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Thank you very much everyone. I somehow feel obliged to include the poem here as well, as these were the very words I whispered to myself as I roamed the city the day before yesterday (9th of May, Victory day in Russia) to capture at least something meaningful from the essence of this day and what it may mean to people of this country (I'm not a Russian myself, just an expatriate living here). I never realized before how hard it may be to take pictures with wet eyes...
TO CHILDREN (DEN KINDERN) by Herman Hesse
(Written in 1915, at the close of World War One)
----
You know nothing of time,
You know only that, somewhere in the distance,
A war is being fought,
You whittle your wood into sword and shield and spear
And play your game blissfully in the garden,
Set up tents,
Carry white bandages marked with the red cross.
And if my wish for you has any power,
So war will remain
For you, always, only a dim legend,
So you will never stand in the field and never die
And never rush out of a house crumbling in fire.
Nevertheless, you will be soldiers one day
And one day you will know
That the sweet breath of this life,
The precious possession of the heartbeat,
Is only a loan, and that whatever was lost
And the farthest future,
Rolls through your blood,
And that for every hair on your head
Somebody endured one struggle, one pain, one death.
And you shall know that whatever is noble
In your soul is always a warrior,
Even though he bears no weapons,
that every day a struggle and a destiny is waiting.
Do not forget this!
Think of the blood, the shambles, the ruin
On which your own future reposes,
And how, even more, upon death and sacrifice is built
The tiniest happiness.
Then your life will flame out more
And one day gather even death
Into its arms.
---
Posted 4 months ago.
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