Post by russkiivoin on Oct 19, 2005 23:57:24 GMT -5
oag.ru/views/dostoevsky.html
Godspeed to our Russian Volunteers!
by
Fyodor Dostoevsky
123 years ago, in 1876, Serbia and Montenegro rose up against the Turkish occupier. On the side of Turkey were allied such powers as Great Britain and Austria-Hungary. Russia actively intervened in the conflict to support her brother Slavs. As a result, in 1877 Serbia acquired sovereignty. These events left no one in Russian society indifferent. Fyodor Mikhailovich Dostoevsky spoke out often and passionately about the Balkan crisis. It seems to us that his remarks continue to speak to us even today.
Q: Fyodor Mikhailovich, what can you say about the events in the Balkans?
F.D.: Yet another conflict in Europe (Oh, it's not a war yet. They say that we, that is Russia, still have a long way to go before war), once again the eternal Eastern Question has made its appearance. The Eastern Question! Who among us hasn't experienced rather unaccustomed feelings this past month, and so many different opinions in the papers! So much confusion in certain heads, such cynicism in certain judgments, so much honest, kind concern in certain hearts, and such a rumpus in certain Jews! One thing's for certain: we have nothing to fear, though there's been much alarming news. And one never would have guessed that Russia could hold so many cowards!
Q: Do you think that Russia ought to help Yugoslavia?
F.D.: Russian society must once again help the Slavs. With money at least, or by other material means.
Serbia has gone into battle counting on her own strength, but she knows that in the end her fate depends on Russia. She knows that only Russia will save her from destruction in the case of a major misfortune...
Q: The inhabitants of Serbia and Montenegro are Orthodox Christians, and their opponents are Muslims. If we give help to the Serbs, won't that call up increased inter-religious tensions within Russia herself? The Tartars, for example, might take offense.
F.D.: To tiptoe around the Tartars to such a degree as to fear discovering among them the most generous and worthy feelings, feelings of sympathy for the embattled Slavs (and such feelings should give offense to no one) as if for a brother in faith--and besides that, to hide from them everything that makes up the calling, future, and (the main thing) task of the Russian--well, that would be silly and demeaning for us.
Q: What do you make of the liberal-pacifists?
F.D.: Recently much has been said to the effect that our intelligentsia, after a period of exaltation, has lapsed into a state of coldness, cynicism, doubt, and even bitterness. With the exception of a few very serious enemies of our Slavic movement, they can all be divided, it seems to me, into two categories. The first category is the so-called Judaized. These constantly harp on the economic harm of war, scare us with bank failures, plunging stock exchanges, ruined trade, and our military inferiority not only in relation to Europe, but even to the Turks, forgetting that the Turkish bashi-buzuk, this torturer of the unarmed and defenseless, this cutter-off of dead heads, is, to quote a Russian proverb, "a stout fellow against the lamb, but against a stout fellow is himself a lamb", which will undoubtedly turn out to be true again. What does the Judaized camp want, in short? That's not hard to answer. Firstly, that their privileges and comfort not be endangered, but without getting into the moral side of that question let's move on to the second item: their extremely poor, even nonexistent appreciation of things national, historical, and of the task that lies before us. The whole business seems to them like some capricious aside which can be stopped at any moment: "Well, you've had your fun", they'd like to say, "Now that's enough. Let's get back to business" -- the business of business, naturally.
The second category is our tired old Europeanized aristocracy. From this group issue the most 'radical' questions: "What are Slavs anyway, and why ought we to love them? Why should we fight for them? Won't we just harm our own development in this useless pursuit? In chasing after the national question, won't we do damage to our common humanity? Won't this lead, in the end, to religious fanaticism?" and on and on. In a word, though these are radical questions, they were worn out ages ago. Here the main element is our longstanding, ancient fright at the bold notion of Russian self-determination and self-reliance. Once upon a time these people were considered liberal, progressive, but their time has long passed, and now it's hard to imagine anything more retrograde. By the way, in their blessed stagnation in the ideas of the thirties and forties, they still consider themselves to be in the avant-garde. Once they called themselves democrats, but now it's hard to imagine a class more disdainful of the people than these aristocrats. They claim to have unmasked the dark side of our people, but the thing is, that, having unmasked the dark side they ridiculed the bright side, and here one could even say that they saw only darkness in the light, failed to distinguish the light from the dark! And really, if you begin to analyze all the views of our Europeanized intelligentsia, you'll see that there's nothing more inimical to the correct, healthy and independent development of the Russian people.
Q: What do you think of the idea of our volunteers taking place in the Balkan conflict?
F.D.: Godspeed to our Russian volunteers!
