Defending the Motherland and returning, the winners obediently climb back into their shackles and cages. And then they remember for a long time how they saved the "fatherland", writes specifically for the Snob project Alexander Nevzorov.

In the 1870s, daguerreotypes (the first photographs) ceased to be a curiosity and began to spread in Europe. It is this circumstance that allowed the mistresses of the public houses in Hamburg to increase the profitability of their establishments. And without any costs to upgrade or improve staff.

How?.

Very simple. The drunken sailors showed a photograph of the girl of indescribable seductiveness. Bandersha swore that it was this creature that would get the generous client.

The sailors red-hot, turned out their pockets and occupied the queue. And the landlady, using the complex system of doors of the brothel, disappeared somewhere.

After a while the bell sounded, the door opened and the sailor got the opportunity to perch on the "genius of pure beauty". Of course, everything happened in complete darkness. As a rule, the role of "perfection with the daguerreotype" was played by the bandersha, who had time to run in, take off the musty pants and settle in a comfortable pose. Darkness and brevity of contact saved her from exposing, and the sailor remained confident until the end of his days that he lived life in vain.

As you probably already guessed, the scene in lupanariya illustrates the scheme of the relationship of a person with the regime and the "homeland". Illustration is correct. After all, and the "homeland" most of the hidden in the darkness of history, which gives the authorities the opportunity to slip the client anything at all.

The regime can be arbitrarily stupid, evil and destructive. He can splash in "blood and pus of the people", rape, humiliate and kill millions of his subjects. But if he can show only one trick, then the population being killed and raped will always be grateful to him.

The regime only needs to be able to pretend to be the "Homeland". It's not easy to do this, it's very simple. The fact is that the concept of "Motherland" is so abstract and illusory that it is easily transformed into any political matter. An amusing construct is formed in which illusion and reality are merged without any visible seams and transitions. Where one ends and another begins, it is almost impossible to discern.

Of course, 99.9% of this construct consists of a clean regime. However, we should not underestimate the role of illusion. It has an important narcotic function that allows the authorities to cut on the living and the dead, creating "on behalf of the fatherland" any savagery.

Almost every mode easily makes this substitution. Of course, this is a scam of clean water, but people want to be fooled. He wants his homeland. To deny him this is even greater cruelty than festering in camps and shooting.

Strictly speaking, the beautiful concept of "Homeland" is a pure swindle. No "homeland" no one has ever existed. There was only a sequence of regimes that controlled the population to their own good. To "live happily ever after," the regimes wove the mythology they needed and infiltrated it with the venom of patriotic romance. This web and enveloped generation after generation.

Of course, sometimes such webs are sotcans virtuously, although more common specimens are simpler. The best raw material for their manufacture are tales of the exploits of their ancestors. As is known, such tales can be generated in unlimited quantities. Within the limits of one's own language and culture, any nation is not limited in these fantasies. The illusion of the "homeland" made of such ingredients provides excellent obedience and due vigor of the fooled.

Of course, the regime needs some effort to ensure that the patriotic web was strong, sticky and poisonous. But this work pays off. After all, all the victims "for their homeland" in fact always gave their lives for the regime. For his stupidity, mistakes or whims. (Of course, they thought differently. ) Note that "homelands" do not wage wars and do not arrange reprisals. They are incorporeal and exist only in the imagination. Wars and repression are always fun regimes.

In all this there is nothing terrible. It is ordinary, all arranging the order of things. The dead, as a rule, are satisfied, and the mutilated are at least satisfied. Moreover, the trick of substitution works without fail, the war itself is a rare and pleasant opportunity for the population to come into contact with the greatness of historical processes, a feat, holiness, sacrifice and another rubbish.

For a long time the regimes concentrated the memory of their military greatness in ceremonial portraits and monuments of the rulers. The fry survived in the battles was thrown into rot in poverty and oblivion. Then came the realization that the cult of obediently blessed old soldiers who gave up for the regime of the eyes or legs, can work for it more productively than any portraits and triumphal arches.

Played a role and a brilliant invention in the form of military awards. As you know, this ancient cunning allows any power to make a very profitable exchange. The person gives the regime hearing, sight, years or limbs, and in return receives a brilliant bljubochku. As a rule, the victim of such fraud is very happy that she was fooled, and is proud of the symbol of her stupidity.

In the Lupanarii of Rome, decrepit lovers of medals were called "apiens", that is, celery (from lat. Apium). Perhaps this nickname arose because of tradition to adorn the branches of the apium of the tomb, but rather because of the similarity of veteran physiognomy with the root of celery.

Over time, the celery component has become an important detail of the illusion of "homeland". An enthusiastic veneration of the Apians began, regardless of the fact that they were the ones who were disfigured and received their blubochki.

But!.

We know that there are regimes, even die for which is a crime. Those that turn countries into prisons and are all infiltrated with slavery, denunciations and death. Those that kill and rot out millions of their own citizens, and those who are not full and undersupplied - are humiliated and raped.

But if there is an external threat, then here goes the old trick called "homeland". And it works again. Millions are built and with songs are going to die for the opportunity to continue living in death.

And after defending the regime and returning, the winners obediently climb back into their shackles and cages. And then they remember for a long time how they saved the "fatherland", although in fact, they defended only the right to beg, to denounce each other and to die in the firing ditches.

This exotic choice might seem a mystery if we did not know about the omnipotence of one old trick. There remains one question: how long, and most importantly, why should we preserve the memory of this choice?.