Page:The Slavs among the nations by T G Masaryk.djvu/28

 to effect the Europeanising of Russia. They show themselves not less severe than Joseph de Maistre and the other conservative philosophers of the West in their criticism of Western manners and politics. As Mickiewicz and the Poles sought support in Catholicism, the Czechs in Hussitism and in the Unity of the Czech Brothers, so the Russians see in Orthodoxy the salvation, not only of all Russia, but also of all mankind.

It is thus that Kirejevsky and ChomajkovChomjakov [sic] understood the Russian and the Slav mind. They believed in the great future of Russia, and upheld her against the West, but their general conception of the world is essentially moral and religious without any political tendency. It was only later that some Russian theorists formulated the principles of political and even nationalist Panslavism, under the influence to a great extent of Slavophobe German theorists. But the thinkers who have recently best stated the ideals of Russia are certainly Solovieff, to a certain extent Dostoievsky, and especially Tolstoi. As is well known, they all proclaim their faith in a purely humanitarian ideal.