THE RURAL IDYLLS of Nikita Mikhalkov's Academy Award–winning attempt to reckon with Russia's Stalinist past, Burnt by the Sun (1994), are punctuated by the appearance of an ominous glowing orb that hovers close to the central characters, marking them for death. There's little doubt as to what it represents: this sentient ball lightning is an avatar of Stalin himself. The image is arresting, somewhat ham-fisted, and not at all new. In fact, it's very much of the period. Mikhalkov's film is set in 1936, at the start of the Great Terror, which would reach its height the following year. On November 15, 1937, a breezy squib in Time Magazine reported that:
Searching for the best phrase with which to hail Joseph Stalin, Soviet editors not long ago began calling him “Our Sun.” This caught on in the Soviet Union from coast to coast. Like Louis XIV of France, Le Roi Soleil (“The Sun King”), Dictator Stalin is the actual Sun around which Communist constellations revolve, might say truly if he liked “L'état c'est moi.”
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