Page:The Slavs among the nations by T G Masaryk.djvu/26

 inspired by their political interests. The most illustrious of them, Adam Mickiewicz, the eminent poet and original thinker, developed his idealistic conceptions here, at the College of France. He hoped with all the ardour of his soul that his country would revive by the aid of Napoleonic France of former days, which showed itself so hospitable to the Polish emigration; but at the same time he believed in the reconciliation of the Polish and Russian nations. In his “Improvisation” he condemns the Muscovite oppression in eloquent and severe language, but he confidently awaits the conversion of Russian policy to liberal principles. The Austrian or Prussian executioner is less brutal than the Russian oppressor, but he is more hypocritical and more dangerous.

Like all other Slav thinkers, the Poles are fervent partisans of humanitarian conceptions; they desire that the interests of the nation shall be harmonised with those of mankind. By the side of Mickiewicz, the greatest poet and the most profound and brilliant mind of Poland, Krasinski recommends a policy, non-revolutionary, humanitarian and even fraternal in character.