Prophecy F.M. Dostoevskyc

“Russia will not have, and never has had, such haters, envious people, slanderers and even obvious enemies, like all these Slavic tribes, as soon as Russia liberates them, and Europe agrees to recognize them as liberated! Dostoevsky wrote in 1877. —

After their liberation, they will begin their new life precisely with what they will beg from Europe, from England and Germany, for example, guarantee and patronage of their freedom, and even though Russia will be in the concert of the European powers, but it is precisely in defense of Russia that they and they will.

They will certainly begin with the fact that within themselves, if not directly aloud, they will declare to themselves and convince themselves that they do not owe Russia the slightest gratitude , on the contrary, that they were barely saved from Russia’s lust for power at the conclusion of peace by the intervention of a European concert, and not If Europe intervened, Russia would immediately swallow them up, “meaning the expansion of the borders and the foundation of the great All-Slavic Empire on the enslavement of the Slavs to the greedy, cunning and barbaric Great Russian tribe.”

Maybe for a whole century, or even more, they will constantly tremble for their freedom and fear the love of power in Russia; they will curry favor with the European states, they will slander Russia, gossip about her and intrigue against her.

Oh, I’m not talking about individuals: there will be those who will understand what Russia meant, means and will always mean for them. But these people, especially at the beginning, will appear in such a pitiful minority that they will be subjected to ridicule, hatred, and even political persecution.

It will be especially pleasant for the liberated Slavs to express and trumpet to the whole world that they are educated tribes, capable of the highest European culture, while Russia is a barbarian country, a gloomy northern colossus, not even of pure Slavic blood, a persecutor and hater of European civilization.

They, of course, will have, from the very beginning, a constitutional administration, parliaments, responsible ministers, orators, speeches. They will be extremely comforted and delighted. They will be in rapture reading telegrams about themselves in the Parisian and London newspapers informing the whole world that, after a long parliamentary storm, the ministry has finally fallen into (… a country to your taste …) and a new one has been formed from a liberal majority and that some of theirs (… surname to taste …) finally agreed to accept the portfolio of the President of the Council of Ministers.

Russia must seriously prepare for the fact that all these liberated Slavs will enthusiastically rush to Europe, will be infected with European forms, political and social, to the point of losing their personality , and thus will have to go through a whole and long period of Europeanism before comprehending at least something in in its Slavic meaning and in its special Slavic vocation among mankind…

Of course, in the moment of some serious trouble, they will all certainly turn to Russia for help . No matter how they hate, gossip and slander Europe, flirting with her and assuring her of love, they will always instinctively feel (of course, in a moment of trouble, and not before) that Europe is a natural enemy to their unity, was they will always remain, and that if they exist in the world, then, of course, because there is a huge magnet – Russia, which, irresistibly attracting them all to itself, thereby restrains their integrity and unity.