Abstract

We in Central Europe live under the eyes of the Russians. For a century their psychological gaze has seen through our great words and institutions. Their vitality is strong enough to seize our knowledge and technology as weapons. Their prowess in rationalism and its opposite, as well as their potential for good and evil in orthodoxy, is overwhelming. They have realized the union of Socialism and Slavism, which already in 1848 Donoso Cortes said would be the decisive event of the next century.

This is our situation. We can no longer say anything worthwhile about culture and history without first becoming aware of our own cultural and historical situation.