Trenches, trenches – You could lose your way! Of old Europe A scrap remains, Where in clouds of smoke, Towns burn … Now the ridge of the Crimea Grows dark. And I am leading a flock Of my own mourners.

(Sitting in the sled, setting out on the way of all the earth .. From The Instruction of Vladimir Monomakh for His Children – a quote to open an epic poem by Anna Akhmatova). The section ends with these words …

Already the distant thunder rumbles … And that which we call music Because we have no better name.

Can it save us?