In working with materials from the Crimean Agricultural Archive, Kvasha was also able to discover a statement about how the general ordered soldiers and officers to help peasants plow the land in their free time away from battle. As grounds for this order, he cited the expropriation of the peasants’ horses for the cavalry, which obliged the army to at least help them (the peasants), if only in this way. Irritated by having to fulfill functions not appropriate for them, according to the discovered document, the officers ‘indulged in grumbling.’ All that reconciled them with the strange order was that the general personally harnessed himself up and pulled a plow, accompanied by a tiller of the land who smiled, bewildered. In analyzing the fact that he had cited, the presenter cautioned attendees against considering this a complex form of Tolstoyism. Despite the special places in Lev Tolstoy’s writings for both the horse theme ( Strider, The Story of a Horse) and the railroad theme ( Anna Karenina), the writer’s position on religious issues was not close to the general’s. It is well known, too, that Lev Tolstoy’s tilling of the land did not mean he foresaw the human being replacing the horse.
Amidst the extensive material that drew Kvasha’s scrutiny, there was a special place for the famous instance when the general was being photographed in a coffin. Going against long-standing research traditions, the presenter was not inclined to explain that action simply with the general’s eccentricity. From Kvasha’s point of view, in this instance, the general’s striving for the dead world received one of its most visible expressions. The presenter also reminded his listeners that some saints chose a coffin as their permanent residence.
In Kvasha’s opinion, this intense attention to the theme of death was a distinguishing feature for the general. As a component of his profession, death, it seemed, needed to become a customary thing for him (‘Although can one grow accustomed to death?’ Kvasha asked, taking his gaze away from the lectern for a moment) and, in some sense, workaday. That is likely how things were during the general’s service in the active army. His—if it could be expressed this way—liveliest interest in death began manifesting itself after the Civil War, and only grew over the years.
The general gathered information about the lives but, even more meticulously, the deaths of his fellow pupils, brothers-in-arms, and even enemies, at least those who did not leave him indifferent. He even created two folders, accordingly labeling them Living and Dead. One of the folders—the choice depended on the state of the person of interest to the general—held a sheet with basic information about each person’s life or death. The Living folder was initially unbelievably plump, while the Dead folder seemed nearly weightless. The situation changed over time. The general was forced, ever more frequently, to transfer sheets from one folder to the other. This continued until only one lone sheet remained in the Living folder. That was the sheet titled General Larionov.
And then the general began to doubt the accuracy of the records he had kept. He lost faith that he was the only one alive and all the others had died. This appeared illogical. ‘Why,’ noted the general on the sole remaining sheet, ‘am I, who should have been shot back in 1920, alive, but those whom nobody had planned to shoot are dead?’ The situation seemed so provocative to him that he transferred all the sheets from the Dead folder into the Living folder. After a pause, he put his own sheet in the Dead folder. Only that way—Kvasha raised his gaze to the audience again—was it possible not to allow the living and the dead to mix.
The researcher also examined, apart from the other proceedings, two oral stories about the general taken down by a folklore expedition in the Crimean village of Izobil’noe. The first told how, allegedly, the general took Perekop without the permission of Anton Denikin, Commander-in-Chief of the White Army, and sent Denikin a telegram with the following content: ‘Glory to God, glory to us, Perekop’s captured, it’s here with us.’ The second story described a Christmas dinner that took place in the commander-in-chief’s Sevastopol headquarters. In answer to Denikin’s question about why General Larionov, who was sitting at the table, was not eating, the general replied, ‘It’s Lent, dear father, one mustn’t eat before the first star.’ Purportedly, Denikin ordered right then and there that the general be awarded a star.
Kvasha’s paper subjected the stories to criticism, both from a factological perspective and for the handling of information sources. In brief, that boiled down to the following:
1) the commander-in-chief during the period under examination was no longer Anton Denikin but Baron Petr Wrangel;
2) General Larionov had not taken Perekop but had, rather, defended it; and
3) stories about Alexander Suvorov were precursor texts for both accounts.
In the initial story about the dispatch in verse form, it was not Perekop under discussion but the Turkish fortress Turtukai; additionally, the letter was addressed to none other than Field Marshal Petr Rumyantsev. In the story about the star being awarded, Suvorov was addressing not Petr Wrangel (and certainly not Anton Denikin) but Catherine the Great, accordingly calling her ‘dear mother’. For Kvasha, the most interesting aspect in both folkloric pieces seemed to be that folk art made no distinctions whatsoever between Generalissimo Suvorov and General Larionov. The researcher called that circumstance ‘symptomatic’.
In concluding his paper, Kvasha lamented that, other than Petrov-Pokhabnik’s vague allusions, there was nothing known about the general’s strange actions during the time Yalta was surrendered. The presenter called on his colleagues to make every effort to ascertain what actions might have been under discussion. From his point of view, clarifying those circumstances would not only add color to the portrait of the general, but might also shed light on the question that still remained unanswered: how, as a matter of fact, had the general remained alive?
Kvasha appeared to want to add something but Grunsky was tapping on the microphone. Kvasha tossed up his hands, put his papers in a folder, and calmly (by comparison with Tarabukin, at any rate) descended from the stage. Kvasha’s conflict-free departure heartened Grunsky, who announced the next paper and called on the presenter to stick to the schedule. Everyone understood that the moderator’s stern tone referred to the previous presenter.
Solovyov listened inattentively to this paper and the next. His head had begun to ache. Likely from an abundance of impressions that day, he thought. Or was it from the outing to the scorching Mount Mithridates (sun stroke)? Striving to grasp what exactly the presenter wanted to say increased the ache, extended it, and forced him to feel every brain cell.
‘The operation’s name was signifying,’ said the presenter, Kholin.
The presenter’s exceedingly soft voice and inability to speak directly into the microphone did not encourage focus. The discussion concerned operation Foxhole, something Solovyov himself had studied a little. Kholin quoted the operation’s English-language name, the one Larionov used with western envoys. Before the Reds’ decisive storm of Perekop, the general had ordered two additional rows of trenches be dug, as if the quantity might still change something.
‘So these trenches replace the fighting spirit that I need, but my army has lost!’ the general shouted to the shovelers.