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III.
If the stranger has now looked about at all in this
land, he will necessarily be inclined to reflect on the
condition of the people who inhabit it, and will strive to
reach clear conclusions as to the fundamental elements
of their character.
The truth has been expressed in many different ways,
especially in earlier times, that the Russians have
invented very little, have contributed nothing, so to speak,
to the development of civilization, but have only
appropriated the culture of others. They are, it is said, a
people of imitation, a people without originality.
It cannot be denied that of all the larger European
nations this is the one which has borrowed the most of
foreign culture, and whose native culture strikes one
least. It shows itself in something external, as in this,
that, while a travelling Englishman may be detected at
the distance of a hundred paces, you must look well
to recognize a Russian on his travels. It is, moreover,
scarcely any extravagant exaggeration to say, as in the
first part of the “Main Currents,” that a square yard of
the Roman Forum has more history than the whole
Russian Empire.
And yet the observation is very superficial which
characterizes the Russian people with the word exotic.
The traveller in Russia who asks himself the question,
What is there here original? will not fail to find an
answer, when he directs his mind from the trivial and
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Project Runeberg, Wed Dec 20 19:56:09 2023
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