The Hobbesian state of 'Leviafan': How Thomas Hobbes can help us understand Zvyagintsev’s most enduring message
Hugo Cantrell examines how a 17th-century English philosopher can shine a light on 21st-century Russia’s greatest filmmaker.
Can you pull in Leviathan with a fishhook, or tie down its tongue with a rope? Will it keep beggin you for mercy? Will it speak to you with gentle words? Nothing on earth is its equal. It is king over all that are proud.
—Vasiliy, Leviafan, 2014
Thomas Hobbes. Line engraving by W. Humphrys, 1839. (Image credit: Wellcome Images, Wikimedia commons)
Andrei Zvyagintsev (Image credit: Denilaur/Wikimedia commons)
In the years since Zvyagintsev’s seminal film Leviafan (Leviathan, 2014) was released, its relevance has hardly diminished. Both a stunning art film and a polemic on endemic corruption and social malaise in the Russian borderlands, Leviafan represents the best of Russian cinema since the turn of the millennium. More to the point, it is the best examination by a Russian director of the structures of hierarchy and patronage that make up Kremlin politics.
The ideological bedrock of both the film and of Russian politics is arguably Leviathan: The Matter, Forme and Power of a Commonwealth Ecclesiastical and Civil, commonly referred to as simply Leviathan, Thomas Hobbes’ passionate defence of absolute rule in 1651. The new Russian state under Putin has frequently been contextualised within the bounds of Hobbesian thought, but in Zvyagintsev’s sardonic world he poses the question: what happens when the state betrays its people and begins to cannibalise itself?
Thomas Hobbes was a 17th century English philosopher who deemed the absolute sovereign essential to avoiding a return to what he considered humanity’s default mode of existence, the “state of nature” in which there will be a bellum omnia contra omnes, a war of all against all.
“In the state of nature nothing can be just or unjust, and every man must be considered to have a right to all things”
Under these circumstances, society becomes a Darwinian fight for survival. Hobbes himself called it a race. Hobbes and Putin may not have been friends had they lived concurrently — Putin would probably rather associate with Machiavelli (better to be feared than to be loved is surely his rule for life), but they certainly would have shared common philosophical principles. Thomas Hobbes in 1651, having been shocked by the relentless violence of the 30 Years War and English Civil War, quickly decided that humanity could not be left to its own devices. Humanity requires an artificial construct, which he conceptualised as a giant biblical sea creature, (some do attest to his “brain fever” at the time of writing) in order to maintain control. Some consider even some modern democratic states Hobbesian, but most quickly and explicitly rejected his ideas, evidenced by the burning of his works at Oxford University in 1655. However, in Russia the myth that an omnipotent leader is required still abounds. and Putin certainly has a deft hand in perpetuating said myth. His victory in the recent referendum was his longest stride towards ruling Russia ad mortem, cementing Russia’s potential as a Hobbesian state: a state completely unthreatened by change and upheaval.
[Spoilers for Leviafan ahead…]
In the Russia of Zvyagintsev’s Leviafan, Hobbes’ social contract is for all intents and purposes maintained. The myth holds true, and the “state of nature” is kept at bay. Social order is maintained at least to the extent that the corrupt leadership of the town of Pribrezhny goes unchallenged. The triumvirate of the judiciary, the executive, and the church remain firmly in place and under the control of the government. It is only the main character Kolia who attempts to confront the powers that be, but everyone else, including Kolia’s friends, are complicit in the upholding of this social order, for instance giving evidence against him in the investigation of his wife Lilya’s death. The final scene of the town’s more sophisticated residents leaving the new Orthodox church is testament to the ability of these institutions to maintain at the very least the impression of social order. Indeed, for Hobbes there was nothing more abhorrent than the idea of revolt. The social contract in Pribrezhny equally depends upon the “mutualle (sic) relationship between protection and obedience”, enabling the incumbent powers to indefinitely stave off any change in management.
Zvyagintsev, far from denying the relevance of Hobbes’ theory, acknowledges the existence of the social contract in Russia, but judges it to be fundamentally toxic. Hobbes considered choice the source of death and destruction; life is simpler when we have basic guiding principles. How can Kolya have the opportunity to freely pursue profit when his family home is taken from him and he is imprisoned? Roma does not have the opportunity to freely pursue profit when he is left abandoned. Lilya does not have the opportunity to freely pursue profit when she is pushed to the point of suicide. Life is “nasty, brutish, and short” because of the operations of the state, not despite them. This assertion aptly describes the pallid existence of those who live in the town and thus raises questions over the legitimacy of the social contract in Pribrezhny. Leviafan shows that the reality within this system is that residents of Pribrezhny have instead become part of a Darwinian fight for survival.
The frontispiece for Hobbes’ Leviathan.
It is worth remembering that Vladimir Putin was elected in 2000 following an invasion of Chechnya that he orchestrated, engineering the conditions of dependency for a Hobbesian state. Many critics of Hobbes overlook the fact that he did not believe humans were inherently violent, but simply mistrustful and naïve, incapable of independently maintaining order. The sovereign is there to step in and alleviate the burden of responsibility from humanity. But where Hobbes was reacting to chaos, Putin creates it, corrupting the sovereign role. These parallels reveal themselves when one thinks about Hobbes’ language. His “state” of nature, conceived of as a geographical as well as theoretical place (in his case post-war England), is leaderless – Charles I had been publicly executed three years earlier.
It is not just the bigger picture that makes Zvyagintsev’s vision so urgent. Through details, the director ensures the Leviathan’s looming presence is felt often. Much like a medieval monarch, Putin is present in spirit alone and only notable via a painting on the wall (and not, notably, among the bullet-punctured portraits of previous Soviet leaders) where incidentally an icon would traditionally be placed. Raising himself to a position of untouchable status aids the solidity of this sovereign authority. A minor detail, but it changes the way we think of Putin. His mouthpiece is the priest, the implication being that Putin is raised to the status of deity under this system. In the background are ruined churches, feral children, pornographic images — all implying an absence of morality, a state of decay. According to Zvyagintsev, Putin has filled a gap in the market for authority.
It would be unfair to Hobbes to leave the impression that he was something he was not. While I have compared his ideas to Putinism, he was not a man looking for personal gain. By the time he wrote Leviathan he had reached his 60s. And he may have supported absolutism, but like Zvyagintsev his work emanated from a place of pity at the failures of state governance, and from anger at the suffering he saw around him. The chaos, the pain, and the violence – both men are observing the same problem from different perspectives. For Hobbes, the sovereign is a decision maker who represents us by managing the peace. It didn’t matter who it was as long as they held at bay the “state of nature”. This doesn’t work for Zvyagintsev, who considers absolute power a corrupting on every level of society. Whether you believe his truth or not – although recent events in Russia seem to corroborate his vision – the fact remains that considering the ideas of his intellectual opposite, Thomas Hobbes, is the best path to understanding his political voice.
