The Shield Part 6

Russia ... Russia alone should be our deepest concern at present. The destiny of the numerous races and nationalities that go to make Russia is the destiny of the Russian Empire itself. One would ascertain the att.i.tude of these nationalities by asking them: "Are you with Russia or is it your desire to exist apart from her? If you desire to exist apart from her--why, then, do you appeal to us for help? If with us--let us then, in this time of terror, disdain to consider our personal fortunes and let our thoughts be with Russia and with her alone. For without her your existence is inconceivable; her rise is your rise and her fall is your fall."

We would like very much to say that there is no such thing as the Jewish, Polish, Ukrainian, Armenian, Georgian, question, that there is only one question--the Russian. Yes, we would like to, but we cannot; the Russian people have yet to earn the right to say that, and therein lies their tragedy.... The moment Russian idealism ventures to tackle any of those complicated national home problems,--it becomes weak, impotent and therefore irresponsible.

The Jewish question is a striking ill.u.s.tration of what we have just said. What do we owe the Jews? Indignation? Or the admission that anti-Semitism is abominable? But we admitted that a long time ago, and our indignation runs so high and is so clearly outspoken that it is beyond one's power even to speak calmly of it. The only thing we can do is to join our voice to that of the Jews. And we do.

But outcries, loud as they may be, are not sufficient, and it is the consciousness of the fact, that the outcries are insufficient and that at the present moment we possess no other weapons with which to fight the evil that wearies and harrows us.

What misery, and pain, and shame!

But in spite of the pain and the shame we cry out and reiterate and declare to the people around us, who are ignorant of the table of multiplication, that two and two make four, that the Jews are human beings like us; that they are neither enemies nor traitors to their country; that they are as good citizens as we are; that they love Russia no less than we do, and that anti-Semitism is a disgraceful stigma upon Russia's face. But apart from our righteous indignation, may we not be allowed calmly to utter one thought that occurs to us at this moment?

"Judophilism" and "Judophobia" are closely related. A blind denial of a nationality engenders an equally blind affirmation of it. An absolute "Nay" naturally brings forth an absolute "Yea."

Whom do we call a "Judophile" in Russia at the present time?

Presumably, it is he or she who loves the Jews with a singular love, who finds in them greater values than in any other nationality. In the eyes of the so-called "true Russians" we, the Intellectuals, are such Judophiles.

"Why worry over the Jews all the time?" the Russian Nationalists say to us.

Now, how on earth can we stop worrying over the Jews, and, for that matter, over the Poles, Armenians, Ukrainians, Georgians, and so forth? When in our presence some one is being outraged, we cannot merely pa.s.s on; it is not humane. We must help him who is being a.s.sailed. At least, we ought to join our voice with his in crying out for help. This is precisely what we have been doing, and woe to us, if we cease to do it, cease to be human beings in order to become Russians.

A forest of national problems has grown around us, and the sounds of the Russian language are being drowned by the voices of all the numerous peoples that inhabit Russia. It is inevitable and just. We are not well, but with them it is still worse. We have great pain, but their's is greater. We must forget ourselves for their sake.

That is why we say to the "Nationalists":

Cease oppressing the non-Russian element of our empire, so that we may have the right to be Russians, and that we may with dignity show our national face, as that of a human being, not that of a beast.

Cease to be 'Judophobes' so that we may cease to be 'Judophiles.'

Here is an instance taken at random.

The Jewish question has a religious as well as a national aspect.

Between Judaism and Christianity, as between two poles, there are strong attractions and equally strong repulsions. Judaism gave birth to Christianity. The New Testament issued from the Old Testament. Paul the Apostle, who more than any one else fought Judaism, wrote: "For I could wish that myself were accursed from Christ for my brethren, my kinsmen according to the flesh."

But whereas we may speak of attractions, it is not well for us to speak of repulsions. Indeed, how can we quarrel with him, who has no voice? The disabilities of the Jews seal our lips. We must not separate Christianity from Judaism, for it means, as one Jew put it, the establishment of another, spiritual "Pale of Settlement." Let us do away with the physical Pale, then we will be able to discuss the spiritual one. Until then, all our protestations and declarations of righteousness will only prove to the Jews our insincerity.

Why has the Jewish question become so keen in time of war? For the same reason that the rest of the national problems have made themselves felt.

We have called the present struggle a war of liberation. We entered the war with the avowed purpose of liberating those who are situated at a distance from us. While liberating distant strangers, why then do we oppress those who live close by our side? We wage war against tyranny outside of Russia, and we allow oppression to reign within her. We pity everybody but the Jews. Why?

Are they not dying on the battlefields for our sake? Do they not love us--who hate them? Do we not hate them--who love us? If we continue to act as we have done in the past, would not everybody lose faith in us, and would not the nations of the earth be justified in saying to us: "You can love only from afar. You are liars!"

We believed our righteousness to be our strongest weapon. We wanted to conquer brute force by the truth. If we persist in this desire, let us not lie; let us not weaken our truth by falsehood.

The Teutons say: "We fight to be the rulers of the world,"--and they act accordingly. We say: "We fight for universal peace, for the emanc.i.p.ation of the world," but we do not act accordingly.

