Prince Bragation, outstanding General of Tzar Alexander I

Napoleonic era

 

Introduction

 

Pyotr Bagration (10 July 1765 – 24 September 1812) was a iice Russian general and prince of Georgian origin, prominent during the Napoleonic Wars.

 

Bagration was born in Kizlyar or Tbilisi to a family, part of the Bagrationi dynasty. His father was an officer in the Imperial Russian Army, which Bagration also enlisted in 1782. Bagration began his career serving in the Russo-Circassian War for a couple years. Afterwards he participated in a war against the Ottomans and the capture of Ochakov in 1788. Later he helped suppress the Kościuszko Uprising of 1794 in Poland and capture Warsaw. During the Italian and Swiss campaigns of 1799 against the French, he served with distinction under Alexander Suvorov.

 

In 1805, Russia joined the coalition against Napoleon. After the collapse of the Austrians at Ulm, Bagration won praise for his successful defense in the Battle of Schöngrabern that allowed Russian forces to withdraw and unite with the main Russian army of Mikhail Kutuzov. The combined Russo-Austrian army was defeated at the Battle of Austerlitz in December, where Bagration commanded the right wing against the French under Jean Lannes. Years later he commanded Russian troops in the Finnish War against Sweden and another war against the Turks in the Danube.

 

During the French invasion of Russia in 1812, Bagration commanded one of two large Russian armies, the other commanded by Barclay de Tolly, fighting a series of rear-guard actions. The Russians failed to stop the French advance at the Battle of Smolensk. Barclay had proposed a scorched earth retreat that was approved by Alexander I, although Bagration preferred to confront the French in a major battle. Mikhail Kutuzov succeeded Barclay as Commander-in-Chief and continued his policy until the Battle of Borodino near Moscow. Bagration commanded the left wing, later called the Bagration flèches, at Borodino, where he was mortally wounded and died a few weeks later. He was originally buried at a local church, but in 1839 was reburied on the battlefield of Borodino.

 

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Pyotr was born in 1765 to a prince of the Mukhrani branch of the Bagrationi dynasty, Colonel Prince Ivane Bagrationi, who was the eldest son of Prince Alexander, an illegitimate son of King Jesse of Kartli, which is now central Georgia. He studied Russian and German and was taught Persian, Turkish, Armenian, and Georgian by his father. However, unlike many other Russian aristocrats, he did not know French..Bagration personally identified himself as a "pure Russian" (chistoi russkoi)

 

Pyotr joined the Imperial Russian Army in 1782,  enlisting as a sergeant in the Kavsansk Rifles of the Astrakhan Infantry Regiment. His younger brother Roman joined the Chuguevsk Cossack regiment as a uryadnik (a Cossack NCO) at the age of thirteen in 1791. Both would go on to become generals of the Imperial Russian Army.

 

Bagration served for some years in the Russian-Circassian War. He participated in the Siege of Ochakov (1788). In 1792 he was commissioned as a Captain and transferred to the Kiev Cavalry Regiment that year as a second Major, transferring as a full first Major to the Sofiiskii Carabineers on 15 May 1794. He served in the military campaign to suppress the Polish Kościuszko Uprising of 1794.

 

He received successive promotions to Lieutenant-Colonel (26 October 1794), to Colonel (1798) and to Major-General (1799). His merits were recognized by Suvorov, whom he accompanied in the Italian and Swiss campaigns of 1799, winning particular distinction by the capture of the town of Brescia.  From 1798 to 1799, he commanded the 6th Chasseurs; from 1801 to 1802, he commanded the Chasseurs of the Imperial Guard; then from 1802 to 1805, he served as GOC Jager Brigade.

 

Catherine Pavlovna of Russia , a daughter of Emperor Paul I of Russia, was passionately in love with Prince Bagration. That worried the Russian royal family, and to avoid future relations between the two, the Emperor Paul forced Bagration to marry Princess Catherine Skavronskaya in 1800.

 

He was the alleged lover of Emperor Paul's daughter Catherine. In 1800 Paul recognized the title of "Prince (Knyaz) Bagration" for Pyotr in Russia, and unexpectedly married him off to Countess Catherine Pavlovna Skavronskaya, the favorite niece of Grigory Potemkin and one of the Empress Maria's ladies-in-waiting. Bagration and Catherine had been casually involved, but the marriage was a failure. The young and lovely Catherine soon preferred traveling and, in 1805, fled to Vienna, where her salon and running affair with Prince Clemens von Metternich—who called her "the Naked Angel"—permitted her to serve as an important agent of Russian intelligence and diplomacy. Bagration was obliged by the emperor to claim their daughter, Marie-Clementine, as his own and to subsidize thousands of rubles of Catherine's debts. He had a reputation as a heavy gambler, as well, and was forced to sell estates to cover losses that rose as high as 80,000 roubles.

