Theremin Blind
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of spinning great yarns and tales, and exaggerating the truth. In Steven Martin’s
documentary film, Theremin: an Electronic Odyssey, he even gave a detailed
description of his own birth—how he was pulled from the womb.
At one point in the 1930s, he boasted to Russian journalists that there
were “700 registered Theremin players in New York City,” when there were
really little more than a dozen (Glimsky 4). Whether this was calculated
propaganda about how America had been infiltrated, or mere hyperbole no one
can say. Russian biographers have also characterized him as being “an American
millionaire,” while author Nicolas Slonimsky wrote about his major financial
problems, and characterized him as being “constantly in debt” during his New
York years (Slonimsky 153).
Again, Theremin’s life appears to have been filled with paradox. He
knew the pitfalls of a free-market economy because he had lived through the
Great Depression, but he also understood the terror of Soviet oppression because
he had witnessed that first-hand too. Where his real sympathies and loyalties
were centered is still up for debate.
There min was always brilliant. He was bom in 1896, as Lev Termen,
and by the time he was in his teens he had set up his own observatory in the
vegetable garden behind his parents’ summer house. At age fifteen he
discovered a new star and reported it to the Astronomical Society. He was
already considered a boy genius. But in 1916 his life changed dramatically—^he
was drafted after Germany declared war on Russia (Glimsky 14).
With his Red Army, Vladimir Lenin was waging war in the name of the
country’s peasants—executing the wealthy, middle class, and even priests left
and right. He was committing mass murder in the name of social justice.
Concentration camps were set up for those “lucky” enough not to be killed.
Lenin was a futurist of sorts, claiming that “electricity would take the place of
God,” adding that “the central authorities” had more power. He was intent on
selling the people on this modem idea of electricity and came up with the slogan
“Socialism equals Soviet power plus electrification” (Slonimsky 150).
By this time Termen’s scientific knowledge had landed him the
position of Broadcast Supervisor at the most powerful radio station in the
country. As an early indication of his allegiance, when anti-Bolshevik forces
moved too close to the station, Termen worked day and night dismantling the
transmitter and receiver. After loading the pieces on railroad cars and shipping
them east, he blew up the tower in a grand, defiant gesture. Termen’s
intelligence and attitude brought him the respect, and favor, of Communist Party
leaders.
In 1918, he had used his knowledge of basic electromagnetic waves
and radio principles to invent the musical instmment now known as the
Theremin. The device’s high frequency oscillators created an electromagnetic
field that could detect extremely small capacitances in the human hand. It
contained an oscillator set for an ultrasonic (or inaudible) frequency and a
variable oscillator connected to the antennae. This oscillator served as one plate