Wednesday, October 19, 2005

Berlin - 'The State of Europe: Christmas Eve, 1989'

"The study of the ideas and activities of the nineteenth-century Russian intelligentsia has occupied me for some years, and to find that, so far from being buried in the past, this movement—as it is still right to call it—has survived and is regaining its health and freedom, is a revelation and a source of great delight to me. The Russians are a great people, their creative powers are immense, and, once set free, there is no telling what they may give to the world. A new barbarism is always possible, but I see little prospect of it at present. That evils can, after all, be conquered, that the end of enslavement is in progress, are things of which men can be reasonably proud." - Isaiah Berlin, Granta.

[Hat Tip: 3QuarksDaily]

No comments: