Countering Putin's propaganda

 Countering Russian propaganda

[Sources and references at the bottom of the article]

Part 1: Russian and Western statehood

On paper, the 1993 Russian constitution declares that “Russia is a democratic, federative, law-based state with a republican form of government”. In practice, checks and balances between the different branches of government are close to non-existent and Putin, as president-for-life, practically rules without opposition. The state has almost absolute control over the media, journalists who express contrarian opinions are intimidated, jailed or murdered, political opponents are poisoned and/or jailed. Transparency International ranks Russia as one of the most corrupt countries in the world and the Democracy Index compiled by the Economist Intelligence Unit (EIU) lists it as an authoritarian regime.

In contrast, the overwhelming majority of Western countries score highly on both of those lists and the corresponding media landscape is a bubbling pot of diverse ideas and narratives where social and political debate is heated and intense. Demonstrations, which can get violent, take place often to protest government policies and politicians are often called to account and are voted out of office as a direct result of their decisions. There are some in the West that find such intense disputes in the public sphere disagreeable and want to grant greater authority to the state, but they remain a tiny minority.

All of the above is of fundamental importance when we come to assess the relative veracity of competing narratives and something we must always keep in the back of our minds while we address each of the claims below.

Part 2: The Russian claims

Most of the Russian propaganda claims rely on very specific interpretations of historical events that took place 20 or more years ago, including some more recent ones, and there have since been extensive historical studies by international scholars that have significantly enriched our knowledge of those events in the intervening years until today. In many cases it has been long enough that we have witnessed and can assess their aftermath.

Let’s look at some of the most common claims.

1. NATO’s expansion poses a risk to Russian security.

After the collapse of the Soviet Union, NATO never made a serious effort to bring Russia in. This has by now been acknowledged as a mistake. The 90s saw an increased drive for political self-determination in many post-soviet republics who sought to join NATO as a guarantor of political stability. In 1997 NATO and Russia signed the "Founding Act" on mutual relations, cooperation, and security, and the NATO-Russia Council was founded in 2002, both of which were intended to boost cooperation. Moscow received access and a permanent presence at NATO headquarters in Brussels. In 2010, after the Russian military intervention in Georgia, NATO continued to maintain that it poses no threat to Russia and called for a "true strategic partnership" between the two sides. NATO stresses at every opportunity that it is fundamentally a defensive alliance and its purpose is to protect its member states. Its enlargement is not directed against Russia because every sovereign nation has the right to choose its own security arrangements. This is a fundamental principle of European security, one that Russia has also subscribed to (in 2002 Putin himself stated that “Every country has the right to choose the way it ensures its security).

2. The influence of the West is slowly decaying and this is why it has sought to start a new Cold War.

There are often heated debates in Western democracies about a range of socio-political issues which include the rights of minorities, such as LGBT+ rights. Such heated debates are the lifeblood of democracies and it is how social institutions make progress.

These are perceived as signs of moral degradation by Russia that will inevitably lead to intense social discord and the eventual economic and political collapse of the West. There are no convincing signs to support the narrative that the West has been seeking a new cold war. This is evidenced by the economic and social ties that Western countries have actively sought to establish with the rest of the world, which have led to tremendous economic growth, primarily outside the West, often at the cost of (more expensive) domestic jobs, a fact which has contributed to the gradual thinning of the middle-class and rising social tensions. The West remains influential and technologically innovative but it does need to deal with rising economic and social inequality. While the stars of China and India are indeed rising, it is too early to tell whether what is going on in the West is evidence of an inevitable decline or a gradual transformation to peacefully accommodate a transition to a more pluralistic world.

3. Most local elites in post-soviet nations don’t have the historical or cultural experience of state-building and should not align themselves with the West but should instead join Russia.

This is patently false, evidenced by the tremendous economic and social strides post-soviet countries within the EU have made in the intervening years. 

4. After the first wave of NATO expansions in the 90s that followed the collapse of communism, the West tore apart what was left of Yugoslavia.

