In the North the East and West meet

IN THE NORTH, THE EAST AND WEST MEET Festschrift for Jens Petter Nielsen Kari Aga Myklebost and Stian Bones (eds.)

ORKANA AKADEMISK

Innhold Preface.......................................................................................................................................................................... 9 In the North, the East and West meet. A biographical essay in honour of Jens Petter Nielsen, Professor of High North Studies ...............................................11 Kari Aga Myklebost & Stian Bones

Part I To the Centenary of the Russian Revolution Jødene og den revolusjonære bevegelsen i Russland før 1917 – The Jews and the Russian revolutionary movement before 1917......................35 Åsmund Egge

Великая российская революция сквозь призму столетия – The Great Russian Revolution through the prism of its centenary ....................47 Владислав И. Голдин

An inconvenient anniversary: how Russia did (not) celebrate the centenary of the Russian Revolution..................................................................61 Pål Kolstø

Putin’s history. Aspects of Russian historical culture in the 21st century..........79 Klas-Göran Karlsson

Part II Diplomacy and Security Mellom Albion og Bjørnen. Om mistillit til «krigerstatene» på 1800-tallet – Between Albion and the Bear. On distrusting the «warrior states» during the 19th century................................................................................................93 Roald Berg

«... av hensyn til personalets sikkerhet»? Den norske legasjon forlater Petrograd, desember 1918 – December 1918: the Norwegian Legation leaves Petrograd...........................................................................................................109 Sven G. Holtsmark

Om gjenopprettingen av den sovjetisk-norske grensen som resultat av andre verdenskrig – The re-establishment of the Soviet-Norwegian border as a result of the Second World War.........................................................................123 Alexey Komarov

The narrative of a race for Arctic shelf resources and the Russian Federation................................................................................................133 Willy Østreng

Part III Norwegian-Russian Historical Relations Marriages and political alliances in medieval Scandinavia in the light of Old Norse-Icelandic sources.............................................................153 Tatiana N. Dzhakson

Сибирская компания Йонаса Лида: достижения и неудачи норвежского бизнеса в России в начале ХХ столетия – The Siberian Company of Jonas Lied: Achievements and misfortunes of Norwegian entrepreneurs in Russia in the early 20th century..........................163 Владимир А. Карелин

Эмиграция из России в Норвегию и на ее Север в XX - начале XXI столетий. Волны и их особенности – Russian emigration to Norway and its North in the 20th and 21st centuries. Waves and characteristics.....................................181 Виктория В. Тевлина

Из истории торгово-коммерческих контактов Норвегии и России в 1920-ые годы – From the history of commercial contacts between Norway and Russia in the 1920s..............................................................199 Татьяна А. Шрадер

Vennskapsbysamarbeid som dialogstrategi: Dømet Tromsø - Murmansk – Twin city cooperation as dialogue strategy: The case of Tromsø - Murmansk.....................................................................................................207 Hallvard Tjelmeland

Part IV Literature, Images and Film Historie og roman – History and novel....................................................................223 Erik Egeberg

Fallgruver og epistemiske gullgruver: bilder og historiske fortellinger – Pitfalls and epistemic gold mines: images and historical accounts.................235 Petia Mankova

Screen-testing Arctic governance: Zero Kelvin (1995) and How I Ended This Summer (2010)...............................................................................249 Andrei Rogatchevski

Part V Regional Relations in the North The role of Dutchmen in the negotiations on borders in the northern areas in the late 16th century..................................................................269 Lars Elenius

«Разбойники» на Мурмане и их «жертвы», норвежцы – «Robbers» on the Murman Coast and their Norwegian «victims» ...................283 Екатерниа А. Орехова & Руслан А. Давыдов

Escape 1918: Civil War experiences of the Murman legionnaire Andreas Alariesto..........................................................................................................299 Maria Lähteenmäki

Partisanhuset i Indre Syltevik. Et kulturminnebidrag til partisanenes historie – The Partisan house in Indre Syltevik........................................................................317 Ivar Bjørklund & Einar Niemi

Part VI Aspects of Cooperation in History Первый опыт – Our first experiences.....................................................................333 Олег Ю. Климов

Параллельным курсом – On parallel paths.........................................................349 Aлексей А. Киселев

Несколько слов о замечательном человеке и учёном – Some words about a remarkable person and scholar.........................................361 Ада Кан

Mutual stereotypes: experiences from an international exhibition project................................................................................365 Olga M. Fishman & Nataliia I. Ivanovskaia

A bibliography of Jens Petter Nielsen’s works................................................................................383 Per Pippin Aspaas & Erlend Hagan

About the authors............................................................................................................................................403 Tabula Gratulatoria..........................................................................................................................................407

Screen-testing Arctic governance: Zero Kelvin (1995) and How I Ended This Summer (2010) Andrei Rogatchevski

In 1921, a nineteen-year old Dane called Peter Tutein, an engineer’s son and a student of agriculture, signed a contract with the East Greenland Trading Company to spend two years in Greenland as a trapper and ornithologist. In autumn 1923, on his way back to mainland Denmark, the boat that transported him and other trappers and sealers, the M/S Teddy, got stuck in ice and had to be abandoned. After many days on an ice float, the passengers and crew managed to reach an Inuit settlement and overwinter there. This dramatic experience did not deter Tutein from returning to Greenland yet again, in 1925–26, as a trapper, trader and Danish authority representative in the employ of the Greenland Committee of 1925, which had been established to look after the Danish interests on the island.1 Tutein’s life in Greenland was described in his autobiographical fiction and non-fiction,2 most notably in a novel called Larsen (1929) and its sequel Larsen vender hjem (Larsen Goes Home, 1931). Some 65 years after its first publication, Larsen was filmed as Kjærlighetens kjøtere (or Zero Kelvin in its Anglophone release).3 Zero Kelvin received the 1996 Amanda Award as the Best Norwegian Film of the Year, and was voted the fourth most important Norwegian feature 1

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On its intentions at the point of formation, as well as its fundraising activities, see Grønlands-komitéen af 1925, Grønlands fiskeri og landbrug (København: C. Ferslew & Co, 1925). I am grateful to Dr. Anatol Shmelev (Stanford University) for making this rare source available to me.

