In the twillight of the brilliance of the Rhomaic civilization, the Russian civilization emerged amidst the silence of vast forests and frozen rivers, inhabited by the Eastern Slavs, thus becoming a satellite civilization to the Rhomaic civilization. Its formative period was the rule of Kievan Rus, which played a similar formative role towards it as the Carolingian Empire did for the Frankish civilization. It's primary axis connected Kiev up the Dnieper with Smolensk and with Novgorod, and its classical language was Church Slavonic. Eventually, Kievan Rus broke up into a network of principalities around cities such as Kiev, Chernigov, Smolensk, Vladimir, Novgorod, and Pskov - each a hearth of Slavic blood and Rhomaic fire.

Then the Mongol rampage begun. Many of these cities were razed, and the Russian civilisation has taken a clear turn at the crossroads. Where the Franks built parliaments, the Russians built prisons

Out of the many, three emerged to stand the test of time: the Grand Duchy of Lithuania, which controlled all of Belarus and most of present-day Ukraine, founded by the then still-pagan Baltic tribe of the Lithuanians dominated by nobility; the Republic of Novgorod with its mercantile ethos in the north. And in the middle, a third power rose: Muscovy, born in chastisement, growing up in submission and crowned in vengeance.

At that time, this civilisation also included principalities such as Pskov , Ryazan and the Finnish principality of Perm at the foot of the Ural Mountains.

Among these principalities, Muscovy eventually united the various Russian principalities, annexed the land of Novgorod, and under the rule of Ivan the Terrible dominated Kazan. Thus a secondary axis was defined: from the Novgorod (later St. Petersburg) through Moscow to Kazan. After the division of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, almost all the East Slavic countries became part of the Russian Empire, which dominated the Eurasian steppe, this highway of nations, and extended its power beyond the Caucasus, to the Pamirs, the Altai, to the far shores of Kamchatka and Alaska. Its universal empire was Tsarist Russia, and later, in diabolical inversion - the Soviet Union. The two faces of the same imperial eagle - one annointed, the other mechanised.

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Indeed, Russia must be regarded as a separate civilization from the Rhomaic civilization. For the Russians, Slavic writing became perhaps a truly Danaic gift. A code whose symbols spoke of truths overheard and half-understood, separated from the richness of the Logos. Basic liturgical texts were translated into Church Slavonic, but Russian civilization remained cut off from the richness of the Rhomaic texts, since the Russian popes did not know Greek and the first Church schools in the Russian milieu were not established until the 17th century.1

As such, it cannot be argued that Russian civilisation is a direct heir of the Classical Greco-Roman civilisation. On the contrary, it has received a very pre-packaged, condensed indirect version of this Classical civilisation from the Rhomaic intermediary. So the Rhomaic civilisation has been one of the streams that contributed to the formation of the Russian civilisation, and this contact was conducted across the Dnieper River and the Black Sea - it involved receiving the Cyrillic script and converting to Orthodox Christianity. Many Orthodox hierarchs for quite some time had been actually ethnic Rhomaic Greeks. Furthermore, the Rhomaic influence was later bolstered by Muscovites taking the notion of the translatio imperii following the Fall of Constantinople and the whole notion of Russia as the Third Rome. Not in legal continuity, but apocalyptical inheritance. She inherited nor the legal traditions of Rome nor the philosophical dialectics of Constantinople, but the crown of thorns.

Among the different ingredients that blended together to form the Russian civilisation, are chiefly the East Slavic tribes, who became the demographic bulk of the civilisation and whose language became the bulk of the civilisation, living in fortified wooden towns with a communal, agrarian and enduring ethos.

Another important component that contributed to the formation of the Russian civilisation was the Scandinavian (Varangian) influence. The Rurikids were a Scandinavian clan that unified the area. For them, rivers became highways and their swords brought order. This Varangian influence has always been the strongest in Novgorod2 (which developped its own aristocratic republic and was a member of the Hansa) and was later revived when Peter the Great made a “window to the West”, bringing much needed light into the gloomy taiga.

The third important component came from the Steppe. From Khazars and Bulgars through Pechenegs and Cumans to Mongols, Tatars and Cossacks. The very arteries of Russia - its many rivers - flow in the Volga towards Kazan and Astrakhan, towards Asia. Indeed, the so-called Tatar yoke has shaped Russian mentality in many ways, not merely by espousing cavalry tactics in the form of the Cossacks. The Varangian and Steppe harshness and fierceness blended in to create a rather ruthless environment, also supported by the harshness of the climate. The combination of the Rhomaic idea of the autocrator with the Mongolia hierarchic ways of government and vertical model of governement, where the decree of the ruler was the world of law, needing no consent and responsible to none but God . Thus came a vertical autocracy without balance, a pyramid without foundation, composed of not citizens but masses.

If Carroll Quigley had described the Frankish civilisation using the series of adjectives optimistic, moderate, hierarchical, democratic, individualistic, yet social and dynamic, what words may be chosen to better understand the ethos of the Russian civilisation? The words enduring, mystical, autocratic and communal come to mind.

Enduring for the Russians are known to survive many hardships - from the forbidding climate through hostile invasions through enduring the most oppressive of regimes. Where the Frenchman writes cogito ergo sum, the Russian replies: I suffer, therefore I exist. Where Napoleon codifies, Russia crucifies.

The mystical aspect of Russian civilisation is a very strong accent - perhaps stemming from the deep symbolism of Orthodox liturgy without having contact with the vast library of Greek philosophy. Unlike Classical or Frankish rationalism, it understands through intuition, seeking meaning in suffering and the quest for a metaphysical or eschatological destiny. It does not think but sees, does not argue but intuits. The Orthodox liturgy is its metaphysics, its icons the pages of its gospel.

The autocratic nature of Russian civilisation appears as if it were a given. From Ivan the Terrible through Peter the Great to the Soviets, concentrated power in the hands of the Tsar appears as a given, with each change of regime often affirming concentrated autocracy in new ways.

Unlike the Frankish civilisation, the Russian one is a deeply communal civilisation. A shared sense of common destiny and solidarity has persisted throughout the rhythms of the ages, leading to a collectivist worldview and the need to put the “we” before the “me”. A civilisation focused on sobornost rather than individualism. It does not respect the person - it dissolves him in the collective.

First came the Tsar, bearing the Cross like a sword. Then came the Soviets, who sought to abolish God with a hammer. One conquered in the name of a mystical Third Rome that was never more than an illusion, the other in slaughtered in the name of future. Both were corrupted by Isildur´s Bane.