With her bluff, businesslike profile and flat-sided, seaworthy hull, the Potemkin marked a design step away from the French-influenced battleships in the Russian fleet. The ship was named for the distinguished 18th-century soldier-statesman, Prince Grigory Potemkin, founder of the Ukrainian town of Nikolayev with its three shipyards, and counselor to the Empress Catherine the Great. For Catherine's processions through her realm, Potemkin often created false-front villages along the route to hide the dire poverty and misery of rural Russia; history has not recorded whether the Empress, a liberal-minded monarch who correponded with Voltaire, suspected the deceit or not. These Potemkin Villages illuminate a recurrent theme in Russian civilization, that of coverup, smokescreen, false statistics, fuzzy ethics. These issues are not unique to Russian civilization, either.

As part of its buildup for confrontation with the Japanese, the Imperial Russian Navy placed two battleships of the latest kind on order in 1897: one was the Potemkin, the first full-size modern battleship commissioned for service on the Black Sea. Potemkin was built by the Nikolayev shipyard in Ukraine, virtually on the shores of the Black Sea, to specifications remarkably similar to those of Retvizan. The contract for Retvizan went to Cramps of Philadelphia, PA, who simultaneously were constructing the four-funnel cruiser Varyag for the Tsar and a number of large warships for the USN. The American yard produced Retvizan -- regarded as one of the best ships in the Tsar's navy -- in less than three years; but at Nikolayev a more relaxed pace prevailed. The Potemkin (seen at right ready for launch) was completed in 1904, after six long years of construction. While the American-built ship had a flush deck from stem to stern, Potemkin had a proper fo'c'sle head, and a stepped-down quarterdeck for the after turret. The commodious quarterdeck was also used for muster, as seen in the movie. In between rose a boxy midships citadel bristling with 6" and 3" barrels, and topped with three slender stacks evenly spaced. In an era when Russian heads had been turned by the over-generous curves of French battleship design, Potemkin reverted to straight-up sides -- known in naval circles as "slab sides." The midships gunhouse made her a chunkier-looking ship than Retvizan, whose sides retained moderate tumble-home and were broken up by an intricate set of cutouts and rounded casemates for the sided guns. At 12,500 tons standard displacement, Potemkin was some 400 tons smaller than Retvizan. But to make up for it, Potemkin was 2 knots slower as well. Innovations in the design included Krupp armor -- the first Russian ship to use it; director fire control -- again, a first; and originally, oil-fired boilers. This last was not a success; boiler room fires on trials convinced the Admiralty to rebuild with conventional, coal-fired Belleville boilers, as had happened with the liquid-fuel furnaces of the Rostislav a few years previously.

As a freshly commissioned Black Sea Fleet unit, Potemkin was exempt from the call to voyage out to Asia with Adm. Rozhdestvensky's armada in the Russo-Japanese War. A stoutly-built and well-armed vessel when commissioned, she became prematurely obsolete with the coming of the dreadnought after 1906. Named for a local favorite national hero and Ukrainian-built, Potemkin was to make her mark in history in her native Black Sea, where she spent her entire career. There were no dreadnoughts on the Black Sea before 1914. So Potemkin's presence was worth more in this backwater than it might have had closer to the front lines -- and more yet when her force was combined with her two near-sisters of the Evstafi class. She was a prize of war several times over in after years, fought over and largely destroyed, then reborn as a symbol, in Russia's turbulent decades of revolution and rebirth.

Plans and Specifications

Specifications:
Dimensions: 386'8" x 72'2" x 26'   Displacement: 12,500 tons. Armament: (4) 12"/40 guns (2x2), (16) 6"/45, (14) 3" 12-pdr guns, and (4) 37 mm MG; (4) 18" torpedo tubes. Armor: Krupp Cemented type. 9"/7"/2" belt; 5" upper belt; 12"/10" turrets; 10" barbettes; 10" conning tower; 5" conning tube; 6"/5" casemates; 3"/2¼" deck. Fuel capacity: 670 tons of coal normal; 870 tons maximum; 580 tons oil. Propulsion: 22 coal-fired Belleville boilers; (2) 4-cyl triple-expansion engines developing 11,300 hp, shafted to twin screw. Speed: 16 knots. Crew: 731.

