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CHAPTER III
COSMOPOLITISM v. NATIONALISM IN RUSSIA
In the past as in the present, Russian intellectual life has
constantly swayed between two diametrically opposed
currents of thought. In shifting between the two extremes
of Cosmopolitism and Nationalism, Russia has not succeeded
in finding a workable basis for continuous national progress
and steady internal peace. The Revolution forms but one
stroke of the pendulum swinging to and fro. Let us try
to place it in the right perspective of the Russian psychology
and of its historic antecedents in relation to the two opposing
forces.
Peter the Great and his successors to the throne broke
away from Russian traditions and introduced in their
fundamental reorganisation of State and Society Western
ideas and methods of progress superseding the old national
structure. French culture and language were adopted by
Society as standards of education and social intercourse.
German philosophy and literature, particularly the
univer-salism of Hegel, the pessimism of Schopenhauer and
Hart-mann, and the cynicism of Nietzsche, as well as the
destructive socialism of Karl Marx and Lassalle, took firm hold
upon the mind of the Russian intelligentsia. Translations
from foreign literature flooded the Russian market, as there
existed no convention safeguarding the copyright of foreign
authors in Russia. All this, together with an inclination
to overestimate things foreign and to underrate the home
production of cultural values, brought about an
overgrowth of foreign mentality and a stunting of national
thought. National aspirations were merged in a
cosmopolitan outlook upon the human race. National merits
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