Cf. Peter Tutein, Dramaet i storisen: «Teddy»s forlis (København: Westermann, 1945); Peter Tutein, 1953a. Larsen (København: Fremad, 1953); Peter Tutein, 1953b. Larsen vender hjem (København: Fremad, 1953); Peter Tutein, Love in Unfamiliar Places. Transl. by Maurice Michael (London: Elek Books, 1956).

Hans Petter Moland, Kjærlighetens kjøtere (Norway/Sweden, 1995), 118 min., colour.

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Screen-testing Arctic governance: Zero Kelvin (1995) and How I Ended This Summer (2010)

film of the 1980–2005 period in Dagbladet readers’ poll of 2007.4 Largely faithful to its literary source, Zero Kelvin focuses on the relationship among three men — the freshly recruited young poet Larsen (played by Gard B. Eidsvold), the middle-aged scientist Holm (Bjørn Sundquist) and the experienced sailor, hunter and stationmaster Randbæk (Stellan Skarsgård) — spending a winter at a hunting station in 1920s’ East Greenland. In the words of a Dagbladet reviewer, Randbæk «quickly proves himself to be an extrovert and hostile-minded psychopath».5 A personality clash develops between Randbæk and Larsen, which can be described as «the ultimate reckoning between brain and brawn, coarseness and poetry».6 In particular, the pair disagrees over the notion of love, including love for animals. Randbæk, who «is in fact starving for love and affection and friendship but is so full of rage he understandably puts off the others»,7 keeps teasing Larsen that his girlfriend won’t wait for his return (claiming that lust for sexual intercourse, more or less irrespective of who with, is women’s

Zero Kelvin, left to right: Randbæk, Larsen and Holm.

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Marie Aubert, «Folkejuryen valgte Tommy og Nattsvermeren», Dagbladet, August 4, 2007. https://www.dagbladet.no/kultur/folkejuryen-valgte-tommy-og-nattsvermeren/66366544 . Accessed 21 July 2018.

Cf. Fredrik Wandrup, «Iskaldt helvete», Dagbladet, July 17, 2007: «Randbæk viser seg snart å være en utagerende og fiendtlig innstilt psykopat». All translations by the author, unless indicated otherwise.

Cf. ibid.: «et endelig oppgjør mellom muskler og hjerne, grovhet og poesi».

Kevin Thomas, «Kelvin: A Tormented Soul in a Remote, Treacherous Land», Los Angeles Times, March 7, 1997. http://articles.latimes.com/1997-03-07/entertainment/ca-35555_1_remote-land . Accessed 17 July 2018.

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nature8), and insists that Larsen should not undermine the sledge dogs’ commitment to hard work by petting them (Larsen is fond of one dog in particular, called Jane).

Holm strives to observe neutrality, in fairness to both Larsen and Randbæk, and acts as a moderator and pacifier when necessary. Mind- Zero Kelvin, left to right: Randbæk vs. Larsen. ful of the pressing need to co-exist, Randbæk and Larsen also try to achieve a reconciliation. Despite the attempts of all the parties involved, the conflict cannot be resolved by peaceful means, and leads to the deaths of Holm (in a travelling accident, on his way to another hunting station to escape the unbearable atmosphere) and Randbæk (whom Larsen shoots in an attempt to protect Jane from Randbæk’s unprovoked sadistic beatings).9 The relationship between Larsen and Randbæk is based on the true story of Tutein’s conflict with his station master, Viktor Hugo Stjernebo, at Carlshavn in 1921–22. By Tutein’s own admission, if it was not for the presence of a third man at the station, Carslund (a mechanic), […] there would have been only one of us by the following year and he a murderer. It is incredible how bitterly two men can come to hate each other, and what ingenuity they can show in inventing deadly insults.

Inquisitive people have often tried to get me to admit that when men live in such conditions they indulge in abnormal sexual practices. If only these inquisitive ones could be transported to the Arctic at the turn of the year and enabled to peep into a room, its inner walls sheathed with ice, and see the two lousy, bearded, incredibly dirty trappers sitting with their backs to each other so as to avoid having to look at a companion with whom they may not have exchanged a word for a fortnight. The atmosphere is anything but amorous.10 8

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The woman Randbæk loved was unfaithful to him, and he allegedly killed the man she had deceitfully slept with. Ever afterwards Randbæk adopted a cynical attitude to the concept of love.

In the book versions, Holm lives on to fulfil the important function as Larsen’s conscientious mentor in Larsen Goes Home.

Tutein, Love in Unfamiliar Places, 53.

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Screen-testing Arctic governance: Zero Kelvin (1995) and How I Ended This Summer (2010)

Instead of killing his station master, however, Tutein moved without permission to another station, at Cape Mary. The move was retroactively authorized

by Captain Gustav G. Thostrup, when M/S Teddy returned to East Greenland for the 1922 summer navigation window.

