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133-615: The Hermitage Theatre was the second theatre of the Winter Palace . It replaced the Russian Imperial Theater , which operated from 1764 until 1783. The Hermitage Theatre was built between 1783 and 1787 at the behest of Catherine the Great to a Palladian design by Giacomo Quarenghi . The crumbling Third Winter Palace of Peter the Great was demolished to make room for the new structure, although its old foundations are still visible in

266-463: A Russian Orthodox family. She was the daughter of a prosperous merchant. Julia left Riga in the year of the 1905 Russian Revolution , taking Sergei with her to Saint Petersburg . Her son would return at times to see his father, who joined them around 1910. Divorce followed, and Julia left the family to live in France. Eisenstein was raised as an Orthodox Christian, but later became an atheist. Among

399-710: A "19th-century palace inspired by a model in Rococo style". In 1905, the Bloody Sunday events occurred when demonstrators marched toward the Winter Palace, but by this time the Imperial Family had chosen to live in the more secure and secluded Alexander Palace at Tsarskoe Selo (lit. "imperial village"), and returned to the Winter Palace only for formal and state occasions. Following the February Revolution of 1917,

532-413: A "linkage" of related images—as Kuleshov maintained. Eisenstein felt the "collision" of shots could be used to manipulate the emotions of the audience and create film metaphors. He believed that an idea should be derived from the juxtaposition of two independent shots, bringing an element of collage into film. He developed what he called "methods of montage": With his cross-disciplinary approach, he defined

665-433: A banker with no prior experience in motion picture work, who was to serve as production supervisor. At their departure Eisenstein had not yet determined a direction or subject for his film, and only several months later produced a brief outline of a six-part film; this, he promised, would be developed, in one form or another, into a final plan he would settle on for his project. The title for the project, ¡Que viva México! ,

798-493: A camp bed with a straw mattress. While the state rooms occupied the northern and eastern wings of the palace and the private rooms of the Imperial Family occupied the western wing, the four corners of the building contained the smaller rooms, which were the apartments of lesser members of the Imperial Family, often being of two floors. This is one of the reasons that the palace can appear a confusing assortment of great halls or salons with no obvious purpose located in odd corners of

931-503: A colossal scale—the present Winter Palace. The expedited completion of the palace became a matter of honour to the Empress, who regarded the palace as a symbol of national prestige. Work on the building continued throughout the year, even in the severest months of the winter. The deprivation to both the Russian people and the army caused by the ongoing Seven Years' War were not permitted to hinder

1064-607: A completed script; professional actors to play the roles; and an assistant director, Dmitri Vasilyev , to expedite shooting. The result was a film critically well received by both the Soviets and in the West, which won him the Order of Lenin and the Stalin Prize . It was an allegory and stern warning against the massing forces of Nazi Germany, well played and well made. The script had Nevsky utter

1197-401: A considerable number died daily, but the victims were instantly replaced by other champions brought forward to perish." The work was supervised by Pyotr Kleinmichel , who had already gained a reputation for ruthlessness when serving in the military settlements under Arakcheev . The rebuilding of the palace took advantage of the latest construction techniques of the industrial age. The roof

1330-409: A criminal offence, Eisenstein married filmmaker and screenwriter Pera Atasheva (born Pearl Moiseyevna Fogelman; 1900 – 24 September 1965). Aleksandrov married Orlova during that same year. Eisenstein confessed his asexuality to his close friend Marie Seton : "Those who say that I am homosexual are wrong. I have never noticed and do not notice this. If I was homosexual I would say so, directly. But

1463-449: A film about the country. As a result of their discussions with Eisenstein and his colleagues, Sinclair, his wife Mary , and three other investors organized as the "Mexican Film Trust" to contract the three Russians to make a film about Mexico of Eisenstein's design. On 24 November 1930, Eisenstein signed a contract with the Trust "upon the basis of his desire to be free to direct the making of

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1596-449: A heavy use of gilt . The smaller and more private rooms of the palace were altered and decorated in various 19th-century contemporary styles by Alexander Briullov according to whims and fashion of their intended occupants, ranging from Gothic to rococo. The Tsarevna's crimson boudoir (23) , in the private Imperial apartments , was a faithful reproduction of the rococo style, which Catherine II and her architects started to eliminate from

1729-574: A line producer, for the film's problems. Eisenstein hoped to pressure the Sinclairs to insinuate themselves between him and Stalin, so Eisenstein could finish the film in his own way. Unable to raise further funds, and under pressure from both the Soviet government and the majority of the Trust, Sinclair shut down production and ordered Kimbrough to return to the United States with the remaining film footage and

1862-564: A million peasants. Work continued on the Winter Palace right up until the time of the Empress' death in 1796. Catherine the Great was succeeded by her son Paul I . In the first days of his reign, the new Tsar (reported by the British Ambassador to be "not in his senses" ) augmented the number of troops stationed at the Winter Palace, positioning sentry boxes every few metres around the building. Eventually, paranoid for his security and disliking anything connected with his mother, he spurned

1995-481: A modern palace like his fellow sovereigns. However, unlike some of his successors, Peter I never aspired to rival Versailles. The first Winter Palace was a modest building of two main floors under a slate roof. It seems that Peter soon tired of the first palace, for in 1721 the second version of the Winter Palace was built under the direction of architect Georg Mattarnovy . Mattarnovy's palace, though still very modest compared to royal palaces in other European capitals,

2128-618: A month's stay at the U.S.-Mexico border outside Laredo, Texas , a 30-day "pass" to get from Texas to New York and thence depart for Moscow, while Kimbrough returned to Los Angeles with the remaining film. Eisenstein toured the American South instead of going directly to New York. In mid-1932, the Sinclairs were able to secure the services of Sol Lesser , who had just opened his distribution office in New York, Principal Distributing Corporation . Lesser agreed to supervise post-production work on

2261-610: A monumental scale that aimed to reflect the might and power of Imperial Russia . From the palace, the tsars ruled over 22,800,000 square kilometers (8,800,000 sq mi) (almost 1/6 of the Earth's landmass) and 125 million subjects by the end of the 19th century. Several architects participated in designing the Winter Palace—most notably the Italian Bartolomeo Rastrelli (1700–1771)—in what became known as

