Page:Sarolea - Great Russia.djvu/90

 CHAPTER VIII

RUSSIA AS THE LIBERATOR OF OPPRESSED NATIONALITIES

I

HE Russian people have not only wished freedom for themselves. Long before they succeeded in conquering a measure of political liberty for themselves, they had conquered it for their brethren in the Balkan States. Whereas Austria has always stood for the oppression and suppression of small nationalities, whereas Prussia has only expanded by suppressing the Danes in Schleswig-Holstein, the Poles in Posen, the French in Alsace-Lorraine, the Russian Empire has again and again stood for the emancipation of small nationalities. Most of the wars of Russia have been holy crusades, wars for the liberation of other countries. The Battle of Navarino gave freedom to Greece. The Turkish-Russian War of 1878 gave freedom to Roumania, Serbia, and Bulgaria. If we study closely the historical record of the Russian Empire, we come to the