Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: AN APOSTLE OF DREAMS PRIOR to the reign of Peter the Great, Russian history is as though enveloped in the murk of some lurid conflagration, through the smoke of which one now and again discerns the outlines of great figures which arrest the attention and stir the imagination before being once more swallowed up in the surrounding obscurity. To this category may justly be relegated Youri Krijanich, the Serb. It is profoundly interesting, taking into consideration the position of Serbia to-day and the historic ideals for which Russia is now fighting, to recall the fact that, from a Serb, Russia first acquired the realisation that Slavdom represented something more than a name, that, in truth, it embodied an undeveloped birthright. It was not until about 1860 that the Russian historian Bezsonoff collected and collated the works of this Pan-Slav apostle, who died in the midst of his labours in 1684. Briefly, then, to sketch his life and his work. Born in 1617, in Austrian Croatia, Krijanich came of noble stock and made his studies with the Jesuits, who at that period supplied practically the only education offered to the youths of well- to-do families. From the very first he seems to have manifested a great antipathy for foreigners, especially Germans, and appears to have had visions of a union of Slavonic tribes under Catholic protection. In due course he received the tonsure and repaired to Rome, where he attracted the attention of the Congregation of Rites who apparently encouraged him to some extent in his dreams. At any rate, his witnessing the treatment offered a Muscovite Embassy in Vienna decided him to go personally to Moscow and there attempt to arouse a national feeling. This was a bold undertaking indeed, having regard for Muscovite suspicions and the susceptibilities...