 

In the wars of 1805 Bagration's achievements appeared even more brilliant. When Napoleon ordered Murat to break an armistice he had just signed with Bagration, the general was able to successfully resist the repeated attacks of forces five times his own numbers under Murat and Lannes at Schöngrabern (16 November) near Hollabrunn. Though Bagration lost half of the men under his command, their stand protected the retreat of the main army under Kutuzov to Olmutz. When Kutuzov was overruled and forced into battle at Austerlitz (2 December), Bagration commanded the advance guard of the Prince Liechtenstein's column and defended the allied right against Lannes, while the left attacked Napoleon's deliberately undefended right flank. He was promoted to Lieutenant-General in 1805, and in 1807 fought bravely and obstinately at the battles of Eylau (7 February), Heilsberg (11 June), and Friedland (14 June).  

 

He was successful as commander of both Russia's Finnish Campaign in 1808 and Turkish Campaign in 1809. In the former, he captured the Åland Islands by a daring march across the frozen Gulf of Finland. His rapid transfer to the distant Moldavian front against the Ottoman Empire has been seen as a reprimand for an alleged affair with the tsarevna Catherine, who was married off shortly thereafter. While there, he led the Russian army at Rassowa and Tataritza and was promoted to full General of Infantry.

 

In 1812, Bagration commanded the 2nd Army of the West. A few days before Napoleon's invasion on 24 June, he suggested to Alexander I a pre-emptive strike into the Duchy of Warsaw. Though defeated at Mogilev (23 July), Bagration led his forces to join the 1st Army at Smolensk under Barclay de Tolly, to whom he ceded overall command of both armies on 2 August. Bagration led the left wing at the Battle of Borodino (7 September), where he constructed a number of flèches- due to a shortage of engineer officers though, these were poorly designed. During the battle he received a mortal wound and later died on 24 September, in the village of Simi, which belonged to his aunt.

 

It is said that, while wounded, Bagration kept giving orders to the troops without knowing that the Russian army was abandoning Moscow. When he finally heard the truth, Bagration was so shocked that he rapidly stood up, totally forgetting about his grave wound. Such an act was too much for his severely wounded body and it quickly cost Bagration his life.

 

Ancient egyptian art

 One of the characteristics of Egyptian art was the monumental works that generally had a symbolic, funerary or religious character. Although the concept of art is modern, it is perfectly usable in Egyptian architecture, sculpture, painting and jewelry, many of its achievements being authentic works of art and not simple works of classical craftsmanship.

 

Egyptian art was characterized by the fixing of pillars or constant motifs from the beginning of the history of unified Egypt until the end of Roman domination. This period of almost three thousand years involved a development in artistic patterns, motifs, figures and forms of expression, with breaks or revolutionary innovations such as the Amarna period, where art would be totally innovative with respect to its centuries-old artistic heritage.

 

 

Narmer palette, classic image of the pharaoh "destroying" the enemies. It is a constant motif and a clear example of art as an expression of political power.

The knowledge we have of Egyptian art is mainly due to the materials used, be it stone (limestone, sandstone or granite), metals (gold, electrum, copper and bronze), wood (ebony and cedar) and others no less valuable such as ivory, faience and glass.

 

One facet that characterizes Egyptian culture is the constant effort to convey a concept of tradition. This effort translates into the adoption of certain models or images as icons that are repeated in the succession of pharaohs. So even though Egyptian history can be categorized into major stages such as the Old, Middle and New Kingdoms, many of these art forms can be repeated as they have been transformed into icons.

 

Art as an expression of political power

It is one of the first bindings since the beginning of the story. Current political ideas and positions would provide the main reason for the production of countless artistic works with a clear idea of ​​propaganda.

 

Under this approach, the main axis is the reason for the work. Said motif is the fundamental pillar of it and determines its parameters: the distribution of the images on the plane (or surface) to be used, the sizes of the images to be represented according to an order of priority based on the importance of the characters, and the use of certain forms as a synthesis of the concept to be transmitted.

 

The use of art in clearly propagandistic works was a common element. During the New Kingdom it was common for military campaigns to Nubia, Syria and Canaan to be represented in successive additions to the temples of Amun at Karnak. Thus, the consecutive pylons of such temples were adorned with multiple reliefs where the reigning pharaoh was battling against Asian or Nubian enemies.

 

 

In Egyptian architecture, adobe was identified as the most used material in its buildings, both in palaces for people with good economic position and for poor people in towns. The difference between the upper social class in Egyptian architecture and the lower social class was the number of rooms in the house, such as bathrooms, utility rooms and a large courtyard, the interior adorned with countless monuments, ornaments and decorations. murals painted in various kinds of colors, while the house of the people of the lower social class had only one room. It is also mentioned that the roofs were used as bedrooms, due to the excessive heat in the area. Both houses were characterized by having very few and small windows, also due to the climate of the region.