Yugoslavia broke apart because it was a tenuous union of mixed ethnic groups with different national goals. Socialist Yugoslavia was a federation of six republics bringing together Serbs, Croats, Bosnian Muslims, Albanians, Slovenes and others under a comparatively relaxed communist regime. Tensions between these groups, dating back to the collapse of the Ottoman Empire, were successfully suppressed under the leadership of Tito. After Tito’s death in 1980 ethnic tensions began to resurface reaching a boiling point In the 90s. Calls for autonomy and rising nationalism led to intense fighting between different ethnic groups, with war crimes committed by all sides. UN peacekeepers were brought in to quell the fighting but failed miserably.  The Serbian government (a close Russian ally), under the leadership of Slobodan Milošević, was the strongest actor in this conflict and aspired to establish a Greater Serbia. The Srebrenica massacre of 1995 was the first European crime to be formally classified as genocidal in character since World War II. Continued international efforts to stop the war failed, the UN was humiliated and many tens of thousands died. After issuing multiple warnings against Serbia and with thousands of refugees flooding European nations, NATO commenced air strikes against Serbian military positions in 1999. The NATO air campaign also targeted Serbian government buildings and the country’s infrastructure in an effort to destabilize Milosevic, until on June 10th 1999 a peace agreement was signed and the bombings stopped.

5. Ukraine is not an independent nation but a political entity created by Lenin which later expanded westward under Stalin.

The notion that Ukraine is not a country but a historical part of Russia, seems to be deeply ingrained in the minds of many in the Russian leadership. Aside from its cultural proximity, Ukraine’s sentimental and spiritual appeal to many Russians derives from the fact that the Kievan Rus’ – a medieval state that came into existence in the 9th century and was centered around present-day Kiev – is regarded as a joint ancestral homeland that laid the foundations for both modern Russia and Ukraine. But from the time of its foundation to its conquest by the Mongols in the 13th century, the Rus’ was an increasingly fragmented federation of principalities. Its south-western territories, including Kiev, were conquered by Poland and Lithuania in the early 14th century. For roughly four hundred years, these territories, encompassing most of present-day Ukraine, were formally ruled by Poland-Lithuania, which left a deep cultural imprint on them. During these four centuries, the Orthodox East Slavic population of these lands gradually developed an identity distinct from that of the East Slavs remaining in the territories under Mongol and later Muscovite rule. A distinct Ukrainian language had already begun to emerge in the dying days of the Kievan Rus’. Following the incorporation of present-day Ukraine into Poland-Lithuania, the Ukrainian language evolved in relative isolation from the Russian language. At the same time, religious divisions developed within Eastern Orthodoxy. From the mid-15th to the late 17th centuries, the Orthodox Churches in Moscow and in Kiev developed as separate entities, initiating a division that eventually resurfaced in later schisms. In the Ukrainian independence referendum of 1991, despite continued Russian pressure, an overwhelming majority of 92.3% of voters approved the declaration of independence. On December 2nd 1991, the then President of Russia, Boris Yeltsin, recognized Ukraine as an independent nation.

6. Ukraine needs to “denazify”. 

As is the case with many other countries, there are indeed far-right leaning groups operating in Ukraine (Azov, Svoboda, Right Sector and others), but not nearly enough to constitute a clear and present Nazi threat. A 2018 Pew research poll found Ukraine to be the most accepting of Jews among all Central and Eastern European countries. Jewish agencies also report that Jews in Ukraine generally do not face acts of violence. A coalition of far-right parties in Ukraine won only 2.3 percent of the vote in 2019 and failed to get into parliament, while Ukraine’s current President (Volodymyr Zelensky) is a Jew who lost family in the Holocaust.

7. Ethnic Russians in Ukraine have been “subjected to abuse and genocide for eight years”.

Putin is misappropriating the term genocide to justify invading Ukraine. Since the conflict in the Donbas region began eight years ago, Russian-backed rebel separatists have been fighting the Ukrainian government  and more than 13,000 people have been killed, including over 3,000 civilians. Many more have been injured, with 1.5 million people displaced. Independent reports confirm that pro-Ukrainian and pro-Russian separatist forces have committed human rights violations, ranging from arbitrary detention to torture.

