By Tetiana BIELKINA, The Day
The lion, the symbol of strength and power, has always been depicted
in heraldic language in the following ways: rampant (standing on one paw),
salient (both back paws on the ground), passant (three paws on the ground
with the right paw raised), gardant (on all fours looking at the viewer),
regardant (on all fours looking backwards), couchant (crouching with head
raised, and dormant (crouching with head resting on forepaws).
200 paratroopers in Kosovo are stationed at the airfield as a symbol
of Russian military might. "The Prague option, you know," one politician
commented. Oh, we understand this symbol! The Prague option, the Budapest
option, the Berlin option. A Soviet liberator soldier gives a German young
girl a piece of bread, takes her in his arms, and towers over Berlin as
a salient and gardant guarantor of peace.
But everyone wants to do something: take rescued girls in his arms,
present berets to boys, see girls kissing flags and running to meet him,
to watch them casting bouquets at the armor. It is the right of the big
and strong to divide the world into zones and to be in all the lionesque
heraldic postures simultaneously. What is then left for the smaller beasts?
To nap in the bosom of the bigger ones and rely on their grace and common
sense, on them striking a cordial deal and refraining from putting up new
Berlin Walls, on peace and justice really being their principal goal, and
on them giving a piece of bread, at last.
All we can hope for is that both big and small will go home to calm
down and take the dormant pose. It is hard even for a lion to perpetually
stand.








