Golems in different cultures. Bestiary: Bestiary. Golems

Artificially created by man, into which the cabalists, with the help of the occult sciences, breathed life. Mostly created from clay, stone, metal. Outwardly, the golem resembled a human.

The creation of the golem is often compared to the biblical creation of Adam. Where God molds a man from clay and blows life into him. But unlike the biblical Adam, the golem is a soulless creature, has no speech and thinking. When creating a golem, it was recommended to sculpt a figurine as tall as a ten-year-old child. An animated golem grows rapidly, and its strength reaches inhuman proportions. The golem is subordinate to its creator, its main function is protection, it is also used for various purposes in everyday life. Where to apply force.

In addition to gigantic strength, golems did not succumb to almost any magic. In mythology, there are cases when a golem escaped from the will of its creator. Turning into a creature blinded by hatred. Demolishing everything in its path and killing everyone who is nearby. Including its creator.

The golem is found in the legends of many peoples. The Jews have a giant made of clay.

The most famous golem legend is the Prague Golem. It was created for the protection of the Jewish people by the Prague rabbi Lev. In the predawn hour, a rabbi with two assistants, on the banks of the Vlatva River, fashioned a human figure, as tall as 3 cubits. After performing a magic ritual and putting a shem (the secret name of God) into his mouth, Leo revived the clay creature.

The golem looked like an ugly man, about 30 years old. His strength was many times greater than that of a human. During the day, the golem was a servant and carried out the instructions of the rabbi. Guarded the Jewish quarter at night. According to legend, the golem initially did not eat food and did not speak a word.

But later, he had a brutal appetite, and it was a lot of work to feed the golem.

Also, after a while, the Parisian golem began to speak in short phrases and showed the makings of the mind. So he asked the Monk Leve:

• - Who is the golem?
• - Who is the father and mother of the golem?
• - Why golem?
• - Golem doesn't want to be alone.

That is, he became aware of the feeling of loneliness. The golem began to realize itself, to show emotions. He began to play catch-up with the children, although his bulky, clumsy body did not allow him to. The golem was drawn to children and people. He wanted to communicate. But people fled from him in fear. The children did not want to take the Prague golem into their games.

So the defender of the Jewish ghetto was an outcast. They demanded submission and help from him, but they could not give him anything.

According to legend, the rabbi took the shem out of the Prague golem every Friday night so that he could not act. Because the rabbi was in the synagogue on Saturday. But one day the righteous Leo forgot to immobilize his subordinate. And the Prague golem rebelled. He smashed the houses and property of the inhabitants of the Jewish quarter. People fled in panic from the golem. Perhaps a sense of hopelessness and loneliness pushed him into the arms of hatred.

The rabbi was able to pull the shem out of the rebellious golem. After that, he took his lifeless body to the attic of the synagogue and buried it under the sacred scriptures. Later in 1920, a Czech journalist went up to the attic, but found nothing but rubbish there.

According to another version, the Prague golem fell in love with the rabbi's daughter Miriam. She jokingly called herself the golem's bride. The clay man followed her everywhere and prevented the rabbi from pulling out the shem. He was getting out of control more and more and inadvertently destroyed everything that was nearby. Then the rabbi persuaded Miriam, and she, succumbing to the persuasion of her father, immobilized the golem.

There is another version that the rabbi and the inhabitants of the Jewish quarter simply did not need the golem. He fulfilled his mission. The Jews were not in danger. And Reverend Leo simply put him to sleep. Having carried out the same ritual as during the resurrection, but in reverse order.

The inhabitants of Prague still believe that their golem comes to life every 33 years. And stands up to protect their city.

The legend of the golem is a warning that man cannot replace god. That a creature created by man will not be complete, it will not have a soul. The creation of a golem is a mystical path that only a pure mind and a righteous person can go through. What was Rabbi Lev.

Another legend about the creation of the golem is known. In it, the prophet Jeremiah, when creating a clay man, wrote on his forehead "God is truth." But the golem pulled the knife from the prophet and remade the inscription into "God is dead." This speaks of a mystical evil force that appears when a golem is created.

In Russian legends, there are also creatures whose creation is similar to the creation of a golem. This is the Snow Maiden and the Clay Guy, who, like the Prague golem, had an unbridled appetite. He ate not only ordinary food, but also all people and animals that came across on the way. The only difference between the characters of Russian folklore, from the legend of the Prague golem, is that they could initially think and speak.

The well-known literary character Frankenstein is also a golem. Only the body was not clay, but the bodies of different people. And he came to life not with the help of occult knowledge, but with the help of science.

Types of golems

In different mythologies, golems are distinguished by types:

• Stone golem. It looks like a piece of living rock. Mountain habitat.
• Earth golem. Lives mainly on the plains. It is a small hill. Not as aggressive as stone golems.
• Fire golem. Habitat volcanoes. Has intelligence. They are often compared to . Endowed with magical powers.
• Water golem. An animated clot of water. Also has a mind. Less aggressive than previous golems.

golem(ancient Hebrew "lump", "unfinished", "unformed") - a symbol of an inspirited person, a biorobot.

According to Jewish folklore, the Golem is a clay giant animated by magical means. Embodied the utopia of creating a robot. Kabbalists developed practical recipes for making the Golem. According to these recommendations, he was molded from red clay, as tall as a 10-year-old child, and animated either by the name of God or by the word "truth" written on his forehead. The Golem has no soul and is unable to speak. According to legend, Albert the Great managed to make a Golem, but he was destroyed by Thomas Aquinas, who saw in his creation a challenge to God. Another creator of the so-called "Prague Golem" was Rabbi Loew (XVI - early XVII century). His Golem repeatedly defended the Prague ghetto from pogroms.

Lacking spiritual qualities, the Golem is endowed with physical abilities in abundance. It is growing rapidly, reaching gigantic proportions and inhuman strength. Golems acted as servants. In particular, they served Jewish families on Saturdays, when the commandment of Judaism categorically forbade any work.

In the literature of the anti-Semitic sense, the idea is widespread that the Golem in Judaism symbolized the goyim. In the Middle Ages, the play of Judeophobic content "Gollem" was popular. When the Jewish sages made a biorobot, laying in it the installation to fight anti-Semitism, he suddenly attacked them. In fact, Jewish mystics in the sixteenth century categorically forbade all experiments on the creation of the Golem. The golem is the ontological antipode of Adam. In the XX century. The image of the Golem became popular thanks to the Austrian writer Gustav Meyrink.

Source: Meyrink G. Golem. Walpurgis Night. M., 1990.

Definitions, meanings of the word in other dictionaries:

General psychology. Vocabulary. Ed. A.V. Petrovsky

Golem - in historical psychology, the legendary embodiment of alienated human capabilities, an artificial person, allegedly created in medieval Prague. The metaphor of G. has been repeatedly used in modern psychological science when discussing the mutual influence of cybernetics and ...

A large dictionary of esoteric terms - edited by d.m.s. Stepanov A.M.

(Heb.), a creature fashioned from red clay, into which life was breathed through magic. It serves its master by doing his will. The golem is given the shape of a man. Life enters into him when the name of God is pronounced over him, and the word "emeth" is written on his forehead. Alive...

Encyclopedia "Religion"

GOLEM (lit. from Hebrew - "unformed body", "blank") - in Judaism - a humanoid creature created through a magical act. The word "G." occurs in the Bible (see; see also Tanakh) only once - in the Psalter (see Praises) and denotes a formless embryo ...

