[ad_1]
Rarely in recent history has so much been said about a man. Follow the media reports, and you will be convinced whether the current march towards the war or not on the borders of Ukraine depends on the will of a single man: Russian President Vladimir Putin.
It is a kind of description of current events, which the Russian writer Leon Tolstoy would have known immediately if he were alive today. A description, which he would reject. Tolstoy’s “War and Peace” is unattainable in its description of what we now call the “fog of war,” or in his words, the “strange, obscure, and gloomy” nature of battle.
But the novel in question is also incomparable in its attempt to answer the fundamental question it posed: “What produced this extraordinary event?” The answer, Tolstoy argues, has nothing to do with the “great men” of history, to whom the great world events are usually attributed.
Putin may be pleased to quote Tolstoy, but he certainly has not learned the lectures given by the great Russian writer. The current Russian leader clearly believes that both his opponents and admirers believe he is a “great man”, convinced that if Europe becomes a stage for the first war since 1944, it depends on him. and only he.
As Russian analyst Tatiana Stanovaya puts it, “a sense of superiority, mixed with arrogance, gives Putin a sense of power.” Not only was a Tsar born in the 21st century, but this Tsar believes he can change the course of history.
In his novel, Tolstoy describes in detail the Battle of Borodino, more precisely the massacre that took place in 1812 between Napoleon Bonaparte’s Great Army and Russian forces: “By giving up their human feelings and logic, millions of people were forced to go from West to East and kill their own kind, just like a few centuries ago, when hordes of people had gone from East to West, killing their own kind! ”.
That conflict, the writer writes, was also seen as the work of a man, including himself. In his description of the French emperor’s inner thoughts, Tolstoy wrote: “It seemed to Napoleon more than ever that it was up to him to shed the blood of his people or not.”
But Tolstoy himself refuted the theory of the history of the great man, which assumes – as with most current analyzes of Ukraine – that the main driver of world events is, in the novelist’s words, “the natural force of heroes and rulers.”
This approach, he argues, is illusory: “So-called great people are the labels that give the event a name, and that as with labels, it has less to do with the event itself.” In Tolstoy’s description of Napoleon’s view of the Battle of Borodino, the emperor claims that the battlefield is a chessboard, but he can not see his stones.
The truth, Tolstoy insists, is that historical events are determined by a host of previous causes, too broad and varied, that they cannot be controlled by any particular individual. The so-called great men are “involuntary instruments of history, and do secret work for them, but understandable to us.”
At first glance, this philosophy of history may seem inappropriate for events in Eastern Europe. Would Tolstoy have written the novel “War and Peace” if it were not for Napoleon’s specific character? (Or would I write this article if someone other than Putin were in charge of Russia today?).
But while character has its importance, it is also a product of context. One can point to a range of factors, from the humiliating collapse of the Soviet Union to NATO’s rapid expansion to the East, or the Maidan movement in Ukraine, and the failed Russian economy, which have shaped Putin’s character and worldview.
If Putin were to read Tolstoy’s words, he could find a more accurate description of his possible place in history, at the moment when the writer describes Napoleon inspecting the victims after the Battle of Austerlic.
The French emperor suddenly sees Prince Andrei, lying on the ground and almost motionless, one of the main characters of the novel. “Voilà une belle mort” (Here is a beautiful death!), Declares Napoleon, convinced that what he was seeing was the result of of his will.
The prince was currently only injured. He barely recognized the emperor, as his horse ran alone across the field. But instead of his knocking, he hears Napoleon’s voice simply as a distant noise, like a fly flying over corpses.
Note: Robert Zaretsky, is Professor of French History at the University of Houston, USA. /
“Politico.eu” – Bota.al
top channel
[ad_2]
Source link