DEFENSE
The defense of the Motherland is the duty of man. Just as we defend the dignity of mother and father, so also experience and knowledge are offered for the defense of the Motherland. Slighting one's Motherland would be, first of all, uncultured.
Culture is true enlightened learning. Culture is a scientific and inspired approach to the solution of mankind's problems. Culture is beauty in all its creative grandeur. Culture is exact knowledge without prejudices and superstitions. Culture is the affirmation of good in all its efficacy. Culture is a song of peaceful labor, in endless perfectment. Culture is revaluation of values for the sake of the discovery of the true treasures of the people. Culture is affirmed in the heart of the people and creates striving for construction. Culture accepts all discoveries and, improvements of life, because it lives in everything that thinks consciously. Culture defends the historic dignity of the nation.
Each opposition to culture is ignorance. Each obscenity against culture is a sign of a bestial state. Humanness and service to humanity derive from culture. To carry the banner of culture means to safeguard the finest universal values. If a universal concept is close to the soul of mankind, how much closer and more penetrating sounds the word about the Motherland.
Declaration of the Motherland is not an abstract, nebulous idea. He who attempts to assert it will realize the entire responsibility for this act of affirmation.
People cannot be satisfied with abstractions. In the world all is real, and in the highest beauty the resplendent summits are real. The summit rests on Earth. Upon the crystal of thought rests the realization of the Motherland as it is universally understood. The defense of the Motherland is also the defense of one's own dignity.
The defense of the Motherland is also the defense of culture. Above the daily dust shines the concept of the Motherland. He who cognizes this beautiful and inviolable concept can consider himself a conscious worker for culture. In labor, amidst obstacles seemingly unconquerable, are found young forces. In love for humanity, in love for the Motherland the young hearts will find the uncontested radiant striving for achievement. In the Russian word podvig is contained a concept of motion, of advance, and untiring creativeness.
Great Motherland, all thy spiritual treasures, all thy unutterable beauties, the inexhaustibility of all thy vistas and all thy summits, we will defend. There is no heart so cruel that it could say. Do not think about the Motherland. And not only during holidays, but in daily labors we will apply to everything that we create thought about the Motherland, her happiness, her national progress. In everything and above all, we shall find constructive thoughts, not in mundane dates, not in selfhood, but in true self-realization, and they will tell the world: We know our Motherland, we serve her, and we shall use our strength to defend her on all her paths.
"Above all kinds of Russians, there is one unforgettable Russia.
Above all kinds of love, there is one pan-human love."
Urusvati, Himalayas
1936
