The Empire of the Tsars

The Russians themselves will say at times they have no history. Some, like Tchaadáyef of old, deplore the fact in melancholy strain, passionate and eloquent, nor can anything console them for having missed the most brilliant epochs of European life, or allay their fears that, for lack of the same trials and upbringing, their country never can achieve the same civilization, for that a nation without a past is also without a future. Others, more numerous, boldly congratulate themselves on the same fact, boasting of their freedom from the trammels of all tradition and all prejudice, from the fetters of a past in which, in spite of her revolutions, old Europe remains entangled...