The mutual affection between Larsen and Jane the dog is also autobiographical (apparently, Tutein’s favourite Carlshavn dog was also called Jane).

Tutein recalls how Jane «had learned to read my thoughts», and helped him when he twisted his ankle while checking traps in difficult weather conditions («I fastened my belt to her collar, and she pulled me home»).11 According to Tutein, «it was quite obvious that [Jane] was in love with me. During such times as love was possible, I always had to tie her and the dog intended to father her pups together, so as to prevent her pressing her attentions on me».12 In 1922–23, Jane was even allowed to join Tutein at yet another station, Cape Borlase Warren (usually dogs tended to be kept at whatever station they had initially been assigned to).13 In Larsen Goes Home, one of the most painful feelings that Larsen has to endure because of his departure from Greenland is his separation from Jane.14 The Arctic plays a large role in Zero Kelvin’s human drama.15 According to one reviewer, the film’s two antagonists are «captives of the circumstances, whether they move almost double-bent within their cabin’s four walls or are trapped by the enormous ice areas outside».16 Similarly, the Russian feature Kak ia provel etim letom (How I Ended This Summer) – a recipient of several Silver Bears at the 2010 Berlin International Film Festival and the Best Film Award at the 2010 BFI London Film Festival – makes the chief subject of its concern an acrimonious relationship between two Russian men, stuck together at an isolated weather station in Chukotka.17 As one review of the film puts it, «the Arctic Circle makes people crazy. It’s hard to find any other 11 12 13

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Tutein, Love in Unfamiliar Places, 66, 67.

Tutein, Love in Unfamiliar Places, 78–79.

However, at the Wrangel Island polar station in 1932, upon leaving for the mainland after completing his threeyear long stint, a Soviet meteorologist was allowed to take his favourite dog Hardy with him, cf. Konstantin Zvantsev, Zimovka (Leningrad: Molodaia gvardiia, 1934), 160–62.

Incidentally, a man’s loyalty to his dog overpowering his loyalty to humans (and women in particular), in the context of a bitter struggle for survival, is a central topic of the short story «A Boy and His Dog» in Harlan Ellison, The Beast That Shouted Love at the Heart of the World (London: Pan Books, 1979 [1969]), 178–215, set in the post-nuclear world of 2024 and filmed as A Boy and His Dog by L. Q. Jones (USA, 1975), 91 min., colour.

Cf. Thomas, «Kelvin: A Tormented Soul»: the film «gains considerable impact from the icy grandeur of its setting».

Cf. Wandrup, «Iskaldt helvete»: «fanger av omstendighetene, enten de beveger seg nærmest krumbøyd innenfor hyttas fire vegger eller de fanges inn mellom de enorme isflatene utenfor».

Aleksei Popogrebskii, Kak ia provel etim letom (Russia, 2010), 130 min., colour.

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Zero Kelvin: A man in a white Arctic landscape.

explanation for the poor decisions and, eventually, borderline madness of […] the two characters in How I Ended This Summer, an existential nightmare set in that frozen wasteland».18 The young meteorologist Pavel (Grigory Dobrygin) joins the veteran meteorologist Sergei (Sergei Puskepalis) for a summer to gain work experience. Tension between the two flares up before long, initially over relatively small issues. Pavel is more tech-savvy than Sergei, who prefers manual collection and processing of meteorological data to telemetry and does not know what the smiley face emoticon is. Yet Pavel neglects basic safety rules, forgetting to load his rifle, which is meant to defend him on away trips from the station against a polar bear attack. For this, Sergei reprimands Pavel. On several other occasions, Sergei makes Pavel do the cooking (because he cannot be bothered doing it himself ), as well as manhandling and even hitting Pavel for sloppy work and misbehaviour.

The two men’s dislike for each other is additionally compounded by Pavel’s puzzling reluctance to pass on to Sergei the information that Sergei’s wife and son suffered an accident.19 The row gradually acquires life-­threatening proportions: first, Pavel fires a warning shot in Sergei’s direction; then, Sergei 18

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Kirk Honeycutt, «How I Ended This Summer – Film Review», The Hollywood Reporter, October 14, 2010. https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/review/how-i-ended-summer-film-29325 . Accessed 17 July 2018.

Cf. Jonathan Romney, «How I Ended This Summer, Alexei Popogrebsky, 124 mins (12A)», The Independent, April 24, 2011. https://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/films/reviews/how-i-ended-this-summer-alexeipopogrebsky-124-mins-12a-2273973.html. Accessed 17 July 2018: «The film tantalisingly keeps us guessing about [Pavel]’s motives – although one reason seems to be abject fear of [Sergei’s] unforgiving authority figure».

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How I Ended This Summer: A man in a grey Arctic landscape.

unsuccessfully hunts Pavel with a rifle; and finally, Pavel poisons Sergei with stockfish, which he made radioactive by holding it over a radioisotope thermo­electric generator (RTG) that supplies power to the station.

The confrontation between Sergei, «a gruff taskmaster», and Pavel, «bored, restless and chafing under Sergei’s authority»,20 has been variously described as «a collision of the physical world, associated with the severe-looking Puskepalis,21 and the virtual world inside Dobrygin’s shaggy head» (Dobrygin’s character likes playing computer games while off-duty);22 «reminiscent of a typical conflict between fathers and children»;23 and even «representing different sides of Putin’s Russia, one shaped by older traditional ways, the other struggling to discover a new set of values».24 20

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Stephen Holden, «Standoff in a Frigid Circle of Hell», The New York Times, January 27, 2011. https://www. nytimes.com/2011/01/28/movies/28how.html?_r=0 . Accessed 17 July 2018.

