1. The World View Of German Idealism. A Consideration Regarding Our Fateful Times

Russia has prepared herself well for what she needed to do in order to prepare in a corresponding way for what now threatens the German essence from there. Russia needs a new term for her old delusion, so as not to point to her mission as a matter of course, as the Germans do, but to point to something that lives as a delusion. Now, again, it is not the intention here to make a characterization from the outside, but because I naturally do not have the time to characterize in detail the extent to which the striving that threatens us from the East is a delusion, I would like to cite another key witness, a spirit who must know this, a spirit who is most deeply rooted in modern Russian intellectual life, the great Soloviev, who is placed in the nineteenth century and who – I would like to say – brings the whole of Russian intellectual life together as if in a philosophical focus for reflection. He speaks of how another spirit of Russia summarizes Russia's world-historical mission in the words: Why does Europe not love us, why does Europe fear us? Danilevsky poses this question. And he says: