History and its Absurdity – The Blog of Daksh Pandit

History, its absurdity and man’s inability to learn from it results in its repetition.

A person’s account of an event that occurred centuries ago cannot be used as a guiding factor to arrive at an opinion. Everyone’s intellectual depth to perceive an event varies. What may be good for someone may be an absolute nightmare for another. Therefore, are all the historical accounts that we have read, reliable? What is the veracity attached to them?

Leo Tolstoy in his mammoth work of War and Peace occasionally deviates from the subject of his book which is predicated upon Napoleonic wars and its impact upon five Russian families and launches a scathing attack upon the science of history and the Historians themselves. Tolstoy takes exception to the reporting done by the Historians of Battle of Borodino which took place in 1812. Napoleon Bonaparte’s insatiable desire to extend his empire drove him to invade Russia in the September of 1812. The Skirmish between the forces of France and Russia took place in the suburbs of Moscow, with France’s forces proving to be of far more superiority than that of Russia. Unable to withstand the ferocious attack launched by Napoleon, the Russian forces retreated to Moscow, thus handing Napoleon, what is known today as, the most superficial and illusory victory over Russian Forces. Napoleon, now, occupied Moscow with his troops and awaited the surrender of Russian forces which, alas, never came.

In War and Peace, Tolstoy writes that when the French troops finally managed to enter Moscow, it was like a wounded beast, devoid of any resources and fortification that it started the war with, and now in an enemy land, indulging in delusions of grandeur of having won the battle. Unbeknownst to them, the battle was only yet to begin. As it turned out, Russians baited Napoleon to enter Moscow then launched an amalgam of Attrition and Guerrilla warfare upon the French troops. This, coupled with the most lethal weapon in Russians’ artillery, the Russian Winter, proved to be a daunting task for Napoleon and his troops, who, realizing the magnitude of what struck them, started to flee (the Russian Winter would come to Russia’s aid once again more than a century later, forcing Hitler to retreat and call off the invasion in second World War). Napoleon although gained victory over the Russian troops in the Battle of Borodino, however, failed to win against the might, fury, and unity of the Russian people, who gave their all to protect their land, resulting in Napoleon ignominiously fleeing to France, leaving his troops in disarray to fend for themselves.

The net effect of the Skirmish produced a paradoxical event viz. both France and Russia considered themselves the winner in this battle. However, Tolstoy’s indignation is directed against the Historians who declared Napoleon the undisputed winner by wrongly applying the laws of History. Tolstoy argues that history is not shaped by men or women possessing power. It is not shaped by Kings, Queens or Army Generals. An event is not caused by power, it is caused by culmination of all the efforts of people stretching from the lowest strata of the society to the people sitting in the highest social ladder. A king or a person wielding authority cannot be used to mark an epoch in history and derive conclusion out of it as they do not express the collective will of the people. Tolstoy extrapolates that when he looks at his watch and its hands points to ten, the neighbouring church’s bells ring, however, that does not operate to construe that the movements of bells is caused by the position of the hands of the watch¹. So long we do not study the law of bells, we would only be attributing this phenomenon to a mere coincidence.

Therefore, Tolstoy writes “To study the laws of history we must completely change the subject of our observation, must leave aside kings, minister and generals, and the common, infinitesimally small elements by which masses are moved….The movement of nations is caused not by power, nor by intellectual activity, nor even by a combination of the two as the historians have supposed, but by the activity of all the people who participate in the events, and who always combine in such a way that those taking the largest direct share in the event take on themselves the least responsibility and vice versa².” According to Tolstoy, the Historians crowned Napolean the winner of the battle because they studied the letters and reports of the Army generals sitting at the helm of affairs and deciphered that Russia’s sole aim was to capture Napolean alive. Since Napoleon defeated Russians at the Battle of Borodino and foiled their attempt to capture him (fleeing successfully), the Historians therefore, concluded that France won the battle. Tolstoy, however, emphatically disagrees. Tolstoy assiduously proves that capturing Napoleon was impractical and never the plan³. He states that if the Historians had taken all the ordinary people into account, they would have irrefutably concluded that the Russia’s sole aim was to free their land from invasion which they successfully did by launching Attrition and Guerrilla warfare upon the French troops forcing them to flee.

Therefore, Tolstoy writes “….to them the words of Miloradovich seem very interesting, and so do their surmises and the rewards this or that general received; but the question of those fifty thousand men who were left in the hospitals and in graves does not even interest them, for it does not come within the range of their investigation. Yet one need only discard the study of the reports and general plans and consider the movement of those hundreds of thousands of men who took a direct part in the events, all the questions that seemed insoluble easily and simply receive an immediate and certain solution.

The aim of capturing Napoleon and his army never existed except in the imaginations of a dozen people. It could not exist because it was senseless and unattainable. The people had a single aim: to free their land from invasion⁴.”

Tolstoy’s War & Peace, more than fiction, is a philosophical and historical account by Tolstoy, wherein he lyrically rhapsodizes about the correct application of laws of history upon the Napoleonic wars. While it is debatable that Tolstoy’s conclusion that capturing Napoleon was impossible and never Russia’s aim, is a mere surmise and a conjecture, however, reason must admit his theory of history. That historical events consist of a multitude of infinitesimally small units and derivation of events by referring to one authoritative figure wielding power is fallacious.

Giacomo Casanova, more famously known by his second name, was a philanderer in the 18^th century Europe. In his biographical work, amongst many adventurous escapades, in one account, he gleefully describes how he and his group of men raped a helpless woman. He writes….

“From San Geremia we went to the Capielllo del Ramer in San Marcuola, where my brother and another from our band were waiting for us in a corner, sitting on the ground with the pretty woman, who was crying.

“Don’t cry, pretty one”, our leader said to her.

“We won’t hurt you. We’re going to have a drink at Rialto, and then we’ll take you home”

“Where is my husband?”

“You’ll find him tomorrow morning.”

….we then took off our masks and saw our captive relax when she saw our faces and the manner in which we behaved. After coaxing her with words and glasses of wine, what she must have been expecting soon happened. Our leader, as was fitting, was the first to pay his amorous respects to her, after using much politeness to overcome her reluctance to give in to him in front of everyone else. She decided it was best to laugh and let him have his way. But she was surprised when I presented myself second..By the time she saw the third one after me, she had no more doubt that her happy fate promised her all the members of our band..⁵“

The woman lodged a complaint the next day, however, by that time he and his group of men had fled. Now morality demands that such a man be subjugated to the depths of eternal oblivion, however, posterity has dedicated a museum to him.

So long we will keep using a man in power as a metric to interpret a historical event, we will always end up glorifying the wrong person.

By Daksh Pandit