A Short History of Russia Quotes

“constantly met in Russian”
― Mary Platt Parmele, A Short History of Russia

“When she allied herself with Byzantium instead of Rome, Russia separated herself from those European currents from which she was already by natural and inherited conditions isolated.”
― Mary Platt Parmele, A Short History of Russia

“The Russo-Japanese treaty of peace, signed at Portsmouth in August, 1905, registers the concession of all the vital points in the demands of the conquering nation.”
― Mary Platt Parmele, A Short History of Russia

“For a thousand years Europe had been trying to drive Mohammedanism out of the continent.”
― Mary Platt Parmele, A Short History of Russia

“Russians suspected of liberal tendencies were watched, and upon the slightest pretext sent to Siberia,”
― Mary Platt Parmele, A Short History of Russia

“she had the educated instincts of a European, not an Asiatic,”
― Mary Platt Parmele, A Short History of Russia

“The Romans did not concern themselves with the number of their enemies; they only asked, 'Where are they?”
― Mary Platt Parmele, A Short History of Russia

“defective social organization and an arrogant nobility that ruined Poland.”
― Mary Platt Parmele, A Short History of Russia

“Three thousand Russian families were sent to colonize Azof,”
― Mary Platt Parmele, A Short History of Russia

“How can I but weep and lament? An eagle with claws like a lion has swooped down upon me. He has captured my beauty, my riches, my children. Our land is a desert! our city ruined. Our brothers have been carried away to a place where our fathers never dwelt—nor our grandfathers—nor our great-grandfathers!”
― Mary Platt Parmele, A Short History of Russia

“There are to-day two millions of nomad Mongols encamped about the south-eastern steppes of Russia, still living in tents, still raising and herding their flocks, little changed in dress, habits, and character since the days of Genghis Khan. While this is written a famine is said to be raging among them.”
― Mary Platt Parmele, A Short History of Russia

“The Kremlin was built (1300)—not as we see it now.”
― Mary Platt Parmele, A Short History of Russia

“eight Muscovite Princes from Daniel (1260) to the death of Vasili (1462),”
― Mary Platt Parmele, A Short History of Russia

“The religion of the Mongols at the time of the invasion was a paganism founded upon sorcery and magic; but they soon thereafter adopted Islamism,”
― Mary Platt Parmele, A Short History of Russia

“They were proud of their nationality, which had existed nearly as long as from Columbus to our own day. They gloried in their splendid background of great deeds and their long line of heroes reaching back to Rurik.”
― Mary Platt Parmele, A Short History of Russia

“Teutonic Order," wearing black crosses on their shoulders, which, after fraternizing with the Livonian Knights, was going to absorb them—together with some other things—into their own more powerful organization. Russia had no armed warriors to meet these steel-clad Germans and Livonians.”
― Mary Platt Parmele, A Short History of Russia

“Livonian Knights," who came from Saxony and Westphalia, armed cap-à-pie, with red crosses embroidered upon the shoulder of their white mantles.”
― Mary Platt Parmele, A Short History of Russia

“It was the Novgorodians who invited the Norse Princes to come and rule the land; and it was the Novgorodians who were their least submissive subjects.”
― Mary Platt Parmele, A Short History of Russia

“bonds of unity which could not be severed: A unity of race and language; a unity of historical development; a unity in religion; and the political unity created by the fact that all the thrones were filled by members of the same family,”
― Mary Platt Parmele, A Short History of Russia

“The cause underlying all others is racial. It is explained in their names. The theology of one had its roots in Greek Philosophy; that of the other in Roman Law. One tended to a brilliant diversity, the other to centralization and unity. One was a group of Ecclesiastical States, a Hierarchy and a Polyarchy, governed by Patriarchs, each supreme in his own diocese; the other was a Monarchy, arbitrarily and diplomatically governed from one center. It was the difference between an archipelago and a continent, and not unlike the difference between ancient Greece and Rome. One had the tremendous principle of growth, stability, and permanence; the other had not. Such were the race tendencies which led to entirely different ecclesiastical systems.”
― Mary Platt Parmele, A Short History of Russia

“The work of Olga was completed—Russia was Christianized (992)!”
― Mary Platt Parmele, A Short History of Russia

“this vindictive heathen woman was going to be changed to an ardent convert to the Christian faith.”
― Mary Platt Parmele, A Short History of Russia

“Rurik was the Clovis of Russia. When with his band of followers he was established at Novgorod the name of Russia came into existence, supposedly from the Finnish word ruotsi, meaning rowers or sea-farers.”
― Mary Platt Parmele, A Short History of Russia

“With the arrival from Sweden of the three Vikings, Rurik and his two brothers Sineus and Truvor, the true history of Russia begins, and the one thousandth anniversary of that event was commemorated at Novgorod in the year 1862.”
― Mary Platt Parmele, A Short History of Russia

“This elemental struggle was to resolve itself into one between Aryan and non-Aryan—the Slav and the Finn; and this again into one between the various members of the Slavonic family; then a life-and-death struggle with Asiatic barbarism in its worst form (the Mongol), with Tatar and Turk always remaining as disturbing factors.”
― Mary Platt Parmele, A Short History of Russia

“As late as the twelfth century only the higher classes faithfully observed the Christian rites; while the old pagan ceremonies were still common among the peasantry. And even now the Saints of the Calendar are in some places only thinly disguised heathen deities and pagan rites and superstitions mingle with Christian observances.”
― Mary platt Parmele, A Short History of Russia

“Magyars,”
― Mary platt Parmele, A Short History of Russia

“The cause underlying all others is racial. It is explained in their names. The theology of one had its roots in Greek Philosophy; that of the other in Roman Law. One tended to a brilliant diversity, the other to centralization and unity. One was a group of Ecclesiastical States, a Hierarchy and a Polyarchy, governed by Patriarchs, each supreme in his own diocese; the other was a Monarchy, arbitrarily and diplomatically governed from one center. It was the difference between an archipelago and a continent, and not unlike the difference between ancient Greece and Rome.”
― Mary platt Parmele, A Short History of Russia

“The history, the very life of Russia clusters about its three great rivers. These have been the arteries which have nourished, and indeed created, this strange empire. The Volga, with its seventy-five mouths emptying into the Caspian Sea, like a lazy leviathan brought back currents from the Orient; then the Dnieper, flowing into the Black Sea, opened up that communication with Byzantium which more than anything else has influenced the character of Russian development; and finally, in comparatively recent times, the Neva has borne those long-sought civilizing streams from Western Europe which have made of it a modern state and joined it to the European family of nations.”
― Mary platt Parmele, A Short History of Russia