Page:Sarolea - Great Russia.djvu/238

222 of Petrograd. But, alas! it was not only the name of the capital which had been German. The Russian Government itself was controlled by hyphenated Teutonized Russians, by the German Barons of the Baltic Provinces. Even the Russian Foreign Policy was directed from the Wilhelmstrasse and the politicians who oppressed the Slav brethren of Poland joined hands with the Prussian Hakatists who oppressed the Slav brethren of Posen. The All-Powerful Academy of Sciences of St. Petersburg was a duplicate of the Berlin Academy, and refused to open its doors even to a Mendelieff. The intellectuals of the universities were inoculated with the poison of German economic and political materialism. Bazarov, the Father of Nihilism in Turgenev's "Fathers and Sons," was a disciple of Büchner and Haeckel.

A hundred years ago, Alexander I, the most liberal ruler of Russian history, was the pupil of Laharpe, himself a disciple of the French Revolutionists, and all through his reign Alexander remained under the influence of French Liberalism. The Alliance of the French democracy with the Russian Monarchy is based on political sympathies and elective affinities.