Vasily Vereshchagin. Defeated. Servise for the dead. The description of a picture.

In 1877-78, Vereshchagin fought in the Russo-Turkish war on the Balkan Peninsula. Though opposed to war, he felt that it was his duty to document it in all its detail, and since the profession of war correspondent had not yet appeared, the artist got around this obstacle by volunteering for active duty. In this position, Vereshchagin never shirked his duty and was always in the thick of the fray. He was wounded several times. Vereshchagin hated to see the death, often pointless, of simple soldiers, be they Russians or Turks. Therefore he depicted both, never letting his patriotic feelings slide to mere nationalism or chauvinism. Unlike most contemporary battle pieces depicting war as a kind of parade, Vereshchagin’s paintings revealed its viciousness, showing soldiers as the most important element in war and the chief victim of it.

In the Balkan series Vereshchagin was able to show some of the Russian commanders’ incompetence and recklessness, and terrible price, which was paid for it by Russian soldiers.

Especially impresses a cloth "Defeated. Servise for the dead", where under the grey sky the whole field of soldier's corpses laying only under a thin layer of ground is spread.

                      Mikhail Lermontov.
    THE DREAM 
                                   1841.
In Daghestan, no cloud its hot sun cloaking,
A bullet in my side, I lay without
Movement or sound, my wound still fresh and smoking
And drop by drop my lifeblood trickling out.

Stretched on the sand I lay, and darkly round me
The jutting hills hung motionless... Upon
Their tops the sun poured full; its bright rays found me
And burnt me, too - but I slept soundly on.

I dreamt about my homeland and a merry
And glittering feast where all was noise and glee
And where young wives, flower-garlanded, in airy
And lightsome talk indulged and spoke of me.

But there was one who sat there pensive, buried
In thought remote: alone she waxed not gay.
By sorrowful dreams her youthful soul was carried,
Why, only Heaven knew, far, far away.

'Twas Daghestan's bright vale that she did dream of - 
A man lay there whom she had known of old.
A black wound in his side gaped, and a stream of
Blood from it came that, slowing, fast turned cold.