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Thoughts on American Exceptionality
by Mark Anthony Signorelli (January 2012)
To make us love our country, our country ought to be lovely.
– Edmund Burke, Reflections
In 1880, at the ceremonies surrounding the unveiling of a monument to Pushkin, Fyodor Dostoyevsky delivered a speech on the greatness of the poet. This greatness lay, according to Dostoyevsky, in Pushkin’s embodiment of the “prophetic” mission of the Russian people, a mission to create “the universal brotherhood of peoples.” In the height of his oratorical rapture, Dostoyevsky maintained that this historical duty fell upon the Russian people because of their preeminent sanctity: “Our land may be impoverished, but Christ himself in slavish garb traversed this impoverished land and gave it His blessing! Why may we not contain His ultimate word?” more>>>