One hundred years ago
RUSSIANS appear to be exceedingly interested in a sermon recently deli- vered in Odessa by the Archbishop Nicaner. He is a pure Russian by birth and education, but he tells his country- men that they are inferior to the Ger- mans, and even the Jews around them, in ability, in morality, and in respect for religion. The Russians drink, and will "die on the top of a spirit-cask," while the foreigners remain sober. The for- eigners help one another, and the Rus- sians never will. The Russian villages are full of hovels, the German villages in Russia of neat houses. The Germans, Jews, and even Tartars, educate their children, but the Russians will not, saying they want good harvests and plentiful rain, not education. They are intolerant also of discipline for their children. They are even giving up attendance at church, and spend the Sunday in merrymaking; while on a Jewish holiday every steamer and car is empty. The Russians are, says the Archbishop, children in the presence of their rivals. The lecture was certainly severe, and probably wholesome; but the worthy prelate's panacea for all these evils is surely of the oddest. It is that the Russians should become more intensely Russian than ever, should keep their national costume, and should not go about imitating foreigners, and so run the risk of becoming German- ised. We are not quite sure, indeed, whether the object of the lecture was not to aid in the Czar's efforts to keep "the Western taint" from among his people. The Spectator, 21 October 1889
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