1 History Is Made in the Dark 4: Alexander Nevsky:
The Prince, the Filmmaker and the Dictator
In May 1937, Sergei Eisenstein was offered the opportunity to make a feature film on
one of two figures from Russian history, the folk hero Ivan Susanin (d. 1613) or the
mediaeval ruler Alexander Nevsky (1220-1263). He opted for Nevsky. Permission for
Eisenstein to proceed with the new project ultimately came from within the Kremlin, with
the support of Joseph Stalin himself. The Soviet dictator was something of a cinephile,
and he often intervened in Soviet film affairs.
This high-level authorisation meant that the USSR’s most renowned filmmaker would
have the opportunity to complete his first feature in some eight years, if he could get it
through Stalinist Russia’s censorship apparatus. For his part, Eisenstein was prepared
to retreat into history for his newest film topic. Movies on contemporary affairs often fell
victim to Soviet censors, as Eisenstein had learned all too well a few months earlier
when his collectivisation film, Bezhin Meadow (1937), was banned. But because
relatively little was known about Nevsky’s life, Eisenstein told a colleague: “Nobody can
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2 find fault with me. Whatever I do, the historians and the so-called ‘consultants’ [i.e.
censors] won’t be able to argue with me”.i
What was known about Alexander Nevsky was a mixture of history and legend, but the
historical memory that was most relevant to the modern situation was Alexander’s
legacy as a diplomat and military leader, defending a key western sector of mediaeval
Russia from foreign foes. His career as Prince of Novgorod took on particular relevance
to the USSR in the late 1930s. Prince Alexander was credited with protecting the city
and its surrounding territory from threats from the north (Swedes), the east (the Mongol
empire), and most importantly from the west (the Teutonic Order).
In 1240, Novgorod’s newly installed Prince Alexander commanded a small force that
defeated a Swedish army at the Neva River, after which he took on the honorific
“Nevsky” as a permanent reminder of his victory. Meanwhile, through diplomacy that
apparently included paying tribute, Prince Alexander was credited with protecting
Novgorod from attack by Mongol armies, the powerful Golden Horde that had already
overrun most of the territory that is now modern Russia. Briefly deposed in 1241,
Alexander was soon summoned back to Novgorod to defend the region from the
Teutonic Order which had launched a “Northern Crusade” to subjugate the Slavs of
west-central Russia. On 5 April 1242, Prince Alexander and a force of lightly armed
infantry and militia defeated the experienced army of the Teutonic Knights, which
included heavy cavalry. The Russians maneuvered the battle to the frozen surface of
Lake Peipus, where some Teutonic Knights fell through the spring ice and drowned.
The conflict would become known in Russian lore as the “Battle on the Ice”.
Alexander Nevsky was treated as a national hero through Russia’s tsarist era (he was
canonised in the 16th century), but he was not in the pantheon of great historical figures
as far as most Soviet era party-line historians were concerned. Under Stalinist versions
of Russian history, more praise went to the forward-thinking but despotic tsars who
effected change through political force and who could be seen as Stalin’s precursors.
Tsars Ivan the Terrible (1530-1584) and Peter the Great (1672-1725) particularly
fascinated Stalin, and he authorised major commemorative films on each (Eisenstein
would take on the important Ivan project). Alexander Nevsky was rehabilitated by the
Stalin régime in the late 1930s, however, because of issues on the international
landscape.
Eisenstein’s finished film on Alexander Nevsky was designed to take the record of
aggression by the 13th century Teutonic Order and reapply it as a lesson about the
threat from Nazi Germany. Because of its immediate relevance to the national security
issue, Alexander’s Novgorod princeship became the focus of Eisenstein’s film, to the
exclusion of the rest of Alexander’s otherwise important political career. When
Alexander Nevsky was ready for release in November 1938, it was immediately hailed
as a triumph. It was given saturation bookings and maximum publicity; although most
Soviet features in the 1930s were circulated in only about 250 copies, 900 prints of
Alexander Nevsky went into simultaneous release. It proved to be by far Eisenstein’s
most popular film with Soviet audiences.
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3 The movie’s success with audiences and critics was not entirely due to the timely
political message. It also reflected Eisenstein’s effective transition to the possibilities of
sound. His silent features of the 1920s, most notably Battleship Potemkin (1925),
manifested a montage aesthetic that stressed dynamic editing. By the time he had the
chance to take up Alexander Nevsky, Eisenstein had broadened the idea of montage to
include the relationship between sound and image, with particular attention to the role of
music. He conceived of the score as a forceful ingredient that would dynamically
interact with the image track, and to achieve this end he worked closely with the
esteemed Russian composer Sergei Prokofiev. Their partnership produced a
grandiloquent style – both visual and auditory – that evoked epic mediaeval tales. So
satisfying and synergistic was their experience that Eisenstein and Prokofiev again
partnered brilliantly on the quasi-operatic historical epic, Ivan the Terrible (1944-46).
As far as the Soviet leadership of the 1930s was concerned, however, the primary
mission of Alexander Nevsky was to heighten a sense of Russian patriotism while
warning about the modern German menace. That message became obsolete within
months of the movie’s première. In August 1939, the USSR entered into a
“Nonaggression pact” with Germany, and the Nazis suddenly became Soviet allies.
Anti-German propaganda came to a quick halt and Alexander Nevsky was withdrawn
from distribution. While Alexander Nevsky sat on the shelf, Eisenstein was permitted to
mount a production of the Wagner opera Die Walküre (1940), with a high-level German
delegation in attendance at the Bolshoi.
Then, just as abruptly, Alexander Nevsky was reissued in 1941 after Operation
Barbarossa (the Nazi invasion of the USSR), and the country’s wartime propaganda
machine portrayed the movie as a newly relevant, even urgent, account of Russia’s
capacity to defeat invaders. Prince Alexander’s mystique has apparently carried over
into the 21st century and to the era of Vladimir Putin, who has consistently confirmed his
ambition to reestablish Russia as a world superpower and as a counter-force to NATO.
In that climate, over 50 million Russians participated in a 2008 national poll to rank the
great figures in the nation’s history. Prince Alexander Nevsky received the most votes
and was duly honoured as the “greatest Russian of all time.” For the record, Stalin came
in third.ii
Vance Kepley, Jr
University of Wisconsin-Madison
i
Quoted in Ronald Bergan, Sergei Eisenstein: A Life in Conflict (Woodstock, NY: Overlook, 1997) 297. The Guardian, December 28, 2008. ii
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