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PARTISAN REVIEW
Occident, what you call here the culture area, is coextensive with
the Latin church. Russia has Byzantium as an ancestor, but from
Peter the Great to Stalin her orientation has been counter to By–
zantium; and even the anti-Occidentals--even D08toevsky-do not
link themselves with Byzantium as do the Occidentals with Greece
and Rome. The only way Russia can "come to terms" with that
part of the Slavic world which is Catholic in culture is to annex
it-and she knows it.
There is of course no specific American culture any more than
there
is
a Russian culture. But the American culture is that of an
Occidental nation, no more (and no less) different from French
culture, or German culture, and with the same cultural ancestors
as the countries of Europe.
As to Germany, does she not now have some influence on European
culture?
Heidegger's influence is due to the vigor with which he has
restated the problem of Being in its relation to the problem of
History. This must be taken as a phenomenon of our time, another
manifestation of which we see in the discovery of what true Hindu
thought is. But since you find it amusing to cite some of my ex–
prophecies, allow me to make one more: the principal problem of
the end of the century will be the religious problem-in a form as
unlike any that we now know as Christianity was from the religions
of antiquity-but it will
not
be the problem of Being.
(Translated from the French by Frances A. Lippman)