2394-530: A number of traditional Russian proverbs , verbally rooting his fight against the Germanic invaders in Russian traditions. This was started, completed, and placed in distribution all within the year 1938, and represented Eisenstein's first film in nearly a decade and his first sound film. Eisenstein returned to teaching, and was assigned to direct Richard Wagner 's Die Walküre at the Bolshoi Theatre . After

2527-714: A picture according to his own ideas of what a Mexican picture should be, and in full faith in Eisenstein's artistic integrity." The contract stipulated that the film would be "non-political", that immediately available funding came from Mary Sinclair in an amount of "not less than Twenty-Five Thousand Dollars", that the shooting schedule amounted to "a period of from three to four months", and most importantly that: "Eisenstein furthermore agrees that all pictures made or directed by him in Mexico, all negative film and positive prints, and all story and ideas embodied in said Mexican picture, will be

2660-614: A private palace within a park, such as that of the French kings at Versailles . The architectural theme continues throughout the interior of the palace. The first floor, being the piano nobile , is distinguished by windows taller than those of the floors above and below. Each window is divided from its neighbour by a pilaster . The repetitive monotony of the long elevations is broken only by symmetrically placed slightly projecting bays, many with their own small portico . This theme has been constant during all subsequent rebuilding and alterations to

2793-561: A revolutionary working-class aesthetic. His productions there were entitled Gas Masks , Listen Moscow , and Enough Stupidity in Every Wise Man . He worked as a designer for Vsevolod Meyerhold . Eisenstein began his career as a theorist in 1923, by writing "The Montage of Attractions" for art journal LEF . His first film, Glumov's Diary (for the theatre production Wise Man ), was also made in that same year with Dziga Vertov hired initially as an instructor. Strike (1925)

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2926-835: A strident anti-communist, mounted a public campaign against Eisenstein. On October 23, 1930, by "mutual consent", Paramount and Eisenstein declared their contract null and void, and the Eisenstein party were treated to return tickets to Moscow at Paramount's expense. Eisenstein was faced with being seen a failure in the USSR. The Soviet film industry was solving the sound-film issue without him; in addition, his films, techniques and theories, such as his formalist film theory , were becoming increasingly attacked as "ideological failures". Many of his theoretical articles from this period, such as Eisenstein on Disney , have surfaced decades later. Eisenstein and his entourage spent considerable time with Charlie Chaplin , who recommended that Eisenstein meet with

3059-509: A sympathetic benefactor, the American socialist author Upton Sinclair . Sinclair's works had been accepted by and were widely read in the USSR, and were known to Eisenstein. The two admired each other, and between the end of October 1930 and Thanksgiving of that year, Sinclair had secured an extension of Eisenstein's absences from the USSR, and permission for him to travel to Mexico. Eisenstein had long been fascinated by Mexico and had wanted to make

3192-635: A toll on his mental health. He spent some time in a mental hospital in Kislovodsk in July 1933, ostensibly a result of depression born of his final acceptance that he would never be allowed to edit the Mexican footage. He was subsequently assigned a teaching position at the State Institute of Cinematography where he had taught earlier, and in 1933 and 1934 was in charge of writing the curriculum. In 1935, Eisenstein

3325-423: Is 500 ft (150 m) long and 100 ft (30 m) high. The ground floor contained mostly bureaucratic and domestic offices, while the second floor was given over to apartments for senior courtiers and high-ranking officials. The principal rooms and living quarters of the Imperial Family are on the first floor, the piano nobile. The great state rooms, used by the court, are arranged in two enfilades , from

3458-503: Is Baroque. The exterior has remained as finished during the reign of Empress Elizabeth . The principal façades, those facing the Palace Square and the Neva river, have always been accessible and visible to the public. Only the lateral façades are hidden behind granite walls, concealing a garden created during the reign of Nicholas II . The building was conceived as a town palace, rather than

3591-551: Is noted in particular for his silent films Strike (1925), Battleship Potemkin (1925) and October (1928), as well as the historical epics Alexander Nevsky (1938) and Ivan the Terrible (1945/1958). In its 2012 decennial poll, the magazine Sight & Sound named his Battleship Potemkin the 11th-greatest film of all time. Sergei Eisenstein was born on 22 January [ O.S. 10 January] 1898 in Riga , in

3724-547: The Column of Alexander during the reign of Nicholas I in Rossi's newly designed Palace Square . For a long time the Winter Palace was the tallest edifice in the city. In 1844, Nicholas I gave the orders to the effect that private houses should be at least 1 sazhen (2.13 m) lower than the Winter Palace. This rule was effective until 1905. The Winter Palace is said to contain 1,500 rooms, 1,786 doors and 1,945 windows. The principal façade

3857-468: The Elizabethan Baroque style. The green-and-white palace has the overall shape of an elongated rectangle, and its principal façade is 215 metres (705 ft) long and 30 m (98 ft) high. Following a serious fire, the palace's rebuilding of 1837 left the exterior unchanged, but large parts of the interior were redesigned in a variety of tastes and styles, leading the palace to be described as

3990-660: The Governorate of Livonia , Russian Empire (present-day Latvia), to a middle-class family. His family moved frequently in his early years, as Eisenstein continued to do throughout his life. His father, the architect Mikhail Osipovich Eisenstein , was born in the Kiev Governorate , to a Jewish merchant father, Osip, and a Swedish mother. Sergei Eisenstein's father had converted to the Russian Orthodox Church , while his mother, Julia Ivanovna Konetskaya, came from

4123-537: The Tsarevna , the arrangement of the rooms makes more sense. Similarly the vast White Hall, so far from the other grand halls, was in fact the principal hall of the Tsarevich 's and Tsarevna's apartments. Thus the Winter Palace can be viewed as a series of small palaces within one large palace, with the largest and grandest rooms being public while the residents lived in suites of varying sizes, allocated according to rank. As

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4256-534: The official residence of the House of Romanov , previous emperors, from 1732 to 1917. The palace and its precincts now house the Hermitage Museum . The floor area is 233,345 square metres (it has been calculated that the palace contains 1,886 doors, 1,945 windows, 1,500 rooms and 117 staircases). The total area of the Winter Palace is 14.2 hectares. Situated between Palace Embankment and Palace Square , adjacent to

4389-526: The 19th century, selected members of the diplomatic corps were admitted to the theatre as well. Although the building was used to entertain the imperial family until the Russian Revolution , it came to be viewed as a rare monument to Catherine's personal tastes and affections. The empress brought out several comedies specifically to be staged in this theatre, which also saw the premieres of Domenico Cimarosa 's operas composed to her own librettos . As for

