Raina Petkoffs is reached with very good news. It is very good news from her mother that her betrothed husband has won a battle in Slivnitza.
It is Sergius who is the idol of the regiment. Her betrothed is now the hero of the battle. Her mother has to push her into celebration. Raina must celebrate the great victory of her only fiancé. But is the victory real?
Raina has been brought up in an ideological society; A world with only the idea of war without the full concept of war. Raina Petkoff has been pushed into dating Sergius Saranoff because the guy is a great fighter. He is a soldier and that is enough for any beautiful lady to fall in love with him.
Here comes a time when Raina’s idea of war is challenged. Louka, the servant girl has reported that there is a shooting outside. She has advised Raina to shut all the shutters. But Raina with her world of ideas about the war hesitates to take the advice of the servant girl. She thinks it is Sergius that has won the battle and nothing serious can reach her. But she has some heartache though.
Raina’s only heartache is having fugitives in the town. She knows that fugitives run to people’s homes for help. She predicts that someone must be chased to her room. That disturbs her peace. She challenges herself that she cannot celebrate victory with fugitives being chased.
It has not taken long. A man is being chased. A Swiss fighting for Serbian army is right here in her room. What must she know? Will she challenge her ideal world of war and shift to the real world of war? In the ideal world, a fugitive is killed. In the real world of war, a fugitive is saved. She must either save the enemy or tell her people to take him to be slaughtered.
After her many thoughts of what to do, Raina Petkoffs decides to save the man. The man is her enemy of course, but she must save him. Raina does the following to show she has challenged her initial concept of war.
“I will help you. I will save you. I will hide you.” Raina hides the man in her room. Hiding the man means she has given full protection to the man. The officers chasing the man come in. They ask her about the man but she denies the man being in her room. She tells the officers to search for the man but she tactically stands where she has hidden him. The officers searched and found no man. The officers have to go to find that the man isn’t in Raina’s room. She has protected the man who is her enemy. Have you ever saved anyone chased to your room?
We must put first saving lives rather than focusing on hate. “You are one of the Austrians who set the Serbs to rob us of our national liberty. We hate them,” said Raina. Raina admits that she hates the Serbs but this is the question of saving lives. We must hate ourselves. There are times when we must overcome our hate to save lives. Life does not have an enemy. We must save lives in any way possible. Raina does not think of revenge though she knows she has a reason to do so, but she chooses to save her enemy. She puts her hate behind her and saves her life. We must choose to save our enemies.
“No use, dear young lady. There is nothing in it. It’s not loaded. I have no ammunition. I always carry chocolate instead,” said the man. Raina thinks the man has loaded his pistol to kill. But the man has revealed that he does not have any intention to kill. To him, soldiering does not mean killing. A soldier is not meant to instill fear in the lives of people.
The person we think is our enemy may not be our enemy. The man reveals that he does not load his pistol. This tells that he does not have any intention to kill. If other soldiers are meant to kill but this man is different. He has understood his soldiering differently from the rest. We need to end generalization. We make mistakes of saying everyone is bad. It is not true.
See the danger of generalization. When people see a soldier with a gun, they only conclude that he has come to kill or to rob. We must have seen a soldier killing or robbing. With that, we have developed a mindset that every soldier kills. In the real world of war, being a soldier means to protect your nation. You are not a soldier to kill. You are a soldier to bring peace. You are a soldier to bring safety to your people. But in the ideal world, a killer is termed as a soldier. The qualification of being a soldier is winning many battles. You win the respect of the nation by how tough you are in the battle. Being a soldier means more than winning a battle.
“Some soldiers, I know are afraid to die,” said Raina. “All of them, dear lady, all of them, believe me. It is our duty to live as long as we can,” said the man. In the ideal world of Raina, she believes some soldiers are afraid to die. She cannot admit all soldiers are afraid to die otherwise she will have no reason to marry Sergius. But a man with a real-world view of war knows every soldier is afraid to die.
Many people do not think the life of a soldier matters. They ideologically think that a soldier is meant to die on the battlefield. Being a soldier does not mean you are sacrificed to die. A soldier means to live as others live. Soldiering is a profession like any profession. Their safety too must be taken into consideration.
In my nation, soldiers die like flies. People with an ideal world of war justify war because there are soldiers to die. No one cares about their lives. The innocent soldiers are manipulated and celebrate to die for no cost. They are blinded and believe that the best thing they should do is fight for no cost. What glory is in dying not for the cost of the nation but for the cost of individual interest? Soldiers protect the nation. Their lives must be protected. They deserve to live like others.
“You must trust to our hospitality. I tell you these things to show you that you are not in the house of ignorant country folk who would kill you the moment they see your Serbian uniform, but among civilized people,” said Raina. According to Raina, civilized people don’t kill. They are hospitable. Civilized people don’t judge where you come from.
Civilization means understanding life. The first indication of civilization is that death is not celebrated. Death is termed a crime against humanity. There is no glory in death. Death is always painful, whether the death of an enemy or friend. We all feel the pain death brings to us.
We cannot justify that it is good for soldiers to die. They are soldiers of course but they are not intended to die. We should save their lives. Manipulating them to die for unjust cost won’t give us credit before the overseer. We all have someone watching over us. We cannot be answerable to human beings. But we will one time be answerable to the Creator.
I may not conclude that we are not civilized but I am confused why we celebrate death. Death is hated by every civilized person. Go to some civilized societies. People will quarrel but they don’t fight. They are very convinced of the disadvantages of fighting. They know fighting will either result in painful injuries or death. When you cause injuries on someone, you must take the person to the hospital or if you kill the person, you must face justice.
When I see justice being upheld, I definitely see a civilized society. Justice is not eliminating the wrongdoers as many think. It is making the wrong doer understands that he/she is guilty of crime. Justice passed without any influence is plainly understood even by criminals. The criminal after understanding that he/she is wrong accepts any discipline decreed on him/her. With love, the criminal is executed. In a civilized society, this happens.
The purpose for this article is not a question of whether we are civilized or not. It is about understanding that soldiers intend to live. If you think they are good to die, do you also place yourself in their shoes and plan to die like them? We must advocate for human beings to live. We must value human lives. We are born to live not to die.
We must all agree that there is not glory in war. Raina Petkoff has the ideal nature of war and initially believes that the best thing she must reward herself with is to be married by a soldier whom she terms “HERO”. But the coming of the man in her room challenges her ideological mindset of war. She has seen a professional soldier who is not meant to kill but to bring peace. Chocolate is a sign of peace. Our army should be empowered to bring peace to the nation. They should not be manipulated by some individuals whose intention is war for self-satisfaction. Be kind to the nation.