Chapter 381 Extra Story: Analysis of 'Journey in the Army'
Chapter 381 Extra: Analysis of "Military Journey"
"Travel in the Army" is the best of Rostislav's early works and one of the famous works in Russian literature and world literature in the eleventh century. This work opened a new page in the history of Rostislav's creation.
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Prior to this, most of Rostislav's works focused on macro-level historical development trends, and were more about recording history. Although he also understood the people of Russia, they were essentially superficial inquiries and summaries.
"Travel in the Army" is completely different. This is Rostislav's first documentary novel. In the process of participating in the war, the author recorded the stories of the nobles, citizens, farmers and other social classes that he came into contact with one by one.
Presented in front of readers, it illustrates the scene of Russian society in the past years.
The author himself also mentioned in the preface that I wrote this book to truly show the Russian society.
Regarding "Military Journeys", there is such an evaluation, "It is a mirror of Russian society in the eleventh century", because Rostislav's records cover every region of Russia and all social classes, even those who were enemies at the time
Polotsk was also recorded by Rostislav.
In "Military Journeys", Rostislav painted a series of unique and lifelike portraits of the Russians in the eleventh century. These images were vivid and vivid, leaving a very deep impression on people.
For example, among the nobles of Rus, there are the city magnates who are arrogant, always harsh on their servants, and let the indebted citizens make cattle and horses for themselves; there are also those who are very economical, and one set of equipment must be worn by three people, and one horse can be worn by two people.
The master of the city who rides on the horse; and the professional soldier who is taciturn, good at fighting, and always thinks that he will die on the battlefield sooner or later.
As for the images of soldiers in the army, there are many more, such as the Kiev orphans who joined the army to repay their debts; the Chernigov civilians who "didn't know what to make a living with every day" and were forcibly pulled into the army; and
The Pereyaslav border residents who are passionate about fighting and thirsty for trophies, who say "war is all about making money"; the old Novgorod raider who sees corpses as resources and comes from a very rough background and always brings kvass with him.
The corpses; the Moscow militiamen who joined the war out of desire for war but ended up losing their arms; and the Polotsk soldiers who were sad because of the failure of the war and faced the situation of being sold into slavery.
Outside of the army, Rostislav also described many of the various camp personnel on the battlefield, such as the Jewish businessmen who were thinking about how to squeeze more silver from the soldiers every day;
A prostitute with a tragic life experience; a tribal boy who joined the camp out of curiosity and "wanted to see all over the world."
The destinies of these characters all changed because of the war. Some of them became prosperous during the war, were able to change their fates against the odds, and embark on the road to a happy life. Some of them either lost their heads or arms, and in the end they could only go back with the spoils of war.
Although they are old-age, most of them are still struggling in their original lives, especially those who make a living by war. They have been trapped in war all their lives, whether it is the war between princes or the village war of small lords, they are
Live off these.
Rostislav also implicitly expressed his criticism of war and princes, but this was later criticized as "hypocrisy". After all, the author himself was a ruler who knew all this and still tortured the people with war and taxes.
By.
In this regard, we must realize the author's own limitations, not to mention that in that era, being able to realize these was already a great progress. However, the author was trapped by his own class, so he could only criticize all of this implicitly.
, but don’t know how to do it. This confused thought is most obvious in "The Road to the West Sea".
Continuing to talk about the characters, there are more than these characters portrayed by Rostislav. We have only mentioned a few of them. The author uses his excellent writing style to describe the experiences of each character so brilliantly, as if they are right in front of his eyes.
Just like that, the whole picture of Russian society emerged in front of people.
The great achievement of "Military Journeys" is not only to describe the scenes of all classes of Russian society, but also to show their rich inner world. The author mentioned in the preface that in order to understand their stories, the author put aside his role as a ruler.
He went deep into them, drank with them like an ordinary person, and listened to their stories. It was precisely because of these that he was able to write so many emotions that touched the soul, allowing us to understand what people were thinking and thinking at that time.
think.
In the last part of the work, the author describes the Battle of Minsk. After all, the name of this work is "Military Journey". If there is no war, how can it have this name.
The rare thing about describing this battle is that the author personally participated in the battle as a commander, and after the war he interviewed both the enemy and our commanders, soldiers, and bystanders, and then wrote such a worthy article.
It is said to be the best war summary and has become a model for future war summaries.
Finally, Rostislav recorded the thoughts and records of Smolensk Mayor Veshata on the war. This article is more of this veteran soldier’s summary of the battle and his feelings about life, which allows us to see a
The inner world of a powerful man.
"Travel in the Army" became popular after Rostislav became the Grand Duke of Kiev. This book was one of the flagship products of the Grand Duke of Kiev's cultural plan at that time. It was translated into Greek and sold to Constantinople.
It should be noted that this book was translated by Rostislav himself, thus ensuring the flavor of the original text to the greatest extent.
In Constantinople, this documentary novel first gained popularity among the military aristocracy, who used this book to understand the current situation of "barbarian peoples".
However, after reading it, they discovered that the book was more about showing the local customs of Ross, but the description of the Battle of Minsk was indeed exquisite, which benefited them a lot.
Then as Rostislav's pinnacle work "The Road to the Western Sea" became popular in the imperial capital, the book also became popular.
Then all levels of the imperial capital began to read this book, and then learned about Rus in the north. Readers were amazed by the author's exquisite writing and description, and a small wave of documentary novels was set off in Constantinople.
He left a lot of precious information for future generations.
It was also in Constantinople that the book was gradually translated into various languages and continued to spread. Rostislav's reputation was also established during this spread, and the book also became a world famous book.