6314
#8
Date: Mon, 17 Jun 2002
From: Yale Richmond <yalerich@erols.com>
Subject: Lucas/ Weisbrod Exchange on Russian Character
Re the Lucas/Weisbrod exchange on Russian character, the following is an except from the Preface to my book, "From Nyet to Da: Understanding the Russians" (Intercultural Press, 1992 and 1996 rev.), soon to be reissued in a third edition:
"There are risks, admittedly, in attempting to define national characteristics. A nation may be unfairly stereotyped, and there will always be exceptions to the rule. But who will not agree that Russians differ from Poles, Poles from Germans, and Germans from French, although these nations have lived side by side in Europe from time immemorial? ....As French historian Francois Guizot has written, looking back on his own counry's revolutions:
"When nations have existed for a long and glorious time, they cannot break with their past, whatever they do; they are influenced by it at the very moment when they work to destroy it; in the midst of the most glaring transformations they remain fundamentally in character and destiny such as their history has formed them. Even the most daring and powerful revolutions cannot abolish national traditions of long duration. Therefore, it is most imporant , not only for the sake of intellectual curiosity but also for the good management of international relations, to know and to understand these traditions."
(Guizot, quoted by Hans Kohn in "The Mind of Modern Europe," Rutgers Univ. Press, 1955, vii.)
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