“I am not the first, nor the last, warrior” is a deceivingly simple sentence. It stands out in a sea of complicated imagery pertaining to animals and aching descriptions of the Battle of Kulikovo. The first time I read it, I understood its sentiment to express “I am neither the first warrior, nor the last warrior”. This humble sentence echoed Theodosius’s “meek” and pious words and choices in life. It speaks to the warriors of the masses, to those who stand on both sides of the battlefield’s lines. It didn’t feel particularly unique in its message: “I am one of many who have come before me, and many who shall follow, here and around the world”. The next time I read it, I interpreted it completely differently. I read it as “I am not the first or last, warrior”, as if it were addressing an individual warrior. This interpretation establishes this poem as an open letter, with a specific audience–those warriors who leave their sobbing mothers and familiar homes, with the risk of never being able to return to them. The thing that both interpretations have in common is that they don’t specify the roots of the warriors. Rather than politicizing this battle and demonizing the “other side”, he writes about all warriors and the loss that they each are experiencing. Blok furthers this notion when he writes, “Rival swords clash in the wake of the wind” at the end of section IV. Instead of humanizing the people holding the swords, or establishing them as rival warriors, he describes them as “rival swords”, detaching the individuals from the violence they are engaged with. This separation contributes to the notion of this poem acting as an open letter to all warriors, rather than to a specific set of them. The multiple interpretations of the line “I am not the first, nor the last, warrior” sets the tone for the poem’s reflection on war and loss, directed towards the warriors, rather than establishing a battle cry or a call for vengeance.