king of ros

Chapter 381 Extra Story: Analysis of "Journey in the Army"

"Journey in the Army" is the best of Rostislav's early works, and it is also one of the masterpieces of Rus literature and world literature in the eleventh century. This work opens a new page in the history of Rostislav's creation .

Before that, Rostislav’s works mostly focused on the macroscopic historical development trend, and were more about recording history. Although he also knew the people of Rus, the essence was superficial inquiries and summaries.

But "Journey in the Army" is completely different. This is Rostislav's first documentary novel. The author recorded the stories of the nobles, citizens, farmers and other social classes he came into contact with during the process of participating in the war. Then Unfolding in front of the reader, Yearwards illuminates the scene of Ross society.

The author himself also mentioned in the preface that I wrote this book to truly show the Ross society.

For "Journey in the Army", there is such a comment that "it is a mirror of the Russian society in the eleventh century", because Rostislav's recorded objects have covered every region of Ross and all social classes, even if he was an enemy at that time. Polotsk, also recorded by Rostislav.

Rostislav painted a series of unique and realistic portraits of the Rus people in the eleventh century in "Journey in the Army". These images are vivid and vivid, leaving a very deep impression on people.

For example, the aristocrats of Ross, there are pretentious, always harsh servants, and city dignitaries who let debtor citizens make cattle and horses for themselves; there are also careful calculations, a set of equipment must be worn by three people, and a horse can be worn by two people. The lord of the city who rides; there is also a professional soldier who is taciturn and good at battle, and always thinks that he will die on the battlefield sooner or later.

As for the images of soldiers in the army, there are more images, such as Kyiv orphans who join the army in order to pay off their debts; there are Chernigov civilians who "do not know what to use every day" and are forcibly drawn into the army; and Passionate about battles, eager for spoils, Pereyaslav frontiersmen who say "wars are for making money"; regard corpses as resources, have a very rough background, and always bring Kvass to the old Novgorod on weekdays. the Muscovite militiamen who went to war out of desire for war, only to lose their arms;

In addition to the army, Rostislav also gave a lot of descriptions of the various accompanying personnel on the battlefield, such as the Jewish businessman who was thinking about how to squeeze more silver from the soldiers every day; A prostitute with a tragic life experience; a tribal boy who "wanted to see all over the world" who joined the camp out of curiosity.

The fates of these characters were all changed by the war. Some of them prospered in the war, they were able to change their lives against the sky, and embarked on the road of a happy life. Some either lost their heads or arms, and ended up taking the trophies back. old age, but most of them are still struggling in their original life, especially among those who make a living by war. They have been trapped in war all their lives. Live on these.

Rostislav also implicitly expressed his criticism of war and the princes, but this was later denounced as "hypocrisy". After all, the author himself is a ruler who knows all this and still uses war and taxation to torture the people. By.

In this regard, we must realize the limitations of the author himself, not to mention that in that era, being able to realize these is already a great progress, but the author is trapped by his own class, so he can only criticize all these implicitly , but don't know how to do it, this kind of confused thinking is most obvious in "The Road to the West Sea".

Continuing to talk about the characters, Rostislav’s portrayals are not limited to these, we only mentioned a small part, the author uses his excellent writing style to describe the experience of a character so wonderfully, as if it is right in front of his eyes. As it happened, all the appearances of Ross society emerged in front of people.

The great achievement of "Journey in the Army" is not only to describe the scenes of all social classes in Ross, 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 own image as a ruler. Shelf, go deep into them, drink with them like an ordinary person, listen to their stories, it is because of these that he can write so many emotions that touch the soul, let us understand the thoughts and thoughts of people in that era think.

In the last part of the work, the author describes the Battle of Minsk. After all, the name of this work is "Journey in the Army". If there is no war, how can it have this name.

The rare thing about this battle description is that the author personally participated in this battle as a commander, and after the war, he interviewed the commanders and soldiers of both the enemy and us, as well as bystanders, so that he wrote such a disgraceful article. It is said to be the best war summary, and it has become a typical example of future war summaries.

The last is the thoughts and records of Smolensk Mayor Veshata on the war recorded by Rostislav. This article is more of the veteran's battle summary and his emotions about life. Let us see a part The inner world of the rich and powerful.

"Journey in the Army" became popular after Rostislav became the Grand Duke of Kiev. At that time, this book was one of the key products of the cultural plan of the Grand Duke of Kyiv. It was translated into Greek and sold to Constantinople.

It should be noted that this book was translated by Rostislav himself, so the flavor of the original text is guaranteed to the greatest extent.

In Constantinople, the nonfiction novel first gained popularity among the military aristocrats, who used it to understand the current state of the "barbarian peoples".

However, after reading it, they found that the book was more about Ross's local customs, 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 West Sea" became popular in the imperial capital, this book also became popular.

Then all classes in the imperial capital also began to read this book, and then learned about Ross in the north. The readers were all amazed by the author's exquisite writing and description, and a small trend of writing documentary novels was set off in Constantinople. Many precious materials have been left for future generations.

It was also in Constantinople that this book was gradually translated into various languages ​​and continued to spread. Rostislav’s reputation was also established during this spread, and this book became a world-famous masterpiece .

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(End of this chapter)