Mirror (1975)

Ignat Daniltsev: Ignat, Aleksei - twelve years old

Photos 

Quotes 

• Military trainer : What did you fire at? You think I didn't see it? You were firing up!

  Ignat : What's wrong with that? There's no one there.

  Military trainer : And what if somebody was there?

  Ignat : There's only trees there.

  Military trainer : And what if somebody climbed a tree?

• Military trainer : I'm going to send you for your parents.

  Ignat : What parents?

  Military trainer : You'll know very soon what parents.

• Ignat : 'The division of churches separated us from Europe. We remained excluded from every great event that had shaken it. However, we had our own, special destiny. Russia, with her immense territory, had swallowed up the Mongol invasion. The Tatars didn't dare crossing our western borders. They retreated to their wilderness and Christian civilization had been saved. To attain that goal we had to lead a special kind of life which, while leaving us Christians, had made us alien to the Christian world. As for our historic insignificance, I cannot agree with you on that. Don't you find anything significant at all in today's situation in Russia that would strike a future historian? Although I'm heartily attached to our sovereign, I'm not at all delighted with everything I see around me. As a man of letters, I'm being annoyed, insulted, but I swear that for nothing in the world would have made me change my home country or have any other history than the history of our forebears, such as it was given us by God.' From Pushkin's letter to Chaadayev. October 19, 1836.

• Ignat : To the question how sciences and arts affect people's morals, Rousseau answered: Negatively.

• Military trainer : About face! I commanded 'about face'! Put down your rifle.

  Ignat : That's what I did.

  Military trainer : Did you learn drill regulations?

  Ignat : About face in Russian means exactly what I did. About face means a turn of 360 degrees.