Page:Sarolea - Great Russia.djvu/13

 PREFACE

HE present volume is not a mere colleclection of disconnected articles, of disjecta membra, on the Russian Empire and on the Russian people. Rather is it an attempt to give a systematic and co-ordinated survey of Russian history and policy.

In the first part I have tried to analyse somewhat more consistently than has been done by previous authors how Russian history and Russian policy are rooted in definite geographical conditions. In the second part I have tried to indicate the inappreciable debt which the world owes to the Russian people. In the third part I have shown how the ideals of Russian culture have found adequate expression in the representative masters of Russian literature. In the fourth part I have dealt with the two burning questions of Russian politics, the Polish problem and the Jewish problem. In the paper on the abortive