Questions by Mikhail Kovalenko
Citations from "The Diary of a Writer", 1876-1877
Godspeed to our Russian Volunteers!
by
Fyodor Dostoevsky
123 years ago, in 1876, Serbia and Montenegro rose up against the Turkish occupier. On the side of Turkey were allied such powers as Great Britain and Austria-Hungary. Russia actively intervened in the conflict to support her brother Slavs. As a result, in 1877 Serbia acquired sovereignty. These events left no one in Russian society indifferent. Fyodor Mikhailovich Dostoevsky spoke out often and passionately about the Balkan crisis. It seems to us that his remarks continue to speak to us even today.
Q: Fyodor Mikhailovich, what can you say about the events in the Balkans?
F.D.: Yet another conflict in Europe (Oh, it's not a war yet. They say that we, that is Russia, still have a long way to go before war), once again the eternal Eastern Question has made its appearance. The Eastern Question! Who among us hasn't experienced rather unaccustomed feelings this past month, and so many different opinions in the papers! So much confusion in certain heads, such cynicism in certain judgments, so much honest, kind concern in certain hearts, and such a rumpus in certain Jews! One thing's for certain: we have nothing to fear, though there's been much alarming news. And one never would have guessed that Russia could hold so many cowards!
Q: Do you think that Russia ought to help Yugoslavia?
F.D.: Russian society must once again help the Slavs. With money at least, or by other material means.
Serbia has gone into battle counting on her own strength, but she knows that in the end her fate depends on Russia. She knows that only Russia will save her from destruction in the case of a major misfortune...
Q: The inhabitants of Serbia and Montenegro are Orthodox Christians, and their opponents are Muslims. If we give help to the Serbs, won't that call up increased inter-religious tensions within Russia herself? The Tartars, for example, might take offense.
F.D.: To tiptoe around the Tartars to such a degree as to fear discovering among them the most generous and worthy feelings, feelings of sympathy for the embattled Slavs (and such feelings should give offense to no one) as if for a brother in faith--and besides that, to hide from them everything that makes up the calling, future, and (the main thing) task of the Russian--well, that would be silly and demeaning for us.
Q: What do you make of the liberal-pacifists?
F.D.: Recently much has been said to the effect that our intelligentsia, after a period of exaltation, has lapsed into a state of coldness, cynicism, doubt, and even bitterness. With the exception of a few very serious enemies of our Slavic movement, they can all be divided, it seems to me, into two categories. The first category is the so-called Judaized. These constantly harp on the economic harm of war, scare us with bank failures, plunging stock exchanges, ruined trade, and our military inferiority not only in relation to Europe, but even to the Turks, forgetting that the Turkish bashi-buzuk, this torturer of the unarmed and defenseless, this cutter-off of dead heads, is, to quote a Russian proverb, "a stout fellow against the lamb, but against a stout fellow is himself a lamb", which will undoubtedly turn out to be true again. What does the Judaized camp want, in short? That's not hard to answer. Firstly, that their privileges and comfort not be endangered, but without getting into the moral side of that question let's move on to the second item: their extremely poor, even nonexistent appreciation of things national, historical, and of the task that lies before us. The whole business seems to them like some capricious aside which can be stopped at any moment: "Well, you've had your fun", they'd like to say, "Now that's enough. Let's get back to business" -- the business of business, naturally.
The second category is our tired old Europeanized aristocracy. From this group issue the most 'radical' questions: "What are Slavs anyway, and why ought we to love them? Why should we fight for them? Won't we just harm our own development in this useless pursuit? In chasing after the national question, won't we do damage to our common humanity? Won't this lead, in the end, to religious fanaticism?" and on and on. In a word, though these are radical questions, they were worn out ages ago. Here the main element is our longstanding, ancient fright at the bold notion of Russian self-determination and self-reliance. Once upon a time these people were considered liberal, progressive, but their time has long passed, and now it's hard to imagine anything more retrograde. By the way, in their blessed stagnation in the ideas of the thirties and forties, they still consider themselves to be in the avant-garde. Once they called themselves democrats, but now it's hard to imagine a class more disdainful of the people than these aristocrats. They claim to have unmasked the dark side of our people, but the thing is, that, having unmasked the dark side they ridiculed the bright side, and here one could even say that they saw only darkness in the light, failed to distinguish the light from the dark! And really, if you begin to analyze all the views of our Europeanized intelligentsia, you'll see that there's nothing more inimical to the correct, healthy and independent development of the Russian people.
Q: What do you think of the idea of our volunteers taking place in the Balkan conflict?
F.D.: Godspeed to our Russian volunteers!
Questions by Mikhail Kovalenko
Citations from "The Diary of a Writer", 1876-1877
