Аннотация: MMMDLXX. Vitkevich and the Soviet troops in Afghanistan. A note about a historical radio broadcast. - November 17, 2024.
Vitkevich and the Soviet troops in Afghanistan. A note about a historical radio broadcast.
I turn on the radio. A certain Vitkevich is mentioned. From the depths of the (my childish) past, an impression arises: something familiar.
I'm starting to listen.
The story is about Vitkevich - Witkiewicz (Jan Prosper Witkiewicz) - and about Afghanistan, but the cousin-nephew of the English poet Burns is also mentioned. The surname of this cousin-nephew is the same as that of the poet - Burns (Alexander Burnes). (Alexander Burnes' father, - James Burnes, - was first cousin to the poet Robert Burns).
What did I learn about Vitkevich? He was born (the narrator is already ready to name either the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth or the Grand Duchy of Lithuania, but the radio host takes the initiative and names "The Kingdom of Poland as part of the Russian Empire" - some words get stuck in a throat - unless a special ban was imposed on their utterance) ... the narrator does not name where Vitkevich was born, but agrees with the radio host.
What is Vitkevich interesting for? He can be called the founder of Russial explorations of Afghanistan (the founder of the science about Afghanistan - in Russia).
Vitkevich studied in Vilna, at the gymnasium. He joined some kind of secret society of local residents who disagree with colonialism, then he was identified, convicted by the court, and sent as an ordinary soldier to somewhere in the Orsk area.
Mikhail Lermontov could be recalled here. When he wrote poems "On the death of a poet", he was forced to name "accomplices" (distributors of poetry) under the threat that he, Lermontov, would be sent as a soldier to distant lands. And will his beloved grandmother (Lermontov was without parental care by that time) be able to endure such a turn of events? (His grandmother was from the influential Stolypin family, however, Stolypin, the prime minister, was also not very lucky, like not very lucky was Mikhail Lermontov).
Vitkevich had no choice: to extradite the "accomplices" and to stay in Vilna, or not to extradite the accomplices, but to go into the steppes in the area of Orsk.
Vitkevich serves as a soldier. But at the gymnasium he managed to master French, to learn classical languages, perhaps he knew both Russian and Polish.
So ordinary soldier Vitkevich quickly learned the local languages, and began to be used as an interpreter (translator).
Vitkevich is assigned responsible tasks - he almost commands of temporary military detachments (during local campaigns).
Two figures appear on the historical horizon: Humboldt and an important Afghan politician.
Vitkevich is attached (is added) to Humboldt, and Humboldt is very pleased with Vitkevich.
This is very important! Let Vitkevich is a good translator, let him is carrying out responsible assignments well.
But any bureaucrat of any historical period obeys the "snail's rule": keep your head down with your opinion.
Therefore, Humboldt is a kind of "manna from heaven" - for Vitkevich. Now any boss of any level can openly appoint a useful Vitkevich to any case (task), and praise him, and propose Vitkevich candidacy: Vitkevich was praised and "recognized" by Humboldt himself! (If anything wrong will be, we have nothing to do with it - all claims against Humboldt).
Perhaps Vitkevich, himself, was able to believe in own person (in himself): what if he knows languages, what if he prepares materials and collects an archive - well, what follows from this? After all, no one praises him, no one says pleasant words about him (unless they load and load him up more and more). But when Humboldt said positive things about him, that's when Vitkevich became a really positive person.
Here, the Afghan ruler began to show himself. Diplomatic activity begins. Action programmes are being developed, letters are being written, and embassies are being sent.
Vitkevich is very much needed. Yesterday he was a convict, an ordinary soldier (the radio host adds: either "an extremist" or something else from this series, but what an empire was flexible in personnel policy!), and today he is almost a representative of the Emperor of All Russia. (And Pushkin and Lermontov - didn't they write freedom-loving poems? What are the definitions for them?)
But Vitkevich would not have been happy too sooner, he would have needed to read "Woe from Wit" and recall the biography of Alexander Griboyedov.
Vitkevich implements the plans developed in St. Petersburg (who worked them out? The Emperor? I hear the surname of Nesselrode). (Pushkin, although he was formally subordinate to Nesselrode, managed to start a family and give birth to own children before his own death, in addition, his creative youth fell on the reign not of Nikolai Palkin, but on the reign of Alexander I). A huge number of Pushkins, Musins-Pushkins and other Pushkins were also taken into account and gave a delay in time.
Everything is going well. Diplomatic tasks are being solved. Vitkevich may have met Alexander Burnes in Afghanistan.
Soon Vitkevich with his huge archive will be housed in some St. Petersburg palace and will become an academician - a full member of the Imperial Academy. Vitkevich will travel along Parises, Londones and Berlines and he will look down on the Humboldts and Burns.
But - no. In St. Petersburg, the plans were "outplayed". Is Vitkevich so successful person or not?
Vitkevich is living in a hotel (on Malaya Morskaya Street?). The whole hotel room is packed with his archive. Huge materials have been collected by Vitkevich: about the East, about Afghanistan! (About Vitkevich's huge archive: the narrator mentions the boxes that filled the hotel room; and after the decision was made to send Soviet troops to Afghanistan, there was only one little-legible piece of paper, of which little is clear).