The word "golem" in early Hebrew texts

The word "golem" comes from the word gel(Hebrew גלם ‎) denoting "raw, raw material", or simply clay.

According to another hypothesis, it comes from the ancient Hebrew "galam" - he turned, wrapped.

Golem legends

All legends about the golem are characterized by the notion that this creature is created from pristine matter and that it is devoid of the gift of speech.

In a 14th century legend the creation of the golem is attributed even to the prophet Jeremiah and Sira.

The legend of the 17th century was popular. about Rabbi Eliyahu of Chelm (mid-16th century), who created a golem from clay, but soon turned it into dust, frightened by the gigantic size that he quickly assumed, and fearing that his huge, ever-increasing strength would be able to destroy the world.

The legend of the golem, allegedly created by Yehuda Liva ben Bezalel (Maharal) from Prague, has become most famous for performing various “black” jobs, difficult assignments that are important for the Jewish community, and mainly to prevent blood libel through timely intervention and exposure .. To the golem acting as a servant did not work on Shabbat, Rabbi Yehuda Liva, at the end of Friday, removed a note with a tetragrammaton from under his tongue, thereby depriving him of the ability to move. Having once forgotten to do it in time, Rabbi Yehuda Liva caught up with the golem at the very moment of Shabbat, but when he tore the magic note out of his mouth, it turned into a shapeless mass of clay.

Other golems are also known, created according to popular tradition by various authoritative rabbis - innovators of religious thought. In this legend, folk fantasy seems to justify resistance to social evil by some, albeit timid, violence: in the image of a golem, the idea of ​​an intensified struggle against evil, which transcends the boundaries of religious law, is legalized, as it were; No wonder the golem, according to legend, exceeds its "authorities", declares its will, contrary to the will of its "creator": an artificial person does what, according to the law, is "indecent" or even criminal for a naturally living person. In all this - the god-fighting meaning of the golem. But the theomachist principle in folk fantasy does not have a self-sufficient meaning: it is only a kind of protest against social and national oppression.

Despite the apparently legendary nature of the legends about the golem, its existence was apparently admitted by the later authorities of the Halakha. Thus, Zvi Hirsch Ashkenazi and his son J. Emden (descendants of Rabbi Eliyahu of Chelm) in their responses consider the question of whether it is permissible to include a golem in a minyan. Some authorities even argued that a golem could be killed with impunity, since it was not endowed with a soul, and the meat of animals created through magical mysteries could be eaten without observing the rules of ritual slaughter.

Golem in literature

Western European literature

Romantics (Arnim, Isabella of Egypt) introduce the golem motif into Western European literature; reminiscences of this motif can be found in Hoffmann and Heine; for them, the golem is an exotic (German romanticism perceives the exoticism of the ghetto very sharply) version of their favorite motif of duality. In the latest literature, two significant works on this topic are known: in German - the novel by Gustav Meyrink - and in Jewish - the drama of Leivik.

Meyrink's "Golem" is essentially a social satire on messianism. He is a symbol of the mass soul, covered in every generation by some kind of "psychic epidemic" - a painfully passionate and vague thirst for liberation. The golem excites the masses of the people with its tragic appearance: it periodically rushes to an obscure, incomprehensible goal, but, like the Golem, it becomes a “clay idol”, a victim of its impulses. Man, according to Meyrink, is more and more mechanized by the fierce struggle for existence, by all the consequences of the capitalist system, and he is as doomed as the golem. This deeply pessimistic work should be seen as an artistic reaction to the "liberation ideas" of the imperialist massacre on the part of the middle and petty bourgeoisie.

Poetry

The Jewish poet Leivik interprets the golem in more depth. For him, the golem is a symbol of the awakening mass of the people, its revolutionary, still unconscious, but powerful element, striving to finally break with the traditions of the past; she does not succeed, but she rises above her leader, opposes him with her personal will, seeks to subjugate him to herself. The philosophical depth of the image is expressed in the fact that the creation, saturated with social potentialities, continues and wants to live its own life and competes with its creator. Leivik in his "Golem" went beyond the limits of the legend, expanded it, imprinting in it the formidable forebodings of the coming social catastrophes, identifying it with the masses, which no longer want to be an instrument of the strong and haves. H. L. Borges' poem "The Golem" describes the golem as a failed copy of a human.

Fantasy

In the works of science fiction writers, the golem is often considered and used as a primitive robot, with a program embedded in it. Unlike the magical animation of a golem used in the fantasy genre, fiction uses processes based on real or fictional physical laws to bring it to life. There are frequent cases when, in order to revive a golem, it is necessary to pick up letter code.

This image of a golem is found in the works of modern writers:

fantasy

Golems are often present in modern fantasy literature. Here they usually represent initially inanimate humanoid creatures, assembled from some material (clay, wood, stone, etc.) and animated with the help of magic. As a rule, they are subordinate and completely controlled by the wizards who created them, who use them as guards or workers, since golems are insensitive to pain, weakly vulnerable, and do not tire.

List of fantasy stories and universes in which the golem is present or mentioned:

• Golems in the Discworld by Terry Pratchett.
• in Kevin Anderson's Igrozemie.
• In the Bartemius trilogy Template:Translation2, in the second book "Template:Translation2".

Golem in cinema

The legend of the Golem has been the subject of several feature films. Among them, the most famous films are "The Golem" (Der Golem, 1915) and "The Golem: How He Came into the World" (Der Golem, wie er in die Welt kam, 1920) - the latter, retelling the legend of the creation and first rebellion of the Golem, is considered classic cinematic incarnation of this story. Largely due to the expressive performance of the role of the Golem by Paul Wegener, the image of the clay man animated by magic gained wide popularity, although it was subsequently pushed aside by the image of the Beast created by Frankenstein, which was similar in meaning.

Julien Duvivier directed the film The Golem in 1936.

The legend of the Golem formed the basis of the episode "Kaddish" in season 4 of The X-Files.

In the USSR in the 1950s, a witty and spectacular Czech film "The Emperor's Baker" ( Cisaruv pekar, pekaruv cisar, directed by Martin Fritsch, 1951), where the golem also appears and plays a crucial role in the development of the plot.

In Quentin Tarantino's Inglourious Basterds (2009), Hitler applied the Golem analogy to a group of American Jews who massacred Reich fighters and disappeared without a trace, causing panic among the soldiers.

In the TV series Sherlock, filmed in 2010 about Sherlock Holmes in a modern way, the myth of the Golem was used and compared with a hired killer who “squeezed” life out of people with his bare hands.

Golem in the theater

Legends about the golem (especially about the Prague golem) formed the basis of many literary, musical and stage works of the 20th century. Among them is the play "Habimy" (first production: Moscow, 1925) based on the dramatic poem "Der Goylem" by H. Leivik (1921; translated into Hebrew by B. Kaspi, music by M. M. Milner, 1886–1953) and two compositions by I Achrona under the same name. In 1926, the opera The Golem by E. F. D'Albert (1864–1932) was staged in Frankfurt, and in 1962 in Vienna, the ballet of the same name according to the choreographic plan of Erica Hank (1905–58), to the music of F. Burt (born 1926).

On November 23, 2006, the premiere of the musical Golem took place at the Dum u Hybern Theater Palace in Prague. The musical performance was written by Karel Svoboda, Zdenek Zelenka and Lou Fananek Hagen and directed by Philip Renck. The musical is played in Czech with English subtitles.

