Page:The Spirit of Russia by T G Masaryk, volume 1.pdf/332

306 were not Slavs, whereas the Russians felt strong enough to undertake the task for themselves. The Czechs (and the Slovaks), aware of the smallness of their own powers, whilst conceiving the idea of a universal and mighty Slavdom, were inclined always to rely upon the help of humanity at large and of civilisation in general. Themselves restricted to Austro-Hungarian territory, their tendency was to concentrate upon the Slavs distributed among other states. Though Kollár was a theologian, he had abandoned the theocratic ideal. As a nation the Czechs had experienced the reformation, but they had afterwards been forcibly reconverted to Catholicism by Rome and Austria, and they had therefore remained inwardly estranged from the victorious church. The Russians, the Poles, and the southern Slavs relied upon the church but the Czechs relied upon culture. Mickiewicz condemned the humanitarian cultural ideal of the Czechs in the name of sentiment and inspiration. The generation following that of Mickiewicz, enlightened by the issue of the revolution of 1863 and by the decline in European sympathy for the Polish cause, entered the path of culture and social reforms. Many Poles believed that the most effective support could be secured from Austria and from the antirussian policy of that country but Mickiewicz, in his Improvisation, recommended a different policy:—

The Austrian gives him vinegar to drink, The Prussian gives him gall to drink, And at the foot of the cross stands Mother Freedom, weeping. But look! The Muscovite warrior Springs forward with the lance, Thrusts it into the innocent side— Blood gushes forth! What hast thou done, Most stupid and most fierce of all the executioner's servants? He alone repents, he alone, And him God will pardon!

The revolution of 1905 and the granting of a constitution have made it possible for Poles and Russians to come into closer and more direct contact in the duma. In this way there may arise an understanding of their joint national interests, and each side may come to realise the other's needs.