No matter where we are Russian people live, no matter what situation we are in, the sorrow and woe about our Motherland never leave us. This is natural, inevitable and inescapable: this sorrow will not and must not forsake us. The sorrow is the exhibition and exercise of our true love to our Motherland and our faith in Her. In order to be (to exist) and to battle, in order to further stand firm and win, to overcome, it is necessary to believe, that graceful strengths of the Russian nation has not dried out, that Gods gifts in it have not thinned away, that overclouded only on the face of it, still lives in it it’s original, primordial, archetypal perception of God, that the obscuration will get over and spiritual strengths and powers shall arise and be resurrected. Those of us, who are going to lose this faith, are going to lose the purpose and the meaning of national warfare and are going to fall off, like the dried, dead leaves. They are going to stop seeing Russia in and through God and stop love Her with their spirit; and this means, that they are going to lose Her permanently, they are going to abandon her spiritual womb, and are going to stop being Russian. Being Russian, not only means being able to speak the Russian language. But it means – to embrace, to perceive Russia by and with heart, to see Her precious originality and Her unrepeatable singularity in entire universal history by and with love, to understand, that this uniqueness is Gift of God, given to Russian people themselves, and at the same time – God’s directive, His designation, having to protect Russia from invasions of other nations and demand for this Gift – freedom, and independence on the earth. Being Russian means behold, contemplate Russia in God's ray, in her eternal material, in her imperishable substance and accept her by love as one of the main and cherished, sacramental sanctities of her own personal life. Being Russian means to believe in Russia in the manner, how believed in Her all Russian great people, all Her geniuses and Her makers. Only on this faith, we are going to able to strengthen our battle and our victory for Her. Perhaps, Tyutchev isn’t right, that “you may only believe in Russia”, for one’s mind and conscience also can be told a lot, and power of imagination must see Her earthly majesty and Her spiritual beauty and will have to behoove and ensure to complete and set firm in Russia a lot. However, faith is also necessary: without faith in Russia, we ourselves are not going to be able to live, and we are not going to be able to revive Russia. May they not speak to us, that Russia is not a subject for the faith; that we need to believe only in God, yet not in earthly, worldly visibilities and substances. Russia is before the face of God, in Gods gifts asserted and in God’s ray foreseen, - is precisely the subject of faith, but not the faith that is blind, unseeing, viewless, sightless and against a reasonable conscience, but the faith that is loving, seeing and well-grounded, well-thought-out in one’s mind (conscience). Russia, as a chain of historical appearances, facts, phenomena, images, forms, and reflections, is, certainly, earthly visibility and substance, subjected to scientific studying. But the science itself must not stop on outside visibility of facts; it has to come through, to go inside into inner sense and spirit, into the spiritual meaning of historical appearances, to that and only that, which forms and constitutes the spirit of Russian nation, and the essence and nature of Russian people. We, as Russian people, called out not only to know the history of our Motherland but to witness in Her the battle of our nation for self-being and self-existent spiritual face (soul). We must see our people, our nation not only in their mutinous, rebellious passion, but also in their humble prayer; not only in their sins and falls, but also in their goodness, in their heroism, valiance, in their acts of bravery; not only in their wars but also in the inner, inmost meaning, significance, spirit, and sense of these wars. And especially – in the way of heart and goodwill that is hidden from an outside stranger eye, the way, the course which imbued and impregnated entire history of Russia, and Her entire prayerful mode of life and self-being. We must learn to see Russia in God – Her heart, Her nationhood, statehood, Her history. We must anew – to spiritually and religiously comprehend the entire history of Russian culture. And, when we are going to comprehend Her like that, only then it will become obvious to us, that Russian people in all their entire life, awaited and stood before God, sought, that they aspired and aimed, got ready, that they knew all their own passions and own sins, but always measured themselves with Gods criteria, standards and measures; that through all their errors, delusions, and letdowns, despite all that and against all that, the soul of Russian people always have prayed and their prayer always made up and kept form of living nature of their spirit. Believing in Russia means to see and admit that Her soul is rooted in God and that Her history is an increment and growth from these roots. If we believe in this, then no “fallings, fiascos, failures” on Her way, no tests, and trials