War and Peace revisited – Ukraine invasion is Tolstoy’s epic writ large once more
As the world struggles to regain its balance after two years of pandemic hell, a couple of storybook villains are moving to centre stage, writes Madonna King
![Putin's cultivation of an athletic, strong image is in line with what Russian voters think a leader should be like. [Photo: Supplied Russian Presidency]](https://d2cqqtag1ey87x.cloudfront.net/wp-content/uploads/2022/02/putinrelaxing.jpg?resize=1530,1020&quality=80)
Rarely do my husband’s stories, drawn from whatever he’s reading, rate a second thought.
That’s a lie. They never do – except this week, when he used a breakfast with our teenagers to deliver yet another lesson, this one from War and Peace; the 1225-page tome he seems to read every two years.
(I mean why read the same book twice, or three times, or 10 times? Don’t you know how it’s going to end?)
That’s a column for another time, but this week he told our disinterested teenagers how Leo Tolstoy, writing more about war than peace, had relied on a cheerful Russian politician to sum up the traits of the warrior nations that have fought over Europe for centuries.
“The French soldier has to be incited to battle by high-sounding phrases; the German must have it logically proved to him that it is more dangerous to run away than to advance; but the Russian soldier has to be held back and urged to go slowly!”
Tolstoy’s authority, apparently, was Count Fyodor Rostopchin, the mayor who presided over the burning of Moscow to repel Napoleon’s occupation. And his reference was to the battle of Austerlitz which Napoleon won to ease his path to that great capital.
Where’s the history lesson going? What’s Tolstoy’s War and Peace got to do with events leading the news this week?
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(Just quietly, I thought they were valid interventions from the 17-year-old. But read on, because as it turns out, quite a lot.)
War and Peace is an epic account of the determination of Russia to protect its soil using the sweat and toil of its millions while the rich and powerful indulge their passions, oblivious to the travails below them.
And what are we seeing right now? Russia, led by a modern-day warrior, one who like Tolstoy’s Russians won’t relent, laying claim to what it believes is its rightful soil, Ukraine.
Of course that claim is wrong, and the West is right to stand up to it – as it will stand up to the almost inevitable claim of China to Taiwan.
Covid has been a challenge but the muscle flexing of the world’s bully boys, Vladimir Putin and Xi Jinping, makes it look like a walk in the park.
Consciously or not, they have picked a period of weakness (with Western governments exhausted by trying to maintain civil order through a pandemic) to throw their weight around.
Increasingly in the west, we complain about the weakening of our social fabric and the democracies it holds together. Social media has reduced debate, trust in our institutions is at an all all-time low, and we are ruled by politicians who once would not have made a reserve grade run-on team.
More and more we are drawn to the populists with simple solutions to problems that are becoming more and more complex.
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And that makes it easier for the Putins and Xis to exercise their strength – to the detriment of all of us.
What would be the impact of a Russian invasion of Ukraine?
We are already seeing the financial flow-on – every conversation at a petrol pump is about the fuel price topping $2 a litre. And an invasion will almost certainly spark some wild swings in the stock markets – which will unsettle our super balances.
It looks like we will almost certainly be joined into another war on a distant shore.
That might even have the coincidental effect of swinging voters back to Scott Morrison’s Coalition – which always benefits from “khaki” election campaigns.
Morrison is already warning the bullyboys that Australia won’t stand for their behaviour. (They must be quaking in their boots.)
But modern global politics needs its demons to counter those who see themselves as angels. If there was no Putin in the world, then someone would have to invent him.
The trouble is that no one has invented Putin. He is a brutal demagogue who rigs elections and directs vast fortunes to his own means.
And it will always be better if we speak up against intimidation and thuggery – than to remain silent.
So while Tolstoy’s War and Peace might remain a handy reference on how the world works, a few other books sit near it on our family bookshelf.
Professor Peter Coaldrake’s Working The System, for example, and the chapter entitled Dry Rot lamented poor government practice in 1980s Queensland: “In effect, there has been a conspiracy of silence among some senior public servants in the face of any outside investigations of these practices.”
And Tony Fitzgerald’s big report, now missing its front cover. But page 131 is pristine. It says: “A Government which is self serving and cynical will have a bureaucracy which wholly or partially reflects the same attitude. In these circumstances, attitudes and practices which would in different circumstances have developed positively instead deteriorate.
“The aspirations of those outside the elite circle are converted to frustration and indignation. Discontentment, dissatisfaction, misconduct and inefficiency expand.”
Thank goodness things have changed…..
