LAUSR

The latter ruler, who has been synonymous with the cruelty of the state apparatus for essentially the entire Russian cultural tradition, beginning with Aleksandr Herzen and Lev Tolstoi, is here reimagined as a moral standard, a monarch capable of action in political turmoil. His attitude to power is radically different from that of the revolutionaries: for Nicholas I, power is neither a tool nor a goal, but a burden imposed by God himself. Like Christ, the Russian tsar sacrifices himself for the salvation of others: he does not allow his subjects to commit this sin. (Russian rock group Nautilus Pompilius’s song “Apostol Andrei” serves as the film’s main musical theme and confirms the Biblical metaphor.) The Decembrists in The Union of Salvation long for immediate and violent change, the content of which is never discussed. Their idea of a constitution is abstract and divorced from Russia’s historical development; true reforms must be carried out from above, gradually, without social upheaval. In the final scene, Nicholas I, having saved the country from revolution, looks with tenderness and hope at his son, the future reformer Alexander II. The Union of Salvation was presented to the public just a month before Putin announced the need to amend the Russian Constitution. Critics protested that the amendments destroy basic constitutional principles, asserting the de facto nonremovability of power and the lack of transparency in government decisions. The Union of Salvation provides an exhaustive answer to such critique: constitutions are temporary and unreliable, whereas “true law” is laid down in state history and revealed through the will of the sovereign.