Subject: (urth) Short Story 116: The Flag

From: Marc Aramini <marcaramini at gmail.com>
Date: Sun, 25 Jan 2015 17:52:06 +0000

*THE FLAG*

“The Flag” first appeared in *Storeys from the Old Hotel* in 1988.

SUMMARY:

The narrator recalls playing with his friends as a child. They ran in the
square, scattering pigeons from a statue atop a column, and only a small
lame boy actually looked up at it and gave it attention..  As older
friends, they drink together and the small young man tells the story of the
hero whose statue they had played beneath.  The hero had been the youngest,
beardless knight in the battle with Turkish enemies.  In the battle, the
hero snatched the banner from the mud when the older knights were routed,
and that action prompted a reversal that drove the invaders away “nearly a
thousand years ago.”

                The next day, when the narrator looks at the statue of the
hero holding his flag, he fancies that one or its legs is bent. Year pass
and “the gray-uniformed soldiers came.” The narrators? paper is shut down,
and trucks come in the night to grab women and men. One night he hears a
slithering ratlike noise outside, to find a paper entitled *The Flag* which
exposes what the soldiers and their masters have done: “who had been
arrested, taken, what the charges were, and even the prisons and camps
where some were held.”

                The title is enough for the narrator to deduce who printed
the paper. The lame friend disappears, no doubt killed and buried “among
black pines.” Yet many more papers have sprung up in its place, and the
narrator asserts, “They cannot stamp them out; where one is destroyed five
more spring up.  I work for one, and we have already chosen the spot where
we will never erect his monument.”

DISCUSSION:

                *The Flag* is one of Wolfe’s most straightforward stories.  The
small, weak, and lame hero leads by example, just as the young knight
picked up the flag and resisted the Turkish invasion.  Bravery inspires
others, even if it comes at the cost of an individual’s life.  It seems
most likely that this is set in Eastern Europe and references the Great
Turkish Invasion of Georgia circa 1080 AD. The hints that the young hero
was a figure of ridicule to his comrades because of beardlessness would
certainly fit in with a Georgian or Russian setting. Of course Wolfe’s love
of symbolism here shows what a flag represents beyond nationalism: a
rallying point that inspires others, especially when it serves the truth
and helps the suppressed to find courage.

                The boy’s contribution is palpable, and there is no need
for a monument, for the narrator has already seen the symbol of the past
transformed to resemble the boy, with its bent leg. The continued existence
of the papers and the ideological refusal to be stomped out is monument
enough, and a physical artifact is not required when an idea, once born,
can live forever.

                While the Wolfe-wiki suggests that the gray uniformed
officers might be Germans and represent the German expansion in the period
leading up to World War II, it is just as likely that the event we are
witnessing is the Red Army Invasion of the Democratic Republic of Georgia
in 1921.  The lack of Bolshevik sympathy in Georgia prompted guerilla
pockets to form after Soviet Russia declared it to be the Georgian Soviet
Socialist Republic. (There are gray varieties of both Red Army and Nazi
uniforms).

UNANSWERED QUESTIONS

                While the action seems to revolve around the political
unrest in Europe and Russia in the epoch of the World Wars, is there a true
historical cognate with the statue of the hero holding his flag that can be
named? The Georgian city of Tblisi does seem to have statues of knights
mounted on columns, but I do not know if any specific one is lauded as in
this story or depicted with a flag.

                Do the historical resonances work better with the socialist
Russian invasion of democratic Georgia in 1921 or with the Nazi invasion of
Russia, Operation Barbarossa, in 1941? The amount of governmental control
vastly favors the first historical example and agrees with the timing of
the Turkish invasion of Georgia.  The second example does not seem to lead
to the same level of political subversion within Russia (ie — the Germans
did not seem to gain this insidious control over them).  The possibility
that Germany itself is the setting does not seem to match up with the
timeline of the Turkish invasion, though of course the establishment of the
Third Reich involved just such prison camps and disappearances. The
Caucasus seems the most likely setting.

CONNECTION WITH OTHER WORKS:

                As far as Wolfe’s short fiction goes, this little glimpse
at heroism does seem to plant the seed of General Mint — a small and almost
timid woman who becomes an effective rallying point and symbol.  In
addition to echoing the fight for some autonomy found in *Operation Ares*,
stories of rebels and revolutions show up late in Wolfe’s career as well,
in stories such as “Bloodsport” or even *The Land Across*.

RESOURCES

“The Flag”. Wolfe-Wiki. 8 November 2010. Web. 25 January 2015.
http://www.wolfewiki.com/pmwiki/pmwiki.php?n=Stories.TheFlag
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