4522-464: The American border, a customs search of his trunk revealed sketches and drawings by Eisenstein of Jesus caricatures amongst other lewd pornographic material, which Eisenstein had added to his luggage without Kimbrough's knowledge. His re-entry visa had expired, and Sinclair's contacts in Washington were unable to secure him an additional extension. Eisenstein, Aleksandrov, and Tisse were allowed, after

4655-504: The Emergence of U.S. Radical Film Culture . Filming was not accomplished in the 3–4 months agreed to in Eisenstein's contract, however, and the Trust was running out of money; and his prolonged absence from the USSR led Joseph Stalin to send a telegram to Sinclair expressing the concern that Eisenstein had become a deserter. Under pressure, Eisenstein blamed Mary Sinclair's younger brother, Hunter Kimbrough, who had been sent along to act as

4788-745: The Empress on her return to Saint Petersburg took up residence at the neighbouring Apraksin Palace. In 1732, the Tsaritsa commissioned the Italian architect Francesco Bartolomeo Rastrelli to completely rebuild and extend the Apraksin Palace, incorporating other neighbouring houses. Thus, the core of the fourth and final Winter Palace is not the palace of Peter the Great, but the palace of Admiral General Fyodor Matveyevich Apraksin . The Empress Anna, though unpopular and considered "dull, coarse, fat, harsh and spiteful",

4921-510: The Gotzkowsky collection was a source of personal pride to Catherine. It had been put together by Gotzkowsky for Catherine's adversary, Frederick the Great of Prussia who, as a result of his wars with Russia, could not afford to pay for it. This collection included some great Flemish and Dutch works, most notably Frans Hals ' Portrait of a Man with a Glove . In 1769, the Bruhl collection brought to

5054-441: The Great , came to be chiefly associated with the Winter Palace. In 1762, following a coup d'état, in which her husband was murdered, Catherine paraded her seven-year-old son, Paul , on the Winter Palace's balcony to an excited crowd below. She was not presenting her son as the new and rightful ruler of Russia, however; that honour she was usurping herself. Catherine's patronage of the architects Starov and Giacomo Quarenghi saw

5187-414: The Great's Large Hermitage (15) was vastly expanded and transformed into a purpose-built public art gallery. In 1839, German architect Leo von Klenze drew up the plans and their execution was overseen by Vasily Stasov , assisted by Alexander Briullov and Nikolai Yefimov . With so many architects involved there were inevitably many conflicts over the design and its execution throughout the 1840s, with

5320-658: The Hall of the Cinema Workers before being cremated on 13 February, and his ashes were buried in the Novodevichy Cemetery in Moscow. Eisenstein was among the earliest film theorists. He briefly attended the film school established by Lev Kuleshov and the two were both fascinated with the power of editing to generate meaning and elicit emotion. Their individual writings and films are the foundations upon which Soviet montage theory

5453-593: The Hermitage—the name by which the entire complex, including the Winter Palace, was to become known 150 years later. Catherine had been impressed by the French architect Jean-Baptiste Vallin de la Mothe , who designed the Imperial Academy of Arts (also in Saint Petersburg) and commissioned him to add a new wing to the Winter Palace. This was intended as a place of retreat from the formalities and ceremonies of

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5586-471: The Malachite Drawing Room to the church through the state rooms. The Imperial Family were not the only residents of the palace; below the metal framework in the attics lived an army of servants. So vast were the servants' quarters that a former servant and his family, unbeknownst to the palace authorities, moved into the roof of the palace. They were only discovered by the smell of the manure from

5719-637: The Polish journalist Waclaw Solski, "I'm not interested in girls" and burst out laughing, then quickly stopped and turned red with embarrassment. Recalling the incident, Solski wrote "Not until later, when I learned what everyone in Moscow knew, did Aleksandrov's odd behaviour become understandable." Upton Sinclair came to the same conclusion after the discovery of Eisenstein's pornographic drawings by customs officials. He later told Marie Seton: "All his associates were Trotskyites, and all homos ... Men of that sort stick together." Seven months after homosexuality became

5852-480: The Russian people were already burdened by taxes to pay for the war. The final cost was 2,500,000 rubles. By 1759, shortly before Elizabeth's death, a Winter Palace truly worthy of the name was nearing completion. It was Empress Elizabeth who selected the German princess, Sophie of Anhalt-Zerbst, as a bride for her nephew and successor, Peter III . The marriage was not a success, but it was this princess who, as Catherine

5985-507: The Soviet film industry, called a halt to the filming and cancelled further production. What appeared to save Eisenstein's career at this point was that Stalin ended up taking the position that the Bezhin Meadow catastrophe, along with several other problems facing the industry at that point, had less to do with Eisenstein's approach to filmmaking as with the executives who were supposed to have been supervising him. Ultimately this came down on

6118-559: The Sun , released in 1940. He would publicly maintain that he had lost all interest in the project. In 1978, Gregori Aleksandrov released – with the same name in contravention to the copyright – his own version, which was awarded the Honorable Golden Prize at the 11th Moscow International Film Festival in 1979. Later, in 1998, Oleg Kovalov edited a free version of the film, calling it "Mexican Fantasy". Eisenstein's failure in Mexico took

6251-495: The Terrible, Part III was confiscated by the Soviet authorities whilst the film was still incomplete, and most of it was destroyed, though several filmed scenes exist. There have been debates about Eisenstein's sexuality, with a film covering Eisenstein's homosexuality running into difficulties in Russia. Almost all of his contemporaries believed that Eisenstein was gay. During a 1925 interview, Aleksandrov witnessed Eisenstein tell

6384-556: The Tsar having frequently to act as moderator. Eventually, after eleven years of building and architectural conflict, the first art museum in Russia, the Imperial Hermitage Museum, opened on 5 February 1852. The trebeated facades of the building were inspired by Schinkelesque architecture . It was erected in grey marble round three courtyards and the complex is noted for the asymmetrical planning of its wings and floors. By order of

6517-466: The Tsar, visitors to the museum were required to wear evening dress , even in the morning. The Tsar also decreed that grey top hats were "Jewish" and dress coats "revolutionary". Having negotiated the dress code, what the public saw was a huge array of art, but only a fraction of the Imperial collection, as the Winter Palace and other Imperial palaces remained closed to the viewing public. The Winter Palace

