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Updated: June 27, 2025
I will remind you of something else: you said then that 'a man who was not orthodox could not be Russian." "I imagine that's a Slavophil idea." "The Slavophils of to-day disown it. Nowadays, people have grown cleverer. But you went further: you believed that Roman Catholicism was not Christianity; you asserted that Rome proclaimed Christ subject to the third temptation of the devil.
Looking on the Greek Church as a necessary part of the national life, they sought to wield its powers for nationalising all the races of that motley Empire. "Russia for the Russians," cried the Slavophils. "Let us be one people, with one creed. Let us reverence the Czar as head of the Church and of the State. In this unity lies our strength."
When, therefore, the Slavophils began to raise a hue and cry against everything that marred the symmetry of the Empire, an anti-Finnish campaign lay in the nature of things. Historical students discovered that the constitution was the gift of the Czars, and that their goodwill had been grossly misused by the Finns.
But the Slavophils, who are of course ardent supporters of the Orthodox Church, were faced at the outset with a great difficulty; the western provinces of Russia, from the Arctic to the Black Sea, contained masses of population which were neither Russian nor Orthodox.
The Slavophils accepted the legend literally in this sense, and constructed upon it an ingenious theory of Russian history.
"Yes, no doubt," lisped Karmazinov. "I have portrayed in the character of Pogozhev all the failings of the Slavophils and in the character of Nikodimov all the failings of the Westerners...." "I say, hardly all!" Lyamshin whispered slyly. "But I do this by the way, simply to while away the tedious hours and to satisfy the persistent demands of my fellow-countrymen."
Cosmopolitan in their tendencies, and absolutely free from all archaeological sentimentality, they regarded the institution from the purely utilitarian point of view. They agreed, however, with the Slavophils in thinking that its preservation would have a beneficial influence on the material and moral welfare of the peasantry.
The reader may have heard of the Slavophils as a set of fanatics who, about half a century ago, were wont to go about in what they considered the ancient Russian costume, who wore beards in defiance of Peter the Great's celebrated ukaz and Nicholas's clearly-expressed wish anent shaving, who gloried in Muscovite barbarism, and had solemnly "sworn a feud" against European civilisation and enlightenment.
Russia ought not to abandon that mission which has been entrusted to her by the heavenly and by the earthly Tsar."* * These words were written by Tchaadaef, who, a few years before, had vigorously attacked the Slavophils for enouncing similar views.
Despite the temporary discomfiture of the Slavophils, events tended to draw France and Russia more closely together.
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