This hill held the entire purpose for my pilgrimage to Europe. I read the first half of War and Peace the summer before I started my senior year of college. While the book is fiction, it chronicles some real historical events. One such main event is the Battle of Austerlitz. Here, Napoleon routed the combined armies of the Holy Roman Empire and Russia so badly he effectively ended the War of the Third Coalition. This was considered the crowning jewel of Napoleon’s military command.
One of the chapters in the book follows a main character named Andrei Bolkonsky during the battle. A member of the Russian aristocracy, his status in society gets him a high position in the military. His whole life, and his reason for joining the army, Andrei wanted to prove himself. He felt the great adventure of a military campaign could allow him the chance to do a brave act and earn his valor. His chance came. Andrei was able to live up to his life’s loftiest goal, but for a price. The chapter ends as such…
“What’s this? Am I falling? My legs are giving way,” thought he, and fell on his back. He opened his eyes, hoping to see how the struggle of the Frenchmen with the gunners ended, whether the red-haired gunner had been killed or not and whether the cannon had been captured or saved. But he saw nothing. Above him there was now nothing but the sky- the lofty sky, not clear yet still immeasurably lofty, with gray clouds gliding slowly across it. “How quiet, peaceful, and solemn; not at all as I ran,” thought Prince Andrew- “not as we ran, shouting and fighting, not at all as the gunner and the Frenchman with frightened and angry faces struggled for the mop: how differently do those clouds glide across that lofty infinite sky! How was it I did not see that lofty sky before? And how happy I am to have found it at last! Yes! All is vanity, all falsehood, except that infinite sky. There is nothing, nothing, but that. But even it does not exist, there is nothing but quiet and peace. Thank God!…”
Tolstoy’s War and Peace, Book Three 1805, Chapter XVI
War and Peace chapter XIX opens with Andrei coming to. Even against the physiological needs of his body, the first thought that arrives into our friends conscious is,
“Where is it? That lofty sky that I did not know til now, but saw today?”
– Prince Andrei Bolkonsky
As I sat on my porch in South Bend, Indiana, reading this masterpiece of historical fiction, I felt the exact emotions of our first person character. I paused my reading and looked up at the sky. It was magnificent and blue, it’s perceived expanse going into infinity. Reading these emotional chapters, I decided I wanted to go see it from where the character in the book had. Despite the character being fiction, the battle is based of real history. I needed to go see the great lofty sky. And so I did.
I planned an entire, multi country trip with my goal to see the sky in the same location the character had; 4,615 miles later, I made it. While there is strong power in fiction, I did recognize this character is not real. But he is. He may not have been, but real living breathing men gave their blood, and their lives, for their respective countries. The historical details of why this war happened are complex and nuanced, but things get a lot less transparent when there’s someone on the other side trying to take your life.
What did I gain from venturing this far? As I laid and looked up at the sky, I listened to an audio recording of chapter XVI, the chapter of the battle where Andrei completed his heroic deed and discovered meaning. As I watched the clouds roll across the same gray overcast sky, I remembered the ~45 thousand men who were fatalities in this battle.
It took me traveling over an entire ocean, and crossing half a continent to reach these fields. Going there helped me learned how little we all know compared to the infinite cosmos. That’s all there is. I was able to see the same immeasurable and lofty sky where Andrei found his meaning of life. I did as well. So were is it? That lofty sky? This was the only thought of a man had glimpsed his divine, and it was here I personally discovered how often I forget to look up.
Below are the rest of my photos where I looked up at the great lofty sky.
