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 CHAPTER V

THE GEOGRAPHICAL ORIENTATION OF RUSSIAN FOREIGN POLITICS

I

F there is one eternal and universal instinct in human nature, it is the irresistible impulse which attracts the inhabitants of northern countries to the sunny climes of the South and the East. It is the heliotropic instinct which directs the flower towards heat and light. It is the instinct to which Goethe has given immortal expression in the "Song of Mignon." It is the instinct which for ages has transformed Italy, the land of beauty, into a land of servitude. It is the instinct which has directed the colonial expansion of Great Britain, and which in our own day has been drawing Germany to the East.

II

no other nation has this "Drang nach Süden" and this "Drang nach Osten" been so natural and so intense as with the Russian