The Daily News. TUESDAY, MARCH 30, 1915. THE REAL RUSSIA.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LVII, Issue 249, 30 March 1915, Page 4

The Daily News. TUESDAY, MARCH 30, 1915. THE REAL RUSSIA.

The eo-opcration of English and Russian commanders and a sense of something like comradeship between the soldiers of the two nations is helping on a movement that began in England when tin: political Entente was first formed, and that had for its object a truer comprehension of the llussian character. Until quite recently there was no other country in Europe aboui which the average Englishman had so many crude notions—none to which he did so little justice. The Auckland Star, in an intuesting commentary on the Russia of today, explains that the cause was political. For nearly a century after Watciloo British statesmen dreaded nothing so much as a Russian advance upon the Empire of India, and the people whom they feared they naturally distrusted and suspected. Everywhere they saw or imagined signs of the ambitious designs and intrigues of Russia. The prejudiced view was adopted without question by the average man, and at the same time he was far more impressed than jioliticians were by the reports of terrible outbursts of violence, frenzies of fanaticism against the Jews, or fierce repression of popular and racial movements. The evidences of these things were palpably before Ills eyes in the arrival of swarms of destitute Jews or of individual martyrs of freedom crowding into London for refuge. For the rest he derived his ideas from sensational fiction. The current impression about Russia, even as late as twenty or thirty years ago, was that it was a barbarous country, wdiere civilisation was skin deep; that its peasai.ts and poor v.ere sunk in the depths of misery, ignorant--?, and brutality and servility; that the people were as a whole utterly superstitious, or else Nihilistic, believing in nothing; that they were prone to drunkenness, .violence, venality. The whips of the Cossacks, the bureaucratic bribery, the censorship, the mines of Siberia, the assassinations of Tsars and governors, occupied an undue part In r.Tic picture of their national life and character. None of these things were actual inventions they were the disorders and diseases of an imperfectly organised State, deficient in government and self-control, but possessed of compensating qualities of the highest kind. Little or no credit was at that time given them for their extraordinary merits and achievements. As the late Mr. W. Stead said, there was "a strange and pestilent habit among some Englishmen of ignoring all the great services which Russia lias rendered to the cause of human progress and the liberty of nations." In its early days it was the bulwark of Europe against savage Asia on the north-east; in the nineteenth century it was the one great Power that resisted Turkey, and made it possible for the Balkan States to free themselves. Tt was, too, the country that broke the power of Napoleon. t:i i Mr. Stead's words, '-Leipzig and AYaterloo were but the corollaries of a solvid problem." There was a small minority indeed who even then took the wider view than that inspired by political prejudice. There were travellers like Mackenzie Wallace who lived amongst them and who knew them as they were.

There was » gradually increasing number of men and women whose interest was deeply excited by the suffering, the hiroism, and devotion of tho Revolutionaries and the more moderate Progrefflives, "rightly Struggling to he free.'' Ji is indeed a singular fact that English people of nearly every party, incluiUug Conservatives, sympathised, or faii-.:io-l they sympathised with the revolutionaries of Russia, but this sympathy i;d not extend to the nation as a whole. Tin 1 formation of the political Entente meant that statesmen, and after them the English nation as a whole, abandoned its altitude of suspicion and watchful hostility. The Russophiles, who had formerly constituted only a small minority of the people, now camo to the front and began the work of interpreting, tht. true character and genius of tho Ru= • sians. Russian dancers, singers, and musicians came to London; Russian music began to supersede the German; Russian plays, novels, journalistic articles, and careful and elaborate studies of the Empire gave the British public at last a broad and comprehensive revelation of the temperament and spirit of their Eastern ally. Amongst many other sympathetic books on this subject, we have Mr. Stephen Graham's ."With the Russian pilgrims to Jerusalem," Mr. Harold Williams' "Russia of the Russians," and the Hon. Maurice Baring':; "Mainsprings of Russia." In the words of the last-named author, "Such boots as these reveal a standpoint, a maatiry of the subject far removed from tin! fantastic, false and melodramatic conceptions that were abundant some years ago." Since the war began articles on Russia have occupied a large and con spicuous space in the pages of leading periodicals. Among these a recent article on "The Pilgrim Soul of Russia," l.y the popular editor of "The British Weekly," is valuable as an earnest endeavour to reveal the highest aspects of Russifui religious sentiment to the large body of English Nonconformists. Sir WilVan Robertson Nicholl treats with profound respect phases of Orthodox belief which an earlier generation would have been inclined to regard as fanaticism and superstition —its pilgrimages, its saints, hermits, and mystics. It is proverbial that there is more danger of misunderstanding over differences of religion and politics than over any other two matters, and in Russia tho danger is increased by the extraordinary fervour of devot'.n amongst the great mass of the people. Scarcely second to overcoming national prejudice is the. need of regarding with sympathy the mainsprings of a different faith. Amongst tho peasants and masses religion enters into daily life as it does not do among Western Europeans. "Russia," Mr. Harold Williams tells us, "is most terribly Christian in a sense in which, perhaps, only the East lias the secret." Every year thousands of peasant pilgrims go on foot mile aflei mile in storm or sunshine, through forests and across rivers, carrying for their sustenance hard black bread or begging food upon the way, serenely enduring hardship, privation, and disease, and counting deatli on their pilgrimage a glorious end. During tho present war enthusiasm seems to have swept away the scepticism and cynicism of the educated, and of the frivolous section of the population, and the whole people appears to be kindled into a flame of re ligious devotion. Services of prayer and praise are held constantly with tho Russian armies, and every victory is celebrated witli Te Denms. The wrong side of this fervour of devotion is the intolerance with which they regard other races, like the Catholic Poles or the Jews, who hold themselves aloof and separate. But just now it is more pleasant to dwell upon the great and noble qualities of the. Russian people. And amongst these we should be disposed to put first and foremost an immense power of belief. Even when Western education has undermined their Orthodoxy they merely transfer their faith to some other liberated and glorious Dom> cracy. The power of faith means also an almost limitless capacity to dare or to endure, to sacrifice, or to achieve.. This is one of the cardinal facts which the new interpretation has roveaie.d about Russian character on its deepest side.