6650-451: The Tsars, who continued collecting, albeit not on the scale of Catherine the Great. In 1850, the collection of Cristoforo Barbarigo was acquired. This collection from Republic of Venice brought into the Winter Palace further works by Titian, in addition to many 16th-century Renaissance works of art. Nicholas I, conscious of the great art galleries in other European capitals, saw that Catherine

6783-488: The Winter Palace completely and built Saint Michael's Castle as his Saint Petersburg residence, on the site of his birthplace. The Tsar announced that he wished to die on the spot he was born. He was murdered there three weeks after taking up residence in 1801. Paul I was succeeded by his 24-year-old son, Alexander I , who ruled Russia during the chaotic period of the Napoleonic Wars . Following Napoleon's defeat in 1815,

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6916-552: The Winter Palace two further works by Rembrandt, Portrait of a Scholar and Portrait of an Old Man in Red . While some aspects of this manic collecting could have been a manifestation of Catherine's desire for a recognition of her intellectual concepts, there was also a more fundamental motivation: necessity. Just twenty years earlier, so scarce were the furnishings of the Imperial palaces that bedsteads, mirrors, tables and chairs had to be conveyed between Moscow and Saint Petersburg each time

7049-482: The ambiance of a summer's day. Guests on ceremonial and state occasions would follow a set processional route, arriving at the palace courtyard through the central arch of the south façade, and then entering the palace through the state entrance (sometimes called the Ambassadors' Entrance) (8) . They would then proceed through the colonnaded Jordan Hall before mounting the gilded Imperial staircase (8) , from where

7182-515: The artworks purchased for the palaces arrived as parts of a job lot as the sovereign acquired whole ready-assembled collections. The Empress' ambassadors in Rome, Paris, Amsterdam and London were instructed to look out for and purchase thousands of priceless works of art on her behalf. Ironically, while Saint Petersburg high society and the extended Romanov family derided Russia's last Empress for furnishing her palaces "mail order" from Maples of London, she

7315-487: The autumn of 1928, with October still under fire in many Soviet quarters, Eisenstein left the Soviet Union for a tour of Europe, accompanied by his perennial film collaborator Grigori Aleksandrov and cinematographer Eduard Tisse . Officially, the trip was supposed to allow the three to learn about sound motion pictures and to present themselves as Soviet artists in person to the capitalist West. For Eisenstein, however, it

7448-499: The building for administrative purposes. It was not until 1991 that performances were resumed on this stage, with the likes of Svyatoslav Richter , Mstislav Rostropovich and Yelena Obraztsova appearing as guest stars. 59°56′33″N 30°19′04″E  /  59.942614°N 30.317794°E  / 59.942614; 30.317794 Winter Palace The Winter Palace is a palace in Saint Petersburg that served as

7581-688: The character of Jean-Jacques Dessalines , replaying his movements, actions, and the drama surrounding him. Further to the didactics of literary and dramatic content, Eisenstein taught the technicalities of directing, photography, and editing, while encouraging his students' development of individuality, expressiveness, and creativity. Eisenstein's pedagogy, like his films, was politically charged and contained quotes from Vladimir Lenin interwoven with his teaching. In his initial films, Eisenstein did not use professional actors. His narratives eschewed individual characters and addressed broad social issues, especially class conflict . He used groups as characters, and

7714-476: The city of Saint Petersburg was still far from being the centre of western culture and civilization that he had envisioned. Many of the aristocrats who had been compelled by the Tsar to inhabit Saint Petersburg left. Wolves roamed the squares at night while bands of discontented pressed serfs , imported to build the Tsar's new city and Baltic fleet , frequently rebelled. Peter I was succeeded by his widow, Catherine I, who reigned until her death in 1727. She in turn

7847-619: The city. A diplomat of the time, who described the city as "a heap of villages linked together, like some plantation in the West Indies", just a few years later called it "a wonder of the world, considering its magnificent palaces". Some of these new palaces in Peter's beloved Flemish Baroque style, such as the Kikin Hall and the Menshikov Palace , still stand. On Peter the Great's death in 1725,

7980-529: The classically inspired architecture prevailing in the great cities of Europe. The Tsar intended that his new city would be designed in a Flemish renaissance style, later known as Petrine Baroque , and this was the style he selected for his new palace in the city. The first Royal residence on the site had been a humble log cabin then known as the Domik Petra I , built in 1704, which faced the River Neva . In 1711, it

8113-434: The conflagration—"a vast bonfire with flames reaching the sky." The fire burned for several days, and destroyed most of the Winter Palace's interior. Seeming to ignore the size of the palace, the Tsar ordered that the rebuilding be completed within a year. The Marquis de Custine described the "unheard of efforts" that were necessary to facilitate this. "During the great frosts 6000 workmen were continually employed; of these

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8246-481: The contents of the Winter Palace were further enhanced when Alexander I purchased the art collection of the former French Empress, Joséphine . This collection, some of it plundered loot given to her by her ex-husband Napoleon , contained amongst its many old masters Rembrandt's The Descent from the Cross and four sculptures by Antonio Canova . Alexander I was succeeded in 1825 by his brother Nicholas I . Tsar Nicholas

8379-475: The contents, depositing them in the snow in Palace Square. This was no mean feat, as the treasures of the Winter Palace were always heavy furniture and fragile ornaments rather than lighter paintings. To create a firebreak, the Tsar ordered the destruction of the three passages leading to the Hermitage, a fortunate act which saved the building and the huge art collection. The Russian poet Vasily Zhukovsky witnessed

8512-474: The costumes, they were chosen from a 15,000-dress personal wardrobe of the late Empress Elizabeth . Mathilde Kschessinska , Anna Pavlova , and Fyodor Chaliapin were among the great artists who performed at the Hermitage Theatre for the last Russian tsar . Among the ballets performed there was the premiere of Marius Petipa 's Harlequinade , in 1900. The Bolsheviks closed the theatre and utilised

8645-646: The court moved. As the palace filled with art, it overflowed into the Hermitage. So large did Catherine's art collection eventually become that it became necessary to commission the German-trained architect Yury Velten to build a second and larger extension to the palace, which eventually became known as the Old Hermitage (15) . Later, Catherine commissioned a third extension, the Hermitage Theatre , designed by Giacomo Quarenghi . This construction necessitated