Golem in modern journalism

The image of the Golem acquired special significance in modern Russian socio-political journalism after the appearance in the late 1980s of essays by Andrey Lazarchuk and Petr Lelik in samizdat. In the article, which proposed an original model for the functioning and development of the Soviet administrative system, the “Golem” was the name given to the administrative apparatus, understood as an information organism pursuing its own goals, different from the goals of the state as a whole, and from the goals of individual officials. The term "administrative Golem" in a similar sense was widely used by such publicists as Sergei Pereslegin, Konstantin Maksimov and others.

Golem in computer games

In many fantasy games, there is a type of golem creature. For example: Castlevania, Final Fantasy, Ultima III: Exodus, Heroes of Might and Magic, Diablo/Diablo II, Gothic, Kingdom of Loathing, Cursed Lands, Warcraft 3, World of Warcraft, Master of Magic, Lineage 2, The Witcher, Nox, Perfect World, Dragon Age: Origins. In games, a golem is usually a mechanical or clay person created or animated by magic.

Http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0 , which was subsequently changed, corrected and edited.

Man is so arranged that he always wanted to become like God - also to become the Creator, the Creator. In principle, this is probably inherent in the very nature of man, for it is said that God created us in his own image and likeness. In holy books such as the Bible, the Koran about this is very detailed.

For example, in the 32nd sura "Petition" it is said that Allah created Adam from clay: "He is the One who knows the hidden and the obvious, great, merciful, who made beautiful everything that he created, and created for the first time a man from clay" (32:6-7).

Apparently, this is why a person strove all the way to create his own kind, in addition to the natural path - reproduction. In a later version, this is Pinocchio (in the Russian version - Pinocchio), in an even later version - all sorts of humanoid robots, the creation of a person from a test tube, cloning, etc. But here we have not invented anything new, because the creation of an artificial man from earth, clay is found in the anthropogonic myths of many peoples, for example, Egyptian, Sumerian-Akkadian; in particular, there is an Akkadian legend about the creation of people from clay figurines, and they were created in pairs, and life was instilled in them through the umbilical cords - almost as it should by nature. The same is said in other sources. But it is simply unrealistic to consider all of them, so let's focus on one representative from ancient myths - the Golem.

The golem is a character in Jewish mythology. A man from inanimate matter - clay, animated by Kabbalists with the help of secret knowledge - all by the same analogy with Adam, whom God created from clay.

The word "golem" comes from the Old Hebrew word "gelem", meaning "raw, raw material", or simply "clay". The root -GLM- occurs in the Tanakh in the Old Hebrew word "galmi", meaning "my raw form". Then, in the old Yiddish, the word "goylem" acquired the figurative meaning of "idol", "stupid and clumsy person", "blockhead", which also migrated to modern Hebrew.

Jewish myths found their unexpected continuation in a very common Jewish folk legend that arose in Prague about an artificial man created from clay to perform various "black" jobs, difficult assignments that are important for the Jewish community, and mainly to prevent a blood libel by timely intervention and exposure. Further, according to the legend, the Golem, having completed its task, turns into dust. Folk legend ascribes the creation of the Golem to the famous Talmudist and Kabbalist - Chief Rabbi of Prague Maharal Yehuda Ben Bezalel or Rabbi Lev (Leib), a person, by the way, quite real, born at the beginning of the 16th century. This legend dates back to the beginning of the 17th century. It was stated in the novel "The Golem" by Gustav Meyrink.

Other golems are also known, created according to popular tradition by various authoritative rabbis - innovators of religious thought. It is also believed that the Golem is reborn to a new life every thirty-three years.

Later, the theme of the Golem was often used in poetry, and in fiction, and in theatrical plays, and in films, and even in computer games. One of the earliest films is the 1920 film The Golem: How He Came into the World. The then stars Paul Wegener and Lida Salmonova shone in it.

But how was it created - according to the legend of old Prague? This was back in 1580. Jews, as you know, settled in Prague in a heap - in the so-called. In the Jewish city (Josefov at that time), they lived quietly, did not interfere with anyone, on the contrary, they only helped. Among them were jewelers, doctors, usurers (bankers) and representatives of other useful professions. However, from time to time the church persecuted them, but everything somehow calmed down. And so one priest named Tadeusz, an ardent opponent of the Jews, once again tried to disturb peace and harmony and provoke new superstitious accusations against the Jews. Rabbi Leo suggested then to the Prague cardinal to organize a scientific spiritual controversy. Questions of greatest interest were whether the Jews use the blood of Christians during the celebration of Pesach (Easter) and whether the Jews are guilty of the crucifixion of Jesus Christ. Rabbi Lev convincingly proved that, according to the Talmud, the use of any blood, including animals, is strictly forbidden for Jews. To the question of the guilt of the Jews in the death of Christ, Rabbi Leo stated that Christ died on the cross in order to atone for the sins of mankind. It happened with the help of the Jews, because God decided so. Christians, on the contrary, should be grateful to the Jews, because otherwise Christianity might not have arisen.

Then, in a dream, Rabbi Leo asked God Yahweh the question of what means to begin the fight against the evil enemy. And God sent him an answer, clearly alphabetized: Ata Bra Golem Dewuk Hachomer Wrtigzar Zedim Chewel Torfe Jisrael, which meant "Create a Golem from clay and destroy the vulgar mob that devours the Jews."

Rabbi Leo, being a very strong Kabbalist, interpreted the "sent" combination of words in such a way that he could, with the help of the number of letters revealed to him by Heaven, create a living creature from earth - clay. He called his son-in-law Yitzhak ben Simeon and his student, Levi Jacob ben Chayim Sasson, and told them the secret about the possibility of creating the Golem, but explained that one could not do it: "I demand your help because four elements are needed to create it: you Yitzhak, you will be the element of fire, you, Jacob - the element of water, I myself - the element of air, together we will create a Golem from the fourth element - earth. He explained to them in detail that they first needed to undergo sanctification and purification in order to prepare for the great work of creating an artificial man, and taught them how to do this. (How exactly it was necessary to "consecrate" and "purify" - has no direct relation to history.)

When the two "volunteers" went through all the rituals and were ready, the fateful "Day X" arrived, which was also calculated using Kabbalistic knowledge. The work took place by the light of a torch and the reading of psalms. All three together molded the figure of a man out of clay and laid it face up. Then they stood at his feet so as to look him straight in the face. Rabbi Leo ordered Yitzhak to go around the clay body seven times from right to left, having previously taught him the sacred word from the book of Sefer Yetzira, with which you can revive the Golem. Yitzhak walked around and uttered the cherished words. After that, the clay body became fiery red. Yitzhak, as we remember, personified the element of fire.

Then Rabbi Leo ordered Levi Jacob to go around the body from right to left also seven times, telling him the words specific for his element. When he completed his task, the fiery red color disappeared, and water flowed in the clay body; hair broke out of the skin, and nails began to grow on the fingers and toes. Jacob, thus, fulfilled his destiny, acting as the element of water.

Then Rabbi Leo himself walked around the clay body, put into his mouth a shem written on parchment (a Kabbalistic combination of the letters of the name of God) and, bowing to the east and west, south and north, all three simultaneously uttered the words: "And breathed into his face the breath of life, and man became a living soul." So thanks to the three elements (fire, water and air), the fourth element - earth - came to life. The golem opened its eyes.

Seeing this, Rabbi Leo said to him: "Get up on your feet!" The golem stood up. Then they put on the clothes of a shames, and soon he looked like a normal person. Only the gift of speech was not enough for him. But later it turned out that it was even better. At dawn, all four went home.

