The reconstruction of South-Eastern Europe

SOUTH-EASTERN EUROPE

Asia, the Southern Slavs are best fitted to form a first link binding the West to Russia. They are Slavs, but all their tendencies are European. They understand Russia, although Mongolism has left a lesser imprint upon their mind. They are both Roman Catholic and Greek Orthodox. If their art is mystic, it is also clear; their national epics contain little of the supernatural and are nearest to the Greek Homeric genius. If their sculptor MeStrovie is deeply mystic as in his Christian art, and if his architecture betrays Babylonian or Egyptian characteristics as in the conception of his Temple of Kossovo, he has the keenest sense of form and the clearest vision of classical beauty as revealed in his torso of a hero, now in the Victoria and Albert Museum. Politically, the future Southern Slav State will be a result and embodiment of the successful alliance of Western Europe with the Slav world.

When freedom and unity will reconcile the ever contending dualism in their character and history, which made up their tragedy, the Southern Slavs may look forward to a future quite different from their past. But in their future freedom and prosperity the Southern Slavs must keep alive the memory of the past misery, the hardships and the humiliations, which were imposed upon them through centuries by a haughty and proud oppressor. Against the German ideal of violence and pride they will set up their ideal of love and Christian humility. They will not attempt to force other nations to

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