Cf. Leslie Felperin, «How I Ended This Summer», Variety, February 17, 2010. https://variety.com/2010/film/ markets-festivals/how-i-ended-this-summer-1117942232/ . Accessed 17 July 2018: «Puskepalis projects just the right mix of vulnerability and suppressed rage to make Sergei look like a bigger threat than the polar bears».

Cf. Kirill Andreev, «Retsenziia na fil’m Kak ia provel etim letom», Film.ru, March 30, 2010. https://www.film.ru/ articles/my-uydem-na-sever . Accessed 17 July 2018: «столкновение физического мира сурового Пускепалиса и виртуального мира в лохматой голове Добрыгина».

Cf. Darklot [M.S. Parfenov], «Kak ia provel etim letom: Retsenziia», Horrorzone.ru, April 24, 2010. http:// horrorzone.ru/page/kak-ja-provjol-etim-letom-recenzija . Accessed 17 July 2018: «навевает мысли о классическом конфликте ‘отцов и детей’».

Philip French, «How I Ended This Summer – Review», The Guardian, April 24, 2011. https://www.theguardian. com/film/2011/apr/24/how-i-ended-this-summer-review . Accessed 17 July 2018. It is not that in Soviet Russia those employed at polar stations always lived at peace with each other. In his memoirs about the Wrangel Island polar station in 1929–32, a seasoned polar meteorologist describes multiple instances of bitter quarrels, mostly over accommodation space and food rations (see Zvantsev, Zimovka, 62–63; 97–98; 133–34; 146). In his introduction to these memoirs, the experienced polar explorer Nikolai Pinegin even felt it necessary to explain such quarrels by a number of factors, the most decisive apparently being the recruitment of whoever happened to be available, and the station employees’ physical isolation from larger Soviet communities (see ibid.: 8–9).

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Despite the distance in time and space that separates the stories told in Zero Kelvin and How I Ended This Summer, both films, independently of each other, are largely preoccupied with the same issues.25 These issues are not limited to the similarities in the plots, which pit two incompatible individuals against each other, with no chance to escape (the tension erupts into violence, followed by lethal consequences).26 Perhaps more important seems to be the fact that one of the individuals is the other’s boss, and pulls rank from time to time which aggravates things further. Another very important feature, common to both films, is the damage to the natural resources in the Arctic resulting from the insensitive management of human resources.

In Zero Kelvin, when Larsen arrives in East Greenland on a boat, Randbæk’s station is given double quotas for the forthcoming hunting season by the company that hires the trappers. This puts Larsen, the rookie that he is, on a very steep learning curve with no time to waste.27 When he spares a moment

How I Ended This Summer, left to right: Sergei vs. Pavel.

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Popogrebskii, whose film is not an adaptation but based on his own original script, says that he did not see Moland 1995 prior to making How I Ended This Summer, and, while working on the project, generally tried to avoid watching films about the Arctic. For this information, I am greatly indebted to Dr Vlad Strukov.

Even dogs are covertly mentioned in How I Ended This Summer, although they are not present on-screen. The film’s fictitious weather station is called Aarchym, after the dog Archum, who lived at the Valkarkay polar weather station, where How I Ended This Summer was shot.

Cf. Dennis Schwartz, «Zero Kelvin (Kjaerlighetens Kjotere)», Ozus’ World Movie Reviews, February 24, 2004, http://homepages.sover.net/~ozus/zerokelvin.html . Accessed 23 July 2018: «The men are under pressure to meet their quota of furs and soon their jangled nerves take a toll from the never ending isolation and the bleakness and the struggle to get the fur pelts».

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Screen-testing Arctic governance: Zero Kelvin (1995) and How I Ended This Summer (2010)

to work on the notes for his book about trappers, Randbæk tells him that there is no free time to be had at the station, drops Larsen’s notebook on the ground and steps on it. This does nothing to improve Randbæk and Larsen’s strained relationship. Moreover, there is a steady impression that, «because of the controversy [between the two], Randbæk use[s] his managerial powers» to make Larsen’s life unnecessarily miserable.28 In a gesture that epitomises bullying as a means of instruction and control, Randbæk whips into submission not only the station dogs (repeatedly) but also Larsen (once).29 Does Randbæk achieve his goal of eliciting obedience-cum-­productivity from those under his command? Not really; as Randbæk and Larsen keep quarrelling, their station catches fire and, symbolically, burns down completely.

Meanwhile, Randbæk succeeds in turning Larsen into another Randbæk.

After Randbæk’s death, Larsen even starts whipping Jane.

Although Tutein’s real-life stationmaster was not apparently as violent as Randbæk, he also […] was responsible to the company in everything, so in reality he made all the decisions. […] Like many other non-descript men he became a little despot the moment he was given authority, and he thought up a lot of irritating idiotic rules about which we had to fight with him. […] If you took the lid off an empty barrel and did not put it back exactly as it had been, you could be sure that he would notice and investigate.30

Arctic foxes were routinely overhunted, which led to a progressively diminishing catch.31 Moreover, no matter how hard it was to catch enough foxes for a quota, the trappers’ tempers, if run too high, would not necessarily spare fox skins from ruin despite the high commercial value of such skins. Thus, during a violent altercation between Stjernebo and Carslund at the Carlshavn station, the two men 28 29

30 31

Cf. Tutein, Larsen, 27: «Randbæk på grund af stridighederne brugte sin magt som leder».

