Full resolution (JPEG) - On this page / på denna sida - Impressions of Russian Literature - VII
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is as if even this peace-loving, utterly unwarlike spirit
of the people, which is peculiarly Russian, had become
instrumental in the development of Tolstoï’s religious
teaching.
The philologian Carl Abel somewhere says, after
having given the linguistic characteristics of the Great and
Little Russian people: “There is still a nationality in
Russia more important than either of the two already
mentioned. This most remarkable kind of men consists
of the higher classes of the empire. As a fusion of all
the different races which are collected under the sceptre
of the Tsar, these higher classes constitute one of the
most gifted, courageous, and enterprising types of
mankind produced anywhere on the face of the earth. In
them sound Finnish reason is combined with Polish
boldness, Armenian sagacity with the German reflective
and methodical manner of thought, and to the patient
endurance of the Tatar is added the suppleness of the
Slav.” And he declares that if Russia has accomplished
much in diplomacy and war, it is due to this group of
leaders.[1]
That interests Tolstoï least because war and
diplomacy are just the things which do not interest him at
all. And it is to those who have hitherto been under
the necessity of blind obedience to this group of leaders
that his whole sympathy is secured. It is with them
that he in his employments, nay, in dress and externals,
has gradually sought to identify himself, partly in
order to become thoroughly acquainted with their
manner of feeling, and partly not to look down upon them
in any respect.
One of my acquaintances, a very dispassionate jurist,
who visited him at his estate last summer, could not
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