The Mind in the Machine 207generosity towards the unfortunate, and so on. Most of the feats which Glinka
cited were by members of the elite, as one might expect-Peter I's life offered
ample illustrative material-but the mere fact that ordinary peasants or
soldiers could qualify as 'men of honour' was a sign of changing intellectual
fashions. The episodes cited sound rather sanctimonious and implausible to
the modern ear, but they appealed to contemporaries reared on the senti-
mentalism of Karamzin and other writers of the age. Thus we learn of an (un-
named) old warrior who, on the retreat in 1812, calmed his grumbling com-
rades by telling them that their officers knew very well what they were doing
('they are leading us towards the good; they are responsible for us to God and
the Tsar; it is our duty to obey and pray; the harder a soldier's task, the greater
his glory'), and then gathered the men around him to listen to his stories of
earlier campaigns.^27 A soldier could also perform meritorious deeds in routine
peacetime circumstances. A certain Komarov, a private in the 2nd Chasseurs,
on guard duty in St. Petersburg in 1816, found a wallet containing a large sum
of money, handed it in, but declined any reward, saying 'I only did my duty';
he was subsequently made an NCO all the same.^28
A similar edifying tone is adopted by Glinka's younger brother Fedor,
whose memoirs were not published until much later. When recruiting
volunteers for the militia in 1807, he allegedly came across invalid veterans
who had walked more than a hundred versts to reach the rallying-point. These
'sons of Russian valour, [some) nigh _unto the grave, lacking legs or arms, or
blind' were told that they had earned their rest, yet they refused to go home.
The legless ones were ready to fight in the first rank, carried by their comrades;
the blind, not to be undone, demanded that 'those to whom God hath granted
eyes may lead us within range of bullet and bayonet ... We have heard the
Sovereign's manifesto, saying that it is time to defend the graves of our
fathers. That is why we have come.' The rafters echoed to full-throated
hurrahs as Glinka toasted these mighty bogatyri.^29
Such evidence by zealous upper-class patriots is of course suspect. So is that
of foreign observers who stemmed from privileged circumstances, often har-
boured national prejudices, and rarely had the opportunity to observe life in
the ranks at close quarters for long. Algarotti praised the Russian soldier for
his 'patience in retreat', physical endurance, and loyalty, concluding (like
Chancellor 200 years earlier) that 'there is no nation more fitted for war'.^30
Warnery thought that Russian soldiers 'had no equals' in Europe since 'they
are always in good humour, even when in the greatest [material] misery'; he
admired their practical skill and considered them more valorous than their
officers.JI This indulgent view was closer to the truth than that of the (Baltic?)
27 Glinka, Russkiye anekdoty, v. 16-19.
28 Ibid., v. 154-5.
29 Glinka, Zapiski, pp. 215-17.
30 Algaro:ti, Lettres, pp. 33, 89, 93.
31 Warnery, Remarques, pp. 127-8.