Simple, entertaining, and surprisingly accurate to the situation facing Ukraine today.
There are two extracts shown below that highlight the importance of this work.
1. Freedom is not free. It is earned and guaranteed by those who stand up.
Slogans like "No to war" are very catchy, but when attacked it is only voiced by those cowards who would surrender and leave others unprotected.
2. До перемоги, разом.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
1. In the first one, the Mongols are getting ready to attack the Tukholians, and thus send an emissary to them to "negotiate a peace deal" where the tukholians will be left unharmed and the son of Zakhar Berkut, imprisoned by the mongols, will be liberated, leaving a clear path for the mongol advance towards Magyar and other villages.
"Behadir Burunda, the commander of a part of that vast army, wishes to depart from here amicably. He holds prisoner one of your own men, you son, elder Zakhar. This is all he wants you to do: Raze your barricades and allow the Mongolian army to get out of the valley. In exchange for this, he will return the prisoner to you alive an well. Think how advantageous for you is Burunda's benign proposition.
Your resistance is useless, no matter what you do, the Mongols will eventually level your fortifications and will go their way. But they don't want to lose any more time in you valley or to spill any of your blood and are ready to give back your man for their passage through. If your decision is unfavourable, it's understood that certain death by horrible torture awaits and for you also awaits a bloody massacre in which, despite your best efforts, you will be crushed and destroyed utterly. Choose then for yourselves what is best. "[...]
"Zakhar," said one of the townmen, "this is definitely a question of life or death for your son. Wouldn't it be better for us to forego an uncertain battle and save the boy?"
"You're wrong, this is not a question of my boy's life at all," remonstrated Zakhar Berkut. "If it were really a matter concerning my boy, I would say to you 'I have no son, my son died in battle.' But this is a question of loyalty to our neighbours, those living on the mountain crest and on the other side, who are depending upon our defence and who, unprepared, would all have to perish by the hands of the Mongolians. That is why I am telling ou don't consider my son, but proceed as if he were already buried! [...] Every last one of us will die in the battle. After that, over our corpses, the Mongols can go wherever they please. But to negotiate an agreement with them now on such unequal terms as the exchange of life of one youth for the death and destruction of our neighbors would be shameful, treason.
2. In the aftermath of the battle the mongols are, unexpectedly for them, defeated.
" Fathers and brothers! Today's victory is a great accomplishment for us. How did we win? Was it our weapons alone? No. Was it by our adroitness and strategy? No. We are victorious because of our sincere cooperation with each other and the efficiency of our united effort. Remember this well! As long as you continue to live in harmony and work and hold together, each for the other and all for one, so long no enemy will be able to conquer you.
But I am certain my brothers, and my soul intuitively senses this, that this is not the last attack upon our solidarity of our community, that there will follow others which in the end will crush our independence, our vigor and destroy our community. Evil times will come to pass for our nation.
Brothers will become strangers to each other, sons will not recognize their fathers and there will be quarrels and dissensions throughout our land of Rus which will devour the the strength of our people, cause the decay of the whole nation and sell it into bondage. People will be dispossessed, enslaved by their own and foreign oppressors, who will make of them, under a purely despotic system, their obedient and hard-working slaves to do the bidding of their slightest wishes.
But sometime during that corrupt period, the people will again recall their ancient system of self-rule, and they will be blessed if they will recall the times and ways of their forefathers quickly and desire once more to make the transition from serfdom to freedom. Fortunate will be they indeed, who will live in those times! They will be great and glorious days, the springtime rebirth of the nation.
Hand down to your children and grand-children therefore, the stories of the old days and the old ways. Let that memory continue to live among them during the troublous times, as a glowing ember which does not die in a heap of ashes. The time will come when the spark will ignite and start a new fire! Farewell!