Frederick Engels in New-York Tribune 1854
First Published: in New York Daily Tribune, July 25, 1854. Written in English;
Source: Marx Engels On Literature and Art, Progress Publishers, 1976;
Transcribed: by Andy Blunden.
About eighty years ago when the victorious armies of Catherine II were severing from Turkey province after province, prior to their transformation into what is now called South Russia, the poet Derzhavin, in one of the bursts of lyrical enthusiasm in which he was wont to celebrate the glories, if not the virtues of that Empress, and the destined grandeur of her empire, uttered a memorable couplet in which we may still find condensed the scornful boldness and self-reliance of the Czarian policy:
“And what to thee, 0 Russ, is any ally?
Advance and the whole Universe is thine!”