The reconstruction of South-Eastern Europe

THE RECONSTRUCTION OF

childhood; the history of Greece constitutes the age of youth. In Rome it passed through the age of manhood. At last in the Germanic world the Spirit of Humanity has made its last appearance, having come to its maturity and with it is completing the cycle of the mystic metempsychosis of the Absolute. Translated into action it meant that the world belongs to Germany, and all the other nations henceforward are left out of the historical process, with no other mission than slavishly to imitate their fortunate German neighbours and intellectual masters. The Slavophil movement took place in a moment when Russia and the whole Slav world was buoyant with fresh hopes. Russia prided herself in the valuable service just rendered to Europe in having freed it from the Napoleonic yoke. The national spirit and the literature of the Czechs and the Poles were fully awakened. Even the Balkan Slavs appeared again on the historical scene. Serbia had formed the nucleus of the Southern Slay State and Europe received with rare enthusiasm the first publication of the Serbian epics. It is true that the magnificent chorus of the great Russian writers, artists and thinkers was still silent, but they were foretold by Pushkin and Lermontov, and the Russian language in their prose and verses attained all its beauty and might of expression. Napoleon from St. Helena has said the words that the future may belong to the Slavs. No wonder that the 254