of Her strengths can not and will not horrify and frighten us. Matter-of-course, native is our unstoppable mourning about Her temporary humiliation and miseries, bearing by our people, but unnatural depression and despair. Thus, the soul of Russian people always sought Her roots in God and His earthly appearances: in truth, righteousness, and beauty. A very long time ago, maybe in prehistorically times of Ancient Rus’ (Russia), there has been determined and decided the question about the “truth and falsehood”, decided and memorialized as a doom judgment in a fairy-tale, fable. “Must live Godly… What will it be…, only not the falsehood”… Precisely on this decision and this statement Russia has been built and stood firm for centuries during all Her history, beginning from Kievo-Pecherskaya Lavra (Kiev Rus’) through “Righteous” and “Selfless Engineers” written by Leskov, Nikolay Semenovich (Russian classical writer [1831-1895]); from Sergiy Prepodobnyy (Sergiy Venerable) through non-commissioned officer Foma Danilov, who was tortured by Kipchaks (Bashkir’s tribe) in 1985 due to his faithfulness to Orthodox Faith and allegiance to his Rus’ Motherland; from knyaz’ (duke) Yakov Dolgorukiy, who plainspoken to Peter the Great, through Mitrpolit of St. Petersburg Ven’yamin, who was tortured and murdered by Bolsheviks (socialists). Before anything else, Russia is – living infinite of Russian truth-lovers, “straight standers”, faithful to God’s truth. With some mysterious, mighty confidence they knew-managed, that evidence of failure must not confuse and distract their firm and faithful Russian soul; that doing by God’s way overcomes and wins by even only making and doing it, building and constructing Russia with their only lonesome stand against (even if this stand is solitary and martyr). And one of us, who has ever tried to embrace the mass, multitude of Russian standers with his own eye, he will never believe “western talks” about the insignificance of the Slavic nation (Slavic conscience and being) and will never question or doubt his faith in Russia. Russia has always been sustained and still growing by consciousness about God, abiding in His living and graceful breath. That’s why, when Russian man desires to bring to reason his fellow-creature, he says to him: “Fear God!” – Yet, when rebuking his fellow neighbor, he articulates: “There is no God in you!” Thus, whoever is having God in himself, bears in his soul lively breathing love and living conscience: two, the noblest and honorable foundations of every life service, priestly service, civil and military service, judicial and monarchial service. This view is aboriginal, primordial, ancient-Russian; what has found its meaning and expression in the ordinance of Peter the Great, that has been inscribed on verges of Zertsalo: “Behoove decorously in front of justice, inasmuch the justice of God is, therefore cursed anyone who performs the God’s work with perfunctoriness”. Great Russian Field-Marshall Suvorov has always expressed and declared this view, bringing forward the idea of Russian warrior battling for the accomplishment of God’s work. All generations of Russian people have been taught and nurtured with this particular idea, those, who were fighting for their Motherland, those, who set free Russian peasantry from serfage (on basis and principals which never realized and called to the existence among other nations of the world, except Russia), those, who created Russian district council, Russian law, and justice, Russian school of pre-revolutionary period. Healthy, sober and conscious statehood and army are impossible without the sense of spiritual self-dignity, yet Russian person has always established it through faith in his immortal, in-front-of-God standing and by-God-driven soul: that is why Russian man has this remarkable religiously-empirical and calm reception of death – and on the bed of sickness, as well as in the battle, which has many times been noted in Russian literature, especially by Tolstoy and Turgenev. However, healthy statehood and a strong army are also impossible without a true sense of rank. And surely, the captain Lebedyakin from Dostoyevsky’s “Besy” was right, when replied to the atheist: “If God doesn’t exist, what captain is I after that?” Creative and constructive statehood yet requires hearty wisdom and inspired contemplation, or according to words of Mitropolit Filaret, which were spoken during the coronation of Imperator Aleksandr II, - it requires “chiefly miraculous touching by the govern Spirit of the Lord, Spirit of wisdom and knowledge, Spirit of conscience and strength.” Exactly with this kind of spirit, Russia has been sustained on the span of Her entire history, and her secessions from this spirit always led Her towards Her innumerable troubles and disasters. Therefore, believing in Russia suggests an acceptance of all these deep and great traditions, - Her determination towards excellence, Her character and service, to take root in them and confidently build on them Her revival, Her renaissance. And when western nations putting up a question for us, why we are so immovably assured in forthcoming revival and regeneration of Russia, we answer because we know the history of Russia, which you don’t know, and we