Ivan's Lament: Viewing Repin's 'ivan The Terrible And His Son Ivan' Poem by Christian Muller

Ilya Repin's magnum opus "Ivan the Terrible and his Son Ivan" is a painting that has drawn admiration since its inception. The horror of a father murdering his son is mixed with the sheer sublime of Repin's sense for image and spectacle. One of the greatest parts of the painting is Ivan's face as it conveys as well of emotions. Very few of the world's artists can make their viewers empathises with the tyrant. The painting is almost Shakespearean in its layout and could have been a scene from one of the bard's great tragedies. The sonnet is from Ivan the Terrible's perspective. The metre is purposefully broken and jittery to capture Ivan's racing, grieving and chaotic mind. Ivan does not use official titles for his son, rather referring to him as "My boy". He asks himself what he has done to his son. He commands his son not to die. His tyrannical hands could turn soft for the few he loved. He then curses his hands (the hands that killed his son) . He asks what writer would kill his inspiration and what father will kill his son. If Kossak horsemen attached ropes to Ivan, they would not be able to drag him from his son's corpse. All the floods of human history (or maybe Noah's flood) could not wash away and sanctify his son's blood. He did not cry for all the people he commanded to be killed as Tsar. He wonders why he would now cry for one. In the final line he commands for his son to arise from here and ascend. This could either be a stroke of madness or a touch of hope that his son might still find salvation, a salvation away from him.