Metric Specifications:
Dimensions: 117.86m x 22m x 7.92m   Displacement: 12,500 tons. Armament: (4) 305 mm/40 (2x2), (16) 152 mm/45, (14) 76 mm guns, and (4) 37 mm MG; (4) 45 cm torpedo tubes. Armor: Krupp Cemented type. 229/152 mm belt. 305/254 mm turrets; 254 mm conning tower; 254 mm barbettes; 127 mm conning tube; 152 mm upper belt; 152/127 mm casemates; 76/57 mm deck. Fuel capacity: 670 tons of coal normal; 870 tons maximum; 580 tons oil. Propulsion: 22 coal-fired Belleville boilers; (2) 4-cyl triple-expansion engines developing 8,426.41 kW, shafted to twin screw. Speed: 29.6 km/hr. Crew: 731.

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Ship's History

The mutiny on the Potemkin took place during the abortive 1905 Revolution. It was the disastrous end stage of the Russo-Japanese War, with one colossal cock-up piling on top of another, as the casualties too piled up ever higher. Mutinous mutterings spread through the fleet. The great armada sent to the Orient in 1904 was plagued by suspected sabotage. No one has determined if it were design flaws or deliberately flawed work at the yard that made Russian battleships so prone to complete steering failure. Directly after the May 1905 Tsushima defeat -- in which the Baltic fleet was annihilated -- morale was at rock bottom in what remained of the Russian navy. A revolutionary seamen's council, the Tsentralka, had already formed to plan a fleetwide mutiny during Black Sea fleet maneuvers scheduled later in the summer. Potemkin crewmen wer active in the council; but the Potemkin crew jumped the gun, revolting prematurely over complaints unique to their ship. While the great issues of the war, oppression, corruption, and incompetence loomed in the background, the proximate cause of the June 17, 1905 mutiny on the Potemkin was a time-honored naval beef: Bad food. There was a hated and sadistic exec -- Lt. Ippolit Gilyarovsky -- who was profiting from feeding the men spoiled meat. There was also an incompetent captain, Yevgeny Golikov, who owed his post to influence at court. And lastly there was Dr. Smirnov, the ship's surgeon, who certified the maggoty meat as fit to eat. Newly commissioned and not fully welded into a working unit, Potemkin was on a week's stint of target practice at Tendra Island near Odessa, accompanied by the torpedo boat Ismail. It was there that Gilyarovsky announced severe punishment for those who would not eat the rotten meat, or a soup made from it. In a swift and violent convulsion, the mutineers murdered the offending mate, captain and five other officers, tossing the bodies overboard. Also mortally wounded in the uprising was Grigory Vakulinchuk, leader of the mutiny.

Taking over the ship, the sailors turned it into a nucleus for revolutionary activity and arrived in Odessa, the principal Russian port on the Black Sea, with red flags flying. The battleship anchored a mile out and sent Vakulinchuk's body ashore in a launch, together with an honor guard and a manifesto calling for revolt. Enshrined on the new pier in a tent of oars and sailcloth, the martyr's body caused a sensation and thousands of striking workers, together with their families, converged on the waterfront. Meanwhile, the Potemkin sailors couldn't agree to coordinate in solidarity with workers ashore, at least not to the point of supplying armed muscle to support the general strike underway in the city; proving too cautious, the mariners fumbled their chance to sieze power. Acting on authority from the Tsar, Odessa's military governor, Gen. Kakhanov, declared martial law and ringed the port district with mounted Cossacks who fired upon or sabred down protestors. As evening drew on, unruly elements began looting the warehouses and consuming the abundant supplies of vodka within, setting fires. Kakhanov refused to intervene or allow firefighters to cross the lines, and soon the blaze raged out of control, devouring buildings, railcars and people alike. There was indeed a massacre on the Richelieu Steps that night, as troops fired into masses of panicked people struggling to escape the conflagration -- an escape they were denied. Morning found the port district devastated and the harbor bobbing with corpses. With the new day, dragoons and snipers reasserted control with jackbooted brutality.