live by Her spirit, which is unfamiliar and unavailable to you. We ratify and maintain spiritual strength and bright future of Russian people in virtue of many reasons, every of which has its own particular weight and importance and which all together leading us into the very depth of our faith and our faithfulness. We believe in our nation not only because it has proved the ability to form state and make industrial colonization, by politically and economically uniting one-sixth of the earth surface; and not only because our nation has created a law and order for one hundred sixty different tribes and ethnicities – multilingual and multicultural minorities with different religious beliefs, exercising that complacent flexibility and peaceful livable in centuries, before which, with such a joyful feeling bowed once Lermontov (“Hero of our time” chapter I, “Bela”); and not only because it proved to be a great spiritual and national vitality, by lifting and overpowering the two hundred fifty year Tatar’s yoke; And not just because, that our nation, undefended with natural boundaries, passing through a centuries of armed struggles, spent in defensive wars two-thirds of its sacrificial life, overcame all of their historical burdens and gave at the end of this period the highest in Europe average birth rate: 47 people per year per every thousand of population; And not only because our nation has created a powerful and unique original language, as capable of plastic expressiveness, as well as abstract hovering, the language of which Gogol said: “Whatever sound, then the gift, and the truth is another name yet more precious than the most thing itself” (Selected passages from correspondence with friends). And not only because, that our nation, creating their unique national culture, has proved – and his strength and ability to create and develop new, and their talent to materialize foreign and alien, and their will to quality and excellence, and their giftedness, proposing out of all classes “our own Plato’s and quick-minded Newton’s” (Mikhail Lomonosov); And not only because, that our nation has developed over the centuries its own Russian legal conciseness (Russian pre-revolutionary justice and court, the proceedings of the Russian Senate, the Russian law, which combines the Christian spirit with a refined sense of justice and informal contemplation of law); And not only because, our nation has created a beautiful and original art, taste and measure, originality and depth of which hitherto has not evaluated by other people by dignity – not in choral singing, not in music, not in literature, not in art, not in sculpture, not in architecture, or in theater, or a dance; And yet, not only because, that our Russian nation has given from God and from the Nature inexhaustible riches, overground and underground, which provide them the opportunity – at the very least and worst case of the successful invasion of western Europeans to their limits – retreat into the depths of their country, to find there everything necessary to defense and for the return of confiscated by dismantlers and defend their place under God’s sun, their national unity and independence… We believe in Russia, not only on these grounds but, of course, we find support and reliance in Her. Behind those grounds and through them shines us something more: the nation - people with such gifts and unique destiny, suffered and created such, can not be abandoned by God in the tragic hour of its history. Our nation has not actually been abandoned by God, simply by virtue of that; its soul from the time of immemorial roots and rooted in prayerful meditation, in pursuit of high, in the ministry of higher meaning of life. And if temporary darkened its eye, and if once shaken its power to distinguish right from temptation - then the sufferings will clear its eye and strengthen in it its spiritual might… We believe in Russia because we contemplate Her in God, and we see Her as what She really was. Lacking this support Russia was not up to Her harsh fate wouldn’t be able to bear Her thorny destiny. Not having this living source, Russia would not have created Her own culture. Not having this gift, Russia would not have received and this calling. We know and understand that for a personal private life – 25 years is a long and painful period. But in the life of a nation with thousands of years past, the term “loss” or a “failure” is not decisive: the history testifies to the fact that for such trials and turmoil people respond with return to their spiritual substance, with recovery of their spiritual act and new blooming of their powers. So it will be with Russian people. Endured the test will awaken and strengthen their self-preservation instinct. Persecution of the faith will clear their mind's eye and their religiosity. The bygone stock of envy, malice and discord will depart in the past. The new Russia will rise. We believe in it because we desire it, but because we know and understand the Russian soul, we see the path traversed by our people, and speaking of Russia in the spirit appeal to God’s conception, laid in the foundation of Russian history, Russian national existence.
Translated by Sergey Shuparskiy
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