8778-430: The court. Catherine christened it the Hermitage (14) , a name used by her predecessor Tsaritsa Elizabeth to describe her private rooms within the palace. The interior of the Hermitage wing was intended to be a simple contrast to that of the Winter Palace. Indeed, it is said that the concept of the Hermitage as a retreat was suggested to Catherine by that advocate of the simple life, Jean Jacques Rousseau . In reality, it

8911-460: The cow that they had also smuggled into the building with them to provide fresh milk. It seems this cow was not the only bovine in the attics; other cows were kept next to the room occupied by the Maids of Honour, in order to provide fresh milk for the kitchens. This practice was discontinued after the 1837 fire. After the death of Catherine the Great, the Hermitage had become a private treasure house of

9044-458: The creation of the Battle Galleries (19) , which occupy the central portion of the Palace Square façade. They were redesigned by Alexander Briullov to commemorate the Russian victories prior to 1812. Immediately adjacent to these galleries celebrating the French defeat, were rooms (18) where Maximilian, Duke of Leuchtenberg , Napoleon's step-grandson and the Tsar's son-in-law, lived during

9177-660: The curricula for the directors' course; his classroom illustrations are reproduced in Vladimir Nizhniĭ's Lessons with Eisenstein . Exercises and examples for students were based on rendering literature such as Honoré de Balzac 's Le Père Goriot . Another hypothetical was the staging of the Haitian struggle for independence as depicted in Anatolii Vinogradov's The Black Consul , influenced as well by John Vandercook's Black Majesty . Lessons from this scenario delved into

9310-432: The daughter of a former Governor of Saint Petersburg, was well placed to learn information concerning happenings within the palace and through her connections learnt of repairs being carried out in the palace's basement. One of the group, a trained carpenter, was subsequently enrolled as one of the workmen. Every day he carried dynamite charges concealed amongst his tools, placing them beneath the private dining room. So great

9443-408: The death of Peter II in 1730 the throne passed to a niece of Peter I, Anna Ivanovna, Duchess of Courland . The new Empress cared more for Saint Petersburg than her immediate predecessors; she re-established the Imperial court at the Winter Palace, and in 1732 Saint Petersburg again officially replaced Moscow as Russia's capital, a position it was to hold until 1918. Ignoring the third Winter Palace,

9576-429: The demolition of Peter the Great's by now crumbling third Winter palace. The Empress' life within the Hermitage, surrounded by her art and friends, was simpler than in the adjacent Winter Palace; there, the Empress gave small intimate suppers. Servants were excluded from these suppers and a sign on the wall read "Sit down where you choose, and when you please without it being repeated to you a thousand times." Catherine

9709-546: The early days of his marriage. In 1833, de Montferrand was hired to redesign the eastern state rooms and create the Field Marshal's Hall and the Small Throne Room (9 & 10) . In 1837, a fire broke out. Its cause is unknown, but its spread is blamed on de Montferrand. The architect was being hurried by the Tsar for an early completion, so he used wooden materials where stone would have been better. Additionally, between

9842-403: The films on structural issues such as camera angles, crowd movements, and montage brought him and like-minded others such as Vsevolod Pudovkin and Alexander Dovzhenko under fire from the Soviet film community. This forced him to issue public articles of self-criticism and commitments to reform his cinematic visions to conform to the increasingly specific doctrines of socialist realism . In

9975-577: The films that influenced Eisenstein as a child was The Consequences of Feminism (1906) by the first female filmmaker Alice Guy-Blaché . At the Petrograd Institute of Civil Engineering, Eisenstein studied architecture and engineering, the profession of his father. In 1918, he left school and joined the Red Army to participate in the Russian Civil War , although his father Mikhail supported

10108-474: The formal home of the Russian Tsars, the palace was the setting for profuse, frequent and lavish entertaining. The dining table could seat 1000 guests, while the state rooms could contain up to 10,000 people—all standing, as no chairs were provided. These rooms, halls and galleries were heated to such a temperature that while it was sub-zero outside, exotic plants bloomed within, while the brilliant lighting gave

10241-515: The ground floor. Quarenghi's designs for the theatre were engraved and published in 1787, earning him a European reputation. The semicircular auditorium is decorated with color marble and surrounded with ten niches for statues of Apollo and the muses . As the interior has never been overhauled, the original stage machinery remains in situ , but the elaborate sets, an acclaimed work of the Italian artist Pietro Gonzaga (1751-1831), were lost during

10374-399: The hurriedly built wooden partition walls disused fireplaces were concealed; their chimneys, coupled with the narrow ventilation shafts, acted as flues for the fire, allowing it to spread undetected between the walls from room to room until it was too late to extinguish. Once detected, the fire continued to spread, but slowly enough that the palace guards and staff were able to rescue many of

10507-576: The interior were largely due to the influences of the architects employed by Catherine the Great in the last years of her life, Starov and Quarenghi , who began to alter much of the interior of the palace as designed by Rastrelli. Catherine always wanted the latest fashions, and during her reign the more severe neoclassical architectural influences, fashionable in Western Europe from the late 1760s, slowly crept towards Saint Petersburg. The neoclassical interiors were further emphasised and extended during

10640-423: The late 16th century, accelerated and great classical palaces quickly replaced fortified castles throughout the more powerful European countries. One of the earliest and most notable examples was Louis XIV 's Versailles . Largely completed by 1710, Versailles—with its size and splendour—heightened rivalry amongst the sovereigns of Europe. Peter the Great of Russia, keen to promote all western concepts, wished to have

10773-522: The miles of negative — at the Trust's expense — and distribute any resulting product. Two short feature films and a short subject — Thunder Over Mexico based on the "Maguey" footage, Eisenstein in Mexico , and Death Day respectively—were completed and released in the United States between the autumn of 1933 and early 1934. Eisenstein never saw any of the Sinclair-Lesser films, nor a later effort by his first biographer, Marie Seton , called Time in

10906-465: The montage as the constructing act par excellence at the base of every work of art: "the principle of segmentation of the object into different camera cuts"  and the unification in a generalized or complete image is what we can call the peculiarity of montage as constructive process, which "leaves the event intact (the caught reality) and at the same time interprets it differently." Eisenstein taught film-making during his career at VGIK where he wrote

11039-603: The opportunity to make a film in the United States. He accepted a short-term contract for $ 100,000 ($ 1,500,000 in 2017 dollars) and arrived in Hollywood in May 1930, along with Aleksandrov and Tisse. Eisenstein proposed a biography of arms dealer Basil Zaharoff and a film version of Arms and the Man by George Bernard Shaw , and more fully developed plans for a film of Sutter's Gold by Blaise Cendrars , but on all accounts failed to impress

