Apart from the details of political and social reform, is the
regeneration of Russia a boon or a peril to European civilization? The
declamations of the Germans have been as misleading in this respect as
in all others. The masterworks of Russian literature are accessible in
translation nowadays, and the cheap taunts of men like Bernhardi recoil
on their own heads. A nation represented by Pushkin, Turgeneff, Tolstoy,
Dostoyevsky in literature, by Kramskoy, Verestchagin, Repin, Glinka,
Moussorgsky, Tchaikovsky in art, by Mendeleiff, Metchnikoff, Pavloff in
science, by Kluchevsky and Solovieff in history, need not be ashamed to
enter the lists in an international competition for the prizes of
culture. But the German historians ought to have taught their pupils
that in the world of ideas it is not such competitions that are
important. A nation handicapped by its geography may have to start later
in the field, and yet her performance may be relatively better than that
of her more favored neighbors. It is astonishing to read German
diatribes about Russian backwardness when one remembers that as recently
as fifty years ago Austria and Prussia were living under a regime which
can hardly be considered more enlightened than the present rule in
Russia. The Italians in Lombardy and Venice have still a vivid
recollection of Austrian jails; and, as for Prussian militarism, one
need not go further than the exploits of the Zabern garrisons to
illustrate its meaning.
Pages:
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25
26
27
28
29
30