As Randbæk says to Larsen, «dogs need to know who’s boss, otherwise they’d stop pulling exactly at a time when you may need them to. And then you’re really in trouble» (Moland, Kjærlighetens kjøtere).

Tutein, Love in Unfamiliar Places, 55; 65.

Cf. Tutein, Love in Unfamiliar Places, 57: «I got six foxes that first day and was greatly impressed. I got another six the following day, then three, then two and again two».

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Zero Kelvin: Arctic fox pelts

[…] stumbled and knocked over five of the frames [that held stretched fox skins]. The frames went flying, the pins received a great jolt and the skins split. Skins were worth a lot in those days. […] The skins were put to soak, then [Stjernebo] and I between us sewed them up with cotton thread in profound silence.32

The lead characters in How I Ended This Summer are meteorologists, not trappers, hence their activity by itself does not harm the environment. Yet the background radiation emitted by their RTG is known to be above safety limits (by the end of the film, the RTG gets dismantled)33 and dozens of empty fuel barrels and items of disused military equipment are shown to have been left behind by an armed forces unit, once stationed nearby.

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Tutein, Love in Unfamiliar Places, 58. In Larsen Goes Home, Tutein’s depiction of managers centres on their incompetence, as the captain of Larsen’s boat, while trying to escape the ice, effectively drives the vessel further and further into it. The boat’s passengers and crew find themselves on the verge of mutiny and the captain commits suicide. This was Tutein’s poetic revenge on the last real-life captain of M/S Teddy, Henning Bistrup (1879–1948), who in fact lived to a ripe old age, after being exonerated by the shipwreck enquiry. For the genuine story behind Larsen Goes Home, see Tutein, Dramaet i storisen; and Louis Rostock-Jensen, M/S Teddy: Dagbog fra en Grønlandsekspedition 1923–24 (København: Gyldendal, 2004).

The theme of radiation getting out of control is additionally strengthened in the film by the scenes in which Pavel plays a S. T. A. L K. E. R. computer game (a shooter set near the post-accident Chernobyl power plant).

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How I Ended This Summer: Fuel barrels.

The meteorologists’ middle managers (whom the viewers never see but can only hear on the radio) appear to care more about their employees than Zero Kelvin’s Danish company does about theirs. Thus, Sergei is offered closure of his station ahead of schedule, and prompt removal by an emergency helicopter, because of his tragic family situation. Those in charge of Russia’s overall Arctic policy, however, do not appear to care much for the area and its inhabitants. As a film critic points out, Sergei and Pavel […] almost seem like the last survivors in a post-apocalyptic world and, in a sense, they are. [...] Their equipment is antiquated and failing, their food terrible, the place ill-furnished, unpainted and falling apart. This is an official establishment that in the recent past was a hive of activity and common purpose. It has now become neglected in an almost contemptuous way by a state that has given up on self‑respect.34 34

French, «How I Ended This Summer – Review». On the state of affairs in the Russian Arctic around the time of the film’s release, see, for example, Mikhail Sokolov, «Kto zhe ‘pridurok’, esli Rossiia ne sberegaet svoi Sever?», Radio Liberty, October 8, 2013. https://www.svoboda.org/a/25130062.html. Accessed 31 July 2018.

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With regard to the hierarchical relationship between a manager and an employee, Sergei’s mistreatment of Pavel is inexcusable, being nothing short of hazing, and may be symptomatic of how some (or much) of Russia is run, i.e. by coercion rather than persuasion.

It is tempting to compare Zero Kelvin and How I Ended This Summer within the framework of binary vs ternary cultural structures, advanced by Lotman.35 Binary structures are built on a juxtaposition of two antithetical notions (e.g. heaven vs hell), and develop predominantly by means of so-called «explosions», or moments of social and cultural destruction leading to innovation. As for ternary structures, they add to an antithetical pair a third notion that provides a kind of middle ground between the two extremes (e.g. hell-purgatory-heaven), and thus mediates to a certain degree the adversity of irreconcilable concepts. Ternary structures therefore develop predominantly by means of dialogue and compromise. According to Lotman, binary structures are largely characteristic of Russian culture, whereas ternary structures are usually representative of Western European cultures.36

How I Ended This Summer: The RTG. 35 36

Cf. Juri Lotman, Culture and Explosion, transl. by Wilma Clark (Berlin-New York: Mouton de Gruyter, 2009 [1993]).

For more on this, see for example I. V. Kondakov, «‘Kul’turnyi promezhutok’ i ‘kul’turnyi povorot’», Obshchestvennye nauki i sovremennost’, no. 4 (2008): 172.

