Many people know that the famous phrase "Russians don't give up!" shouted, blowing himself up with a grenade, the hero of the Great Patriotic War, the Adygeyan poet Khusein Andrukhaev.
He covered the withdrawal of his comrades in battles in Ukraine and answered the Germans who shouted to him: "Rus, surrender!" Soviet propaganda picked up the phrase and replicated it. But if you think about it, it becomes clear: in order for the Adyg to say these words at the moment of the highest valor, they should have already penetrated into his soul. This means that they were spoken long before Andrukhaev's feat.
World War I
If you delve into history, it turns out that in Europe this phrase thundered during the First World War when defending the Osovets fortress in 1914. The fortress stood for six months. The Germans fired at least four hundred thousand shells at it, and in the end they staged a gas attack. But even that did not work.
Dying, the Russians rose in the last bayonet attack and put the Germans to flight. Even at the beginning of the siege, the Germans offered the Russians money - half a million imperial marks, but the answer was the classic: "The Russians do not surrender!" Some write that the commandant of Osovets, Major General Nikolai Brzhozovsky, answered so, others - that this was said by the senior adjutant of the fortress headquarters Mikhail Svechnikov.
Russo-Turkish war
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Let's dig deeper. During the Russian-Turkish war of 1877-1878, the Bayazet fortress was sieged, in which the Russian garrison of 1,500 soldiers and officers opposed the superior forces of the Turks. The fortress held out for 23 days. She was shot from all sides, the soldiers were tormented by thirst and hunger. The wounded were given a spoonful of water a day. The Turks offered to surrender eight times. Major Stockwich's answer was: “The Russians don’t surrender alive! I will order to shoot at the negotiators! Finally, the siege was lifted by Russian troops.
But Major Stockwich was not the author of these words either.
Russo-Swedish war
At the end of the 17th century, there lived a hereditary military man, General of Infantry, Count Vasily Ivanovich Levashov, who was the commandant of the city of Friedrichsgam during the Russian-Swedish war. In 1788 the city was besieged by the Swedish fleet. Gustav III suggested that the commandant surrender, and Count Levashov replied with the famous "Russians do not surrender!" The siege was soon lifted.
If we turn to more ancient literary sources, we will find that in the "Lay of Igor's Regiment" Prince Igor before the battle addresses the soldiers with the words: "Brothers and squads! It is better to be chopped up than to be full”(Brothers and druzhino! Lutse would be full of being, not more full of being). It takes place in May 1185. That is, even then these words were in use.
The Tale of Bygone Years, written by the monk Nestor, acquaints the reader with the events of the 10th century. The son of the Grand Duchess Olga, Prince Svyatoslav Igorevich (945-972) spent his entire life on campaigns. His mother was a Christian, and the prince remained a pagan.
He refused to accept the new faith for fear of ridicule. In his youth, Svyatoslav had to avenge his father, and this was reflected in the character of the prince. The chronicle describes him as an unpretentious, strong and resilient warrior. He conquered the Bulgarians, defeated the Khazars, and fought with the Byzantines. The historian Karamzin called him “Russian Macedonian”. Over the years of the prince's reign, the state grew and spread from the Volga to the Balkans, from the Black Sea to the Caucasus. It was he who honestly warned the enemies “I’m going at you,” and since then this phrase has forever remained in the Russian language. It was he who first said the phrase “Russians don’t give up!”, Although it sounded somewhat different.
Greek and Old Russian sources write about the event in different ways, but the overall picture can be added up. By agreement with the Byzantine emperor John Tzimiskes, Prince Svyatoslav fought with the Greeks against the Bulgarians. Having defeated the enemy, seizing cities and wealth, he was inspired and, standing near the city of Arcadiopol, demanded a double bribe from the Greeks. The Greeks did not like this, and they put up 100,000 soldiers against the prince.
Realizing that he could not stand, the prince, addressing the squad, uttered the very words that had passed through the centuries, inspiring the descendants to slaughter: “So we will not shame the Russian land, but we will lie down here with bones, for the dead do not have shame. If we run, we will be disgraced. Then he defeated the Greeks and went to Constantinople, which was 120 kilometers away. The Romans chose not to get involved with the barbarian and paid off. The prince decided to return to Kiev, to gather more soldiers. On the way home, he died in an ambush of the Pechenegs.
What made the Russian princes talk and act like that? Some believe that paganism. Allegedly, like the Varangians, they believed that death on the battlefield meant an afterlife in Valhalla.
However, the son of Svyatoslav, Prince Vladimir, became Orthodox and baptized Russia, and was not a coward either. Two hundred years after the words of Svyatoslav, in "The Tale of the Ruin of Ryazan by Batu", Prince Yuri Ingvarevich also says to the squad: "It is better for us to gain eternal glory by death than to be in the power of the filthy." And the Mongols remember the warriors Yevpatiy Kolovrat with the words: "Not one of them will leave the slaughter alive."
Apparently, the point here is not in paganism, but in that amazing core that is present in Russian people. For the Russians to lose their honor or become a traitor is worse than the fiercest death. Therefore, such phrases are born and accompany the Russian people throughout history.
