Changing Russia #266003

Russia is becoming more interesting to England every day. I should like to point out how and why.<br><br>We are interested in the mediæval state of the Russian civilisation and in the religious life of the peasantry, in which it is possible to see something of what we ourselves were like in the far past.<br><br>We are interested by Russian art, thought, and action as compared with ours - in the alluring contrast of life as shown in Russian novels.<br><br>We look to the Russians for new sources of pleasure. Their music and dancing, and to a certain extent their literature, have gratified our æsthetic taste. We are now beginning to look to the Russian theatre to infuse new life into ours.<br><br>We are uninterested in Germany, as a schoolboy is uninterested in the rod with which he may be chastised - uninterested in France, who is like a seedy old partner whom we have grown up beside, and whom we know in and out. So Russia waits to us with all the freshness and allurement of newly discovered country.<br><br>Russia puzzles us.