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Screen-testing Arctic governance: Zero Kelvin (1995) and How I Ended This Summer (2010)

It is not that «explosions» do not occur in ternary structures. They do from time to time. Yet when this happens, […] ternary structures retain certain values from the antecedent period and transport them from the periphery to the centre of the system. By contrast, the ideal binary system is represented by the complete destruction of all that already exists which is considered to be irremediably corrupt. The ternary system strives to adapt the ideal to reality, whereas the binary system seeks, in practice, to actualise an unrealisable ideal.37

This model may well be valid in many cases but it does not fully work when applied to Zero Kelvin. Even though Holm can be perceived as a neutral go-between with regard to Larsen and Randbæk, no workable long-term compromise is ever reached. Quite the opposite. After learning how to kill hares, foxes and walruses, Larsen has no compunction about shooting Randbæk, even though shortly before that Randbæk saves his life.38 Thus, an argument about love vs lust ends up in murder, which is not very different from what happens in How I Ended This Summer, except that there Sergei and Pavel apparently represent an irresolvable clash between the old and the new Russian values, respectively: «In the old Russia you stoically do as you are told to the best of your abilities; in the new, disobedience, shirking and petulance have replaced an unquestioned devotion to duty».39 Also, two antagonists do not always need an intermediary to work out their differences amicably. Ermanno Olmi’s debut feature Il tempo si è fermato (Time Stood Still, 1959) is a case in point. The film is set on a dam construction site in the Italian Alps.40 Work has been stopped for the winter and the site is guarded by two middle-aged men, who communicate with the outside world mostly by telephone (supplying, among other things, meteorological information, just like in How I Ended This Summer). For Christmas holidays, one man is temporarily replaced by a young substitute, who prefers 37 38

39 40

Lotman, Culture and Explosion, 166.

Once caught in traps, foxes were then reportedly killed by crushing their ribs over a stone with a knee, to save on ammunition and preserve the quality of the skin, cf. Tutein, Love in Unfamiliar Places, 56.

Holden, «Standoff in a Frigid Circle».

Ermanno Olmi, Il tempo si è fermato (Italy, 1959), 83 min., black&white. In geographical imaginaries, the Alps are not as far from the High North as one would have thought. According to Peter Davidson, The Idea of North (London: Reaktion Books, 2005), 19, «there may be places – mountain ranges as well as the South Pole – that are thought of as honorary norths».

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fooling around or studying for his exam in economics to fulfilling his duties as a guard, does not drink alcohol, does not do the dishes, sleeps through the morning, likes listening to loud rock music in English, cannot ski well enough and turns his companion’s dip pen into a dart.

Instead of letting himself go wild with irritation, the older watchman takes the younger’s transgressions in his stride, and looks after him, first as a matter of course (e.g. cooking for him and showing him around), and then beyond the call of duty, when an avalanche cuts their electricity off and the wind and cold become too extreme to tolerate in the guards’ flimsy shack.

Both watchmen take refuge in an empty church nearby. The older cures the younger’s fever with a glass of milk mixed with grappa, and even piggybacks him to the shack when the storm is over. The two men eventually find things to bond over, such as playing checkers (the younger guard is better at it than the older) and discussing Cuore (Heart, 1886), a children’s book which was written to teach young audiences various moral values, self-sacrifice among them.41 A mild and endearing comedy of manners, with an obvious didactic and Christian message, this is a far cry from the devastating paranoia of both Zero Kelvin and How I Ended This Summer, even though all three films are devoted to the same topic of strained human relations in a remote and hostile natural environment.42 Religion does not play much of a role in either Zero Kelvin or How I Ended This Summer. Zero Kelvin has a Christmas dinner scene in it – but it ends disastrously, demonstrating that the trappers’ relationship is beyond salvation, as even on a holy night they cannot refrain from squabbling. Maybe lack of faith is one explanation as to why the mood in both films is so bleak and austere. Another reason may be the absence of indigenous peoples on screen: for Inuit and Chukchi, East Greenland and Chukotka are native environs, and, had the indigenes been given an appearance and a voice, they may well have projected a less discouraging and exploitative attitude to their own 41

42

Edmondo De Amicis, Heart: A Schoolboy’s Journal. Transl. by Isabel F. Hapgood. (Amsterdam: Fredonia Books, 2003 [1886]).

Incidentally, environmental issues appear to be resolved in Olmi’s film a great deal more harmoniously, too.

The hydroelectric dam serves as a backdrop for the film’s action in recognition of the benefits brought to Italy by hydroelectrification. Its clean energy had been seen as a welcome departure «from the dust and pollution of the industrial revolution», and its man-made structures, as a «perfect synthesis of nature and modernity». In the words of one environmental historian, «Putting the mountain water to work became the dream to tame forever the wildness of that landscape; dams, reforestation, and reservoirs would impose a modern order on water and rocks», cf. Marco Armiero, A Rugged Nation: Mountains and the Making of Modern Italy (Cambridge: The White Horse Press, 2011), 34–43.

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Screen-testing Arctic governance: Zero Kelvin (1995) and How I Ended This Summer (2010)

lands than those exhibited in Zero Kelvin and How I Ended This Summer.43 Women are also conspicuously absent from Zero Kelvin’s and How I Ended This Summer’s Arctic scenes, even though most male characters constantly think of their other halves. This is because the polar region is traditionally perceived «as an appropriate location for essential masculinity».44 When women are introduced in cinematic polar Robinsonades, it often happens in their capacity as «girl Friday», with man as their chief protector and provider.

An example is the feature film Arctic by Joe Penna (Iceland, 2018), in which a plane crash survivor – a middle-aged man called Overgård (this surname denotes «those who live on a farm high above» but for a non-Scandinavian speaker may associate with a «senior guard or guardian») – comes across a young wounded female survivor of a helicopter crash and, out of pure altruism, takes her to safety on a long journey across a challenging terrain to improve her chances of survival. The woman is almost completely helpless and cannot communicate very well, so Overgård effectively governs her every move for her own benefit.

