Tchitcherine

[Daniel Cape]

Reading "Celluloid Apocalypse" by Ian Christie, in an edited volume
called _The Apocalypse and the Shape of Things to Come_ and I stumble
across this about Ibanez' novel _The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse_
and the film adaptation by Rex Ingram:

"...an important feature of both novel and film, which connects these
to an earlier allegorical tradition, is the motif of the 'four
horsemen', linked to a recurrent prophetic figure, Tchernoff, whose
name suggests a reference to the Russian mystical tradition of
Theosophy or of Gurdjieff. [...] And in a trope repeated forty years
years later by Tarkovsky in _Ivan's Childhood_ , Dürer's famous book
of Apocalypse woodcuts is shown by Tchernoff to to the hero, Julio,
immediately before the horsemen appear..." (326).

A quick google reveals the involvement of a German spy Tchernine and a
valet called Tchernoff in the Rasputin/End-of-the-Tsar events in
Russia (Wiliam Le Queux, _The Minister of Evil: The Secret History of
Rasputin's Betrayal of Russia_).

Immediately I wondered if our man in the Zone Tchitcherine in GR is
somehow tied up in all this (of course he is!)... Can anyone explicate
this link?