ISAIAH BERLIN
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that it regards, and that regards itself, as superior, as the Russians did
when they came into collision with Western Europe, its leading men
are made to feel culturally self-conscious; they are made to wonder
whether they really are as barbarous, backward, ignorant, as likely to
remain in a condition of squalor and poverty, as the others think that
they are. Naturally, they are reluctant to believe this. Then they tend
to ask themselves: What can we do to pull ourselves up? They usually
begin by imitating the superior foreign culture. In the end they
despise themselves for this. Their natural pride is touched: they reject
the idea that they are as degraded as they are evidently thought to be.
They insist that they possess something uniquely valuable that the
others do not have or even understand. There are many examples of
this. The Germans went through this process vis-a.-vis the French in
the eighteenth century. The French in their glory looked upon the
Germans with considerable contempt as a lot of provincials beyond
the frontiers of high culture. The Germans responded by saying to
themselves that while, no doubt, the French were dominant in
art,
in
war, in politics, in power-in many spheres-the only thing that, in
the end, truly mattered was the inner life. And that they had. What
mattered most of all was the relation of man to God and of man to
himself. The French were clever, superficial, cold, materialistic,
purblind-unaware of that which alone made life worth living; they,
the Germans, on the other hand, were ready to give up everything for
what alone gave all other things their worth-the life of the spirit. This
is a sublime form of sour grapes: what we cannot have is not worth
having; the others have it, but it is of no worth; we possess something
of supreme value-our sense of the divine, our deep understanding,
our inner life. We are not corrupted or blinded by the world and the
pleasures of the flesh, materialistic civilization.
This is, roughly speaking, what began to be believed in Russia in
the late eighteenth century. The Russians felt inferior vis-a.-vis the
West. And after the Napoleonic wars, when they marched into Paris,
they realized-or at least the well-born officers, who were, after all,
the dominant element that in some ways formed opinion in Russia,
realized-that Russia was at once feared and despised by Western
Europe . Then the question arose: What is it that we lack? What do
they have that we do not? All backward countries sooner or later ask
that question of themselves, while developed countries do not.
Russian literature in the nineteenth century is largely concerned
with Russian self-questioning: Where do we come from? Where are
