Fragment of an Empire
[Обломок империи]
USSR, 1929
Black-and-white, 73 minutes Silent with Russian intertitles and English
subtitles
Director: Fridrikh Ermler
Screenplay: Katerina Vinogradskaia,
Fridrikh Ermler
Camera: Evgenii Shneider
Set designer: Evgenii Enei
Cast: Fedor Nikitin, Liudmila Semenova,
Valerii Solovtsov, Iakov Gudkin,
Viacheslav Viskovskii
Production: Sovkino
Fridrikh Ermler’s last silent feature, Fragment of
an Empire, tells a very simple story. Its
protagonist, a Russian non-commissioned
officer, Filimonov (Fedor Nikitin), shellshocked during the First World War, regains his
memory in 1928. Determined to find his wife
and get his job back, he goes home to Saint
Petersburg only to find out that his wife has
remarried, his former employer has been
replaced by a factory committee, and that the
Saint Petersburg that he used to know does not
exist anymore. Renamed Leningrad and
deprived of its status as capital, the city with its
monumental buildings and statues of Lenin is
foreign to Filimonov as is everything else in this
new world created by the 1917 Revolution. As
time goes by, however, he learns to appreciate
the new ways and, although he is not reunited
with his wife, he regains full control of his life.
At the end of the film, Filimonov breaks the
fourth wall and addresses the audience directly
as he declares, in true Soviet fashion: “There is
still much work to be done!”
As chance would have it, Ermler’s film
about the end of an era marked the end of an era
for Ermler himself. After finishing work on
Fragment of an Empire, the director announced
his retirement from cinema, enrolled as a student
at the Communist Academy, and returned to
filmmaking only in 1932 with Counterplan, one
of the first Soviet “talkies” and one of the
foundational films of socialist realism.
Fragment of an Empire thus proved to be
Ermler’s last silent film, his last collaboration
with the actor Fedor Nikitin (who had starred in
four of his silent features), and his last film until
the beginning of World War II that dealt with
the revolution and the civil war rather than
every-day Soviet life.
The transitional status of the film is
reflected in its narrative and aesthetic choices,
which oscillate between formalist and socialist
realist tendencies. The use of memory loss and
recovery as a plot device reconciles the two as it
simultaneously creates a formalist
defamiliarizing effect and serves as a basis for
the classic coming-to-consciousness narrative of
socialist realism. Prior to Filimonov’s
realization of the true scale of the revolution, he
is continuously compared to a helpless and
clueless child. Everything around him appears
new and intimidating. A statue of Lenin towers
over him just as an adult towers over a five yearold; revolving doors and loudspeakers terrify
him; his remarks are out of place and are
received with a roar of laughter that in turn
cause childlike outbursts of rage on his part. As
he matures politically, however, he learns to
control his emotions—when his wife refuses to
leave the material comforts of life with her new,
abusive and opportunistic husband, Filimonov
remains composed and takes his leave after
referring to the couple as “pathetic fragments of
an empire.”
The theme of fragmentation runs
throughout the film. Fragment of an Empire
starts with scenes from the Civil War. The
shell-shocked Filimonov does not fight for either
side but he witnesses the effects of the war. As
he is walking across a field covered with dead
and dying soldiers, the woman who has given
him shelter is collecting the boots of the
deceased men. The camera captures the bodies
in fragmentary fashion: feet, legs, close-ups on
the faces of the suffering men. The Civil War
comes to an end, the film skips ahead to 1928
(the film’s narrative is itself fragmented) when
Filimonov begins to recover his memory. His
recollections are incomplete and disconnected,
triggered by a visual resemblance with the
objects surrounding him. The painful process of
recollection is captured in a beautiful montage
sequence that is considered by many to be
among the most memorable in the film and in
Soviet avant-garde cinema in general.
Be it fragmented bodies, memories, or
lives, it is the war that produces the
fragmentation. It is the First World War that
separates Filimonov’s life into a “before” and
“after.” In one of the most poignant sequences
of the film, the protagonist’s memory brings him
back to the war. He is approaching an enemy
soldier and as he comes close enough to see his
face, he recognizes himself in the enemy. Every
single soldier in the sequence, except for the
officer giving orders, is played by Nikitin. The
sequence, albeit brief, conveys the film’s most
powerful message—the futility of violence. In
this light, it is remarkable that Ermler chose to
open the film with scenes of the Civil War. The
enemies in this case have distinct faces of their
own but it is impossible not to draw a parallel
between the flashback sequence and the Civil
War scenes. Extreme low-key lighting separates
them visually from the well-lit scenes capturing
Soviet life after the war.
Although it is the First World War that
leaves Filimonov shell-shocked and amnesiac, it
is the Revolution and the Civil War that make
the protagonist a “pathetic fragment of an
empire.” In this light, the message of Ermler’s
film appears significantly more critical of the
new Soviet regime than it may seem at first.
The viewer is encouraged to empathize not only
with Filimonov but with his former employer
and his wife. Unlike the numerous faceless
factory workers, they do not laugh at the dazed
and confused Filimonov but offer him the little
money that they have left. In fact, it is only the
characters associated with the past that have
names and distinct personalities of their own—
Filimonov, his wife Natal'ia, her new albeit
abusive and hypocritical husband, the Red Army
soldier whom Filimonov rescued from death
during the Civil War. As the protagonist adjusts
to the new environment, he gradually loses his
personality. The man with an unkempt beard
and lively eyes eventually merges with the
crowd—his beard has been trimmed, his
emotions brought under control. Filimonov no
longer needs the viewer’s compassion but he
does not evoke any other feelings either. In
Ermler’s rendition, the new empire, built amidst
the ruins of the old one, may be empty inside.
Ellina Sattarova
Fridrikh Ermler (born Vladimir Breslav) was
born in the Latvian city of Rēzekne in 1898. He
adopted the pseudonym “Fridrikh Ermler” while
working as a spy for the Bolsheviks during
World War I. After the Civil War, Ermler
studied at the Leningrad Institute of Screen Arts.
He directed his first film, a short, Scarlet Fever,
in 1924 and then earned critical acclaim for his
1927 feature The Parisian Cobbler. Over the
course of his career, Ermler was awarded four
Stalin Prizes. Among his major films are
Peasants (1934), She Defends the Motherland
(1943), and The Turning Point (1945). Ermler
died in 1967 in Leningrad.
Selected Filmography
1958
1953
1949
1945
1943
1934
1932
1929
1926
The First Day
Dinner Time
The Great Force
The Turning Point
She Defends the Motherland
Peasants
Counterplan
Fragment of an Empire
Kat'ka the Apple Seller