While walking, Rabbi Leo decided to enlighten his offspring, who he was and why he came into this world, and said: "Know that we created you from a clod of earth. Your task is to protect the Jews from persecution, you will be called Josef, and you will spend the night in the rabbinate. You, Joseph, must obey my orders, wherever and whenever I send you - even into fire and water; you must obey my orders if I order you to jump from the roof and if I send you to the bottom of the sea. " Josef nodded his head in agreement. Rabbi Leo brought "Joseph" home and told his family that he had met a mute stranger on the street, and since he felt sorry for him, he accepted him as a servant of the rabbinate. However, at home, he forbade the use of the Golem for personal needs.

Seven years have passed. All these years, "Josef" carried out all the orders of Rabbi Lev, performed well. Further in the legend, the fallen Torah appears. It so happened that on the Day of Reconciliation in 1587 in the Old New Synagogue, where Rabbi Lev was praying, the head of the community dropped the Torah, putting it in a box after the afternoon reading. The event caused the most complete horror among all the assembled members of the community, since from time immemorial such an event was considered almost the worst omen. Rabbi Leo was also excited and immediately ordered everyone present to start fasting the next day. On Monday, he asked God in a dream what sin was causing this bad event. This time, God did not give him a clear answer, "dictating" only individual letters, which Rabbi Leo could not interpret in any way. Then he wrote them down on a piece of paper and gave them to the Golem, instructing him to find the answer from them.

The golem, looking at a piece of paper, immediately took out one prayer book from the bookcase, opened it and showed the chapter that was read from the Torah on the day of humility. The letters shown in a dream to Rabbi Lev were an abbreviated record of the commandment "Do not covet your neighbor's wife."

Seeing this, Rabbi Leo realized that the head of the community who dropped the Torah was in an extramarital affair, and therefore the Torah slipped out of his hands. He called the head of the community to him and confidentially told him about the words from the dream. He, crying, confessed his sin, that he really was the lover of a married woman, and asked the rabbi to assign him repentance. But Rabbi Leo went even further, terminating the marriage of an unfaithful wife and her husband according to the laws of Moses.

Further, the Golem performed many other tasks, but one day he became furious. It happened on the eve of Shabbat. Rabbi Leo introduced the custom of giving the Golem on Friday afternoons a kind of daily plan for the Sabbath, because on Shabbat he only wanted to associate with him as a last resort. As a general rule, Rabbi Leo told him not to do anything else on Shabbat other than to stand guard and be careful. But one Friday Rabbi Leo forgot to give the Golem his plan for the next day after dinner.

So the Golem was left without a job for the first time. As soon as Friday came to an end and everyone was preparing for Shabbat (Shabbat for the Jews does not begin on Saturday morning, but on Friday evening), the Golem began to run around the Jewish quarter, as if mad, to beat and destroy everything around, and nothing could resist him powerful destructive force - he was so infuriated and frightened by the fact that they forgot about him and he had no occupation. Seeing the rampage of the Golem, people ran away shouting: "Josef has gone mad!" Immediately there was a terrible panic, and soon the news of this reached the Old New Synagogue, where Rabbi Lev was praying. He ran out and, not seeing the Golem, nevertheless shouted towards the street: "Joseph, stop!"

And then people saw that the Golem immediately stopped in his tracks, overcoming the strength of his rage. Rabbi Lev was told where the Golem was, the rabbi approached him and whispered in his ear, "Go home and go to bed." And the Golem obeyed him like a child. Then Rabbi Leo returned to the synagogue and ordered the Shabbat song to be sung again. The agitated rabbi asked all witnesses not to report this story to the authorities, as he was very afraid of closing the synagogue for a blasphemous experiment in creating an artificial person. Since that Friday, it had never happened that he forgot to give the Golem the next day's task, knowing that the Golem could devastate all of Prague if it wasn't calmed down in time.

After that, the Golem behaved obediently, still successfully defending the Jews, if necessary, but some time passed and the community was no longer threatened with malicious slander - Emperor Rudolph II promised that there would be no more Christian attacks on Jews - and the existence of a helper became superfluous.

Then Rabbi Leo called Yitzhak and Jacob to him and said to them: "Now the Golem has become superfluous, since we no longer need to fear evil accusations. Therefore, we must destroy it." Everything had to be done in secret. It was at the beginning of 1593.

On the appointed day, Rabbi Leo ordered the Golem not to spend the night in the rabbinate this time, but to move his bed to the attic of the Old New Synagogue and spend the night there. At two o'clock in the morning, Yitzhak and Yakob came to Rabbi Lev, and he asked them if the dead, i.e. non-living, which, in theory, is the Golem, represent, like other dead, the object of pollution. This was a very important question, since otherwise the priest could not have participated in the destruction of the Golem, but Rabbi Leo decided that this question should be answered in the negative. In other words, if Golem was originally non-living, then there will be no sin of murder on the priest.

Having come to this decision, all three went up with a servant to the attic of the synagogue and proceeded to destroy the Golem. They did everything exactly the opposite in comparison with that night when they created a person from clay, i.e. if on the night of creation they stood at the feet of the Golem, opposite his head, now they stood at his head and looked at his feet. Kabbalistic words were also read the other way around.

After all the procedures, the Golem again became just a lump of clay. Rabbi Leo then called a servant, Abraham Chaim, and ordered him to strip the Golem down to his shirt. He ordered the clothes to be burned discreetly. The frozen Golem was then covered with old robes and the remains of books stored according to Jewish custom in the attic of the synagogue.

In the morning in the Jewish quarter, people were told that Josef had disappeared from the city during the night. Only a few people knew the truth. Rabbi Leo ordered to announce in all synagogues and prayer houses a strict ban on entering the attic of the Old New Synagogue.

Here is such a legend... For some time they forgot about it, but they started talking about the Golem again at the end of the 18th century, when the Polish rabbi Elijah from Chelm put forward his version of what happened in Prague and allegedly created the golem himself.

True, they say that the Prague Golem was never completely destroyed, that the clay man continues to walk the streets of the Jewish quarter of Prague and scare passers-by. That he was allegedly even seen, and more than once. But this already definitely applies to the legends of the mysterious city of Prague, and more modern ones.

And now it's time to move from legends to reality. If we analyze the legends and historical data, then three facts are revealed that are definitely not fiction. The first of these is the suspension of the Friday service by Rabbi Lev in order to stop the outrages of a certain Joseph. The second is a request to parishioners (or those initiated into history) not to inform the authorities about some kind of experiment. And the third - the ban on entering the attic of the Old New Synagogue. The ban really existed, and even the outer staircase was dismantled so that no curious person could enter there. In front of the door to the attic, at a height of 10 m, there used to be a platform to which a wooden staircase led.

this was evidenced by holes in the wall for load-bearing beams. Later they were walled up. In the 18th century, the chief rabbi of Prague, Ezechiel Landau (1713-1793), visited the attic of the synagogue by placing a portable ladder against the wall. Before going upstairs, the rabbi underwent a strict rite of purification, fasting and praying. Then, in prayer attire and with straps of tefilim on his head, he entered the mysterious attic of the synagogue, while his disciples were waiting below. However, he spent only a few minutes upstairs, and when he returned, he was trembling violently. What he saw in the attic, he did not tell anyone. "Let no one else dare to go up there and disturb the peace of the Golem!" - the rabbi updated the strict ban on entering the attic.

Today, there are no remains of the Golem in the attic of the Old New Synagogue. But that doesn't mean they weren't there. On one beam above the door, the date 1883 is carved, which suggests that there was someone in the attic who could clean up the remains. By the way, the entrance to the attic of the synagogue is prohibited even today. For what reason? If it's because of the legend of the Golem, then this ban proves it's not a legend!