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Receiving word that troops were marching toward Odessa to put down the revolt, Potemkin weighed in, ineffectively shelling the governor-general's HQ with her secondary battery. Her gunnery was sabotaged by a loyalist officer who deliberately misdirected the battery on board; two 6" shells fell not on the military command post but on workers' housing, killing several innocent civilians. Soon afterward, two full squadrons of the Black Sea fleet closed around Odessa to neutralize Potemkin. The ship was allowed to depart, the fleet gunners refusing to fire upon her when ordered to do so; indeed, on Potemkin's second pass through the squadron, the battleship Gyorgy Pobiedonosets (seen at Sevastopol) also mutinied and followed Potemkin into exile. Thus began a two-week odyssey in search of food and supplies, denied the mutineers first in Constanta, Romania, and then in Feodosia in the the Crimea, where they sailed the ship.

The Potemkin was a hunted ship. Acting on instructions from Petersburg, Vice Admiral Krieger despatched the torpedo boat Stremitelny, crewed entirely with reliable officers, to corner and if necessary sink the rebel battleship. Fortunately, mechanical failure put the TB off the trail. Meanwhile in Feodosia, a violent scuffle over coal resulted in some 30 mutineers being shot down or captured by government forces. The Tsar's loyalists were closing in. The Potemkin returned to Constanta to surrender. After turning the ship over to the Romanian authorities, the crewmen either settled down in that country or filtered out to the West. In 1907 the Tsar announced an amnesty for the mutineers; but when four of them showed up in response, all were promptly arrested and executed. This made revolutionary martyrs of the mutineers, whose exploits, censored from the tsarist press, nevertheless were widely known through rumor and foreign reportage. Some 600 Potemkin crewmen survived outside the Tsar's domains, however. Among the Romanian contingent, the colorful ringleader, Afanasy Matyushenko, who had taken over after Vakulinchuk's murder and vacillated about joining the workers' revolt, proved a tireless advocate for revolution, inciting it in the Black Sea Fleet. Matyushenko traveled abroad and met Lenin and other emigré revolutionaries, but he preferred the hands-on work to the theorizing and protracted inaction he found in Switzerland. Returning east, Matyushenko dodged in and out of Ukraine for years, daringly promoting insurrection. Eventually he was nabbed in Odessa. Matyushenko's place as a revolutionary martyr was already assured as he mounted the scaffold.

Meanwhile, Romania had returned Potemkin to the Russian authorities. The Sinop was despatched with a picked crew and towed her back to Sevastopol. The two battleships arrived on the feast day of St. Pantaleimon in the Orthodox calendar. Renamed Pantaleimon so the Tsar would never have to hear the distressing name Potemkin again, the battleship grudgingly returned to duty under the Tsarist Andreyevsky banner.

Revolution continued to flare in Russia's cities and military through 1905. The Black Sea fleet mutinied en masse at Sevastopol in November, taking over the brig and busting several of their leaders out of detention. Some 45% of the naval establishment was in revolt, leading the Tsar to authorize drastic measures. Commanding Adm. Chuknin fired on his own fleet from the forts on land, damaging an armored cruiser, and stamped out the revolt with great severity; in a 90-min. pitched battle, Krieger's flagship Rostislav led loyal units against a dozen rebellious ships led by the cruiser Ochakov. The rebel flagship was fired on with 10" and 6" guns and forcibly boarded. Captured rebels were subjected to harsh military justice. The firing squad was busy executing them in reprisal during the winter months of 1905 - 06.

In order to remain in power, in October 1905 the Tsar had promised significant democratic concessions. The October Declarations granted administrative powers to a bicameral legislature -- the Duma -- and citizen representation in city and provincial councils. As revolt continued to smolder, however, the Tsar relied on tried-and-true repression, in the process riding roughshod over the newly authorized legislatures. In one ironic twist a delegation of Duma deputies, visiting Britain to observe parliamentary procedures, was embarrassed when news came from Petersburg that the Tsar had suspended the Duma! As one distraction from domestic discontent provincial governors, on orders from Petersburg, fomented pogroms against the Jews. All across the vast Russian Empire, autocracy stealthily crept back. Within a couple of years, the Romanovs were governing as oppressively as ever. The stage was set for a further cycle of subversion and repression.

