Alexander Nevsky

Country: Spain

Manufactory: Lladro

Date of establishment: 2010

Sculptor: Alfredo Llorens

Size (cm): 64*64

Limited Series

Porcelain Story

My father never talked about the war. He never wore several combat medals and a multitude of commemorative medals on his chest. Once every few years, usually on the eve of Victory Day, he was summoned to the military registration and enlistment office and given some other award related to his participation in the Great Patriotic War. My father would come home gray-haired and quickly, as if embarrassed by his children, he would stuff the award into an old tin candy box, sit down at the table, pour a glass full of vodka from the "chikushka" and drink it in a gulp... Usually didn't even have a snack after that. He took a long cigarette out of a pack of "Belomor-Channel", tapped it on the cloth of the table for a long time - and then disappeared in the clouds of gray smoke, eating eyes away...

Only after father's death, having glanced in his military certificate, I have learned that he began the war in 1941 in a rank of the Guards captain, an artilleryman, and finished in 1945 - in a rank of the private... The one and a half years spent in the infamy battalion according to Article 58-10 were also included in his military record. It was only later that my older brothers and sisters explained to me the significance of these records. The former captain Efim Markovich Shvets atoned for the blood of a joke, told in the night dugout and reported "to the authorities" by one of those present. He atoned for it. For that he was forgiven by returning to the same front line. And again he went to liberate his native Ukraine, being wounded in the arm and in the leg time after time...

My wife's father Nikolin Yaroslav Stepanovich spent years in Stalin's camps where he was put by NKVD officers (according to the same article 58-10) for helping Ukrainian nationalist units fight for his native Ukraine together with Ukrainian boys and girls in western Ukraine. After being behind barbed wire for almost 20 years, he did not become angry and did not lose heart - he remained what is called a human being. After liberation he became an artist and a musician, admired and respected by all who knew him.

Our fathers are buried in two cemeteries in Kiev, a few kilometres apart. And we bring flowers to their graves regularly. We remember them with the same warmth. We tell our children about them, so that they can always be proud of their grandfathers.

Looking at what serious political and not only political battles are played out every year before the 9th May, every time I want to say: people, leave the old in peace. Let them live out their uneasy age the way it has already developed. Most of the participants of those events are long dead. Those who are alive now are in their 90s. If you want to commemorate the deceased or support the survivors, you should do it with dignity and human warmth. Not by humiliating others and not by insulting them. History cannot be rewritten. And none of the veterans can rewrite their own fate. So why all this politically tinged whining? Honour and respect is due to all - all without exception! - who risked their lives to liberate Ukraine, to defend their native land, to restore it to a peaceful life after the terrible war years. People, be wise and merciful.

Today, on this day so ambiguously perceived by many, I would like to introduce you to a very rare and very large piece whose hero is also ambiguously perceived even by historians. Alexander Nevsky, known as the hero of the battle against the Swedes on the Neva River and the crusading knights on Lake Peipsi, was not only the great prince of Novgorod. For almost 15 years he was the Grand Duke of Kiev. And, being a great commander, and a wise ruler, he finished his earthly way and took monastic vows, surprising anybody who knew him. And later, as it is known, he was canonized.

By the way, it was Alexander Nevsky who is credited with the phrase that has become legendary: "He who comes to us with a sword shall perish by the sword". Although words conveying the same meaning are also mentioned in the Gospel of Matthew, and in texts from ancient Rome. These words sound like a warning to the aggressor who attacks a foreign nation, who encroaches on a foreign land. These words sound as an admonition to the conqueror, who has already been defeated or who is doomed, not yet fully aware of what awaits him. These words are so relevant to our current situation...