Another confirmation of the reality of the Golem can be the repetition of the 92nd psalm during the service in the Old New Synagogue. This tradition may be a reminder of the rabbi's long-standing suspension of preaching due to Golem's rowdy behavior. There is no such tradition in any other synagogue.

The mystery of the attic of the synagogue and the legend of the Golem were very interested in the Czech researcher and writer Ivan Markel, who dealt with this issue for about thirty years. In 1984, he finally obtained permission to go up to the attic of the synagogue, searched the entire attic with a radar, listened to the walls, but, of course, found nothing.

By the way, for the entire twentieth century, Markel was the second who was allowed into the attic. The first was the German-language journalist of Jewish origin Egon Erwin Kisch (1885-1948), also fascinated by the legend of the Golem. He visited the attic in the 20s. He had a friend, also a Jew, no less passionate about this topic. Kish met him in 1915. He served in the Austro-Hungarian troops and rewrote some parts of the manuscript. The book, which he bought in the Polish city of Přemysl, describes the fate of the Golem, an ancient clay robot. It was written immediately after the death of Rabbi Lev. It follows from the text that the Golem's body probably did not remain in the attic of the Old New Synagogue. It may well be that it is temporarily hidden in one of the parts of the current Josefov.

Markel believes that the traces of the Golem's body may lead to several different places in Prague. To better understand the whole story, he studied the book, which was published in 1909 by the Polish Jew Rabbi Yudel Rosenberg. This book is the first detailed account of the life of Rabbi Lev and the possible Golem. Rosenberg claimed to have translated the original Hebrew text, The Miracles of the Maharal, written by Isak Katz, a student and son-in-law of Rabbi Lev. According to this work, the Golem was actually brought to life with the help of a shem, which is consistent with other versions of this story. It is quite possible that his friend told Kishu about the book that served as the basis for the work of Isak Katz.

Markel in his research also relied on the articles of Egon Erwin Kisch, in particular, on the article in the Sunday supplement to the newspaper Prager Tagblatt dated 9/12/1920. In it, Kish writes that it would be most effective to connect the servant of Rabbi Lev Avraham Chaim, who took part in the destruction of the body, with the disappearance of the Golem. Probably, Chaim and his relatives secretly transported the Golem to the underground premises of the Prague Pinkas synagogue. A few days later, he moves it to another cellar on the former Gypsy Lane - a house that was then partly owned by the Prague Jew Asher Balbirer. From there, Asher Balbirer moved the body to a partially abandoned Jewish cemetery near the television tower in Zizkov, on the former Gallows Hill Sibenicni vrch, now Fibichova Street.

Has the Golem remained there to this day? Is this not fiction? The origin of Kish's translation cannot be traced, and in his manuscript there are several historical inaccuracies, although not very important, and who is immune from inaccuracies, especially since we are talking about events five hundred years ago. The most important of the inaccuracies is that the Jewish cemetery for those who died from the plague did not yet exist at that time, it appeared ninety years later. But could there be another cemetery?

The second trail leads to the Old Jewish Cemetery in Josefov. The trail is very plausible. The fact is that in the Prague archives there was a record that in 1883 the synagogue was undergoing repairs, during which rotten beams in the attic were also replaced (that's where the number 1883 came from on the beam) and a temporary staircase made of metal brackets was mounted on the outside. The attic was cleared, and the discovered things were lowered down and buried in the old Jewish cemetery. What these things were, no one knows, and archival records bypass this moment in silence: things, and that's it. Together with the objects, the body of the Golem could also be taken out.

If we assume that members of the Jewish community in 1883 found human bones (or something incomprehensible - such as a figure made of clay) among sacred books and prayer vestments, then the find would have been hidden or secretly buried in a cemetery, because at that time the wave rose again anti-Semitism, and the Jews were again accused of ritually using the blood of Christians.

By the way, about the things taken out and buried: what was the need to bury the old rubbish of four hundred years ago and the remains of books? And in the cemetery? Wouldn't it be easier to just burn it?

Then the story takes an unexpected turn that no one expected. In 1999 Ivan Markel was approached by Teddy Sunardi, an Indonesian who is studying law at Charles University. He brings an amazing twist to the investigation. An Indonesian whose mother is Czech has had strange dreams and visions since childhood with an unfamiliar old square with a column or other places unknown to him, reminiscent of the streets of some old European city. He sketches these places and is terribly surprised when his mother recognizes the Old Town Square in his drawings!

The Indonesian later identifies his dreams with other places in Prague, most notably the old Prague Jewish Town as it was before extensive rebuilding at the end of the 19th century. The young man came to Prague only to study, as a child his mother did not take him there, and he did not see these places even in photographs. But the Indonesian student knows such details about old Prague that only specialists in its history can know. The chairman of the "For Old Prague" club, Ph.D. Katerzyna Bechkova, tested his memory by showing him old photographs of different places in the Jewish city before perestroika. Teddy tried to answer what's where. The results were amazing - about 80 percent of clear hits!

Psychics connected to the research found out that Sunardi in his sleep talks with long-dead people, among them the Prague rabbi Yakub Shmiles (1570-1634). In one of his dreams, he told the student that the Golem's body was in Josefov, Prague, in a house where a man would die in sixty days. The calculated date was July 31, 1999, when death actually visited house No. 849/6 in Prague's U Merciful Street. In the basement of this house, Markel then searched for the buried Golem, and again with a radar. The search was unsuccessful, but the Czech researcher came up with a shocking relationship: this house is located a few meters from the former Gypsy Street, which is mentioned in the Kish manuscript!
Golem - Medieval Robot

گولیمار , Indian and other oriental languages). Example: Pakistan. GOLI (bullet) and MAR (fire), the word is Golimar (the process of burning clay). In connection with hobbies in Europe since the end of the 17th century with oriental legends and fairy tales and their processing.

Legend

Golem - a clay giant, which, according to legend, was created by the righteous Rabbi Lev to protect the Jewish people.

A very common Jewish folk legend that originated in Prague about an artificial man ("golem"), created from clay to perform various "black" jobs, difficult assignments that are important for the Jewish community, and mainly to prevent a blood libel through timely intervention and exposure .

Having completed its task, the golem turns into dust. Folk legend ascribes the creation of the golem to the famous talmudist and kabbalist - the chief rabbi of Prague, Maharal Yehuda Ben Bezalel. Who revived the idol by putting in his mouth the so-called. shem or tetragrammaton. The golem seems to be reborn to a new life every 33 years. This legend dates back to the beginning of the 17th century. Other golems are also known, created according to popular tradition by various authoritative rabbis - innovators of religious thought. So, for example, already in some texts of the "Great Key of Solomon" written in the 16th century, there are methods for creating a "stone", which is created from clay, blood and other impurities, this lump is given the shape of a person and the parodic phrase "let there be a man" is proclaimed.

In this legend, folk fantasy seems to justify resistance to social evil by some, albeit timid, violence: in the image of a golem, the idea of ​​an intensified struggle against evil, which transcends the boundaries of religious law, is legalized, as it were; No wonder the golem, according to legend, exceeds its "authorities", declares its will, contrary to the will of its "creator": an artificial person does what, according to the law, is "indecent" or even criminal for a naturally living person.

