TheSovietTsar

Dostoevsky's prophetic words were written in the writer's diary in the autumn of 1877 – when the war for the liberation of Bulgaria by Russian troops from the Turkish yoke was in full swing:

"It will be especially pleasant for the liberated Slavs... to trumpet to the whole world that they are educated tribes capable of the highest human culture, while Russia is a barbaric country, a gloomy northern colossus, not even of pure Slavic blood, a persecutor and hater of European civilization…

They will certainly begin by ... declaring to themselves and convincing themselves that they do not owe the slightest gratitude to Russia; on the contrary, that they were saved from Russia's love of power at the conclusion of peace by the intervention of the European concert. And if Europe had not intervened, Russia would have swallowed them up immediately, “meaning the expansion of borders and the foundation of the great All-Slavic empire to enslave the Slavs to the greedy, cunning and barbaric Great Russian tribe.”

Perhaps for a whole century, or even more, they will constantly tremble for their freedom and fear the ambition of Russia for power; they will curry favor with the European states, slander Russia, gossip about her and intrigue against her."

Here is what Nikolai Mikhailovich Karamzin wrote in his "Note on Ancient and New Russia" addressed to Tsar Alexander I:

"Peter did not want to delve into the truth that the spirit of the people constitutes the moral power of states, like the physical, necessary for their firmness. This spirit and faith saved Russia during the time of the impostors; it is nothing but attachment to our special, nothing but respect for our national dignity. Rooting out ancient skills, making them ridiculous, praising and introducing foreign ones, the sovereign of Russia humiliated Russians in their own heart. Does self-contempt dispose a person and a citizen to great deeds?

It must be agreed that we, with the acquisition of human virtues, have lost civil ones. Does the name of the Russian have for us now the mysterious power that it had before? And very naturally: our grandfathers, already in the reign of Michael and his son, appropriating to themselves many benefits of foreign customs, still remained in those thoughts that a faithful Russian is the most perfect citizen in the world, and Holy Russia is the first state. Let them call it a delusion; but how it favored the love of the Fatherland and the moral power of it! Now, having been in the school of foreigners for more than a hundred years, can we boast of our civic dignity without boldness? Once we called all other Europeans infidels, now we call them brothers; I ask: who would it be easier to conquer Russia - infidels or brothers?".

"No, we are doing the right thing by punishing nationalists of all stripes and colors so severely. They are the best helpers of our enemies and the worst enemies of their own peoples. After all, the cherished dream of nationalists is to split the Soviet Union into separate "national" states, and then it will become easy prey for enemies.
The majority of the peoples inhabiting the Soviet Union will be physically exterminated, while the remaining part will turn into dumb and pathetic slaves of the conquerors.

It is not by chance that the despicable traitors of the Ukrainian people-the leaders of Ukrainian nationalists, all these Melniki, Konovaltsy, Bandera-have already been assigned by German intelligence to incite hatred for Russians among Ukrainians who are the same Russians and to seek the separation of Ukraine from the Soviet Union. It's the same old song from the Roman Empire: divide and conquer.

The British were particularly successful in inciting national hatred and inciting one nation against another. Thanks to this tactic, by bribing the pathetic and corrupt leaders of various peoples, capitalist island England – the first factory in the world, negligibly small in size, managed to seize vast territories, enslave and rob many peoples of the world, create a “Great " British Empire in which, as the British boastfully declare, the sun never sets.

With us, this number will not pass while we are still alive. So it is in vain that Hitler's fools refer to the Soviet Union as a “house of cards”, which supposedly will collapse at the first serious test, count on the fragility of the friendship of the peoples inhabiting our country today, and hope to quarrel with each other. In the event of a German attack on the Soviet Union, the people of different nationalities inhabiting our country will defend it without sparing their lives, as their beloved Homeland.

However, the nationalists should not be underestimated. If they are allowed to act with impunity, they will bring a lot of trouble. That is why they must be kept in an iron rein, not allowed to undermine the unity of the Soviet Union."

Source: I. V. Stalin-Complete Works. Volume 15, "Conversation with A. S. Yakovlev on March 26, 1941", p. 17