Meantime in Sevastopol, the Pantaleimon returned to being a naval weapon. She and her half-sister Retvizan had been by far the most successful Russian battleships in operation. In starting the rebuilding of the shambles of Russia's maritime might after the Russo-Japanese War, Nikolayev Yard had two clones of the Potemkin already on the stocks: the Evstafi and Zlatoust, both destined for Black Sea fleet service. In the Great War, the Evstafis plus the Potemkin teamed with the older pre-dreadnoughts Tri Svyatitelya and Rostislav to become a potent bombardment team. They made economic warfare on Turkey, wrecking the Ottomans' coal supply and distribution network on the shores of the Black Sea. Concentrating their 12" gunfire they even succeeded in driving off the ex-German battlecruiser Goeben in the Battle of Cape Sarych, fought 20 miles south of Yalta on November 18, 1914.

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The Mutiny in Propaganda and Film

But the creaky Tsarist régime was unequal to the demands of waging world war. When the Bolsheviks seized power in 1917, their success was largely due to skilled organizing in the military. In conducting this organizing, cadres used the principle of the soldiers and sailors' soviet, or revolutionary committee -- a tactic pioneered by the Potemkin mutineers. This feature was emphasized in touring party propaganda plays (a specialty of Leon Trotsky when he was not directing the Red Army to victory) during the first few years of communist rule. So the already well-known tale of the mutiny became even more legendary through the megaphone of the Bolshevik propaganda machine. Meanwhile, the ship herself had fallen on hard times, in a pattern quite typical of the period: She was captured first by the Germans, then by the Whites, then had her engines wrecked to limit her usefulness just before her recapture by the Reds. Salvaged and patched up after the civil war, Potemkin became a gunnery training ship, but would never sail as a first-rank warship again. It was at this time, 1921-24, that Lenin and Trotsky both encouraged their star filmmaker, Sergei Mikhailovich Eisenstein (below left), to make a film glorifying acts of heroism in the 1905 Revolution. As originally conceived, the mutiny was to have been but one segment in a "Best of Insurrection" anthology, but Eisenstein did not have the budget to film all of the many tales contemplated for inclusion.

Turning a weakness into a strength, Eisenstein opted to focus in on the Potemkin mutiny in a single feature. He found in the sailors' insurrection moments of stark drama and imagery of great emotive fire. Given the use of the original vessel, the entire Soviet Black Sea fleet, and the entire city of Odessa, together with a generous budget for personnel, ammunition, and special effects, Eisenstein produced the first of his great masterpieces, the silent Battleship Potemkin, released 1925 and premiered in Berlin the following year. Some feel this brilliantly executed battleship epic remains unexcelled by any other film of the genre. While this is an outspoken propaganda film that tugs unabashedly at the emotions, Potemkin wears well with time; the original cut is still exciting and enjoyable to watch today. In fact, it's a far more artful treatment than many of the Hollywood war extravaganzas released in the long years since. Potemkin's montage sequences (particularly at the film's fast-moving climax), a sensational new approach at the time, were widely imitated by Hollywood moguls and totalitarian propagandists alike. The film was originally shown with live orchestral accompaniment. The music was penned by Edmund Meisel, Bertold Brecht's collaborator. Eduard Tisse's poetic cinematography and Meisel's moving music combine to create a ballet of images for the screen. After Potemkin's Berlin premiere, it was immediately hailed around the world as a triumph -- a work that took cinema to a new level, both as art and as entertainment. As the Potemkin's image flickered on the world's screens, the actual battleship had already been cut up for scrap to feed the Five-Year Plan.