Reflection in culture

The image of the golem is widely used in the culture of different eras. In particular, golems appear in the following works:

Literature

Western European literature

Romantics introduce the golem motif into Western European literature (Arnim, Isabella of Egypt; reminiscences of this motif can be found in Mary Shelley in the novel Frankenstein, or Modern Prometheus, in Hoffmann and Heine); for them, the golem is an exotic (German romanticism perceives the exoticism of the ghetto very sharply) version of their favorite motif of duality. In the latest literature, two significant works on this topic are known: in German - a novel by Gustav Meyrink, and in Jewish - a dramatic poem by G. Leivik.

The legend of the clay monster, created in Prague at the end of the 14th century, was retold for children by the Nobel laureate Isaac Bashevis-Singer.

Russian literature

In Russian literature, one can note the novel by Oleg Yuryev "The New Golem, or the War of Old Men and Children", in which the golemic myth is used for a poisonous civilizational satire: the novel, among other things, considers three versions of the story of the Golem, allegedly stolen by the Nazis (in order to create a "universal soldier") from the attic of the Old New Synagogue in Prague. The hero of the novel, the “Petersburg Khazarin” Julius Goldstein, encounters the traces of the Golem (and himself) both in America, and in St. weapons." Also, the science fiction writers of the Strugatsky brothers in the story "Monday begins on Saturday"There is a mention of Ben Bezalel and the Golem.

Writer and publicist Maxim Kalashnikov often resorts to the image of the Golem (as a comparison). The writer Klimov, Grigory Petrovich, in the novel “My name is legion” (chapter No. 17 “Purgatory”), a special project of the 13th department of the KGB of the USSR “Golem” is mentioned.

In the novels of Vadim Panov, golems are often used both for combat and for household use. Secret City book series

Poetry

The Jewish poet Leivik interprets the golem in more depth. For him, the golem is a symbol of the awakening mass of the people, its revolutionary, still unconscious, but powerful element, striving to finally break with the traditions of the past; she does not succeed, but she rises above her leader, opposes him with her personal will, seeks to subjugate him to herself. The philosophical depth of the image is expressed in the fact that the creation, saturated with social potentialities, continues and wants to live its own life and competes with its creator. Leivik in his "Golem" went beyond the limits of the legend, expanded it, imprinting in it the formidable forebodings of the coming social catastrophes, identifying it with the masses, which no longer want to be an instrument of the strong and haves.

Theatre

An excerpt characterizing the Golem

Prince Andrey with a simple eye saw a dense column of French rising to the right towards the Apsheronians, no further than five hundred paces from the place where Kutuzov was standing.
“Here it is, the decisive moment has come! It came to me, ”thought Prince Andrei, and hitting his horse, drove up to Kutuzov. “We must stop the Apsheronians,” he shouted, “your excellency!” But at the same moment, everything was covered in smoke, close-range shooting was heard, and a naively frightened voice, two steps away from Prince Andrei, shouted: “Well, brothers, the Sabbath!” And as if this voice was a command. At this voice, everything rushed to run.
Mixed, ever-increasing crowds fled back to the place where five minutes ago the troops passed by the emperors. It was not only difficult to stop this crowd, but it was impossible not to move back together with the crowd.
Bolkonsky only tried to keep up with her and looked around, perplexed and unable to understand what was happening in front of him. Nesvitsky, with an angry look, red and not like himself, shouted to Kutuzov that if he did not leave now, he would probably be taken prisoner. Kutuzov stood in the same place and, without answering, took out his handkerchief. Blood was flowing from his cheek. Prince Andrei pushed his way up to him.
- Are you injured? he asked, barely able to control the trembling of his lower jaw.
- The wounds are not here, but where! - said Kutuzov, pressing a handkerchief to his wounded cheek and pointing to the fugitives. - Stop them! he shouted, and at the same time, probably convinced that it was impossible to stop them, he hit his horse and rode to the right.
The crowd of fugitives, again surging, took him with them and dragged him back.
The troops fled in such a dense crowd that, once they got into the middle of the crowd, it was difficult to get out of it. Who shouted: “Go! what's the delay?" Who immediately, turning around, fired into the air; who beat the horse on which Kutuzov himself rode. With the greatest effort, getting out of the stream of the crowd to the left, Kutuzov with a retinue, reduced by more than half, went to the sounds of nearby gun shots. Getting out of the crowd of fleeing, Prince Andrei, trying to keep up with Kutuzov, saw on the slope of the mountain, in smoke, a Russian battery still firing and the French running up to it. The Russian infantry stood higher, moving neither forward to help the battery, nor backward in the same direction as the fugitives. The general on horseback separated from this infantry and rode up to Kutuzov. Only four people remained from Kutuzov's retinue. Everyone was pale and looked at each other silently.
- Stop those bastards! - panting, said Kutuzov to the regimental commander, pointing to the fugitives; but at the same moment, as if in punishment for these words, like a swarm of birds, bullets whistled over the regiment and Kutuzov's retinue.
The French attacked the battery and, seeing Kutuzov, fired at him. With this volley, the regimental commander grabbed his leg; several soldiers fell, and the ensign, who was standing with the banner, let go of it; the banner staggered and fell, lingering on the guns of neighboring soldiers.
Soldiers without a command began to shoot.
- Oooh! Kutuzov mumbled with an expression of despair and looked around. “Bolkonsky,” he whispered in a voice trembling from the consciousness of his senile impotence. “Bolkonsky,” he whispered, pointing to the disorganized battalion and the enemy, “what is this?
But before he finished these words, Prince Andrei, feeling tears of shame and anger rising to his throat, was already jumping off his horse and running to the banner.
- Guys, go ahead! he shouted childishly.
"Here it is!" thought Prince Andrei, grabbing the staff of the banner and listening with pleasure to the whistle of bullets, obviously directed precisely against him. Several soldiers fell.
- Hooray! - shouted Prince Andrei, barely holding the heavy banner in his hands, and ran forward with undoubted confidence that the whole battalion would run after him.
Indeed, he ran only a few paces alone. One, another soldier set off, and the whole battalion shouted "Hurrah!" ran ahead and overtook him. The non-commissioned officer of the battalion, running up, took the banner that wavered from the weight in the hands of Prince Andrei, but was immediately killed. Prince Andrei again grabbed the banner and, dragging it by the shaft, fled with the battalion. In front of him, he saw our gunners, some of whom were fighting, others were throwing their cannons and running towards him; he also saw French infantry soldiers seizing artillery horses and turning the cannons. Prince Andrei with the battalion was already 20 paces from the guns. He heard the unceasing whistle of bullets above him, and the soldiers to the right and left of him ceaselessly groaned and fell. But he did not look at them; he peered only at what was happening in front of him - on the battery. He clearly saw already one figure of a red-haired gunner with a shako knocked to one side, pulling a bannik from one side, while a French soldier was pulling a bannik towards him from the other side. Prince Andrei already saw the clearly bewildered and at the same time embittered expression on the faces of these two people, who apparently did not understand what they were doing.
"What are they doing? - thought Prince Andrei, looking at them: - why does not the red-haired artilleryman run when he has no weapons? Why doesn't the Frenchman prick him? Before he has time to run, the Frenchman will remember the gun and stab him.”
Indeed, another Frenchman, with a gun overweight, ran up to the fighters, and the fate of the red-haired artilleryman, who still did not understand what awaited him, and triumphantly pulled out the banner, was to be decided. But Prince Andrei did not see how it ended. As if from the full swing of a strong stick, one of the nearest soldiers, as it seemed to him, hit him in the head. It hurt a little, and most importantly, unpleasant, because this pain entertained him and prevented him from seeing what he was looking at.
"What is it? I'm falling? my legs give way, ”he thought, and fell on his back. He opened his eyes, hoping to see how the fight between the French and the artillerymen ended, and wishing to know whether the red-haired artilleryman had been killed or not, whether the guns had been taken or saved. But he didn't take anything. Above him there was nothing but the sky—a high sky, not clear, but still immeasurably high, with gray clouds quietly creeping across it. “How quiet, calm and solemn, not at all the way I ran,” thought Prince Andrei, “not the way we ran, shouted and fought; not in the same way as the Frenchman and the artilleryman dragged each other's bannik with angry and frightened faces - not at all like the clouds crawling across this high, endless sky. How could I not have seen this lofty sky before? And how happy I am that I finally got to know him. Yes! everything is empty, everything is a lie, except for this endless sky. Nothing, nothing but him. But even that is not even there, there is nothing but silence, calmness. And thank God!…"

