Even more emphatically does the superficiality of Russian culture appear in social and political questions. These two directions of human thought have, in most recent times, become very popular in all Russian society. But what an abyss separates a European from a Russian in this field! In Europe the theses of the social sciences or of politics are the result of life. They are adjusted to life conditions and treated critically. In Russia they are lifeless dogmas, about which Russian scholars of the 20th Century dispute with the same heat and in the same manner as their ancestors, a few hundred years ago, disputed as to whether the Hallelujah should be sung twice or three times, whether the confession of faith should read “born, not created” or “born and not created,” whether one should say, “God have mercy upon us” or “Oh God, have mercy upon us,” whether one should use two fingers in crossing [208]oneself or three, and so on. Naturally, at that time religious questions were the fashion. Today it is social questions. And what does it amount to? Rampant doctrinism, the eternal use of banal commonplaces, an immature setting up of principles. And the result is—extreme unwieldiness of Russian society in internal politics and in parliamentarism, in social and national work, together with a deep scorn of the depraved West (gnili zapad). With this superficiality of Russian culture, its most evil characteristic is connected; the decline of family life and a certain moral perverseness. This phenomenon is commonly met with in all peoples who have but recently come in contact with Western European culture. The bad qualities of a high civilization are always assumed first, the good qualities slowly. In this field the Russians have far outstripped their European models. The above facts suffice to prove that Russian cultural influences are dangerous for the Ukrainian people. The severe, rigid materialistic character of the Russian people will, without any doubt, enable it to outlast the storm and stress period of the present Russian culture, and guide it to a splendid future. But for the Ukrainian people, with its sentimental, gentle character, the assuming of Russian culture would be a deadly poison. Even supposing that the Ukrainian people might survive such an experiment, a thing which is not likely, it would forever remain a miserable appendage of the Russian nation. And besides, such an experiment is entirely unnecessary. Either we say, “We are Ukrainians, an independent race and different from the Russians,” and build up our culture quite independently, or we say, “We are ‘Little Russians,’ one of the three tribes of Great Russia and of its high culture,” and, in that case, we may calmly lie down on the world renowned Ukrainian stove. For then it does [209]not pay even to work at the development of our language. A third alternative does not exist.