Sebastopol Sketches
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During the winter of 1854, Tolstoi wrote a personal appeal, which was never delivered, to the Grand Dukes (the sons of Nicholas I) in which he bitterly attacked the deplorable conditions, and corruptions he observed within the ranks the Russian detachments, then under siege by French forces in Sebastopol. Tolstoi's bitterness and grief over the human tragedy taking place among the foot soldiers, mostly populated by serfs forced into military service, sparked him to write sketches of conditions and activities occurring at Sebastopol. Today’s post is a brief excerpt of a recurring battlefield activity, perhaps better described as ritual, detailed in Tolstoi’s "The Sebastopol Sketches:"
“Yes, white flags have been raised on the bastion and all along the trench, the flowering valley is filled with stinking corpses, and the resplendent sun is descending towards the dark blue sea, and the sea’s blue swell is gleaming in the sun’s golden rays. Thousands of men are crowding together, studying one another. It might be supposed that when these men—Christians, recognizing the same great law of love—see what they have done, they will instantly fall to their knees in order to repent before Him who, when He gave them life, placed in the soul of each, together with the fear of death, a love of the good and the beautiful, and that they will embrace one another with tears of joy and happiness, like brothers. Not a bit of it! The scrapes of white cloth will be put away—and once again the engines of death and suffering will start their whistling; once again the blood of the innocent will flow and the air will be filled with their groans and cursing.”