On the right flank at Bagration at 9 o'clock, the matter had not yet begun. Not wanting to agree to Dolgorukov's demand to start a business and wanting to deflect responsibility from himself, Prince Bagration suggested that Dolgorukov send the commander-in-chief to ask about it. Bagration knew that, at a distance of almost 10 miles, separating one flank from the other, if they did not kill the one who was sent (which was very likely), and if he even found the commander-in-chief, which was very difficult, the sent one would not have time to return earlier evenings.
Bagration glanced at his retinue with his large, expressionless, sleepy eyes, and Rostov's childish face, involuntarily dying with excitement and hope, was the first to catch his eye. He sent it.
- And if I meet his majesty before the commander-in-chief, your excellency? - said Rostov, holding his hand to the visor.
“You can pass it on to His Majesty,” said Dolgorukov hastily interrupting Bagration.
Having changed from the chain, Rostov managed to sleep a few hours before morning and felt cheerful, bold, resolute, with that elasticity of movements, confidence in his happiness and in that mood in which everything seems easy, fun and possible.
All his desires were fulfilled this morning; a general battle was given, he participated in it; moreover, he was an orderly under the bravest general; moreover, he went on an assignment to Kutuzov, and perhaps to the sovereign himself. The morning was clear, the horse under it was kind. His heart was full of joy and happiness. Having received the order, he started his horse and galloped along the line. At first he rode along the line of Bagration's troops, who had not yet entered into action and stood motionless; then he drove into the space occupied by Uvarov's cavalry and here he already noticed movements and signs of preparations for the case; having passed Uvarov's cavalry, he already clearly heard the sounds of cannon and cannon fire in front of him. The shooting intensified.
In the fresh, morning air there were already heard, not as before at unequal intervals, two or three shots, and then one or two cannon shots, and along the slopes of the mountains, in front of Pracen, the rifts of rifle fire were heard, interrupted by such frequent shots from guns that sometimes several cannon shots no longer separated from each other, but merged into one common roar.
One could see how the smoke of the guns seemed to be running along the slopes, chasing each other, and how the smoke of the guns swirled, blurred and merged one with the other. One could see, by the gleam of bayonets between the smoke, moving masses of infantry and narrow bands of artillery with green boxes.
Rostov, on a hillock, stopped his horse for a moment to examine what was being done; but no matter how he strained his attention, he could neither understand nor make out anything of what was being done: some people were moving there in the smoke, some canvases of troops were moving in front and behind; but why? who? where? could not be understood. This sight and these sounds not only did not arouse in him any dull or timid feeling, but, on the contrary, gave him energy and determination.
“Well, more, give me more!” - he turned mentally to these sounds and again started galloping along the line, penetrating further and further into the area of ​​\u200b\u200bthe troops that had already entered into action.
“I don’t know how it will be there, but everything will be fine!” thought Rostov.
Having passed some kind of Austrian troops, Rostov noticed that the next part of the line (it was the guard) had already entered into action.
"All the better! I'll take a closer look, he thought.
He went almost to the front line. Several riders galloped towards him. These were our Life Lancers, who were returning from the attack in disordered ranks. Rostov passed them, noticed involuntarily one of them in the blood and galloped on.
"I don't care about that!" he thought. Before he had gone a few hundred paces after that, to the left of him, in front of him, appeared throughout the field a huge mass of cavalrymen on black horses, in shiny white uniforms, who trotted straight at him. Rostov set his horse at full gallop in order to get out of the way from these cavalrymen, and he would have left them if they were still walking at the same gait, but they kept gaining speed, so that some horses were already galloping. Rostov became more and more audible to their clatter and rattling of their weapons, and their horses, figures and even faces became more visible. These were our cavalry guards attacking the French cavalry advancing towards them.
The cavalry guards galloped, but still holding the horses. Rostov had already seen their faces and heard the command: "March, march!" uttered by an officer who released his blood horse at full swing. Rostov, fearing to be crushed or lured into an attack on the French, galloped along the front, which was the urine of his horse, and still did not have time to pass them.
The extreme cavalry guard, a huge, pockmarked man, frowned angrily when he saw Rostov in front of him, with whom he would inevitably collide. This cavalry guard would certainly have knocked down Rostov with his Bedouin (Rostov himself seemed so small and weak in comparison with these huge people and horses), if he had not guessed to wave a whip in the eyes of a cavalry guard horse. The black, heavy, five-inch horse shied away, laying its ears; but the pockmarked cavalry guard drove huge spurs into her flanks, and the horse, waving its tail and stretching out its neck, rushed even faster. As soon as the cavalry guards passed Rostov, he heard their cry: "Hurrah!" and looking around, he saw that their front ranks were mixed with strangers, probably French, cavalrymen in red epaulettes. It was impossible to see anything further, because immediately after that, cannons began to shoot from somewhere, and everything was covered with smoke.
At that moment, as the cavalry guards, passing him, disappeared into the smoke, Rostov hesitated whether to gallop after them or go where he needed to. It was that brilliant attack of the cavalry guards, which surprised the French themselves. Rostov was terrified to hear later that out of all this mass of huge handsome people, out of all these brilliant, on thousands of horses, rich young men, officers and cadets who galloped past him, only eighteen people remained after the attack.
“What should I envy, mine will not leave, and now, perhaps, I will see the sovereign!” thought Rostov and galloped on.
As he drew level with the guards infantry, he noticed that cannonballs were flying through and around her, not so much because he heard the sound of cannonballs, but because he saw anxiety on the faces of the soldiers and on the faces of the officers - an unnatural, militant solemnity.
Driving behind one of the lines of infantry guards regiments, he heard a voice calling him by name.
- Rostov!
- What? he replied, not recognizing Boris.
– What is it? hit the first line! Our regiment went on the attack! - said Boris, smiling with that happy smile that young people have when they have been in a fire for the first time.
Rostov stopped.
– That's how! - he said. - Well?
- Repulsed! - Boris said animatedly, becoming chatty. - You can imagine?
And Boris began to tell how the guards, having taken their place and seeing the troops in front of them, mistook them for the Austrians and suddenly learned from the cannonballs fired from these troops that they were in the first line, and unexpectedly had to enter into action. Rostov, without listening to Boris, touched his horse.
- Where are you going? Boris asked.
- To His Majesty with a commission.
- There he is! - said Boris, who heard that Rostov needed his highness, instead of his majesty.
And he pointed out to him the Grand Duke, who, a hundred paces from them, in a helmet and a cavalry guard coat, with his raised shoulders and furrowed eyebrows, was shouting something to an Austrian white and pale officer.
“Why, this is the Grand Duke, and I should go to the commander-in-chief or to the sovereign,” said Rostov and touched the horse.
- Count, Count! - shouted Berg, as animated as Boris, running up from the other side, - count, I was wounded in the right hand (he said, showing his hand, covered with blood, tied with a handkerchief) and remained in the front. Count, I hold a sword in my left hand: in our breed of von Berg, Count, all were knights.
Berg said something else, but Rostov, without listening to the end, had already gone on.
Having passed the guards and an empty gap, Rostov, in order not to fall back into the first line, as he fell under the attack of the cavalry guards, rode along the line of reserves, going far around the place where the hottest shooting and cannonade was heard. Suddenly, in front of him and behind our troops, in a place where he could not in any way suspect the enemy, he heard close gunfire.
"What could it be? thought Rostov. - Is the enemy in the rear of our troops? It can’t be, thought Rostov, and the horror of fear for himself and for the outcome of the whole battle suddenly came over him. “Whatever it is, though,” he thought, “there is nothing to go around now. I must look for the commander-in-chief here, and if everything is lost, then it is my business to die together with everyone.
The bad feeling that suddenly came over Rostov was confirmed more and more the farther he drove into the space occupied by crowds of heterogeneous troops, located outside the village of Prats.
- What? What? Who are they shooting at? Who is shooting? Rostov asked, leveling with the Russian and Austrian soldiers, who fled in mixed crowds to cut across his roads.
"The devil knows?" Beat everyone! Get lost everything! - Answered him in Russian, German and Czech crowds fleeing and not understanding exactly the same as he did what was happening here.
- Beat the Germans! one shouted.
- And the devil take them, - traitors.
- Zum Henker diese Ruesen ... [To hell with these Russians ...] - the German grumbled something.
Several wounded were walking along the road. Curses, screams, groans merged into one common rumble. The shooting died down and, as Rostov later found out, Russian and Austrian soldiers were shooting at each other.
"My God! what is it? thought Rostov. “And here, where at any moment the sovereign can see them… But no, it’s true, these are just a few scoundrels. This will pass, this is not it, this cannot be, he thought. “Just hurry, hurry through them!”
The thought of defeat and flight could not enter Rostov's head. Although he had seen French guns and troops precisely on the Pracen Hill, on the very one where he was ordered to look for the commander in chief, he could not and did not want to believe this.

