The Road to Quagmire
Journal: Oxford University Press eBooks
Year: 2024

Abstract Fueled by anger and by the lies and disinformation that lay behind both countries’ official proclamations about the war, Russell and Tolstoy exposed the hollowness of traditional war rhetoric, including the latter’s stories, “Sevastopol in August” and “Woodfelling.” They had two principal targets: the first being—as it is termed here—the Heroic Default which, originally deriving from Homeric formulae, could find purpose in any war death by glorifying it as heroic martyrdom; the second d