11172-776: The opposite side. This brought his father to Germany after the defeat of the anti-Bolshevik forces, and Sergei to Petrograd, Vologda , and Dvinsk . In 1920, Sergei was transferred to a command position in Minsk , after success providing propaganda for the October Revolution . At this time, he was exposed to Kabuki theatre and studied Japanese , learning some 300 kanji characters, which he cited as an influence on his pictorial development. Eisenstein moved to Moscow in 1920, and began his career in theatre working for Proletkult , an experimental Soviet artistic institution which aspired to radically modify existing artistic forms and create

11305-415: The outbreak of war with Germany in 1941, Alexander Nevsky was re-released with a wide distribution and earned international success. With the war approaching Moscow, Eisenstein was one of many filmmakers evacuated to Alma-Ata , where he first considered the idea of making a film about Tsar Ivan IV . Eisenstein corresponded with Prokofiev from Alma-Ata, and was joined by him there in 1942. Prokofiev composed

11438-452: The palace further enlarged and transformed. At this time an opera house which had existed in the southwestern wing of the palace was swept away to provide apartments for members of Catherine's family. In 1790, Quarenghi redesigned five of Rastrelli's state rooms to create the three vast halls of the Neva enfilade . Catherine was responsible for the three large adjoining palaces, known collectively as

11571-589: The palace less than 50 years earlier. One of the palace's most notable rooms was created as a result of the fire when the Jasper Room, which had been destroyed, was rebuilt as the Malachite Drawing Room , the principal reception room of the Tsaritsa's suite. The Tsar himself, for all the grandeur he created in his palaces, loved the greatest simplicity. His bedroom at the Winter Palace was spartan, with no ornaments save for some maps and an icon , and he slept on

11704-579: The palace operated for a short time as the seat of the Russian Provisional Government , ultimately led by Alexander Kerensky . Later that same year a detachment of Red Guard soldiers and sailors stormed the palace—a defining moment in the birth of the Soviet state, overthrowing the Provisional Government. Upon returning from his Grand Embassy in 1698, Peter I of Russia embarked on a policy of Westernization and expansion that

11837-467: The palace. The fact that the Malachite Drawing Room is separated from the equally large Gold Drawing Room by a series of bedrooms and small cabinets initially seems unusual. However, when considered in the context that the Malachite Drawing Room was the principal reception room of the Empress' apartment while the Gold Drawing Room was the principal reception room of the apartment of her daughter-in-law,

11970-405: The palace. The only external changes have been in colour: at various times in its history the palace has been painted different shades. In the eighteenth century, the palace was painted straw yellow with white and gilded ornament. Under Nicholas I in 1837, it was painted a dull red, which it remained through the revolution and early Soviet period. Following the restoration work after World War II, it

12103-419: The progress. 859,555 rubles had been allocated to the project, a sum raised by a tax on state-owned taverns. Though the labourers earned a monthly wage of just one ruble, the cost of the project exceeded the budget, so much so that work ceased due to lack of resources despite the Empress' obsessive desire for rapid completion. Ultimately, taxes were increased on salt and alcohol to fund the extra costs, although

12236-435: The property of Mrs. Sinclair..." A codicil to the contract allowed that the "Soviet Government may have the [finished] film free for showing inside the U.S.S.R." Reportedly, it was verbally clarified that the expectation was for a finished film of about an hour's duration. By 4 December, Eisenstein was traveling to Mexico by train, accompanied by Aleksandrov and Tisse, and also by Mrs. Sinclair's brother, Hunter Kimbrough ,

12369-463: The reign of Catherine's grandson, Nicholas I. Quarenghi is credited with introducing the Neoclassical style to Saint Petersburg. His work, together with that of Karl Ivanovich Rossi and Auguste de Montferrand , gradually transformed Saint Petersburg into an "Empire Town". Montferrand not only created some of the palace's greatest neoclassical interiors, but also was responsible for the erection of

12502-474: The rest of the world. Eisenstein kept sketchbooks throughout his life. After his death, his widow, Pera Atasheva , gave most of them to the Russian State Archive of Literature and Art (RGALI) – but withheld over 500 erotic drawings from the donation. She later passed these drawings to Andrei Moskvin for safekeeping, and after perestroika Moskvin's heirs sold them abroad. The erotic drawings have been

12635-407: The roles were filled with untrained people from the appropriate classes; he avoided casting stars . Like many Bolshevik artists, Eisenstein envisioned a new society which would subsidize artists, freeing them from the confines of capitalism, leaving them absolutely free to create, but due to the material conditions at the time, budgets and producers were as significant to the Soviet film industry as

12768-515: The score for Eisenstein's film Ivan the Terrible and Eisenstein reciprocated by designing sets for an operatic rendition of War and Peace that Prokofiev was developing. Eisenstein's film Ivan the Terrible , Part I , presenting Ivan IV of Russia as a national hero, won Stalin's approval (and a Stalin Prize ), but the sequel, Ivan the Terrible, Part II , was criticized by various authorities and went unreleased until 1958. All footage from Ivan

12901-536: The shoulders of Shumyatsky, who in early 1938 was denounced, arrested, tried and convicted as a traitor, and shot. Eisenstein was able to ingratiate himself with Stalin for 'one more chance', and he chose, from two offerings, the assignment of a biopic of Alexander Nevsky and his victory at the Battle of the Ice , with music composed by Sergei Prokofiev . This time, he was assigned a co-scenarist, Pyotr Pavlenko , to bring in

13034-492: The site of Peter the Great 's original Winter Palace, the present and fourth Winter Palace was built and altered almost continuously between the late 1730s and 1837, when it was severely damaged by fire and immediately rebuilt. The storming of the palace in 1917, as depicted in Soviet art and in Sergei Eisenstein 's 1928 film October , became a symbol of the October Revolution . The emperors constructed their palaces on

13167-471: The so-called Benois Madonna , was later acquired in 1914. Alexander II was a constant target for assassination attempts, one of which occurred inside the Winter Palace itself. This attempt on the Tsar's life was organized by a group known as Narodnaya Volya (Will of the People) and led by an "unsmiling fanatic", Andrei Zhelyabov , and his mistress Sophia Perovskaya , who later became his wife. Perovskaya,

