Evening star., 1915-11-21

existed the testament Of Peter the
Great as charged. 1t Is apocryphal and
fabricated by the Poles. II Peter. IN
place Of founding Petersburg. had had
really the idea OF taking Cons'autfno-
pie he would not have lacked the FORCES
to conquer the sultan. II he did not
try anything OF the kind II was because
the the enterprise was still inosportune
and might even bring ruin to Russia.
TT in Finnish Petersburg" says Dos
toievski. I'VE have not escaped German
influence, neither could we have
resisted in constantinople Greek as
with Russians than the Germans. All
south Russia would have been sub
merged by Greek floods"
The conditions have vastly changed
since Peter the Great. Russia has been
in constant contact.
Change of with Europe. With q
r.J... keen sense Of her rela-
Soholtions. tions with Europe and
Of the economical benefits Of Constan-
tinople. Russia looks toward the Oar
danelles as a necessary waterway to
the Mediterranean.
Dostoievski does not believe in the
political conquest. nor in the idvl OF
"Slav fraternity" On this subject Dos
toievski wrote:
Russia will never have more vene-
nous enemies than all these Slav poo
pies as soon as Russia shall favs de-
livered them and Europe has accepted
them as such.
"As soon as delivered they will com
nience by demanding Of Europe (Enr-
land and Germany guarantee tnd
protection of their liberty. Russia thev
feel. would not have snatched shcr
from the yoke Of the Turks except to
merge them into great pan -Slav en-
pire. and that thus they may md Them
selves subject to the T:uss,an-'crafty
and barbarian"
Notwithstanding this ineratitude
which Dostoievski has forcseen with
remarkable foresight. Russia, he says.
Will save and resuscitate the S,av peo-
pies Russia's grandeur and gener-
osity is all the greater that she does
not exact reconnaissance. It ie not te-
cause Slavs and Russians have a COM
Constanttnople. Captured from the
Turks. should be the capital Of ortho-
doxy.
Peter the Great had not done less
to Constantinople. Yet that would have
proved disastrous. because CONSTANT
nople would never have been Russlfied
because OF the opposition o. the Greeks.
Today, Constantinorle cannot be the
capital Of Russia. neither can Il he
given to the Greeks: II is inevitably
the capital of pan -SIavism, under the
influence and control of Petrosrad.
With Russia at the head OF pan-Slav-
ism. 1T is proper to ask by what more
right may Russia demand of Europe the
chief control of Consrantinopie?
And the response is indicated: Ruesfa
is the chief of orthodoxy.
Russia's role in the war is indicated
by many reasons already formulated.
Besides. Constantine
The National politan eagle with two
pr.+o,x.- heads adorns the arms
io'e0'o'' of Russia. There IL
nothing in that to menace the slav
peoples in their independence: nothing,
either, to menace the Greeks, who. al
though non-Slav, are essentially ortho-
dox. Russia is the natural protectress
Of these allied peoples. but she would
not be more than protectress. II some
day Russia should be made sovereign II
would be only by acclamation, that II
to say. by election. The Slav nations.
each and every one, must retain its In
slavism. of which much is said but
little known. Is personalism.
what is this orthodox faith" asks
Dostoievski. which may have the
privilege to unity these orthodox ma
like that Of the United States Of
as 1t was suggested?
mo! 1t was answered. This unifica-
tion will be not only political union,
and it's object would not be a conquest
of violence. 1t is not a question. either,
of a sort of official Christianism. in
which no one believes anything except
peoples of the very lowest class. No!
This Christianism will be a new eleva-
rection OF the true word of Christ It
will be lesson for the powerful OF
this world: whose irony has always
Dostoievski. asked again If he did not
think 1t Utopia to believe that Europe
would permit Russia to place. herself
at the head of Slavs to take Constanti-
nople, answered.:
do you think it only a dream? with
out mentioning the fact that Russia is
imagines herselfD. have we not seen the
European hesemony pass from one
power to another within the last ten
years (Austria). One of these powers
formed into a formidable empire? II
1t has been thus. who can predict the
solution of the question of the orient?
How despair after that of the awaken
nay boast of knowing divine ways?"
X
On this purely religious ground where
Dostoievski placed the question of the
orient he was far from
Leontief being followed by his
=: No.. compatriots. and one OF
IN Dlssent. his greatest cotempo-
aries, Leontieff. whose studies of the
question of the orient are authority.
,artaking the same regrets as Dostoi-
.vski. wrote:
THE Russian policy in the orient in
he year 1870 avoided the true reii-
yious principle and followed the false
quite of nationalism. In 1877 COM
nenced the war for the oppressed
;lavs.' not for orthodoxy itself. but for
orthodox Slavs' II is national sympa-
hy and not the fear Of religious per-
which has caused the sword
O be drawn: liberalism and not reli-
ZION. Our policy after the war in the
-rimea has taken a character more ma
ional than religious, more emancipat-
We than polite Orthodoxy is the pearl
# Russian political life, and it was
more important to sustain orthodoxy
tself than the nations that profess it
%. so
Notwithstanding Dostoievski was al
most the only one to appreciate the So
ution of the question of the orient
rom the religious point of view. he
ever ceased to defend the idea which.
vas dear to him-the possession of
necessary to assure the
lorious future of Russia.
Dostoievski held that no concession
hould be made to Europe on the ques-