While concerning, these abuses have been limited. And the violence doesn’t remotely resemble genocide, as defined by Lemkin and the UN convention. Russian ambassadors have circulated a document at the UN claiming Ukraine is “exterminating the civilian population” in Donbas. Russian representatives have also spoken of mass killings of people in eastern Ukraine who speak Russian. But these Russian claims have been found by a number of observers to be baseless and even fabricated, serving only to justify a military intervention. Russia has made these kinds of claims before. It sought to justify its invasion of Georgia in 2008 and annexation of Crimea in 2014 by framing them as humanitarian interventions. If Russia truly believed genocide is taking place in Donbas, it could have made its case in a more formal and less violent way. Russia could have shared evidence with different UN bodies, including the UN Office on Genocide Prevention, and petitioned for an investigation. Military intervention to prevent atrocity crimes – which include genocide, crimes against humanity, war crimes and ethnic cleansing – only gains a degree of legitimacy if clear evidence has been provided to the international community. It’s also necessary to collaborate with other countries at the UN or other global or regional multilateral actors. Russia has not done this. Given Russia’s lack of evidence of atrocity crimes and its failure to engage with other world powers, Russian use of military force in Ukraine cannot be characterized as a humanitarian intervention to prevent genocide. It is an invasion.

8. “What about” the wars in Kosovo, Iraq, Syria, etc…

“Whataboutism”, a logical fallacy, is something you will undoubtedly encounter everywhere on social media these days. You do not have to address it, since it is a logical fallacy that distracts from the question at hand (the invasion of Ukraine). This doesn’t of course mean that any of the topics raised are not worth discussing. It’s just that this is not the most opportune time to discuss them. Each individual case merits its own detailed analysis and, more often than not, disentangling historical threads and interpreting political motivations is rather complicated and time-consuming.

9. “Where were the demonstrations in the West when” … Iraq, Palestine, etc …

Demonstrations are an integral part of the political landscape in the West. They happen often and they are not always peaceful. In fact, some of the largest demonstrations ever in the West were those opposing the War in Iraq, gathering millions of people. So yes, there were demonstrations in the West when.

10. “The West cares only about white, Christian people” …

Some European countries implemented very strict border controls during the refugee crisis of the mid-2010s (most asylum-seekers were escaping Syria and Afghanistan), but such positions came with political costs. In reality, the majority of EU countries, to a greater or lesser extent, opened their borders to accept refugees. However, the day-to-day conditions experienced by many refugees still leave a lot to be desired and much more can and should be done. The country with the highest number of refugees in the EU is Germany which, as of 2020, hosts some 1.2 million refugees, 243,200 asylum seekers and 26,700 stateless persons.

Part 3: What now?

It has by now been amply demonstrated that over the past couple of decades Russia has been employing a range of “divide-and-rule” tactics, using a broad range of modern tools and techniques to exert political influence and undermine the EU and NATO. While similar attempts to exert political influence in the international scene are employed by every country in the world (including Ukraine), the scale and intensity of such attacks by Russian state actors have no parallel in recent history. The Putin doctrine explicitly calls for establishing a Greater Russia by incorporating (annexing) former Soviet republics and/or establishing pro-Russian puppet governments.

In response to these tactics, the West has primarily used established diplomatic channels to register complaints while establishing and maintaining trade deals with Russia in the hope that the resulting economic benefits would lead to gradual democratization. Unfortunately, and this has been fairly consistent, the monetary benefits of these deals have not been used to raise the standard of living of the Russian people but to further entrench the Putin regime and the Russian oligarchs supporting it, to enhance Russian military capabilities and to intensify the propaganda war demonizing the West.

Putin’s control of the narrative in Russia has been going on for so long and the propaganda has seeped in so deep that it is now practically impossible for dissenting Russians to challenge it from within effectively. The protests that are currently cropping up like mushrooms all over Russia are necessary to show that the Emperor has no clothes but unlikely to gather enough momentum to bring about changes in policy. So it is unrealistic to expect that he will be deposed from within. At the same time, he is an unpredictable actor sitting on one of the worlds largest nuclear arsenals, so the West should be very cautious about cornering him. Attempting to establish a no-fly zone over Ukraine would be a strategic mistake at this point, even if such a thing were possible. 