 

Art as religious expression

Ancient Egyptian spirituality greatly influenced everyday life. The symbiosis of art and religion was observed throughout almost the entire history of Egyptian art. In the religious aspect, the multitude of deities also meant a need to identify them. Art was in aid of this need by conceptualizing and synthesizing each deity with certain elements that were clearly attributed to them. Thus, each representation of a god necessarily had a set of elements that made it possible to identify it both in images of reliefs or paintings and in sculptures: Amun with the two ostrich feathers as a headdress, the image of Osiris wrapped in white, a simile mummy, Horus with his classic falcon head, Toth with that of the ibis, etc.

 

One of the main edges occurs in the plane of the sculptures. The statues of the gods not only represented them, but were clear elements for worship in the temples, called "the Mansions of the god". In the most remote of the temples the statue of the god was located, which was worshiped and cared for as a living being. In fact, the sculptures were cleaned, dressed and perfumed as if they were the god himself, since, within the Egyptian worldview, the gods nested within the very body of the sculpture. These could be modeled in stone, metal (usually gold) or wood.

Ancient Egyptian Hieroglyphics

The term hieroglyphics refers to a system of writing using ancient Egyptian symbols. The hieroglyphics involved a series of 'picture' words. Consisting of several hundred words, this system of writing was intensely complex and very labor intensive. The first hieroglyphics were used on buildings and tombs. It is believed that the Egyptians first began developing this system of writing about 3000 BC.

 

The word hieroglyph means “god's words”. The ancient Egyptians believed hieroglyphs were sacred. For this reason, they carved hieroglyphs on sacred structures, like temples. Hieroglyphs were also used to write sacred books, like the Book of the Dead.

 

The word hieroglyph is Greek for "Sacred writing" or "God's words"

 

Scholars have discovered that there are three different classes of Egyptian hieroglyphics. Some signs belong to more than one class.

 

Phonograms are signs that represent a specific sound. Some correspond with the sounds of two or more letters.

Ideograms represent ideas instead of sounds. Examples of ideograms are the hieroglyphs that represent the gods.

Determinatives are hieroglyphs that were not spoken or translated. They help make the meaning of words clearer and mark the end of words. The Egyptians placed no spaces between words or sentences.

The Egyptian language did not have written vowels, so the exact pronunciation of ancient Egypt is not known. Due to this, some words used the same constants. Scribes put determinatives on the ends of these words to show which word was meant. These signs also distinguished male names from female ones by placing a sign of a man or woman at the end of the name discussed.

 

Hieroglyphs are read vertically, horizontally, from right-to-left or from left-to-right. The signs reveal which direction carvings should be read. If the signs face right, they should be read right-to-left. If they face left, they should be read left-to-right.

 

 

Some objects had inscriptions that were read in two or more directions. The Egyptians believed in creating balanced objects. If an inscription was on one side of a window, then they would carve another inscription on the other side. Egyptians avoided leaving empty space. They stacked their signs and left no spaces between words or sentences.

 

 

History of Egyptian Hieroglyphs

Scholars believe that Egyptian hieroglyphs developed around 3200 BC. At first, the Egyptians used between 700 and 800 signs. By 300 B.C. Over 6,000 signs were in the written language. Many hieroglyphs came from nature or daily life.

 

Animals like lions or owls represented sounds or ideas. Shapes represented loops of ropes or houses. While many animals or shapes represented the idea they resemble, not all of them did. People needed specialized training to read and understand hieroglyphs.

 

Only elite Egyptians, like royals, nobles, priests and scribes, could read hieroglyphs. These people made up about 3% of the population. Scribes went to special schools and some began training at age 12. Students had to begin by learning 200 different signs.

People with a basic knowledge of hieroglyphs knew around 750 signs. A skilled scribe had to memorize over 3,000 hieroglyphs. Scribes earned a good living through their work, and were valued members of the community. They used special tools in their work.

 

Scribes painted inscriptions on buildings or objects before carvers engraved them. Scribes also used papyrus, a paper-like substance made from plants, as a writing surface. They wrote with reed brushes and different colors of ink. Scribes used red or black ink for words and colored ink for pictures.

Over time, two other Egyptian scripts, hieratic and demotic, developed.

Hieratic was a cursive form of hieroglyphics with less complicated and connected signs. Scribes used it to write documents and letters, because writing in hieratic was faster. Scribes always wrote hieratic right-to-left and used carved reed brushes.

Demotic developed around 660 B.C. It was an abbreviated script with signs that did not look like the corresponding hieroglyphs. Writing with demotic was even faster than writing with hieratic.

After the Greeks conquered Egypt, knowledge of hieroglyphics began fading. The royal family and most of the elites spoke Greek. Use of hieroglyphs faded even more after Rome conquered Egypt. Another written form of Egyptian, Coptic, developed.

