Commentary on the historicity and aesthetic of Nikolai Dostal’s “Testament to Lenin”

Testament to Lenin is a testament to good television. When the occasional serious series comes out in the states, it is either for a young audience hungry for action and melodrama, or for the older generation whose sentiments lie with bourgeois literary giants who are portrayed on public television in costumes that cost as much as the actors. If, and when, Testament to Lenin is given subtitles, it will be an occasion that both the younger and older generations of the English speaking world can respect.

The main character of the series is Varlam Tikhonovich Shalamov, a poet, writer, political activist, and prisoner of the forced labor camps—or gulags—for about 17 years. The series follows the story of his life in more or less historical sequence. We see how and where he grew up, his brief university years, the long terrible time in the camps and finally his death. The mood is rarely bright, and the moments of freedom and happiness are caught in dark opposition to the drudgery that dominates.

The presence of an oppressive force is impossible not to notice. Stalin is only peripherally mentioned, and this is a significant point. The relationships of domination and fear were perpetrated on a very personal level. In many cases, and in fact throughout the series, the arbitrariness of identity was glaring. Why one man was a prisoner and another a guard seemed to be a matter of luck more than logic. Regardless, really the only times the oppressive atmosphere was absent was during Varlam’s childhood and the brief period when he was living in Moscow before he was sent to a guarded sick-house. Even so, those times weren’t completely carefree either. Either war or imprisonment was imminent.

At times, however, we are lifted from the darkness through acts of goodwill. Towards the end of the series, Shalamov is severely punished and is forced to stay in an unprotected cave for days in winter. His health already so poor from the years of malnourishment, cold, and hard work, he is nearly broken. He is taken to a hospital to recover, and there he meets an old doctor who takes pity on him and allows him to train as an assistant. Those few weeks, months perhaps, were so different from Shalamov’s time in the gulags. At the clinic he was respected for his intelligence, given food and rest, even allowed to take leave. Such an act of kindness was only possible where the brutal dichotomy of ruler and ruled was altered to a matter of knowledge and helplessness. Even Stalin got sick. Shalamov the doctor was a fitting role. Even from what we are shown of his childhood, a passion to save and forgive is visible, and whether it was faith in God or humanity is of little importance, as the disparity of prisoners and police alike during those times was so great.

During his childhood, Varlam was raised to respect literature and dissidence in so much as it was an attempt to speak a truth over the din of politics. We see him reciting the Russian greats by heart and giving food to the pre-revolutionary writers whose beliefs landed them in something of a “safe-house”. Portrayed somewhat idyllically, Varlam’s home and family was loving, if not strict, ruled by the father, a devout priest. Varlam was expected, but refused, to kill a lamb, and more than pointing to his righteousness, I think it reflected his unwillingness to subscribes to traditions he deemed immoral. As an adult and faced with the decision to plead guilty to false crimes and thus be forgiven, Varlam refuses outright, and pays the severe consequences. The innocence of Varlam’s childhood—although it was likely no more innocent than those of his peers—stands in utter contrast to the rest of his life. It was, perhaps, a reflection of the innocence of a country on the brink of an era of untold hardship and destruction for all classes.

Varlam’s acceptance into the university was another crucial moment of his life, at least, once again, in comparison with what was to come. It is ironic that he took an interest in Soviet law—the same system of law that would legitimately condemn him to three decades in prison for criticizing Stalin. It was in Moscow that he met the group of activists—inexperienced and foolishly hopeful as they were—who offered Varlam the opportunity to engage in political debate and action. It was also during these years that Varlam first fell in love. The fact that he would be so long without female companionship, again, makes the romance that much more meaningful. He was, of course, arrested soon after, and essentially meaningful relationships with people ended there for Varlam.

Thus begins Varlam’s stint in the gulags. He was eventually sent to the east, to northern Siberia in Kolima, where he feels most poignantly the reality of his situation. In my opinion, the gulags of Kolima were portrayed with good effect and taste. Not exceedingly complex to begin with, the dark-wooded barracks, the observation towers and the barbed wire appeared ominous, but often not as gloomy as the surrounding forests in the dead of winter.

The acting in Testament to Lenin was well done, although the lack of relationships between characters at times placed too much weight on Varlam’s character. The actor who played Varlam during his time in the gulags, displayed well the life of a man more or less reduced to an animal existence. We are given the image of a unique man; strong, proud, and creative, and one who saves himself from being completely broken. We see the character struggle with God, with the brutality of the guards and officers, and with the horrible day-to-day conditions.

Over the course of the series we watch Shalamov grow up and grow old. His passage of life is a metaphor for Russia’s passage, one that is bounded and cold-hearted, courageous and ruthless, yet creative and passionate. I believe the director wanted to reanalyze an important part of Russia’s history as it was reflected on the body of an artist and activist. It is easy, I think, to fall into the type of historical analysis that takes the leader as the best way to understand an era. And while Stalin’s policies certainly affected countless people, I think it is an interesting approach to reverse that schema. The creative element of the series was critical —that is, the continuing storyline of Shalamov’s literary work—as it pulled Varlam out of the masses of prisoners and showed the emotional side of the hardship. In his work the struggle of all men is reflected, and it is this universality that likely made Varlam a good choice as a character for such a story.

Moreover, I believe the director wanted to make a historical piece that took a different stance on Stalin’s era. The Great War of the Fatherland is usually what has been chosen as the focal piece, but here the director chose to focus on a “soft spot” in Russian history and of the Russian character. The middle of the 20^th century, however, was a time of guilt and pain for humanity across the globe. In Testament to Lenin, there is a cry for hope, a cry for forgiveness. There is no action or romance that drives the story; rather it is survival and suffering, and it is the suffering that holds the audience. However, it neither glorifies nor marginalizes the lives of the affected men. Rather, it is an attempt to show the injustice and creativity that persisted during the Soviet Union. The director’s goal, then, in this sense, is not very different from that of the many artists that were sentenced to serve in the gulags. What distinguishes the director’s project from that of Shalamov’s then, is his medium and historical position.

Thus film and half a century have placed the director in a position to comment on the life of the poet Varlam Shalamov. Film, as a medium very different from the written one, offers a visual and audible account of the creator’s work. It is nonetheless restricted to a specific time and place, and is therefore unable to follow the story of a man and account for all the forces that shaped his life. Testament to Lenin seeks to portray the people of the past as essentially powerless to determine their own lives beyond words and experiences. The forces of ideology and violence mitigated the destruction of the soul, but those who had faith, like Shalamov, knew that honest and talented expression would find its place somewhere in the future. It is possible that the director wasn’t trying to give an account of the past in order to comment on the present, although as an outside observer, I will make the argument that he was, regardless of his own intentions.

Freedom of speech is a sacred and dangerous right, depending on where your allegiances lie. It was made clear in Testament to Lenin that the power of the word was still greatly respected, although feared by those in power. Shalamov was a paradigm of this fear, and therefore a champion of resistance. He had modesty entangled with the natural world and eternal processes; spirituality combined with commentary on the ruthlessness and sacrifice of mortal men; these attributes helped mold a style imbued with nihilism and traditional wisdom. Many of these themes were accurately portrayed in Nikolai Dostal’s Testament to Lenin.

It is difficult to understand why men act as they do; to understand why we do not have right now the wisdom history will offer in the future. Testament to Lenin is by any standards dark. We can be thankful that that era has passed, and be hopeful that as such it will not be repeated. But we are reminded, or forced to realize, the depth and significance of one man’s life. The courage to persevere amidst hunger, death, and cold; the belief that ultimately meaning is communicable and change will come; this is what we are shown Varlam Shalamov embodies.