Can there be any more inspiring a sight then a brave young captain of the hussars atop his charger leading his men into battle? His uniform gleaming white in the sun as his charger ploughs a furrow in enemy ranks and his sabre reaps its deadly harvest, scything from side to side, separating a head from its shoulders here, cleaving another like a melon, while flashing like God's own thunderbolt brought down upon in retribution on heathen heads, he can not fail to stir the passions and the blood of any true Russian.
Is there no sight more likely to crush the heart to see his proud body brought down by a seemingly insignificant hole in the sacred white of his tunic? The new scarlet ribbon will be his final battlefield decoration - and although it attests to his courage as surely do all the other gilding upon the white canvas of his cloth combined - is not the cost paid for its awarding too high? One among the thousands of lives spent on the empty and endless road to Constantinople; a road that is destined to be denied Holy Mother Russia by either Turkish arms or European deceit.
Why even now, the Europeans are plotting ways to take away the gains that the blood of that brave hussar paid for. After eight hundred years of living under Turkish yoke the Christian states of Romania, and Serbia were liberated and guaranteed independence, and a new principality for Bulgaria has been established. But instead of celebrating the deeds of their brothers in Christ, the duplicitous Europeans - led by the nefarious British - are even now plotting to overturn the victories their armies had failed to accomplish in crusade after crusade.
But I see from the confusion that clouds your visage that I have jumped to the conclusion without giving you the benefit of the story that led up these events. As the full details are available for all to read in Boris Akunin's famous recounting The Turkish Gambit I will offer a truncated version here and encourage you to seek his detailed accounting at your leisure.
As is the case with all great histories this one has innocent beginnings; for what could be more innocent than the love of a woman for her betrothed? It's 1877 and all those who believe in the greater glory of Russia, be they reformers seeking rights for peasants or nobles of the court, know that their duty lies with the army fighting the infidel Turk. Young Varya Suvorova, whose heart overflows with her love of Russia and her desire to bring democracy to the people in equal measure, takes it upon herself to travel from St. Petersburg to the front so that she might rejoin her fiancee.
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