And tomorrow - Vitkevich's report at the very Top on the completed diplomatic assignment. After all, Vitkevich was almost a representative of the Emperor.
This is where some kind of ambiguity begins.
The narrator is confused. The radio host cannot help the narrator in any way (if only he will recall that during the Afghan campaign St. Petersburg was called Leningrad - then if Vitkevich was born in the Kingdom of Poland as part of the Russian Empire, then he died in Leningrad).
If the narrator is confused, then I will take the initiative. Perhaps Vitkevich breathed the capital's air in the hotel room in a St. Petersburg hotel, learned more about the fates of Griboyedov, Pushkin, Lermontov (he could have learned about Stolypin from some fortune teller), and imagined how he will be send from St. Petersburg to continue serving as an ordinary soldier in the Orsk area (after all, the court verdict was not overturned, Vitkevich was not amnestied, he was not pardoned. Sergei Korolev had the same story: no reversal of the court verdict, no amnesty, no pardon. Some mysterious phrase in an extract from the protocol of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR: you, citizens, do not relax too much, if something will be, so "(grabbing you) by your ear, and - (moving you) under the Sun", - do not read the Constitution too much!).
Back to the narrator and back to the radio broadcast. Vitkevich was found dead in a hotel room. It seems to be suicide. As I understand it, he burned his huge archive with materials about both the East and Afghanistan before his death.
The radio broadcast has come to an end.
I feel a sympathy to Vitkevich's fate and I think that at the gymnasium (in Vilna) he was taught both French and classical (ancient) languages, and much more. It would be nice if he learned in the gymnasium more about the biographies of Griboyedov, Pushkin, Lermontov (and Pyotr Stolypin).
I finish this note and think: what about Alexander Burnes: probably after all his eastern voyages, he was reading his uncle's poems in the West Indies or in London? Of course, he could have drowned while sailings and he could died of fever, but it is unlikely that he committed suicide and burned his archive before his death.
P.S. I searched the Internet and remembered where my memory of Vitkevich came from. This memory is probably not a childish one. Nikolai Dmitrievich Vitkevich was born on October 22, 1919 in Rostov-on-Don. In May 1941, he graduated from the Chemical Faculty of Rostov University. For a long time he was on friendly terms with Alexander Solzhenitsyn.
Jan Viktorovich Vitkevich (Witkiewicz) (Jan Prosper Witkiewicz) was born on June 24, 1808 in the settlement of Pašiauše. Now it is a village in Lithuania. Thus, in 1808, most likely, this settlement was located on the territory of one of the gubernies (provinces) of the Russian Empire.
Vitkevich asked (in his note written before his death) to use his salary (for two years), - the two years salary, which he had not received, - for paying out of his debts. If the situation was like this (the original of the note has not been preserved, only a handwritten copy remains), then not Vitkevich lived at the expense of the Empire, but the Empire lived at the expense of Vitkevich and his relatives. (In the biographical materials, there is a mention that the convicted ordinary soldier Vitkevich was receiving funds from his relatives, that he spent the funds received from relatives to purchase useful books for self-education; if Vitkevich, representative of the Emperor, did not receive a salary for two years, then he probably lived on borrowed funds and on the funds of his relatives - during the performance of official tasks). I did not find the information: the amount of his salary - in the biographical materials. I have a suspicion that his salary was not officially appointed at all (except for the salary of an ensign - of the serviceman in the Orsk area), that the Great-Lithuanian nobleman Vitkevich, - who was brought up in the concepts of decency, honesty (fairness, integrity), - acted as a representative of the Emperor, relying on the obviousness of the usefulness of his diplomatic and scientific research activities for the Empire (and he hoped for a generous reward from the state after successfully completing him official tasks - in the interests of the Empire).
Alexander Burns published his account of a journey through the East in London in 1834. This book expanded the knowledge of the British about Afghanistan, Bukhara and Persia. This book was one of the most popular in its time. After the first edition of his work, the author received 800 pounds. His services were recognized not only by the Royal Geographical Society, but also in Paris.
(800 pounds multiplied by 7.322382 grams of gold is equal to 5837.9056; 5837.9056 multiplied by 8,253.82 (the discount price of the Central Bank of the Russian Federation of 1 gram of gold on November 16, 2024) is 48,185,022 rubles.)
Alexander Burns was brutally mauled by a mob during a spontaneous Kabul uprising in 1841.
November 17, 2024 20:59
Translation from Russian into English: November 18, 2024 00:43
Владимир Владимирович Залесский ' Виткевич и советские войска в Афганистане. Заметка об исторической радиопередаче '.
{ 3599. Виткевич и советские войска в Афганистане. Заметка об исторической радиопередаче.- 17 ноября 2024 г.
MMMDLXX. Vitkevich and the Soviet troops in Afghanistan. A note about a historical radio broadcast. - November 17, 2024.
Vladimir Zalessky Internet-bibliotheca. Интернет-библиотека Владимира Залесского. }