Political Views
With regard to foreign affairs he was a militant Panslavist, who never needed a particular reason to berate the Western powers, Vatican, Ottoman Empire, or Poland, the latter perceived by him as a Judas in the Slavic fold. The failure of the Crimean War made him look critically at the Russian government, too.
On other political matters he held broadly liberal views. He warmly welcomed most of the reforms of Tsar Alexander II, in particular the Emancipation reform of 1861. Both in his work as a censor and in his writings he promoted the ideal of freedom of expression, frequently incurring the wrath of his superiors as a result even under the more relaxed regime of Alexander II.
His fairly sizeable output of verse on political subjects is largely forgotten. One exception is a short poem which has become something of a popular maxim in Russia:
- Who would grasp Russia with the mind?
- For her no yardstick was created:
- Her soul is of a special kind,
- By faith alone appreciated.
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- (trans. by John Dewey)
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Read more about this topic: Fyodor Tyutchev
Famous quotes containing the words political and/or views:
“The national anthem belongs to the eighteenth century. In it you find us ordering God about to do our political dirty work.”
—George Bernard Shaw (1856–1950)
“It is surely a matter of common observation that a man who knows no one thing intimately has no views worth hearing on things in general. The farmer philosophizes in terms of crops, soils, markets, and implements, the mechanic generalizes his experiences of wood and iron, the seaman reaches similar conclusions by his own special road; and if the scholar keeps pace with these it must be by an equally virile productivity.”
—Charles Horton Cooley (1864–1929)