Friday, March 07, 2014

The Steps of Odessa

In 1905, The Russian sailors on the Battleship Potemkin mutinied and inspired the citizens of Odessa, in the Ukraine to join their revolt. The Tsarist government sent the Cossacks to brutally suppress the pre 1917 Russian Revolution and the citizens of Odessa were brutally massacred.  The 1925 film by Sergei Eisenstein is considered one of the most brilliant silent films ever made. This sequence of the massacre on the stairs of Odessa has never been equaled for the sheer emotional impact and truly economical use of the media to convey a message. Can I quote Karl Marx here? "Hegel remarks somewhere that all great world-historic facts and personages appear, so to speak, twice. He forgot to add: the first time as tragedy, the second time as farce."  Welcome to your nightmare, Vladimir.

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