- Project Runeberg -  Impressions of Russia /
37

(1889) [MARC] Author: Georg Brandes Translator: Samuel Coffin Eastman - Tema: Russia
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Very significantly he is represented in the play
exclusively from national patriarchal aspects. He is
glorified in the Russian spirit on account of his fatherly
disposition, and not for his courage or his victories.
And — suggestive enough in regard to the Russian taste
— in this piece about a war hero there is no burning
of powder, no shooting. No, the common man here sees
with surprise and pride Suvórof clad in an old,
worn-out uniform, like a common soldier, even carrying his
baggage in a bag on his back, — living with the soldier,
and eating as he does the same food, a father to all.

There is a well known anecdote of Suvórof, that when
he awoke in the morning — and he was generally the
first — he used to crow like a cock to awaken his
associates. As General Cock-a-doodle-do he has been
famous throughout the whole of Russia. In the play this
characteristic is abused to such a degree that the hero
shouts his Cock-a-doodle-do thirty times, or speaks of its
use on earlier occasions. And the screech is every time
followed by the exultation of the audience. So also
are the scenes in which he declares to the common
soldier that he is as good as a general when he does his
duty, and offers him his hand, — a scene where he sends
away the decorated bearer of a flag of truce, who is
astonished at the sight of his simple barracks, — scenes
where he comforts and assists his subordinates, jokes
with them, and exacts the same things from himself as
from them. When a play like this is compared with
the national plays of other countries, about the military
heroes of general reputation, it strikes one that
invariably, in the latter, dash is the quality which is
illuminated with Bengal lights, while in the former it is
patriarchal simplicity, the paternal relation of the leader of
the army to the soldier, that is emphasized.

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