“For me tomorrow means this: a Russian army of a hundred thousand and a French army of a hundred thousand have met to fight, and the thing is that these two hundred thousand men will fight and the side that fights more fiercely and spares itself least will win.” This is how count Leo Tolstoy expressed his attitude to what was happening in the Borodino field on September 7, 1812, having used Prince Andrei from the War and Peace as his mouthpiece.
According to Leo Tolstoy, it is during the Battle of Borodino that the moral and inner superiority of Russians defending their Motherland over the “multilingual” Napoleon Army breaking into Russia without invitation – became apparent. From military and strategic perspectives the Battle of Borodino was not a decisive clash and yet this was a turning point in the Patriotic war of 1812 as it changed the spirits and morale of the warring sides. We had to pay a high price for this metamorphosis – up to 44,000 soldiers were killed, wounded, captured or MIA – a third of Kutuzov’s army! For the sake of justice, it should be noted that the French force on a march towards Moscow almost halved – about 60,000 soldiers were incapacitated in Napoleon’s army.
This order of casualties on such an occasion is a grand, solemn and sacral event…
Are we now in tune with this high note?
I’d never cast a shadow of doubt on what happens in the field of Borodino on the first Sunday of September during a number of years. I mean a simulation of the battle staged by military-historic clubs which are doing a great job of patriotic education.
What really bothers me is the assessment of this historical reconstruction in mass media, which is treacherously creeping into the public conscience.
“Festival”, “show”, “performance” are typical terms used to lure people to the Borodino field on September 4. The same terms prevail in the publications highlighting the pageant. And the above-mentioned “public conscience” does not mind – perhaps, it has already embraced this approach.
That we have serious problems with our mother tongue seems to be certain; but a way of communication is inseparably linked with the level of thinking. If we say we are going to the “Borodino show” it means we most likely perceive this action as just a show, and vice versa.
Erosion of a wall is a slow process that is usually imperceptible to the human eye. Bricks are crumbling, cement is turning loose, foundation slabs are sagging several millimeters a year, but nobody sees that. But then the day comes when the wall, instead of offering protection, tumbles down from the first blow as if it were a dummy.
Once we wholeheartedly stage a festival at the site where 25,000 soldiers perished on both sides in the course of the Battle of Borodino, the wall definitely won’t last long.
It should come as no surprise then that neither on the eve of the Borodino Festival nor today, on the eve of a memorable anniversary of the battle itself we’ve got no official reports on the end of the story (or may be it has not ended?) about unlawful construction of cottages on the territory of the Borodino museum reserve. How are things standing at the Investigation Committee that filed several criminal cases, including the one against Maya Sklyueva, the head of the rural settlement Borodinskoe in the Mozhaisk district of the Moscow region? And what will be the fate of the museum director Mikhail Cherepashents who is incriminated “negligence” in performing his duties? What’s new in the life of Nikita Chaplin, chairman of the Civic Chamber of the Moscow region, who stated in July during a press conference at the RIA Novosti news agency that the Chamber’s commission had inspected the Borodino field and, unlike the investigators from the regional Prosecutor’s Office had found no signs of illicit development?
And finally what is happening to nearly 100 cottages, both finished and unfinished?
As was rightly noted by some participants of the “Borodino show”, only a year is left before the 200th anniversary of the victory in the Patriotic War of 1812, given that the climax of solemn celebrations will fall on the beginning of September to be timed to the anniversary of the Battle of Borodino, even though the war was won four months later. But let us think big – it’s much more convenient to hold celebrations in Borodino, than on the bank of Berezina in Belarus.
Given that only a year is left, we’d like to hear some positive news from the government commission specifically established back in January 2009 to prepare for the 200th anniversary of the great battle, apart from the notorious news on the construction boom in Borodino. The problem is that its members met only once in spring 2010. Will the museum of Patriotic war of 1812 be really inaugurated in Moscow, as we were joyfully promised at that first and only session? If yes, then when?
This is the way we live now: a show on Sunday and unanswered questions on weekdays. As for the answers, for some reason I am confident that people luxuriating on the money of taxpayers must not wait for questions to be asked. They are paid exactly because they must forestall them.
“Why feeling pity for ourselves now? The soldiers in my battalion would not even drink vodka: not on such a day, they said, can you believe it?” Putting these words into the lips of officer Timokhin, count Leo Tolstoy expressed his attitude to what was going on in the Borodino field on September 7, 1812.
Officer Timokhin never heard of any shows and cottages.
Mikhail Bykov
