will be the enfranchisement of the Slav nations of the Balkans, of the Orthodox brethren weighed down by the cruel yoke of the Turk, and it will involve the protectorate over Byzantium and Jerusalem, the two holy cities of the "Pravoslavs."
The Oriental and Asiatic policy of Russia is, therefore, not a policy of adventure and conquests. It is a natural and national policy. From the Russian point of view it is a perfectly legitimate and indeed a necessary one. The will of Peter the Great, whether it be authentic or not, corresponds to a political reality; it is the sacred inheritance and the historic mission which Russians for the last three centuries have transmitted from generation to generation. The struggle for the possession of Constantinople, "Tsargrad," both the capital of the Cross and of the Crescent, is the only one which has always rallied all the subjects of the Tsar, all political opinions, and all political aspirations. The conservatives, the Church, and the peasantry desire this policy because it must ensure the triumph of Orthodoxy. Liberals and "Occidentals" and intellectuals desire it because it will compel Russia to emerge from her isola-
