"You cannot understand Russia with your mind alone..."

Fyodor Ivanovich Tyutchev (1803–1873) was a remarkable Russian lyric and philosophical poet. He spent about 20 years abroad as an attaché of the Russian diplomatic mission. Many of the poems included in this collection have been known and loved by us since childhood. However, few are familiar with F. Tyutchev’s prose. This collection therefore includes his essays, which are outstanding examples of nineteenth-century political journalism and in which he expressed his views on Russia’s destiny, its role in the world, and its relations with Europe: “Russia and Germany,” “Russia and Revolution,” “The Papacy and the Roman Question from a Russian Point of View,” and “On Censorship in Russia.”