In the movie, Potemkin appears in recognizable configuration, with a square window cut into the hull under the forecastle, and painted grey over all. Some of the 6" mounts had been plated over and the midships citadel had been reworked with open-air sponson guns instead of 6" casemate mounts. The lowest platform on the foremast, dwarfing the narrow wheelhouse, is a bristling gunhouse -- the spiky crown seen just over the bridge in the movie posters -- convenient for the film's many set pieces showing revolutionary solidarity, and almost certainly reconstructed for the film -- the original gunhouse and fighting tops having been removed before WWI. The ship's distinctive swept-back bridge wings made a dandy set for the many scenes of mass meetings and revolutionary speechifying. The 12" turrets must have been inoperable, always shown trained fore-and-aft, but the great guns lend a powerful presence nonetheless, especially in the quarterdeck scene of the mutiny. Even the Tsarist double eagle on the prow remained, or was restored for the shoot. Besides Potemkin, the whole strength of the ex-Tsarist Black Sea Fleet appears in the film's final sequence, including the pre-dreadnought Rostislav, the semi-dreadnought Andrei Pervozvanny, and the dreadnought Parizhskaya Kommuna (ex-Sevastopol), which was not even laid down until five years after the Potemkin mutiny. As a number of these ships were rendered immobile by the British, it seems likely Eisenstein edited in pre-revolutionary footage of the vessels at sea during this lengthy sequence. Apparently a number of the underway Potemkin shots were done on one of her near-sisters of the Evstafi class, since Potemkin's engines were smashed beyond repair by the British before they left Sevastopol in 1919; the ships were substantially identical and differences would not have been evident in tight detail shots of smoke boiling from the stacks and the sea splashing by. The location shots of Odessa, including the famous confrontation with the Cossacks on the harbor steps (shown as happening in the daytime), are masterfully set up, though the pacing might seem sluggish to a 21st-century eye. Cinematographer Eduard Tisse produced some of the most lyrical maritime footage ever filmed: the sequences of misty dawn on the Odessa waterfront, and of the small craft sailing out to bring food and comfort to the renegade battleship. At its end, the film coyly implies the entire fleet defected to join the Potemkin mutineers in revolt against the Tsar. Had this been the case, there might have been no need for the 1917 revolutions; but as we have seen, only the Gyorgy Pobiedonosets and one TB followed the Potemkin into open revolt. Triumphant scenes of squadron sailors tossing their caps and cheering on their Potemkin comrades close the film; this is misleading, if not an outright lie. But then, this is a propaganda film, and a mighty powerful one at that. And had he failed to boost the communist cause, the director would surely have undergone re-education by firing squad.

Restored close to its original state, with the 1926 Meisel score, Battleship Potemkin was released in 2007 by Kino in a boxed 2-DVD set. Summing it up, award-winning critic Sir Reginald Bentley-Royce sums up: "Having the actual ship's bridge, engine room, messroom, decks, masts, and gun mounts available as a set -- not to mention the entire population of Odessa, its fishing, naval and merchant fleets as supporting players -- lends an incomparable verisimilitude to the work. Taken all in all, it is Eisenstein's definitive masterpiece -- and indeed, one of the most influential photoplays in all of cinematic history." We would not dream of contradicting such an authoritative pronouncement.

The Potemkin's experience may have been iconic, but for dramatic episodes in war, any ship in this section and time period will do -- if it was in the Russian Navy at the time, it took part in the harsh clashes of the WWI/revolutionary period, often fighting on two or even three sides within a six-year period -- often ending up disabled and left to rust away. One of the reasons Potemkin's story was so dear to Lenin and Trotsky was that they owed their position to the crucial support of the Kronstadt Soldiers' and Sailors' Soviets. Mutinies in the Baltic Fleet (right) had spearheaded the outbreak of the October Revolution which brought the Bolsheviks to power in 1917. And a year later, revolutionary activists in Germany's High Seas Fleet sparked the revolt that toppled the Kaiser's war machine and brought a swift end to the War, enabling the Bolsheviks to consolidate their rule within Russia and build socialism in one country. Certainly all of these revolutionaries took the Potemkin mutiny as inspiration.

Eisenstein's cinematic melodrama has ensured immortality to one version of the Potemkin story. But as with The Sand Pebbles, the historic record proves deeper than the film version. On closer acquaintance, the actual tale of the ships, people, and movements involved proves more nuanced and intriguing than the razzle-dazzle of any celluloid epic. For further study, see Neal Bascomb's recently-published, exhaustive account Red Mutiny (Houghton Mifflin, 2007).

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A Potemkin Picture Gallery

Potemkin at her mooring in Sevastopol Harbor later in her career.

