all the czar's children

When I read yesterday (news excerpt below after movie review) that DNA has proven that all of the Russian czar's children were indeed killed with the family in 1917, I yearned to see one of my favorite movies, the amazing Russian Ark. This time in history fascinates me. No wonder, then, that another favorite movie of mine is Reds. And, of course, the original Doctor Zhivago.

Russian Ark Sergei Dreiden Leonid Mozgovoy | Movie Trailers

Russian Ark is a magnificent conjuring act, an eerie historical mirage evoked in a single sweeping wave of the hand by Alexander Sokurov. The 96-minute film, shot in high-definition video in the Hermitage at St. Petersburg, consists of one continuous, uninterrupted take. Thanks to recent technological innovation, it is the longest unbroken shot in the history of film. As the Steadicam operated by Tilman Büttner (the German cinematographer of ''Run Lola Run'') floats through the museum's galleries and rooms, a cast of 2,000 actors and extras act out random, whimsical moments of Russian imperial history that dissolve into one other like chapters of a dream.

Mr. Sokurov, who has always been drawn to historical subjects, has said that he wanted to capture ''the flow of time'' in a pure cinematic language that suggests ''a single breath.'' And that's what ''Russian Ark'' accomplishes as it drops in on Russian monarchs from Peter the Great to Nicholas II and catches them living their lives unaware that they're being observed. These keyhole flashes from the past evoke a sense of history that is at once intimate and distanced, and ultimately sad: so much life, so much beauty, swallowed in the mists of time.

''Russian Ark'' is a ghost story set in the Hermitage, the museum that is the pride of St. Petersburg and the repository -- the ark, if you will -- of more Russian history and culture than any other place. Among its components are the Winter Palace (the former residence of the Russian czars) and sections devoted to Russian history and to the life and work of Alexander Pushkin. It also houses more than three million artifacts, including world-class collections of painting, sculptures, prints, drawings and archaeological finds.

-Stephen Holden, NY Times, full review here

DNA proves Bolsheviks killed all of Russian czar's children:

(CNN) -- One of the most enduring mysteries of the 20th century has been put to rest: DNA analysis of bone fragments has proven that two of Czar Nicholas' children believed to have escaped were killed with their royal family during the Russian Revolution.

• On December 30, 1916, The Tsar was warned that his army would not support him against a revolution.

• On July 17, 1918, Nicholas II of Russia and his family were killed.

The Ballad of the Children of the Czar

1

The children of the Czar

Played with a bouncing ball

In the May morning, in the Czar’s garden,

Tossing it back and forth.

It fell among the flowerbeds

Or fled to the north gate.

A daylight moon hung up

In the Western sky, bald white.

Like Papa’s face, said Sister,

Hurling the white ball forth.

2

While I ate a baked potato

Six thousand miles apart,

In Brooklyn, in 1916,

Aged two, irrational.

When Franklin D. Roosevelt

Was an Arrow Collar ad.

O Nicholas! Alas! Alas!

My grandfather coughed in your army,

Hid in a wine-stinking barrel,

For three days in Bucharest

Then left for America

To become a king himself.

3

I am my father’s father,

You are your children’s guilt.

In history’s pity and terror

The child is Aeneas again;

Troy is in the nursery,

The rocking horse is on fire.

Child labor! The child must carry

His fathers on his back.

But seeing that so much is past

And that history has no ruth

For the individual,

Who drinks tea, who catches cold,

Let anger be general:

I hate an abstract thing.

4

Brother and sister bounced

The bounding, unbroken ball,

The shattering sun fell down

Like swords upon their play,

Moving eastward among the stars

Toward February and October.

But the Maywind brushed their cheeks

Like a mother watching sleep,

And if for a moment they fight

Over the bouncing ball

And sister pinches brother

And brother kicks her shins,

Well! The heart of man is known:

It is a cactus bloom.

5

The ground on which the ball bounces

Is another bouncing ball.

The wheeling, whirling world

Makes no will glad.

Spinning in its spotlight darkness,

It is too big for their hands.

A pitiless, purposeless Thing,

Arbitrary and unspent,

Made for no play, for no children,

But chasing only itself.

The innocent are overtaken,

They are not innocent.

They are their father’s fathers,

The past is inevitable.

6

Now, in another October

Of this tragic star,

I see my second year,

I eat my baked potato.

It is my buttered world,

But, poked by my unlearned hand,

It falls from the highchair down

And I begin to howl.

And I see the ball roll under

The iron gate which is locked.

Sister is screaming, brother is howling,

The ball has evaded their will.

Even a bouncing ball

Is uncontrollable,

And is under the garden wall.

I am overtaken by terror

Thinking of my father’s fathers,

And of my own will.

--Delmore Schwartz



art: Child Playing with the Ball (Corner of the Park), by Felix Vallotton

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