mentalblog.com comments:
Tzemach,
Thank you for posting these fascinating videos. I must say that I still find the strains of the Internationale stirring in a weird sort of way, even though I now recognize it as the anthem of a failed universalist totalitarianism, rather than anything that offered the people freedom and a better life.
At any rate, the style of oratory that Trotsky displays is indeed different from the style that we are now more accustomed to in the West. You have identified this style with a Jewish or perhaps an Eastern European style, and have identified the more subdued style as Anglo-Saxon. However, and I am going to offer you a McLuhanesque interpretation, the differences in style have more to do with amplification than with cultural differences between Eastern Europeans (or Jews, or Western Europeans) on the one hand, and Anglo-Saxons on the other hand.
Trotsky was speaking before large, outdoor audiences, using only his naked voice to carry his message to vast numbers of people.
If you look at photographs or the few extant videos of Theodore Roosevelt in similar situations, I think you will see very much the same style. Huge gestures, vivid facial expressions, and a shouted, almost chanted delivery. Here’s a rather subdued example: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J...h?
v=JCji7GAdr4Y
Imagine Abraham Lincoln at Gettysburg, speaking in an open field under the cold November sky before an audience of 15,000 people. How could you make yourself understood, and emotionally move such a crowd?
It is no wonder that the great orators of the past spoke slowly, gesticulated with broad, sweeping gestures, and worked themselves to a high emotional pitch. They had to communicate their passion to vast crowds without the help of amplification devices of any kind.
Also, most of them were tenors, since the tenor voice naturally carries over greater distances better than the baritone or the bass.
Even into the era of amplification, the fiery style of oratory persisted. Think of Mussolini or Hitler, for example, shouting into the microphone.
(Parenthetically, it is interesting that many of the important political leaders of the 1930s spoke with pronounced regional accents. Mussolini had an obvious and non-standard Emilia-Romagna accent, Hitler had a marked Austrian accent, and Stalin had a strong Georgian accent. Franklin Roosevelt spoke with the accent of a member of the landed gentry of the Hudson Valley, and Churchill spoke with the accent of an aristocrat.)
The fireside chats that FDR produced on the radio showed the way to a much more intimate and quieter approach to speechmaking. He was still quite capable of delivering a stemwinder, but in general, his approach to oratory was more measured and restrained than that of many earlier American politicians. I found one video of Stalin speaking over an amplification system, that is also more subdued than the earlier videos of Trotsky.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v...h?v=vRw-
ORawG8Q
When you consider Ronald Reagan, you can compare his “Challenger” speech, a desk-side chat that is considered one of his greatest efforts, with his oratory at “Pointe Du Hoc,” the House of Commons, or the Berlin Wall. He does not rise to the emotional pitch of a Trotsky or a Katsav, but two different styles are displayed in these examples.
The Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King spoke in an old-fashioned, church-based preacher mode, and his oratory was more similar to what you would have heard in the XIXth century than the late XXth century.
Nowadays, with the intimacy of the television screen, we prefer baritones or basses to tenors. Think of how pitiful George McGovern sounded, or Dhimmi Carter.
This is interesting in many ways. The operatic style demanded the same of performers - loud voices that could carry in the ampitheater, in the open, or in the theater. Theatrical acting is still about drama and over the top. Close range acting is about body and facial language - a whisper may carry more impact than a shout.
Very interesting!
Perhaps someone (TA) could tell me what the deal with Trotsky was?
I have heard/read opinions across the spectrum, from Trotsky was the best of the Communists who represented all that was good in communism, to he was a despicable low-life murderer who worked to insure that things got worse for the common to help his cause. Was Trotsky ambivalent about religion - I’ve heard that he was in line with the Yvsektzya, and I’ve heard that he was opposed...?
Does anyone know what the man Trotsky was really all about?
chabakuk elisha, firstly you have to come and say that you are prepared to abandone caricatures. After that all the above descririon become null and void and therefore you might have to rephrase your question.
TA,
Everything I've ever heard/read about the man is a caricature… idealist, speaker, revolutionary, martyr, etc.
The reason I ask is to find out if anyone has anything to say other than the caricatures, and perhaps even clarify what some of his positions were...
CE, and you believe that this medium is apporoprtite for the in depth analysis of complex humans?
Not necessarily in-depth, but certainly (I hope) more than the run-o-the-mill crap that everyone babbles. And at least some accuracy...
And if there is a book, essay, etc. (in English) that you would recommend, I would be quite happy with that as well!
chabakuk elisha,
The primary English-language biography of Leon Trotsky is probably Isaac Deutscher's work. Deutscher was a committed Trotskyite, at least at first, and he had access to all of Trotsky's archives. I think it begins hagiographically, but may become more judicious. I have not read it all.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/
Isa...Isaac_Deutscher
Gandalin, Thanks.
Have you read his books? Is there decent and more condensed bio?
I understand that Deutscher's books on Trotsky get into lengthy discussions of communist philosophy (understandably so - but I'm looking for something more about the man than chakira onto Marxist theory).
Otherwise, I guess, I’ll have to get a hold of the three volumes…
CE, start with Wiki, there are tons of links to the biographies and archives.
My childhood was passed in the milieu of anti-Trotskyites (they could probably be fairly called NMSH or "No More Since Hungary" Stalinists, but in the spirit of their anti-anti-communism, let's just call them anti-Trotskyites); we had Deutscher's biography of "Uncle Joe" on the shelf, but not the three volumes on Trotsky. I think it will be difficult to find a biography that gets to the heart of the man without becoming enmeshed in the internecine communist polemics. I mean, after all, who else would be interested? I think Tzemach has made a good suggestion. Read the wikipedia biography, and if you still have a taste for it, follow the links.
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