1905-ложка дегтя
Dec. 26th, 2012 02:32 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
a_kleberAt the same time I must confess a conviction which has more and more grown upon me, that the popular view regarding the power, vigor, and foresight of Russian statesmen is ill-founded. And it must be added that Russian officials and their families are very susceptible to social influences: a foreign representative who entertains them frequently and well can secure far more for his country than one who trusts to argument alone. In no part of the world will a diplomatist more surely realize the truth embedded in Oxenstiern's famous utterance, "Go forth, my son, and see with how little wisdom the world is governed." When one sees what really strong men might do in Russia, what vast possibilities there are which year after year are utterly neglected, one cannot but think that the popular impression regarding the superiority of Russian statesmen is badly based. As a matter of fact, there has not been a statesman of the first class, of Russian birth, since Catherine the Great, and none of the second class unless Nesselrode and the Emperor Nicholas are to be excepted. To consider Prince Gortchakoff a great chancellor on account of his elaborate despatches is absurd. The noted epigram regarding him is doubtless just: "C'est un Narcisse qui se mire dans son encrier." *
To call him a great statesman in the time of Cavour Bismarck, Lincoln, and Seward is preposterous. Whatever growth in civilization Russia has made in the last forty years has been mainly in spite of the men who have posed as her statesmen; the atmosphere of Russian autocracy is fatal to greatness in any form.
The emancipation of the serfs was due to a policy advocated by the first Nicholas and carried out under Alexander II; but it was made possible mainly by Miloutine, Samarine, Tcherkassky, and other subordinates, who never were allowed to approach the first rank as state servants. This is my own judgment, founded on observation and reading during half a century, and it is the quiet judgment of many who have had occasion to observe Russia longer and more carefully.
* это Нарцисс, любующийся своим отражением в чернильнице
To call him a great statesman in the time of Cavour Bismarck, Lincoln, and Seward is preposterous. Whatever growth in civilization Russia has made in the last forty years has been mainly in spite of the men who have posed as her statesmen; the atmosphere of Russian autocracy is fatal to greatness in any form.
The emancipation of the serfs was due to a policy advocated by the first Nicholas and carried out under Alexander II; but it was made possible mainly by Miloutine, Samarine, Tcherkassky, and other subordinates, who never were allowed to approach the first rank as state servants. This is my own judgment, founded on observation and reading during half a century, and it is the quiet judgment of many who have had occasion to observe Russia longer and more carefully.
* это Нарцисс, любующийся своим отражением в чернильнице