13300-502: The studio's producers. Paramount proposed a film version of Theodore Dreiser 's An American Tragedy . This excited Eisenstein, who had read and liked the work, and had met Dreiser at one time in Moscow. Eisenstein completed a script by the start of October 1930, but Paramount disliked it and, additionally, they found themselves attacked by Major Pease , president of the Hollywood Technical Director's Institute. Pease,

13433-458: The three Soviets to see what they could do with the film already shot; estimates of the extent of this range from 170,000 lineal feet with Soldadera unfilmed, to an excess of 250,000 lineal feet. For the unfinished filming of the "novel" of Soldadera , without incurring any cost, Eisenstein had secured 500 soldiers, 10,000 guns, and 50 cannons from the Mexican Army. When Kimbrough arrived at

13566-576: The top of the Jordan Staircase. The original Baroque suite of the Tsaritsa Elizabeth running west, fronting the Neva, was completely redesigned in 1790–93 by Giacomo Quarenghi. He transformed the original enfilade of five state rooms into a suite of three vast halls, decorated with faux marble columns, bas-reliefs and statuary. A second suite of state rooms running south to the Great Church

13699-604: The two enfilades of state rooms spread out. The principal or Jordan Staircase, so-called because on the Feast of the Epiphany , the Tsar descended in state for the ceremony of the Blessing of the Waters, is one of the few parts of the palace to retain the original 18th century rococo style, although the massive grey granite columns were added in the mid-19th century. One of the most important rooms

13832-564: The two terminating pavilions of the new, and third, Winter Palace. The third palace, like the second, was in the Petrine Baroque style. In 1728, shortly after the third palace was completed, the Imperial Court left Saint Petersburg for Moscow, and the Winter Palace lost its status as the principal imperial residence. Moscow had once again been designated the capital city, a status which had been granted to Saint Petersburg in 1713. Following

13965-420: The whole point is that I have never experienced a homosexual attraction, even towards Grisha , despite the fact I have some bisexual tendency in the intellectual dimension like, for example, Balzac or Zola ." Eisenstein suffered a heart attack on 2 February 1946, and spent much of the following year recovering. He died of a second heart attack on 11 February 1948, at the age of 50. His body lay in state in

14098-409: The years of Soviet neglect. The ceremonial opening of the theatre took place on 22 November 1785. Though the auditorium could seat no more than 250 spectators, it was often overcrowded. Usually, the performance would be attended by several dozen aristocratic spectators, all invited by the monarch herself. As a sign of gratitude, a separate loge was reserved for the architect Quarenghi and his family. In

14231-508: Was Eisenstein's first full-length feature film. Battleship Potemkin (also 1925) was critically acclaimed worldwide. Mostly owing to this international renown, he was then able to direct October: Ten Days That Shook the World , as part of a grand tenth anniversary celebration of the October Revolution of 1917, and then The General Line (also known as Old and New ). While critics outside Soviet Russia praised these works, Eisenstein's focus in

14364-469: Was against such a backdrop of magnificence and extravagance that she gave her first ball in the newly completed gallery at the Winter Palace, which, in the middle of the Russian winter, resembled an orange grove. This, the fourth version of the Winter Palace, was to be an ongoing project for the architect Rastrelli throughout the reign of the Empress Anna. The infant Tsar Ivan VI , succeeding Anna in 1740,

14497-440: Was also responsible for introducing the lasting affection for all things French to the Russian court. While she personally disliked France, her distaste did not extend to its culture and manners. French became the language of the court; Russian was relegated for use only when speaking to servants and inferiors. The Russian aristocracy was encouraged to embrace the philosophies of Molière , Racine and Corneille . The Winter Palace

14630-533: Was an official residence of the Russian sovereign from 1732 until 1917; however, it was their home for little more than 140 of those years. The last tsar to truly reside in the palace was Alexander II , who ruled from 1855 to 1881, when he was assassinated . During his reign there were more additions to the contents; acquisitions included the ancient and archaeological collection of the unfortunate Marchese di Cavelli in 1861 and Leonardo da Vinci 's Madonna and Child in 1865; Leonardo's second work of that same name,

14763-525: Was an opportunity to see landscapes and cultures outside the Soviet Union. He spent the next two years touring and lecturing in Berlin , Zürich , London, and Paris. In 1929, in Switzerland, Eisenstein supervised an educational documentary about abortion directed by Tisse, entitled Frauennot – Frauenglück . In late April 1930, film producer Jesse L. Lasky , on behalf of Paramount Pictures , offered Eisenstein

14896-426: Was another large palace in itself, connected to the main palace by a series of covered walkways and heated courtyards in which flew rare exotic birds. Noted for its fine portico and attention to details of a delicate nature, it was richly furnished with an ever-growing art collection. The palace's art collection was assembled haphazardly in an eclectic manner, often with an eye to quantity rather than quality. Many of

15029-468: Was assigned another project, Bezhin Meadow , but it appears the film was afflicted with many of the same problems as ¡Que viva México! . Eisenstein unilaterally decided to film two versions of the scenario, one for adult viewers and one for children; failed to define a clear shooting schedule; and shot film prodigiously, resulting in cost overruns and missed deadlines. Boris Shumyatsky , the de facto head of

15162-409: Was built, but they differed markedly in their understanding of its fundamental principles. Eisenstein's articles and books—particularly Film Form and The Film Sense —explain the significance of montage in detail. His writings and films have continued to have a major impact on subsequent filmmakers. Eisenstein believed that editing could be used for more than just expounding a scene or moment, through

15295-532: Was created for Catherine II. Between 1787 and 1795, Quarenghi added a new eastern wing to this suite which contained the great throne room, known as St George's Hall (13) , which linked the Winter Palace to Catherine's less formal palace, the Hermitage, next door. This suite was altered in the 1820s when the Military Gallery (11) was created from a series of small rooms, to celebrate the defeat of Napoleon. This gallery, which had been conceived by Alexander I,

15428-453: Was decided on some time later still. While in Mexico, he mixed socially with Frida Kahlo and Diego Rivera ; Eisenstein admired these artists and Mexican culture in general, and they inspired him to call his films "moving frescoes". The left-wing U.S. film community eagerly followed his progress within Mexico, as is chronicled within Chris Robe's book Left of Hollywood: Cinema, Modernism, and

