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Alexander Troshin
By Naum Kleiman

Alexander Troshin is no more…

This euphemism, in order to mitigate the sorrow of the terrible, irreversible word "died", is deeply unjust.

What does it mean — no more!

The noted historian, theorist and critic will remain with us and his books and articles will be in demand for generations to come. He has left a legacy of his thoughts, interests, inclinations, including his love of Hungarian cinema and Hungary, from which we have learnt so much about the remarkable masters and films of that country.

Still with us are pupils of the "Troshin school", both professionally trained and morally educated students from the Institute of Cinema and the Russian State University; associates from the department in the All-Russia Film Art Institute and the Eisenstein Centre, initiated by him.

Still with us is the strikingly rich conceptualization "Kinovedcheskie Zapiski" magazine which, according to our foreign colleagues, is one of the world's best historico-theoretical editions on cinema. It was invented and launched by Troshin, who managed to keep an exceptionally devoted and first-rate editorial board and contributors.

Still with us is the multi-volume material by Eisenstein and Vertov, re-edited and textually verified with Troshin's support and editing participation.

"A man lives as long as he is remembered", as the saying goes, and no one, from friends and colleagues, who loved and respected Troshin's talents and human merits, will ever forget him.

It's difficult to resign oneself to the thought that we'll never meet Sasha again. That we'll never see his attentive eyes, preventing us from becoming too lazy and aimless. That we won't be able to experience his modest, inconspicuous, sincere and disinterested help. That we'll never call him after midnight to ask for something known only by him or just to share impressions of some film, book or stage production.

Sasha worked restlessly and constantly looking after his colleagues, friends and pupils, very often to the detriment of himself and his private interests, involving his beloved wife Nina Dymshits and daughter Sonya. Only his closest friends knew what an amount of sympathy was concealed behind his reserved manner.

Now we vividly see how irretrievable this loss is. We understand clearly that Troshin is absolutely irreplaceable and his position and mission in our community were exclusively vital and unique. He was far from demonstrating his tastes and ambitions in public, but he was homo politicus in the best sense of this notion.

He was a man of ideals and tried his best to implement them in life despite all the obstacles. That's why he spent so much time and strength in cinema circles and was so disturbed by the fate of the Cinema Museum. He served as an example not only for his students but for all of us.

We were rather moderate in expressing our emotions concerning the importance of his personality, his gifts, his deeds. Was awarding him our Elephant (the prize of the Guild of Critics) for his life achievements enough to express all the depth of our love and respect?

We must do our best to publish "Kinovedcheskie Zapiski" regularly and for many years to come. We must continue investigations in the Eisenstein-Centre in the directions which Troshin foresaw. We must collect and publish a book of his work.

In the course of time we'll discover new reasons to be grateful to him, not for Troshin's personally, but for our common cause which Troshin served so devotedly.

Naum Kleiman
Translated by Nina Tsyrkun (revised by Ronald Bergan)
© FIPRESCI 2008

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