酷兔英语
    当前位置:
  1. 首页
  2. 文章
  3. 娱乐英语
  4. 原版小说
  5. 正文

Notes on Life and Letters-Part13_JOSEPH CONRAD (1857-1924)_English Literature(文学名著)-第2页

0 收藏 0 分享 0 赞

章节正文
文章总共2页
Voices have been heard saying that the time for reforms in Russia



is already past. This is the superficial view of the more profound

truth that for Russia there has never been such a time within the



memory of mankind. It is impossible to initiate a rational scheme

of reform upon a phase of blind absolutism; and in Russia there has



never been anything else to which the faintest tradition could,

after ages of error, go back as to a parting of ways.



In Europe the old monarchical principle stands justified in its

historical struggle with the growth of political liberty by the



evolution of the idea of nationality as we see it concreted at the

present time; by the inception of that wider solidarity grouping



together around the standard of monarchical power these larger,

agglomerations of mankind. This service of unification, creating



close-knit communities possessing the ability, the will, and the

power to pursue a common ideal, has prepared the ground for the



advent of a still larger understanding: for the solidarity of

Europeanism, which must be the next step towards the advent of



Concord and Justice; an advent that, however delayed by the fatal

worship of force and the errors of national selfishness, has been,



and remains, the only possible goal of our progress.

The conceptions of legality, of larger patriotism, of national



duties and aspirations have grown under the shadow of the old

monarchies of Europe, which were the creations of historical



necessity. There were seeds of wisdom in their very mistakes and

abuses. They had a past and a future; they were human. But under



the shadow of Russian autocracy nothing could grow. Russian

autocracy succeeded to nothing; it had no historical past, and it



cannot hope for a historical future. It can only end. By no

industry of investigation, by no fantastic stretch of benevolence,



can it be presented as a phase of development through which a

Society, a State, must pass on the way to the full consciousness of



its destiny. It lies outside the stream of progress. This

despotism has been utterly un-European. Neither has it been



Asiatic in its nature. Oriental despotisms belong to the history

of mankind; they have left their trace on our minds and our



imagination by their splendour, by their culture, by their art, by

the exploits of great conquerors. The record of their rise and



decay has an intellectual value; they are in their origins and

their course the manifestations of human needs, the instruments of



racial temperament, of catastrophic force, of faith and fanaticism.

The Russian autocracy as we see it now is a thing apart. It is



impossible to assign to it any rationalorigin in the vices, the

misfortunes, the necessities, or the aspirations of mankind. That



despotism has neither an European nor an Oriental parentage; more,

it seems to have no root either in the institutions or the follies



of this earth. What strikes one with a sort of awe is just this

something inhuman in its character. It is like a visitation, like



a curse from Heaven falling in the darkness of ages upon the

immense plains of forest and steppe lying dumbly on the confines of



two continents: a true desert harbouring no Spirit either of the

East or of the West.



This pitiful fate of a country held by an evil spell, suffering

from an awful visitation for which the responsibility cannot be



traced either to her sins or her follies, has made Russia as a

nation so difficult to understand by Europe. From the very first



ghastly dawn of her existence as a State she had to breathe the

atmosphere of despotism; she found nothing but the arbitrary will






文章总共2页
文章标签:名著  

章节正文
Copyright © 2023 Qeto All rights reserved.
商务合作 | 联系我们 | 关于我们 | 版权声明 | 隐私条款 | 如果智培

京ICP备05059198号-1 京公网安备 11011202003401号