Page:The Spirit of Russia by T G Masaryk, volume 1.pdf/311

Rh to the forces of nature a great influence upon the destiny of the Slavs, considering that they have but little spontaneity and subjective activity.

Hegel was germanophil precisely as Homjakov and Kirěevskii were slavophil, and the German's views require to be criticised just as severely as those of the Russians. It is really amusing to read the slavophil condemnation of German philosophy and German rationalism, and then to note how these Moscow writers utilise Berlinese rationalism and at times turn it topsy turvy. I could give additional instances, but will content myself with a significant parallel. Hegel finds in the Catholic middle ages, as a peculiar contradiction, that the Germans (Germans or Teutons, for he uses the terms interchangeably, just as the slavophils wrote promiscuously of Slavs and Russians), despite their beautiful and heartfelt piety, were uncultured and superstitious barbarians. In the same way, to Homjakov, the Old Russians were barbarians, but they preserved true Christianity and exhibited the most beautiful and heartfelt piety. Hegel refers barbarism to the spheres of intelligence and will, whilst piety springs from the heart. The thought of Homjakov and Kirěevskii was essentially similar, except that in their view imitativeness, the state, and the geographical situation, were to a certain extent responsible for the barbarism of the Old Russians.

E have dealt with the two founders of slavophilism, but it is necessary to refer in addition to a few other writers if we are to become thoroughly acquainted with slavophilism as a school.

The place of next importance is occupied by Jurii Samarin (1819–1876). In philosophy he was a follower of Homjakov. In his essay (1844) concerning Stefan Javorskii and Theophan Prokopovič he endeavoured to show apropos of these two contemporaries of Peter (vide supra, ) the one-sidedness and the defects of Catholic unity and of the Protestant principle of individual freedom. It is important to note that Samarin was more strongly opposed to Catholicism than to Protestantism. He held with Homjakov that Protestantism was merely the negation of Catholicism, and that Catholicism therefore, being the positive enemy, must be more positively resisted. Samarin