Page:The Slavs among the nations by T G Masaryk.djvu/33

 Europe. The Slav nations have all hastened to accept Western civilisation. It will suffice to mention the well-known speech delivered by Dostoievsky, on the occasion of the fete of Puchkin, when he declared that the Russian and the Slav is essentially a cosmopolitan, with a peculiar aptitude for sympathy with the character of every nation and for assimilating the essentials of their culture. This is an incontestible truth.

Considered historically, the Slav consciousness awoke in the 18th century, at a time when national consciousness was born throughout Europe. Besides that, the same motives were in operation. But the position of the Slavs was quite special. All the Slav peoples were under the oppression of their neighbours, and saw their normal development impeded by their adversaries. In some cases they were even retrograding as a result of oppression by less civilised enemies. The Russians long groaned under the yoke of the Tartars and the Mongols; the Jugoslavs were oppressed by the Turks and the Magyars; the Czechs were almost annihilated by the German-Austrian reaction in consequence