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Anti-war essays, poems, short stories and literary excerpts
Russian writers on war
Alexander Herzen: The type of military commander in whom everything social and moral, everything human has died out
Alexander Herzen: War and “international law”
Alexander Herzen: What the military calls work
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Alexander Herzen
From My Past and Thoughts
Translated by Constance Garnett
…The harmony of uniformity, the absence of variety, of what is personal and whimsical, a traditional obligatory dress and external discipline are all found on the largest scale in the most inhuman condition in which in which men live – in barracks. The uniform and a complete absence of variety are passionately loved by despotism.
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There walked into the room a general, polished up and highly decorated, tightly laced and stiffly erect, in white breeches, with a scarf across his breast. I have never seen a finer general. If ever there is an exhibition of generals in London as there now is a Baby Exhibition at Cincinnati, I should advise his being sent from Petersburg. The general went up to the door from which Benckendorf was to enter and became petrified in stiff immobility; with great interest I scrutinized this sergeant’s ideal. A lot of soldiers, I expect, he had flogged in his day for falling out of step! Where do these people come from? He was born for rifle drill and army discipline! He was attended by the most elegant cornet in the world, probably his adjutant, a fair-haired youth, which incredibly long legs, a tiny face like a squirrel’s, and that simple-hearted expression which often persists in mamma’s darlings who have never studied anything, or, at any rate, have never succeeded in learning anything. This eglantine in uniform stood at a respectful distance from the model general.
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