 

Coptic used only 30 signs, many of them Greek. Most Coptic signs only represent one sound. Some Coptic words helped scholars decipher hieroglyphics. Modern study of hieroglyphs flourished after the discovery of the Rosetta Stone

 

The Rosetta Stone

 

Before the discovery of the Rosetta Stone, scholars had different ideas about hieroglyphs. Many believed that each hieroglyph represented an idea, specifically what the sign resembled. Other scholars thought hieroglyphics followed no rules and would never be deciphered. This changed after the discovery of the Rosetta Stone.

 

When Napoleon invaded Egypt in the 1790s, he took scholars with him. In 1799, near the town of Rosetta, troops found the Rosetta Stone. The scholars realized it had the same message carved in Greek, demotic and hieroglyphs. The English attacked the French and confiscated it.

 

The Greek inscription on the stone was translated in 1802. Ptolemy V had commissioned the stone to commemorate the building of a shrine where people worshiped the pharaoh and his ancestors. Details about how often priests were to make sacrifices were in the inscription.

 

Thomas Young began studying the demotic text in 1814. He identified Ptolemy's name in a cartouche and was the first scholar to realize some hieroglyphs were phonetic, and that the script followed rules.

 

Young's work set the stage for the work of Jean-Francois Champollion. He began by translating the names of Ptolemy and Cleopatra. Champollion identified signs that represented sounds in each name. He deduced what other signs meant based on the Greek spelling of each name. The first Egyptian names he translated were Ramesses and Thutmose.

 

Champollion was the first scholar to identify determinatives. He used Coptic to decipher the meaning of some signs. His work opened the door to understanding ancient Egypt and his dictionary served as a foundation for the work of other scholars.

 

Commune of Paris

The Paris Commune  was an insurrectionary movement that from March 18 to May 28, 1871, briefly governed the city of Paris, establishing the first government of the working class in the world whose spirit was the self-managed socialism. There is no consensus regarding the type of society that the Paris Commune was, because for the Marxist socialists the Paris Commune was the first dictatorship of the proletariat in history, but the anarchosocialists do not agree and instead consider it an anarchosocialist society.

 

The Commune (the term commune then designated and still designates the city council in French) governed for 60 days promulgating a series of revolutionary decrees, such as the self-management of factories abandoned by their owners, the creation of nurseries for the children of female workers, the secularism of the State, the obligation of churches to host neighborhood assemblies and join in social work, the remission of unpaid rent and the abolition of interest on debts. Many of these measures responded to the need to alleviate the widespread poverty that the war had caused. Almost immediately subjected to siege by the provisional government, the Commune was repressed extremely harshly.

 

"Bloody Week"

The Commune was stormed from April 2 by the government forces of the Versailles army and the city was constantly bombarded. The government's advantage was such that from mid-April they denied the possibility of negotiations.

 

The area outside Courbevoie was captured, and a belated attempt by Commune forces to march on Versailles failed ignominiously. Defense and survival became the main considerations. Working-class women in Paris were part of the National Guard and even formed their own battalion, with which they later fought to defend the Palais Blanche, a cornerstone of Montmartre.

 

Great help also came from the foreign community of refugees and political exiles in Paris: one of them, the Polish ex-officer and nationalist Jaroslaw Dombrowski, became a leading general of the Commune. The Council was influenced by internationalism, so the Vendôme Column, which celebrated the victories of Napoleon I and was considered by the Commune as a monument to chauvinism, was torn down.

 

Abroad, there were meetings and messages of goodwill sent by trade unions and socialist organizations, including some in Germany. But hopes of getting concrete help from other cities in France were soon abandoned. Thiers and his ministers at Versailles managed to prevent almost all information from leaving Paris; and in the provincial and rural sectors of France there had always been a skeptical attitude towards the activities of the metropolis. The movements in Narbonne, Limoges and Marseilles were quickly crushed.

 

As the situation deteriorated, a section of Congress won a vote (opposed by Eugène Varlin—a Marx correspondent—and other moderates) to create a "Committee of Public Salvation," modeled on the Jacobin body of the same name. formed in 1792. Its powers were extensive. But the time was almost past when a strong central authority could have helped.

 

On May 21 a gate was forced in the western part of the walls of Paris and the reconquest of the city began by the troops of Versailles, first occupying the prosperous western districts, where they were well received by the neighbors who had not left. Paris after the armistice.

 

The strong local loyalties that had been a positive feature of the Commune turned into a certain handicap: instead of a globally planned defense, each neighborhood fought for its survival and was defeated when its turn came. The narrow street networks that made entire districts impregnable in previous revolutions had largely been replaced with wide boulevards. Those of Versailles enjoyed a central command and had modern artillery.