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imitation, and the ability to appropriate everything which is
foreign, flows from this flexibility. Looking at it in this
connection (that is, from the standpoint of its cause)
this quality of comprehension and assimilation, it seems
to me, has its character of originality. Looking at it
abstractly, the lack of originality becomes the
foundation of a new originality in the culture of Europe.
It is quite certain that this Russia has always been
the pupil of the whole world. It is quite certain that
this Russian people is indebted to each and all the
nations of Europe. The foundations of its empire were
laid by Scandinavian chiefs; almost all the names of the
Varings are Norse, and so are the “Russian” names of
the Dnieper Falls preserved by Constantine Porphyrogenetes;
even the name Rus is in all probability a Norse word,
even if other explanations are not absolutely excluded.[1]
Modern Russian civilization exhibits strong proofs of the
Byzantine and Tatar influences. The Russians as a
nation have been to school to the Poles, then to the
Germans and Dutch, and then to the French. Finally, they
have received impulses from the whole of West-Europe,
and their belles-lettres have been influenced by the whole
of civilized Europe. All this cannot be denied, and it is
equally true that when we stand in St. Petersburg and
look at this Winter Palace, built from designs by the
Italian Rastrelli, and the beautiful equestrian statue,
the work of the Frenchman Falconet, or when, in
Moscow, you gaze upon the walls and towers of the Kremlin,
built by Lombardian and Venetian architects, or when,
finally, in front even of Vasíli Blazhémnoï, the model
of all time-honored Byzantine Muscovite churches, we
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