Kutúzov was one of those rare individuals able to discern the will of Providence and to unreservedly submit their personal will to it. Yet, Russian historians remember him as a blunderer, coward, courtier and procrastinator.
Kutúzov was one of those rare individuals able to discern the will of Providence and to unreservedly submit their personal will to it. Yet, Russian historians remember him as a blunderer, coward, courtier and procrastinator.
Book 15, Chapter 5
Kutúzov was one of those rare individuals able to discern the will of Providence and to unreservedly submit their personal will to it. Yet, Russian historians remember him as a blunderer, coward, courtier and procrastinator.
Summary:
It would be difficult to find anyone in history who so completely accomplished anything so worthy as that to which all Kutúzov’s efforts were directed in 1812, all directed to one and the same threefold end: (1) to brace all his strength for conflict with the French, (2) to defeat them, and (3) to drive them out of Russia, while minimizing as far as possible the sufferings of the Russian people and army. Unswayed by what others said or thought, often paying them no heed, this old man’s simple Russian soul served only the will of Providence. His national feeling, which he possessed in full purity and strength, gave him an extraordinary ability to penetrate the meaning of the events then occurring. And only that feeling placed him on that highest human pedestal from which he, the commander in chief, devoted all his powers not to slaying and destroying men but to saving and showing pity on them. He understood historical events in their full implication better than those around him, and could make better decisions. He alone during the whole retreat insisted that battles, which were useless then, should not be fought, and that a new war should not be begun nor the frontiers of Russia crossed. Yet, ironically, Russian historians praise Napoleon’s genius while deprecating this true Russian hero.
quote from the chapter:
But how did that old man, alone, in opposition to the general opinion, so truly discern the importance of the people’s view of the events that in all his activity he was never once untrue to it?
The source of that extraordinary power of penetrating the meaning of the events then occuring lay in the national feeling which he possessed in full purity and strength.
Only the recognition of the fact that he possessed this feeling caused the people in so strange a manner, contrary to the Tsar’s wish, to select him-an old man in disfavor-to be their representative in the national war. And only that feeling placed him on that highest human pedestal from which he, the commander in chief, devoted all his powers not to slaying and destroying men but to saving and showing pity on them.
That simple, modest, and therefore truly great, figure could not be cast in the false mold of a European hero-the supposed ruler of men-that history has invented.
To a lackey no man can be great, for a lackey has his own conception of greatness.
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