Let us begin then with the liberation of the Jews at home. Let the oppressed nations in our land bear in mind, however, that only a free Russian people will be able to give them freedom.

Let the Jews remember that the Jewish question is a Russian question.

CONCERNING THE IDEOLOGY OF THE JEWISH QUESTION

_Vyacheslav Ivanovich Ivanov was born in 1866. A poet of great mastery and a refined critic, his thought, is steeped in h.e.l.lenism and in the most abstruse mystic lore._

CONCERNING THE IDEOLOGY OF THE JEWISH QUESTION

BY VYACHESLAV IVANOV

One of the wiliest and the most harmful doctrines of our times is, I believe, the fashionable ideology of spiritual anti-Semitism. It attributes to Aryanism, which by the way, is a quant.i.ty ethnically if not linguistically enigmatical, many excellent and splendid qualities, while in the Semitic influences and admixtures to the Aryan element it sees nothing but negative energies, which have always hindered the free unfolding of the creative powers of the Aryan genius.

This doctrine would deprive h.e.l.lenism of Aphrodite, who came to the h.e.l.lenes from the Semites, and would cut the main and most profound root of Christianity, namely its faith in a "transcendental," or, plainly, living G.o.d. Spiritual anti-Semitism cuts the body of Christianity into two halves, and keeps only that half whose forms are justified by a.n.a.logies borrowed from the Greek religious thought, justified, in the eyes of learned dodgers who choose to play the part of Romanticists of Aryanism.

This anti-religious and secretly anti-Christian theory, one of the Trojan wooden horses made in Germany, was clearly intended to "Indo-Germanize" the world, when suddenly the twilight of the G.o.ds swooped down upon the Berlin Valhalla. Nevertheless it has succeeded in seducing many minds, obscured by prejudices. It was hailed by "immanent" philosophers and anti-Semites out of political considerations and psychological predispositions, as well as by Christians mindless of their kin, by anti-church people of all kinds, and even by atheists of Jewish birth, who are ashamed of their kin and who are in the world like salt which has lost its strength.

The more vivid and profound the church consciousness is in a Christian, the more vividly and profoundly does he feel himself, I shall not say a philo-Semite, but truly a Semite in spirit. We have so thoroughly confused, distorted and forgotten all the holy and true traditions, we have so thoroughly lost the habit of applying our reason to the lucid, old truths learned by heart, that this statement may sound like a paradox.

Vladimir Solovyov's touching affection for Judaism is a plain and natural manifestation of his love for Christ and of his inner experience of being merged in the Church. The body of the Church is for the mystic the true, although invisible body of Christ, and through Christ it is the body begotten of Abraham's seed. The latter body, like the curtain of the temple in Jerusalem in the hour of our Saviour's death, was rent in twain, and that half of it which is Judaism pa.s.sionately seeks the whole, longs and yearns, and pours out its wrath upon the second half, which in its turn longs for the reunion and the integrity of mystic Israel.

Whoever is within the Church loves Mary; and whoever loves Mary loves also Israel whose name together with those of the patriarchs and prophets solemnly resounds in our liturgical hymns. The minds of those who in various times represented the earthly organisation of the Church could be poisoned by hatred of the Jews, in whom they suspected Christ's enemies, precisely because it seemed to them that the Jewish nation was already void of the true Jewish spirit and was not of Abraham's seed. But what do all these errings mean in face of the single testimony of the apostle Paul?

I have placed myself, in these lines, on the standpoint of religious thought, and I wish to remind people of the truth that to be a Christian means to be not a heathen, not simply an Aryan by blood, but to become through baptism, which sacramentally includes also circ.u.mcision, a child of Abraham, and, therefore, in a sacramental sense a brother to Abraham's descendants, who, according to the word of the apostle, are not deprived of inheritance, and whom, according to Christ's word, we must bless even if they curse us. Personally, I do not believe that the Jews hate Christ, unless it be that they hate Him in spite of their secret, presensuous love for Him, hate Him with that peculiar hatred which comes from jealousy and which the h.e.l.lenes defined as the negative hypostase of Eros, as anti-Eros.

I think that Providence has appointed the Jews eternally to test the Christian peoples in their love for Christ and in their faithfulness to Him. And when His work will be consummated in us, then their demands and expectations will be fulfilled and they will be convinced that they need not wait for another Messiah. As for us, if we were walking with Christ, we would not fear our examiners: for love conquers fear.

The accounts the Russian soul has to settle with that of the Jew are complex. In spite of the fact they have frequently and most completely been united in suffering, the Jew is loath to love that which is most sacred to the Russian soul. For the benefit of those in whom resound the separate clashing voices of this spiritual dispute, I shall quote in conclusion this final and irrevocable verdict of Dostoyevsky, who had the reputation of being an anti-Semite:

"All that is demanded by humanity, justice and Christian law, must be done for the Jews. I shall add to these words that in spite of the considerations exposed above, I definitely stand for an increase of the Jewish rights in formal legislation and, if possible, for the removal of all the legal disabilities which stand in the way of their equality with the rest of the population (although in some cases they have already more rights than the aboriginal population, or, better, they have greater possibilities to utilise the rights which they enjoy)."

("A Writer's Journal," March, 1877, III, p. 4.)

THE LITTLE BOY