15561-572: Was delayed. As the family left the drawing room for the dining room the bomb exploded. So great was the explosion that it could be heard all over Saint Petersburg. The dining room was completely demolished and 11 members of the Finnish Guard in the Guard Room below were killed and a further 30 wounded. The incident represents one of the first uses of a time bomb for political purposes. On 4 March 1880, The New York Times reported "the dynamite used

15694-464: Was designed by Carlo Rossi and was built between June and November 1826 under Nicolas I; it was inaugurated on 25 October 1826. For the 1812 Gallery, the Tsar commissioned 332 portraits of the generals instrumental in the defeat of France. The artist was the Briton George Dawe , who received assistance from Alexander Polyakov and Wilhelm August Golicke . Nicholas I was also responsible for

15827-534: Was enclosed in an iron box, and exploded by a system of clockwork used by the man Thomas in Bremen some years ago." Sergei Eisenstein Sergei Mikhailovich Eisenstein (22 January [ O.S. 10 January] 1898 – 11 February 1948) was a Soviet film director , screenwriter , film editor and film theorist . He was a pioneer in the theory and practice of montage . He

15960-631: Was following the practices of Catherine the Great, who, if not exactly by "mail order", certainly bought "sight unseen". In this way, between 1764 and 1781 Catherine the Great acquired six major collections: those of Johann Ernst Gotzkowsky ; Heinrich von Brühl ; Pierre Crozat ; Horace Walpole ; Sylvestre-Raphael Baudouin ; and finally in 1787, the John Lyde-Brown collection. These large assemblies of art included works by such masters as Rembrandt , Rubens , Titian , Raphael , Tiepolo , van Dyck and Reni . The acquisition of 225 paintings forming

16093-511: Was founded upon a swamp, with little sunlight, and it was said only cabbages and turnips would grow there. It was forbidden to fell trees for fuel, so hot water was permitted just once a week. Only Peter's second wife, Empress Catherine , pretended to enjoy life in the new city. As a result of pressed slave labour from all over the Empire, work on the city progressed quickly. It has been estimated that 200,000 people died in twenty years while building

16226-485: Was keen to introduce a more civilized and cultured air to her court. She designed new liveries for her servants and, on her orders, mead and vodka were replaced with champagne and Burgundy. She instructed the Russian nobility to replace their plain furniture with that of mahogany and ebony, while her own tastes in interior decoration ran to a dressing table of solid gold and an " easing stool " of silver, studded with rubies. It

16359-416: Was on two floors above a rusticated ground floor, with a central projection underneath a pediment supported by columns. It was here that Peter the Great died in 1725. The Winter Palace was not the only palace in the unfinished city, or even the most splendid, as Peter had ordered his nobles to construct stone built residences and to spend half the year there. This was an unpopular command; Saint Petersburg

16492-591: Was painted green with the ornament depicted in white, the standard Soviet color scheme for Baroque buildings. (The Stroganov Palace , for example, was also green and white in this period.) Internally, the palace appears as a combination of the Baroque and the Neoclassical. Little of Rastrelli's rococo interior design has survived; only the Jordan Staircase and the Grand Church remain in their original style. The changes to

16625-491: Was soon deposed in a bloodless coup d'état by Grand Duchess Elizabeth , a daughter of Peter the Great. The new Empress Elizabeth, whose main residence was the Summer Palace , led the court at the Winter Palace to be described later by the Russian historian Vasily Klyuchevsky as a place of "gilded squalor". During the reign of Elizabeth, Rastrelli, still working to his original plan, devised an entirely new scheme in 1753, on

16758-464: Was succeeded by Peter I's grandson Peter II , who in 1727 had Mattarnovy's palace greatly enlarged by the architect Domenico Trezzini . Trezzini, who had designed the Summer Palace in 1711, was one of the greatest exponents of the Petrine Baroque style, now completely redesigned and expanded Mattarnovy's existing Winter Palace to such an extent that Mattarnovy's entire palace became merely one of

16891-550: Was supported by a metal framework, while the spans of ceilings in the great halls were supported by iron girders. Following the fire, the exterior, most of the principal state suites, the Jordan staircase and the Grand Church were restored to their original design and decoration by the architect Vasily Stasov . Some of the rooms, such as the second largest room in the Winter Palace, the Armorial Hall, became far more ornate, however, with

17024-463: Was the Palace's Grand Church (16) . Granted cathedral status, it was of greater religious significance than the chapels of most European royal palaces. It was here that Romanov weddings were usually celebrated with a rigid and unchanging tradition and protocol. Even the bride's dress, and the manner of donning it, was dictated by tradition. Dressed by the Empress, the bride and her procession would pass from

17157-470: Was the quantity of dynamite that the fact there was an intervening floor between the dining room and the basement was of no significance. Plans were made to detonate the bomb on the evening of 17 February [ O.S. 5 February] 1880, assassinating the Tsar and Imperial family as they dined. Fortunately for the Romanovs, a guest arriving from Berlin was delayed, and for the first time in years dinner

17290-409: Was to be responsible for the palace's present appearance and layout. He not only effected many changes to the interior of the palace but also was responsible for its complete rebuilding following the fire of 1837. As completed, the overriding exterior form of the Winter Palace's architecture, with its decoration in the form of statuary and opulent stucco work on the pediments above façades and windows,

17423-496: Was to serve as a model for numerous Russian palaces belonging to Catherine's aristocracy, all of them, like the Winter Palace itself, built by the slave labour of Russian serfs. The sophistication and manners observed inside the Winter Palace were greatly at odds with the grim reality of life outside its externally gilded walls. In 1767, as the Winter Palace grew in richness and splendour, the Empress published an edict extending Russian serfdom . During her reign she further enslaved over

17556-509: Was to transform the Tsardom of Russia into the Russian Empire and a major European power. This policy was manifested in bricks and mortar by the creation of a new city, Saint Petersburg, in 1703. The culture and design of the new city was intended as a conscious rejection of traditional Byzantine -influenced Russian architecture , such as the then-fashionable Naryshkin Baroque , in favour of

17689-566: Was transported to the Petrovskaya Naberezhnaya, where it still stands. With the site cleared, the Tsar then embarked on the building of a larger house between 1711 and 1712. This house, today referred to as The First Winter Palace, was designed by Domenico Trezzini . The 18th century was a period of great development in European royal architecture, as the need for a fortified residence gradually lessened. This process, which had begun in

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