Potemkin at anchor early in her career. The gilt eagle stands out well against the black prow.

Potemkin flies the red flag of revolution in this contemporary photo. This profile view shows the cliff-like armored citadel amidships, and the break in deck levels from fo'c'sle to quarterdeck. Click image to enlarge.

Potemkin's stern, showing aft port 3" gun and gilt double-headed eagle wrapped around the stern.

A quarter view of the ship taken during at Constanta during the 1905 mutiny emphasizes the ship's square, blocky layout and the great cranes and funnels dominating the boat deck. Pilothouse windows of secondary command station overlook the ship's stern. It was on this quarterdeck, under this pair of 12" guns, that Vakulinchuk and his fellow revolutionaries challenged the "dragons" for command of the ship and won.

The mutiny took place on Potemkin's quarterdeck during a showdown over rotten meat, as shown in Eisenstein's movie on the uprising. Seizing rifles, the mutineers took control of the vessel after less than an hour of confused fighting, clubbing officers who resisted and throwing seven of them overboard into the anoxic waters of the Black Sea. In background, Ismail fires a gun in support.

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As seen in the movie, mutiny ringleader Grigory Vakulinchuk was killed in the takeover and his body taken to lie in state on the Odessa waterfront with the legend "For a Spoonful of Borscht" hung around his neck (referring to soup made with the maggoty meat, which the crew had refused to eat). Here an orator waves a ship's cap with its forked ribbons while a crowd of outraged civilians looks on. Perhaps he is reading the stirring call to arms from the Potemkin's sailors' council. Vakulinchuk's body is visible on a bier inside the tent; Potemkin hovers just offshore.

Potemkin's crew swarmed over the foredeck and bridge for mass meetings during the period of the mutiny; many clustered on the foremast searchlight platforms and fighting top. Photos such as this were carefully studied and replicated in the movie's shipboard tableaux. The ship's shapely, swept-back bridge and interesting platforms made a bully stage for scenes showing the revolutionaries' meetings and greetings. At right, Potemkin steams across the Black Sea in 1913 exercises. The fighting tops were removed from the masts in 1912.

Model in the Ukrainian State Museum shows Potemkin as she appeared at Odessa.

Red flags flying, Potemkin steams brazenly through the middle of Admiral Krieger's squadron. Both sides were cleared for action, but no shots were fired. Identifiable ships here include the flagship Yekaterina II and her sister Gyorgy Pobiedonosets, which joined the mutineers briefly before being retaken by counterrevolutionaries and grounded at Odessa.

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The Potemkin soon after returning to Sevastopol, 1905.

Noonday light picks out the secondary guns on the Pantaleimon, ex-Potemkin.

Hands at muster on the Pantaleimon, ex-Potemkin at Sevastopol. 3 Saints in background.

Potemkin makes a handsome model -- in this case, the Heller 1:400 scale kit, built by Rusty White of Flagship Models. Note the cleaner look to the sweep of the bridge and side than in Retvizan, due to the absence of cluttering "shooting galleries." Note also the handy anchor bed built into the forward hull.

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Potemkin Weblinks

• A more in-depth look at the Potemkin's Chequered Past
• The Mutiny: A History in Stamps
• Historical Narrative in the Eisenstein Film: - Scholarly Essay by Gregg Severson
• The Eisenstein Film (1925) - Made in R.S.F.S.R.
• Watch Thrilling Final Sequence - Red Meat to all Battleship Lovers (Guaranteed, No Maggots)
• Watch 1976 Soviet Restoration of Battleship Potemkin -- in its entirety
• Kino's New Issue of The Eisenstein Film (2007) - Made in Germany (Deutsche Kinemathek)
• Order It Now!
• Potemkin's Half-Sister Retvizan (1898/1901) - Made in U.S.A.
• The Imperial Russian Navy (1863-1919)
• The Imperial Japanese Navy they Fought
• The Battle of Tsushima (1905): The Tsarist Fleet's Armageddon
• The Siege of Port Arthur (1904): The Tsarist Empire's Cataclysm by Land
• Overview of Russo-Japanese War
• Architecture of Odessa - A Feast for the Eyes and Heart

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