A somewhat more equal relationship is described in Stijn Coninx’s When the Light Comes (Germany-Belgium-Netherlands-Norway, 1998). This film tells the true story of a young Dutch woman who comes to Svalbard for a year to learn how to be a trapper while staying at the Austfjordneset trapper station with an experienced (and older) local male hunter.45 Initially, the two have a communication problem (his English is not very good, and she does not speak Norwegian). Also, she feels sorry for the animals that have to be killed and her skiing skills leave much to be desired. However, she does her own bit by, for example, improving the hunter’s English and fixing his radio and television aerial. While at the station on her own, she also successfully fobs off a polar bear. Eventually, the hunter and his female apprentice become romantically involved and their little Arctic idyll lasts right up until her pre-planned return to the Netherlands. One cannot help noticing that when two individuals in Arctic isolation represent two different sexes, their relationship is prone to be depicted as more concordant than one involving two or three men.

43

44

45

Tutein dealt with the Inuit on a daily basis during his stays at Angmagssalik (now Tasiilaq) in 1923–24 and at Lindenow Fjord in 1925–26, but this experience does not form part of Larsen and Larsen Goes Home.

Scott MacKenzie and Anna Westerståhl Stenport. «Introduction: What Are Arctic Cinemas?», in Scott MacKenzie and Anna Westerståhl Stenport, eds., Films on Ice: Cinemas of the Arctic (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2015), 16.

For an analysis of Coninx’s literary source, see Leila Werthschulte, «Longing for Light and Love: The Experience of Arctic in Heleen van der Laan’s Waar blijft het licht», Nordlit, no. 23 (2008): 385–417.

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To come back to Zero Kelvin and How I Ended This Summer, both films are, of course, not about people’s balanced co-existence within a natural habitat but about their intense struggle against an alien terrain and each other. From Larsen’s and Pavel’s perspective in particular, Zero Kelvin and How I Ended This Summer can be seen as variations of the Bildungsfilm (or coming-of-age) genre, with highly challenging obstacles providing a formative soul-searching experience unlike any other. With regard to Zero Kelvin, critics speak of a «larger concern with the loss of innocence as a virtually inevitable part of the rites of passage» and «as much a journey into an anguished soul as […] to a remote land».46 For its part, How I Ended This Summer is interpreted as […] a merciless contemplation of the fragile human psyche under siege. Engulfed by a vast unknown, without the protective distractions of civilization, you have only your insecure, frightened inner voice to guide you. This ultimate measure of one’s mettle is a test that many of us would probably fail.47

It goes without saying that were the Arctic replaced on screen by a tropical island paradise, the characters’ challenges would hardly have kept their magnitude.48 The Arctic, traditionally depicted as a «harsh and resourceful frontier that provides a liminal space for testing individual qualities»,49 levels at its visitors and inhabitants survival demands that are extremely difficult to meet, and thus goads the best and worst out of people, frequently to their own astonishment. According to one critic’s opinion of How I Ended This Summer, «it looks as if it is the Arctic […] that is responsible for everything that is going on with the two polar explorers – the forbidding, austere land, 46 47 48

49

Thomas, «Kelvin: A Tormented Soul».

Holden, «Standoff in a Frigid Circle».

Cf., for instance, the oft-filmed modern-day Adam and Eve story of the Blue Lagoon, based on Henry De Vere Stacpoole’s book The Blue Lagoon (London: T. Fisher Unwin, 1908): The Blue Lagoon, directed by Dick Cruikshanks (South Africa, 1923), length unknown, black & white; The Blue Lagoon by Frank Launder (UK, 1949), 101 min., colour ; The Blue Lagoon by Randal Kleiser (USA, 1980), 104 min., colour; Return to the Blue Lagoon

by William A. Graham (USA, 1991), 102 min., colour; and Blue Lagoon: The Awakening by Mikael Salomon (USA, 2012), 85 min., colour. This is not to say that life on an uninhabited tropical island does not have its own significant problems, especially if lived for real and not in an author’s or film director’s imagination (see e.g.

Lucy Irvine, Castaway (London: Penguin Books, 1983); Gerald Kingsland, The Islander (Sevenoaks, Kent: New English Library, 1984); and Castaway, directed by Nicolas Roeg (UK, 1986), 117 min., colour).

Oksana Sarkisova, Screening Soviet Nationalities: Kulturfilms from the Far North to Central Asia (London: I B Tauris, 2017), 65.

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Screen-testing Arctic governance: Zero Kelvin (1995) and How I Ended This Summer (2010)

which itself chooses […] who will stay on it and who will have to depart».50 This statement can also apply to Zero Kelvin.

In particular, survival in the Arctic is arguably more dependent on cooperation, trust and mutual reliance than in many other places on earth. The fact that the action in How I Ended This Summer takes place over the summer period is probably meant to say this: If people, whose livelihoods are contingent on reciprocal tolerance, cannot tolerate each other even for a few months in comparatively mild weather conditions (which still includes snow, storms, getting lost in a thick fog and being caught in pack ice), what are we to expect when they overwinter? And, just as Zero Kelvin explores one such overwintering scenario, it can conceivably be claimed that both films jointly make the following point: humans should not venture too far out into the Arctic wild until they learn how to live together harmoniously and in a mutually beneficial way.

