The Mind in the Machine 205
those with democratic or secular sympathies, were prone to exaggerate or
misconstrue the Church's influence. If the troops stood their ground under
fire, wrote one critical author in 1799, it was because the priests represented
the enemy as 'accursed infidels who had to be extermin~H~d' ar?d prcmi:;cd
blessings in the hereafter, which the men innoL:ently misinterpreted as meaning
an earthly paradise.^19 There was some truth to the first proposition-in 1806
the Holy Synod anathematized Napoleon-but it was less than the whole
truth. The soldiers were Orthodox Christian believers in the same sense that
the peasants were. That is to say, they enjoyed religious services, especially on
campaign when danger threatened, provided that not too much regimentation
was associated with them. On the retreat from Smolensk in 1812 the
atmosphere in a crowded monastery chapel struck F. N. Glinka as emotionally
tense and prayerful.^20 When two priests attached to the 6th Corps were cap-
tured, physically abused by Polish soldiers, and then returned to the Russian
lines, their sorry appearance 'caused general indignation at such cruel mockery
of their sacred office'.^21 This reaction was quite normal. Whatever men might
think of individual priests they respected their cloth, just as they did the holy
icons that each regiment carried-of St. Nicholas, patron of all soldiers, and
of the particular saint who protected the unit concerned. The intensely
spiritual character of Orthodoxy helped to reconcile men, in the army as
elsewhere, to the prospect of suffering and death. Equally important were the
close institutional links between Church and state. Defence of the faith went
hand in hand with defence of the 'Fatherland' (otechestvo) or 'Motherland'
(rodina), concepts that struck a responsive chord in the heart of every Russian.
Yet loyal ardour in the cause was not incompatible with an attitude of indif-
ference or scepticism towards those who exercised authority, in the ecclesiasti-
cal as in the secular domain. The soldier did not share the belief system of his
superiors; he did not, in the jargon of modern sociology, 'identify' with it. His
was a folk religion^22 -and a folk patriotism, for that matter-with associa-
tions alien to the ways of thought of the educated. The popular world-view
was bound up with all kinds of semi-pagan superstitions, and also with chili-
astic longings for a 'just tsardom'-bcliefs which clergymen and officers
strongly disapproved of, in so far as they were aware of them.
One has to beware of anachronism when discussing these matters. In the
early modern era men were less self-conscious than they are today, less
19 Ami de la Verite, Coup d'reil. p. I 00; d. Richelieu. ·Journal". p. 169 ('Russian soldiers, hap-
pily for them and their Sovereign, have ~till kept much of that perhap' super,titiou> piety which
doubles men's courage'); also de Raymond, Tah/eau, p. 5D; 'Observa1ions sur le militaire',
MAE, Met D, Russie 14 (1745-1828), f. 123.
(^20) Glinka, Pis'ma, iv. 52. His writing~ may have influenced Tol.-ioy"s memorable portrait of the
mass before Borodino in War and Peace. Glinka', conduu as a specta1or at the ba11le resembles
that of Pierre Bezukhov.
21 I. P. Liprandi, in Kharkevich, 1812 f!.Od, ii. 5.
22 On this topic see M. Lewin, 'The Peasant and Religion' (forthcoming) and D. W. Treadgold,
'The Peasant and Religion', in W. S. Vucinich (ed.). The Pea1a111 in Nine1een1h-Cen1urv Russia,
Stanford, 1968, pp. 72-107, esp. pp. 102-4. ·