1915] on The Russian Idea 417 



to give actual pictures of Russia going wrong. I am in quest of 

 the vital and fundamental idea of Russia, that which is the mother 

 of her art, literature, music, of her religion and her traditional 

 national life. 



I am tempted to say that the Russian idea is an aspect of 

 Christianity. Russia is the fairest child of the Early Church. Her 

 national idea is identified with one of the Byzantine aspects of 

 Christianity. But it would be impossible to deny that Russia draws 

 her marvellous spirit from something earlier than Christianity. 

 There is Xature-worship in the Russians ; there is Scandinavian 

 mythology ; there is Oriental mysticism. The remote past still 

 lends impulses of passions, dreams, fears, hopes, to the rustling and 

 blossoming present. Yet all its past has been absorbed into Russian 

 Christianity, though Russians have not yet explored and reproduced 

 in art all the significances of that mysterious time in Russian 

 history. We may say that the Russian idea is a Christian idea. 

 Christianity has been great enough to include and say yes to all that 

 was wonderful in the old. 



What, then, of Russian ideas ? Of the Russian idea ? 



When you first step into a Russian novel you come across 

 symptomatic ideas, and when you go into Russia you find them again 

 in the life of the people. Probably the most obviously character- 

 istic thing is the love towards the suffering, pity. Russia is a 

 remarkably tender and comforting nation. She is greatly concerned 

 with her neighbour, and her heart is touched by his destiny. As 

 Vladimir Rozanof writes : — 



" Is there one page in the whole of Russian literature where a 

 mock is made of a girl who has been betrayed, of a child, of a mother, 

 of poverty ? Even the thief is an honest thief. (Dostoieff sky's 

 honest thief.) Russian literature is one continuous hymn to the 

 injured and insulted. And as of such people there must always be 

 a multitude in vain and gigantically-working Europe, it is possible 

 to imagine the shout of joy which breaks forth when they are shown 

 a country, a whole nation, where no one ever dare offend the orphan, 

 the destitute, in the moral sense never dares to look insultingly upon 

 the person left forlorn by circumstance, by destiny, by the break up 

 of life. Of such people' there are only too many. And what can 

 the ' kings ' of Victor Hugo say to them, or in general, the mani- 

 festly artificial subjects of Western writers ? Russian stories can 

 give consolation. For besides being taken from the habitual common 

 every-day life, they have a tenderness. The Western man can say : 

 ' There is a country where I should not have been despised ; there 

 is a country where I should not have been so coarsely insulted, 

 where every man would have taken my part and interceded for me, 

 where they would have taken me by the hand and raised me upon 

 my feet again. I am cursed, but only in my own country, not on 

 the whole planet.' 



