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?".
"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?".