#both a theme of goncharov and a very real feeling in the unfortunately real world

[mashkaroom]

WAIT this just reminded me of one of my fave lines from Goncharov, when Goncharov says to Katya "Your name has 5 letters" and she replies "I am a 4 letter word". What is the meaning behind this?

The poetess Marina Tsveyaeva wrote a cycle of horny poems to the author of the poem in this song, Aleksandr Blok, which she handed to him, and get this, at their FIRST AND ONLY MEETING. But in one of them, called "Your Name", she writes "one single movement of the lips, your name -- 5 letters". Now, you may notice, as I did not that Blok (Блок in Russian) is, in fact, 4 letters. So why 5? Because she wrote this in 1916, before the revolution and before the orthography reform that eliminated the now superfluous 5th letter at the end of Blok's name, the hard sign. It used to be written Блокъ.

So that's why Goncharov tells Katya this seemingly random fact about her name -- he's referencing this famous love poem. BUT crucially to understand, in Russian Katya (Катя) is 4 letters. Aside from referencing the poem, he's also referencing the Latin spelling of her name (idk how it'd be transcribed in Italian -- Katia? -- but obvs the film was released for an English-speaking audience).

SO when Katya says "I am a 4-letter word", she's not just saying she's a curse (the phrase 4-letter word comes from the fact that so many English swears [shit, fuck, damn, etc] have 4 letters), she's also saying that she's not willing to give up her ties to their past life.

I know someone posted the timeless main theme already, but my favorite musical moment in Goncharov is definitely the song that Katya sings in the cabaret just before the infamous poker scene with Sofia... and her reprisal of it just before she "dies" (EVEN THOUGH I STILL THINK EVERYTHING POINTS TO HER FAKING HER DEATH) just breaks my heart every time....

The music supervisors did their homework on this one too, because the lyrics are actually from a famous poem by Russian poet Alexander Blok, and they just fit the tone of the show SO well...

Night, street, lamp, drugstore,

A dull and meaningless light.

Go on and live another quarter century - nothing will change.

There's no way out.

You'll die, then start from the beginning;

It will repeat, just like before:

Night, icy ripples on a canal,

Drugstore, street, lamp.

UGH! THE THEMES! THE BLEAKNESS OF IT ALL! Anyway, if you need me I'll be hiding in my room and being absolutely normal about all this... and I may post more hard-to-find clips from the soundtrack to my music blog @traumaticmagic later