It seems that both Zero Kelvin and How I Ended This Summer, independently of each other, effectively test on screen various (private and state) forms of Arctic governance, in different geographical areas and time periods.51 Both films apparently pronounce the results of their respective screen testing to be equally unsatisfactory, and jointly advocate the so-called Arctic stewardship, i.e. «the socially and ecologically responsible custody of the land»52 in Arctic conditions, even though neither film uses the actual term.

Nevertheless, the films’ message can perhaps be neatly summarised by two quotations, taken from an ongoing discussion of what Arctic stewardship is, or should be: 1) «It is clear that the welfare of northern peoples and Arctic 50

51

52

Cf. Svetlana Stepnova, «Charuiushchaia Arktika», Ruskino.ru, March 22, 2010. https://ruskino.ru/ item/2010/3/22/charuuschaya-arktika . Accessed 17 July 2018: «Кажется даже, что во всем случившемся с двумя полярниками повинна [...] именно Арктика – неприветливая, строгая земля, которая сама выбирает тех, [...] кто уйдет, и тех, кто останется».

It is not only that Zero Kelvin and How I Ended This Summer are set in two different parts of the Arctic. In Zero Kelvin, Svalbard stands for East Greenland, and the Swedes Stellan Skarsgård and Johan Rabaeus (in a bit part) join the Norwegian-dominated cast, even though the film’s literary source is Danish. Cf. MacKenzie and Westerståhl Stenport, Films on Ice, 13: «When, as has often been the case, the Arctic is depicted [in cinema] as otherworldly and at the end of the earth, it is implicitly understood as existing beyond or transcending national borders». Moreover, the action in How I Ended This Summer takes place ninety years after Tutein’s first voyage to East Greenland and eighty years since the publication of Larsen, but the issues raised in the Russian film are not altogether dissimilar. This may signify that comparable mistakes can be made while handling manpower and resources in the Arctic, regardless of where and when exactly this happens. By the same token, such similarities should not obscure the following divergence in the locality-specific (cinematic and literary) treatments of the Arctic: «For a Scandinavian, north – further north, Arctic north – represents a place of extremes that is also a place of wonders. […] The Russian North is as much a place of terror as of enlightenment» (Davidson, The Idea of North, 9).

Lynton Keith Caldwell, «Land and the Law: Problems in Legal Philosophy», University of Illinois Law Review, no. 2 (1986): 323.

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ecosystems is not the primary concern of corporate [and, in the case of How I Ended This Summer, government] decision-makers»;53 and 2) «we all ought to consider ourselves individually as stewards and act accordingly»,54 although this is easier said than done.

The two films’ contribution to the public debate about how to improve the Arctic governance follows one common tendency, noticeable in more or less recent films about the Arctic: «As popular imagery of the Arctic from the outside has shifted from emphasising the terror and beauty of an unattainable sublime, it now conveys the region as endangered, volatile and in need of protection».55 Also, including Zero Kelvin and How I Ended This Summer in the Arctic stewardship discourse helps us understand, in particular, why the conflicts in both films primarily involve an older and a younger person: «Stewardship responsibility extends to both present and future generations».56 On a more general note, my brief analysis of Zero Kelvin and How I Ended This Summer (as well as other relevant films and books) illustrates that, just like literature, cinema often typifies individual experience, generalises it and pronounces a moral judgement over human conduct and its effects and implications. Furthermore, just like opinion polls and focus groups, books and films linked by a common theme/location may provide valuable information on people’s practices and attitudes (especially at a time when sociological tools did not exist or could not be applied). Finally, unlike scientific and policy reports and recommendations, normally accessible only to select groups of people, films may bring a little known but important issue to the attention of a wider public. These observations, however, would not come as a surprise to Professor Jens Petter Nielsen, who from time to time expertly and helpfully introduces screenings of culturally significant films to cinema audiences.

53

54

55 56

Oran R. Young, «Arctic Stewardship: Maintaining Regional Resilience in an Era of Global Change», EIA: Ethics & International Affairs, January 7, 2013. https://www.ethicsandinternationalaffairs.org/2013/arctic-stewardship-maintaining-regional-resilience-in-an-era-of-global-change/ . Accessed 17 July 2018.

Franklyn Griffiths, «Stewardship as Concept and Practice in an Arctic Context», in CyberDialogue 2012: What Is Stewardship in Cyberspace? (2012), p. 4, http://www.cyberdialogue.citizenlab.org/wp-content/uploads/2012/ 2012papers/CyberDialogue2012_Griffiths.pdf . Accessed 17 July 2018.

MacKenzie and Westerståhl Stenport, Films on Ice, 16.

Erroll E. Meidinger, «Laws and Institutions in Cross-Boundary Stewardship», in Richard L. Knight and Peter B. Landres, eds., Stewardship Across Boundaries (Washington, DC, and Covelo, CA: Island Press, 1998), 88.

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This Festschrift is dedicated to Professor of High North Studies Jens Petter Nielsen on his 70th anniversary, in celebration of his diverse and fruitful professional life as a historian. It includes 25 articles written by the celebrant’s colleagues and collaborating partners from the Nordic countries and Russia. Thematically, the articles cover topical research areas within Jens Petter Nielsen’s own authorship, such as Soviet and Russian historiography, the history of the northern regions, and bilateral relations between the northernmost states of Europe. As a gesture of honour, the Festschrift is edited in accordance with many of Jens Petter Nielsen’s own books and articles, accepting articles in Norwegian, Russian and English and thus allowing the authors to publish in their mother tongue. Summaries in English follow each article.

ISBN: 978-82-8104-344-2

ORKANA AKADEMISK

www.orkana.no