Near the village of Pratsa, Rostov was ordered to look for Kutuzov and the sovereign. But not only were they not here, but there was not a single commander, but there were heterogeneous crowds of disordered troops.
He urged on his already tired horse in order to quickly pass these crowds, but the farther he moved, the more upset the crowds became. On the high road, on which he left, carriages, carriages of all kinds, Russian and Austrian soldiers, of all branches of the military, wounded and unwounded, crowded. All this buzzed and swarmed mixedly to the gloomy sound of flying cannonballs from the French batteries placed on the Pracen Heights.
- Where is the Emperor? where is Kutuzov? - Rostov asked everyone he could stop, and could not get an answer from anyone.
Finally, grabbing the soldier by the collar, he forced him to answer himself.
- E! brother! Everyone has been there for a long time, forward fled! - the soldier said to Rostov, laughing at something and breaking free.
Leaving this soldier, who was obviously drunk, Rostov stopped the horse of the batman or the headman of an important person and began to question him. The batman announced to Rostov that an hour ago the sovereign had been driven at full speed in a carriage along this very road, and that the sovereign was dangerously wounded.
“It can’t be,” said Rostov, “that’s right, someone else.”
“I saw it myself,” said the batman with a self-confident grin. - It’s time for me to know the sovereign: it seems how many times in Petersburg I saw it like that. Pale, pale, sitting in a carriage. As soon as he let the four blacks, my fathers, he thundered past us: it seems time to know both the royal horses and Ilya Ivanovich; it seems that the coachman does not travel with another, like with Tsar Ilya.
Rostov let his horse go and wanted to go on. A wounded officer walking by turned to him.
- Whom do you need? the officer asked. - Commander-in-Chief? So he was killed with a cannonball, he was killed in the chest with our regiment.
“Not killed, wounded,” another officer corrected.
- Yes, who? Kutuzov? Rostov asked.
- Not Kutuzov, but how do you put it, - well, yes, everything is the same, not many are left alive. Go over there, over there, to that village, all the authorities have gathered there, - this officer said, pointing to the village of Gostieradek, and passed by.
Rostov rode at a pace, not knowing why and to whom he would now go. The sovereign is wounded, the battle is lost. It was impossible not to believe it now. Rostov was driving in the direction indicated to him and along which the tower and the church could be seen in the distance. Where was he in a hurry? What was he to say now to the sovereign or Kutuzov, even if they were alive and not wounded?
“Go along this road, your honor, and they’ll kill you right here,” the soldier shouted to him. - They'll kill you!
- O! what are you saying! said the other. – Where will he go? It's closer here.
Rostov thought about it and went exactly in the direction where he was told that they would kill him.
“Now it doesn’t matter: if the sovereign is wounded, can I really take care of myself?” he thought. He drove into the space where most of the people who fled from Pracen died. The French had not yet occupied this place, and the Russians, those who were alive or wounded, had long since left it. On the field, like shocks on a good arable land, there were ten people, fifteen killed, wounded on every tithe of the place. The wounded crawled down in twos, threes together, and unpleasant, sometimes feigned, as it seemed to Rostov, their cries and groans were heard. Rostov trotted his horse so as not to see all these suffering people, and he became afraid. He was afraid not for his life, but for the courage he needed and which, he knew, would not withstand the sight of these unfortunates.
The French, who had stopped shooting at this field strewn with the dead and wounded, because there was no longer anyone alive on it, saw the adjutant riding on it, pointed a gun at him and threw several cores. The feeling of these whistling, terrible sounds and the surrounding dead merged for Rostov into one impression of horror and self-pity. He remembered his mother's last letter. “What would she feel,” he thought, “if she could see me here now, on this field and with guns aimed at me.”
In the village of Gostieradeke there were, although confused, but in greater order, Russian troops marching away from the battlefield. French cannonballs were no longer reaching here, and the sounds of firing seemed far away. Here everyone already clearly saw and said that the battle was lost. To whom Rostov turned, no one could tell him where the sovereign was, or where Kutuzov was. Some said that the rumor about the wound of the sovereign was true, others said that it was not, and explained this false rumor that had spread by the fact that, indeed, in the sovereign’s carriage, the pale and frightened Chief Marshal Count Tolstoy galloped back from the battlefield, who left with others in the emperor’s retinue on the battlefield. One officer told Rostov that behind the village, to the left, he saw someone from the higher authorities, and Rostov went there, no longer hoping to find anyone, but only to clear his conscience before himself. Having traveled about three versts and passed the last Russian troops, near a garden dug in by a ditch, Rostov saw two horsemen standing opposite the ditch. One, with a white sultan on his hat, seemed familiar to Rostov for some reason; another, an unfamiliar rider, on a beautiful red horse (this horse seemed familiar to Rostov) rode up to the ditch, pushed the horse with his spurs and, releasing the reins, easily jumped over the ditch of the garden. Only the earth crumbled from the embankment from the hind hooves of the horse. Turning his horse sharply, he again jumped back over the ditch and respectfully addressed the rider with the white sultan, apparently suggesting that he do the same. The horseman, whose figure seemed familiar to Rostov and for some reason involuntarily attracted his attention, made a negative gesture with his head and hand, and by this gesture Rostov instantly recognized his mourned, adored sovereign.