Lord Novgorod the Great. What would have happened if Russia, instead of submitting to the iron hand of the Grand Dukes of Moscow, had risen against them, and if republican freedom had triumphed"?
The reply to that question is written in the whole history of Poland which is inseparable from that of Russia. In the life and death struggle between the two great Slav nations, the Poles seemed to have every advantage: they were a race admirably gifted, brilliant, clever, proud, and bold. They lived in close proximity of the centres of civilization, in communion of sympathy and interest with Western Europe. They were inspired with a passionate love for independence. And yet it was Tartarized and barbarized Russia that triumphed, it was civilized Poland which was crushed and blotted from the very map of Europe. Poland perished through freedom, through the abuse of the liberum veto of the elective principle. She perished because, in the supreme hour of danger, the Poles did not rally around their leaders, because they did not make to their Government the sacrifice of their anarchist instincts. Russia, on the contrary, made that sacrifice; she trusted to the sword
