this event and abundant chronicle material has been preserved. The Petrograd branch of the company of the Pathe brothers created the film "Funeral of the victims of the Revolution in Petrograd on March 23, 1917" (RGAKFD. Uch. 12576), in the film archive there is also a large two-part edited film without titles and titles (RGAKFD. Uch. 580). The funeral itself took place on the Champ de Mars, strictly outside any church rite. Initially, individual figures expressed a desire to organize these funerals even on the Palace Square. One can only make some assumptions about such an intention. Of course, it is tempting to think in a darkly ironic way - that thereby we wanted to bring to life, as it were, an eternal rebuke to the palaces, since the Winter Palace was the royal residence ^[7]. But we can assume that in this way we wanted to organize some kind of magical connection between the fallen heroes and the new government and future generations. And if the Field of Mars, located on the outskirts, in this sense weakly expresses this idea, then the burials at the Kremlin Wall in Moscow directly testify to this. Because the residence of the leaders, that is, the most advanced people and representatives of the world proletariat, is located right here, behind the wall. And it is no coincidence that the victims are unknown, because the heroes should be so unknown. They are Heroes in general, Victims of the revolution in general, and not any specific individuals killed randomly in some kind of shootout. 

When viewing the preserved film documents, it is noteworthy that when installing rows of coffins in a mass grave, an officer walks and attaches some pieces of paper to individual coffins - probably with surnames – but it was important to the figures who organized the funeral that all these heroes are nameless. It is more profitable to symbolically refer to them as Victims of the revolution from now on. Therefore, it seems that someone's specific names and surnames were lost on purpose.

Some political figures of that time are clearly visible in the filming: Rodzianko, Milyukov, and Tsereteli are here – that is, representatives of the Provisional Government and the Duma Committee, and representatives of the Council. But the general mood of those present is noticeable – boredom and confusion. Precisely because it is unclear what to do and what to do. Tsereteli talks resourcefully and for a long time with Skobelev, in order, probably, to emphasize his efficiency – it dawned on him to behave that way. Perhaps even some speeches were made in the finale, but the silent newsreel could not convey this to us.

Over time, many significant things turned into just a simulacrum. This became especially noticeable with the change of epochs, when it was necessary to replace the usual pre-revolutionary ritual with a new one, developed literally on the move after the revolution.

In Soviet times, even during the lifetime of Lenin, the tradition of laying a wreath on the grave on the Champ de Mars arose. Moreover, a huge plywood shield was made, which was decorated with an unprecedented number of flowers, and during the 1920s Grigory Zinoviev and other Comintern figures with great difficulty placed this plywood wreath on the grave. Subsequently, with the oblivion of the ideas of the World Revolution, this ritual ceased.

Approval of a new type of ritual

With the establishment of the new government in October 1917 and the Civil War that soon broke out, the funeral ceremony ritual was finally developed and approved. The funeral of the former People's Commissar M. T. Elizarov, the husband of A. I. Ulyanova, with the participation of V. I. Lenin in March 1919, took place in the previous pre–revolutionary techniques, as evidenced by the preserved filming - RGAKFD Uch. 35963. The ceremony begins with the usual procession with a hearse covered with a white cloth. Horses are also covered with it, and on the sides there are understandable torchbearers. They are buried in the cemetery, except without a church funeral service.

But already in January 1924, the farewell to leader Lenin and his funeral took place within the framework of new etiquette ideas and a new vision of the procedure itself. All the cinematographic forces of the Soviet republic were thrown into its shooting, the material that has survived to this day is now stored in the RGAKFD Uch. 35964.

All the events related to this funeral are filmed in detail precisely so that they will be captured on film forever. And as I have already said, so that the potential viewer sees everything as being eternally realized – with each new viewing. All events should not just disappear with completion, but should be sealed in historical memory and always be – like an endless dream.

Compared to the usual ritual, something new is happening – a public farewell to the deceased in a solemn atmosphere with a continuously playing orchestra and a change of military guard every 5 minutes. With the change of this guard, the so-called guard of honor is replaced by prominent representatives of political forces and the public, including young pioneers and foreign guests. The widest public is organized by enterprises and institutions and passes by the coffin in an endless line with wreaths. And it's all being filmed in detail for several days.

Curiously, the filming itself begins with the removal of Lenin's body in the Hills, and an impressive crowd of people with various slogans and banners in their hands lines up on the steps of the estate of the former Moscow mayor Reinbot. Their quality makes it seem that all of them were clearly prepared in advance. That is, Lenin's death was, in principle, expected.

The procession with the coffin and the funeral train to Moscow are filmed in detail. All details are given a memorial value once and for all. As you know, the funeral alley is still preserved in Gorki, and for many years the museum of Lenin's funeral train with carriages and a steam locomotive in the pavilion worked in Moscow.

The main thing in the filmed film material is the same idea of sacrifice of the deceased, read in the subtext, in the name of the happiness of future generations of people freed (from the slavery of capitalism). "You have fallen a victim in the struggle of a fatal selfless love for the people ... The time will come — and the people will wake up, Great, mighty, free! Farewell, brothers, you have honestly passed your valiant path, noble one!", - the Russian revolutionaries sang the famous Funeral March from the XIX century with the words reinterpreted by the poet A. Arkhangelsky.

That is why the farewell ceremony was important for the new funeral ritual. Because it symbolized a kind of oath to the fallen in the struggle, an oath to continue the struggle. And actually, the very idea of preserving Lenin's body in the Mausoleum was implemented with the same purpose – so that millions and millions of future fighters from the next generations would have the opportunity to take a similar oath to the already deceased, but "alive" Leader.

That is, unlike the Orthodox worship of the relics of saints, to which they are applied in order to ask for help, the new ritual with the new "relics" was designed to cause a surge of enthusiasm to continue the struggle for a bright future.

And therefore, by the way, after saying goodbye, the deceased was carried out in his arms, lifting him above the surrounding world, and then they were solemnly transported on a carriage (which before the revolution was intended only for the military), and not on a hearse, because the deceased was a victim in the name of struggle. Actually, the preserved film footage of Lenin's funeral testifies to all this, and all this is expressed.  

Conclusion

         The pre-revolutionary "funeral" films that have reached the present time testify to the funeral ritual that existed at that time, which was violated in 1910 in connection with the funeral of Leo Tolstoy, which indicated the growth of alternative sentiments to the generally accepted canon. The funeral of the victims of the Revolution in March 1917 became, to a certain extent, a demonstrative challenge to the old order.

         However, the apparent breakdown of the vision of the funeral ceremony occurred with the establishment of a new government in October 1917, which led to a change in the meanings and meanings of the funeral itself. Instead of asking for mercy, a call for sacrifice in the name of justice and the happiness of future generations was now being realized. And this became the main thing for the entire post-revolutionary period. However, gradually all these meanings were mythologized and the ritual itself became an ordinary simulacrum.