"Cramolny" painting by the artist Vereshchagin

2024 Author: Seth Attwood | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-16 15:55

It is now the British, perhaps even sincerely, who are outraged by the attempt on the life of a Russian defector. Oh, what barbarism, and the violation of all rights and freedoms. But there are things in the history of Foggy Albion that are not only not customary to discuss there, but any mention is carefully hidden at the level of state secrets. Its secret lies in the painting of our artist Vasily Vereshchagin.

In 1884 our battle painter, after a trip to India, painted the picture "Suppression of the Indian uprising by the British." The painting depicts an execution called "The Devil's Wind". Its essence lies in the fact that the doomed is tied to the muzzle of a cannon, and then they shoot from it. And it does not matter whether it is a blank shot or a cannon is loaded with a cannonball - the unfortunate man will be torn to pieces anyway.

The particular horror of this type of execution for those sentenced was that the "devil's wind" inevitably tore the victim's body to pieces, which in the light of the religious and social traditions of India had very negative consequences for the person being shot. What frightened the Hindus was that caste mixing would inevitably occur as a result. That is, it means that the pieces, torn apart by a shot of people, were buried in one grave, mixed together, and this hit the religious Hindus hard.

It was a great moral humiliation, as well as the fact that in those days the British greased the muzzles of their guns with pork and beef tallow. The first was disliked by the Muslims, and the second infuriated the Hindus, in whose religion the cow is a sacred animal.

The painting turned out to be a "bomb" and made a lot of noise in Europe.

“For example, the fate of the painting“Suppression of the Indian Uprising by the British”turned out to be sad. Painted in 1884, the canvas is now known only from photography. The work had a huge social and political resonance in Russia, but provoked the irritation of the official authorities in London. They tried to accuse the artist of lying, but there were not only eyewitnesses to the executions depicted in the picture, but also those who carried out them. They decided to kill the "crimson" canvas. They bought it through figureheads and, most likely, destroyed it. the fate was unsuccessful."