The New York Times Current History: the European War, February, 1915 | Page 6

strength required for the constructive and
progressive statesmanship of which it stands in need.

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 régime 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. This being so, it is not particularly to be wondered at that the
eastern neighbor of Austria and Prussia has followed to some extent on
the same lines.
But the general direction of Russia's evolution is not doubtful. Western
students of her history might do well, instead of sedulously collecting
damaging evidence, to pay some attention to the building up of Russia's
universities, the persistent efforts of the Zemstvos, the independence
and the zeal of the press. German scholars should read Hertzen's vivid
description of the "idealists of the forties." And what about the history
of the emancipation of the serfs, or of the regeneration of the judicature?
The "reforms of the sixties" are a household word in Russia, and surely
they are one of the noblest efforts ever made by a nation in the
direction of moral improvement.
Looking somewhat deeper, what right have the Germans to speak of

their cultural ideals as superior to those of the Russian people? They
deride the superstitions of the mujikh as if tapers and genuflexions
were the principal matters of popular religion. Those who have studied
the Russian people without prejudice know better than that. Read
Selma Lagerloef's touching description of Russian pilgrims in Palestine.
She, the Protestant, has understood the true significance of the religious
impulse which leads these poor men to the Holy Land, and which
draws them to the numberless churches of the vast country. These
simple people cling to the belief that there is something else in God's
world besides toil and greed; they flock toward the light, and find in it
the justification of their human craving for peace and mercy. For the
Russian people have the Christian virtues of patience in suffering; their
pity for the poor and oppressed are more than occasional manifestations
of individual feeling--they are deeply rooted in national psychology.
This frame of mind has been scorned as fit for slaves! It is indeed a
case where the learning of philosophers is put to shame by the insight
of the simple-minded. Conquerors should remember that the greatest
victories in history have been won by the unarmed--by the Christian
confessors whom the Emperors sent to the lions, by the "old believers"
of Russia who went to Siberia and to the flames for their unyielding
faith, by the Russian serfs who preserved their human dignity and
social cohesion in spite of the exactions of their masters, by the Italians,
Poles, and Jews, when they were trampled under foot by their rulers. It
is such a victory of the spirit that Tolstoy had in mind when he
preached his gospel of non-resistance, and I do not think even a
German on the war path would be blind enough to suppose that
Tolstoy's message came from a craven soul. The orientation of the
so-called "intelligent" class in Russia--that is, the educated middle class,
which is much more numerous and influential than people suppose--is
somewhat different, of course. It is "Western" in this sense, that it is
imbued with current European ideas as to politics, economics, and law.
It has to a certain extent lost the simple faith and religious fervor of the
peasants, but the keynote of popular ideals has been faithfully
preserved by this class. It is still characteristically humanitarian in its
view of the world