A Prediction of History

As early as birth, there are set societal groupings and labels that commit individuals to alliances and heavily influence their allegiance. Despite not being able to control the factors of your own birth, location legally and emotionally ties you to a country and its people. This is through the form of classification known as nationality. One finds themselves affiliated with constituents that were born in between lines on a globe and joins them in the pursuit of carrying on a legacy of other people that had the same fidelity commited themselves to. This is nationalism, and it permeates in every country.

Ernest Regan argues that this devotion to one's country encourages positive movement within a society. According to him, nationalism works on two levels: a culmination of the sacrifices of the past and the dedication to perpetuate the nation's values because of the bonds shared with people of the same nationality. In other words, there is value to thIS blind loyalty because generation after generation feel obligated add to the legacy as a whole. He refers to the history or great deeds done in the name for country as social capital and he believes that it is not only the sign of a true nation but it is a necessary condition for being a people.

Leo Tolstoy paints us a picture of a different narrative to nationalism, however. He outlines the negatives that can stem from nationalism when speculating on what really happened during the French invasion of Russia and the Borodino battle. The first evidence of the harmful effects of patriotism is seen with Prince Bolkonski. He is very much a part of the old Russian culture and was a strong believer that it could never die. Because of this, he refused to acknowledge what was already happening, which was the French invasion of Russia. Believing his country was too strong to submit, Prince Bolkonski refuses to leave Bald Hills and pays for this decision with his life. Another victim of this logic that we meet is Pierre, who gets excited by the very idea of using his resources to aid his country. This suggests that he feels that he is in debt to Russia and it's his duty to pay it off. As one could imagine, this sense of duty earns him a spot on the battle field in which he finds himself over his head. In retrospect we can see that both their fates were a result of pride and it has to be considered foolish and misinformed. That is what we open ourselves up to if we decide to invest in a cause that has no logic behind it. It took nationalism to make two rational, educated men and turn them irresponsible and irrational.

Perhaps a bigger hinderance that is created by nationalism is highlighted in Tolstoy's analysis of the military strategy, or lack there of, of the two commanding generals. Tolstoy credits the setting and outcome of this series of events as chance. Luck was why the Russian's were at a positional advantage at Borodino, and the spiritual defeat of France had more to do with France's troops not being able to handle failure rather than Napoleon's cold, as it is written in the history books. After the battle of Borodino, Napoleon knowlingly pursued a lost cause which was the capital city of Moscow. His exit strategy, however, is what is truly subject to criticism. Napleon ignored a route rich with food when despite being low on supplies when he turned the wrong way on Kaluga Road, he used a "devastated" road instead of a paved one, and choose a new route instead of one that he knew to be safe because of his journey into Russia. Tolstoy reveals that an abundance of works have been written to rationalize these three tragic mistakes that led to the deaths of hundreds of thousands. But why is there even assumed to be a rational explanation.

Unforunately, the same ideology that was endorsed by Ernest Regan leads to this distortion of Napoleon's brilliance. Napoleon is part of the "heroic past, great men, glory" that Regan described as essential to the base of a nation. This affirms Tolstoy's implicit point which is that objective historical events cannot coexist with nationalism. A pride for one's country creates a conflict of interest with what actually happens. The nostalgia doesn't allow a historian to look at a scenario and admit that their hero has done something wrong because this goes against the idea that the ancestors were anything less than dedicated to the cause.

So while Regan was right to say that these feelings are present and unable to be controlled as they are a part of any nation, Tolstoy show us that this causes problems in the history books and is a potential for conflict on a small scale, individual level, and a large scale, country against country level.