In his poem \u201cOn the Field of the Kulikovo,\u201d Alexander Blok narrates a fictional scene of the Battle of Kulikovo\u2014 or more historically known as the war that birthed the Russian nation. In the last stanza of part II, Blok\u2019s narrator anticipates battle, and in doing so, reflects on his status as \u201cnot the first, nor the last, [Russian] warrior,\u201d implying that not only is he but one of the many present soldiers, but he is also just a single soldier out of the many past soldiers and future soldiers; all of whom have \u201csuffered\u201d for and will continue to \u201csuffer\u201d for their \u201ccountry\u201d (Blok, II. 13,14). Still, the narrator tells Russia to remember the \u201cone\u201d who had loved her, suggesting that \u201c[his] darling Russia\u201d should remember each, singular \u201cone\u201d that had defended and will defend his or her country (16). There is an emphasis on this pronoun \u201cone\u201d\u2014 even though there are innumerable Russian warriors, each individual \u201cone\u201d should be remembered and thus valued.<\/p>\n
This notion of uniqueness despite similarity to one\u2019s environment, reminds me specifically of Ol\u00e9nin\u2019s accounts while hunting in Chapter XIX of The Cossacks<\/em>. In this chapter, while Ol\u00e9nin shoots pheasants, \u201cmyriads of mosquitoes cover his face\u201d (Tolstoy 366). Even though Ol\u00e9nin describes the very atmosphere that he inhabits as \u201c[insect]-filled,\u201d he remarks that each individual mosquito \u201cis separate from all else\u201d (Tolstoy 366). Similar to the narrator of Alexander Blok\u2019s \u201cOn the Field of the Kulikovo,\u201d the battle environment is described as a long road infested with \u201ctroops\u201d (Blok, II. 8). Though there were many soldiers before and many soldiers to come, Blok\u2019s narrator similarly states that Russia should remember him with the same outlook as Ol\u00e9nin: \u201cseparate from all else\u2014\u201c unique in the narrator\u2019s personal dedication to and love for \u201c[his] darling Russia\u201d (Tolstoy 366; Blok, II. 16). Comparing these two readings alongside one another makes it seems that while there is a great emphasis on the size and span of Russia, there is a necessary attentiveness to each of the singular parts that make up the Russian environment\u2014whether that be humans, or even animals\/nature.<\/p>\n Please let me know if you can think of any other pieces that we have read where similar themes are at play (i.e. the mosquitoes versus their mosquito-infested environment, and the narrator versus the many past and future Russian soldiers). What does this method of juxtaposition (singular aspect versus collective aspects) do for descriptions of the Russian environment? I would love to hear your thoughts!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" In his poem \u201cOn the Field of the Kulikovo,\u201d Alexander Blok narrates a fictional scene of the Battle of Kulikovo\u2014 or more historically known as the war that birthed the Russian nation. In the last stanza of part II, Blok\u2019s narrator anticipates battle, and in doing so, reflects on his status as \u201cnot the first, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":400,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[89,90],"class_list":["post-443","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-the-domestic-exotic","tag-on-the-field-of-the-kulikovo","tag-alexander-blok"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/courses.bowdoin.edu\/russian-2447-fall-2018\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/443","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/courses.bowdoin.edu\/russian-2447-fall-2018\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/courses.bowdoin.edu\/russian-2447-fall-2018\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/courses.bowdoin.edu\/russian-2447-fall-2018\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/400"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/courses.bowdoin.edu\/russian-2447-fall-2018\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=443"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/courses.bowdoin.edu\/russian-2447-fall-2018\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/443\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/courses.bowdoin.edu\/russian-2447-fall-2018\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=443"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/courses.bowdoin.edu\/russian-2447-fall-2018\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=443"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/courses.bowdoin.edu\/russian-2447-fall-2018\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=443"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}