Russia in 1916

Russia has now a popular war-picture done by one of the most famous of her artists, Nesterof. It appeared during the past winter, and prints of it are now exposed in every city, postcard reproductions on every book-stall in Russia. It shows a wounded Russian officer standing beside a Russian sister of mercy. He is in khaki, and is decorated with the Order of St. George; she in white hospital dress. Both faces are marvellously expressive of suffering—the woman seems drowned in past suffering, and yet aware of the immensity of suffering that yet must come. The man has the vision in his eyes that makes it all worth while.

Her face is one of faith, his of vision. Together they express the ideal relationship of a man and a woman, he fighting the great fight, living life as it ought to be lived, she supporting him with her faith and her love.

Nesterof when he was yet a boy began to paint frescoes in churches, and has painted in his time many a wonderful Madonna and Child. In this picture where he has descended to paint just a woman and a man in the midst of daily life you may see a sort of suggestion of the Mother and Child, a reflection of some other composition, of some Russian Madonna and leaping Babe. Here also the man is really a child, though his eyes have the knowledge of the ideal and the quest, and the woman’s face has purity and love and foreknowledge of the suffering that must come.

The background of the picture is Russia, the green forest of pines and firs, the melancholy placid lake, the wan white church with its swelling coloured dome. Russia is in the background. Russia bore them, and their hearts yearn towards her.

So it can be a popular Russian war picture and be hung on many walls and looked into and loved in this strange year of grace 1916.

The words printed below are the famous lines of the poet Khomiakoff:

I leave the word podvig because, as I wrote in my chapter explaining the word in “Martha and Mary,” it is difficult to render it by any one word in English. But it is one of the most important words in the Russian language. Here possibly the nearest word is “trial.” It means a noble deed, an act of faith, a noble battle against fearful odds, a great sacrifice or act of renunciation, a shaming of the devil, a bold religious affirmation. Volumes might be written on it. The acts of the anchorites and hermits are podvigs. St. George killing the dragon performed a podvig. The seven champions of Christendom would in Russia be the seven podvizhniks and their heroic exploits podvigs, but there we have not a word. For performing podvigs Russian soldiers are decorated. But, as Nesterof tells us in his picture, there are the greatest for which there is no decoration.

The sound of these Russian words is so beautiful in the original tongue that inevitably after you have read them you go on murmuring them till they are yours—a possession of the heart:

This is not absolutely correct transliteration, but I have written in the hope that it maybe easier to say.

This picture is true for Russia and will be valuable long after peace has come as a historical witness of the spirit of the time. In the war, despite all its ugliness and accidentoriness, human nature is revealed as more beautiful, more daring, also more tender. The Russians have this picture, and we also have the reality. There is a strong spiritual life manifest among us. It is manifest in the faces of the soldiers and in the life of their anxious and loving women they leave behind. Will not some one paint it for us?