[Russia and the Universal Church] [Previous] [Next]
But at this point I am interrupted by the familiar cry of my countrymen. “Let no one speak to us of our needs, of our shortcomings, least of all of our duties towards the decadent West! It has had its day! We have no need of it and no obligation towards it. We have in the East everything that we need. In (sic) Oriente lux.1 The true representative and crowning achievement of Christianity is Holy Russia. What have we to do with the old Rome in her decay, when we are ourselves the Rome of the future, the third and last Rome? 2 The Eastern Church has fulfilled her great historic task in Christianizing the Russian people, that people which has identified itself with Christianity and to which belongs the whole future of mankind.” This view would reduce the ultimate historical objective of Christianity and the raison d’être of the human race to the existence of a single nation. But to accept such an assertion would involve the formal denial of the very notion of a Universal Church. It implies a reversion to ancient Judaism, with the difference that the unique part played by the Jewish people in the designs of Providence is attested by the word of God, whereas the exclusive importance of Russia can only be maintained on the word of certain Russian propagandists whose inspiration is far from infallible.
Moreover, since the ideas of our inspired patriots on the subject of the grounds of religious faith are by no means settled or clear, we must get on to more general ground and examine their claims from a purely natural and human point of view.
For the last forty or fifty years the patriots of Russia have been engaged in the fanatical repetition, with variations in every key, of one invariable phrase: Russia is great and has a sublime mission to fulfil in the world. In what exactly this mission consists and what Russia must do, what we ourselves must do, to fulfil it is always left undefined. Neither the old Slavophiles nor their present-day descendants nor M. Katkov himself have said anything definite on that subject.3 They have talked of “light from the East,” but it does not appear that this light has as yet enlightened their understanding or clarified their outlook. We may perhaps be allowed, therefore, while acknowledging the patriotic sentiments of these worthy gentlemen, to put to them plainly the question which they attempt to evade, the great question for our national conscience: How is Russia to justify her existence in the world?
For centuries, the history of our country was moving towards a single objective, the formation of a great national monarchy. The union of Ukraine and of a part of White Russia with Muscovite Russia under the Tsar Alexis was a decisive moment in this historic work; for that union put an end to the dispute for primacy between the Russia of the North and that of the South, between Moscow and Kiev, and gave a real meaning to the title of “Tsar of all the Russias.” From that moment there was no longer any doubt of the success of the arduous task which the archbishops and princes of Moscow had undertaken since the fourteenth century. And by the logic of Providence it was the son of this very Tsar Alexis who went beyond the work of his predecessors and boldly put the further question: What must Russia do now that she is united and has become a powerful State? To this question the great Emperor gave the provisional reply that Russia must go to school with the civilized peoples of the West and assimilate their science and culture. That was indeed all that we needed for the moment. But this solution, simple and clear as it was, became more and more inadequate as the young society of Russia made progress in the school of Europe. The question then arose: What was she to do after her years of apprenticeship? The reformation of Peter the Great introduced Russia to the workshop of Europe in order to teach her how to handle all the tools of civilization, but it ignored those higher principles and ideals which guided the use of these tools. Consequently, though that reformation gave us the means of asserting ourselves, it did not reveal the ultimate aim of our existence as a nation. If it was justifiable to ask, What must barbarian Russia do? and if Peter was right in replying, She must be reformed and civilized; it is no less justifiable to ask, What must Russia do now that she has been reformed by Peter the Great and his successors? What is the aim of Russia today?
The Slavophiles must be given credit for having realized the extent of the problem; but they have done nothing to solve it. Reacting against the nebulous and barren idealism of Pan-Slavism, harder-headed patriots have in our time declared that it is not necessary that a nation should entertain a definite ideal or pursue any higher aim for mankind, but that it is quite enough that it should be independent and should enjoy institutions suited to its national genius and sufficient power and prestige to defend its material interests in the affairs of this world; for a good patriot it is enough to desire this much for his country and to labor to make her rich and powerful. All of which amounts to saying that nations live by their daily bread alone; and this is neither true nor desirable. The peoples of history have lived not merely for themselves, but for the whole of mankind; by imperishable achievements, they have purchased the right to affirm their nationhood. That is the distinctive mark of a great people, and the patriotism which does not realize the price it must pay is a poor patriotism indeed.
No one asks what is the historic mission of the Ashanti or of the Eskimos. But when a Christian nation as vast and populous as ours, which has existed for a thousand years and is materially equipped to play a part in world history, asserts its rank as a great Power and claims an hegemony over other nations of the same race and a decisive influence in international politics, then it may well be asked what its real claims are to such a part in history, what principles or ideals it is contributing to the world, and what it has done or has still to do for the good of mankind as a whole.
But to answer these questions, we are told, is to anticipate the future. True, if we were concerned with a nation still in its infancy, the Russia of Kiev in the days of St. Vladimir, or the Muscovite Russia of Ivan Kalita. But modern Russia, which for the past two hundred years has played a continuous part on the stage of world history and which at the beginning of this century measured its strength against the greater part of Europe — this Russia ought to have some clear consciousness of its present tendencies and its future aims. Granted that the fulfillment of our historic mission belongs to the future, yet we must at least have some conception of that future; there must be in the Russia of to-day the living seed of its future destinies.
Little is achieved by those who are at a loss what to do next. Our ancestors of the fifteenth century saw clearly the future for which they were striving — the Empire of all the Russias. It surely cannot be that we, for whom that supreme goal of their endeavors is already an accomplished fact, have a less clear conception of our own future than they had of theirs. Nor can we imagine that that future will be realized without our co-operation in thought and action.
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1. The title of a poem dedicated by a well-known poet to the late M. Katkov.
2. This was the name given to Muscovy by certain Greek and Russian monks after the fall of the Byzantine Empire.
3. The Pan-Slav politicians would have Russia destroy the Austrian Empire in order to form a Slav confederacy. And what then?
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