Nonetheless, a strong and persistent reaction is called for that will force Putin to realize that not only should he not expect to gain anything with his belligerent behavior, but that he now stands at a red line. And should this line be crossed, all bets are off. He should not be appeased because this will only create further problems in the future. As long as Putin remains uncompromisingly in power, Russia should remain isolated but not threatened, sanctions should hold while economic deals and partnerships with Russia will dwindle  and gradually wither. Europe will accelerate its program to become independent from Russian energy and, unfortunately but necessarily, its armies will have to be upgraded and modernized. The threat of Putin’s imperialist ambitions has finally been acknowledged.

Part 4: The future?

What follows is what I think would constitute a ‘good’ scenario. Assuming the current situation somehow deescalates and does not spread outside the war in Ukraine, a period of uneasy stability will probably follow. Europe has now been put on alert and it is likely that caution and military spending will be maintained at higher levels than before, at least while Putin remains in power. Diplomatic negotiations with Russia will resume but with a renewed understanding of the limits of either side, leaving little room for maneuvering. Energy independence now seems like a one way road for Europe, but it will be a difficult and costly process that will chip away at some of the comforts Europeans are used to living with. This could provide further fuel to rising social tensions which populists might try to exploit to bring about political unrest. The EU must coordinate to address and alleviate these tensions before they get out of hand. Among other things, this requires outlining a clear path forward for the block and a renewed commitment to international principles. 

In the event that a reformist government, friendlier to the West, comes to power in Moscow, the opportunity should be used to gradually thaw the relationship and build stronger ties. If the Russian reforms are seen to be working and perceived levels of corruption decrease over the years, with the Russian population reaping the benefits, the possibility that Russia joins the EU and NATO should not be off the table. Student exchange programs and co-funded cooperative ventures should be established. The only way to overcome old enmities is to agree on the necessary steps that will lead to building a future together that will be of benefit to both parties. While all this is taking place, the EU and other countries must use the opportunity to broker (perhaps through the UN) a commitment to a substantial reduction of the US and Russian nuclear arsenals, with a longer plan to phase them out altogether. That would be a start.

Sources and references:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_journalists_killed_in_Russia

https://www.transparency.org/en/cpi/2020/

https://www.eiu.com/n/campaigns/democracy-index-2020/

https://www.nature.com/articles/s41599-019-0227-8

https://medium.com/@romangerodimos/russia-is-attacking-western-liberal-democracies-4371ff38b407

https://www.rt.com/russia/550271-putin-doctrine-foreign-policy/

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/29658.Postwar

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/308060.The_Age_of_Extremes

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/87923.The_Balkans

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/278216.The_Balkans

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/1117917.Europe

https://theconversation.com/putins-claims-that-ukraine-is-committing-genocide-are-baseless-but-not-unprecedented-177511

https://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Whataboutism

https://www.dw.com/en/nato-why-russia-has-a-problem-with-its-eastward-expansion/a-60891681

https://www.nato.int/cps/en/natohq/topics_111767.htm

https://www.latimes.com/politics/story/2021-12-19/russia-feels-threatened-by-nato-theres-history-behind-that

https://www.dw.com/en/yugoslavia-1918-birth-of-a-dead-state/a-46538595

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/82861.Safe_Area_Gora_de

https://www.britannica.com/event/Srebrenica-massacre/Aftermath

https://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/nato-bombs-yugoslavia

https://blogs.lse.ac.uk/lseih/2020/07/01/there-is-no-ukraine-fact-checking-the-kremlins-version-of-ukrainian-history/

https://theconversation.com/a-historian-corrects-misunderstandings-about-ukrainian-and-russian-history-177697

https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2018/03/28/most-poles-accept-jews-as-fellow-citizens-and-neighbors-but-a-minority-do-not/ft_18-03-26_polandholocaustlaws_map/

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/feb/25/vladimir-putin-ukraine-attack-antisemitism-denazify

https://www.haaretz.com/world-news/europe/.premium-the-far-right-just-got-humiliated-in-ukraine-s-election-but-don-t-write-it-off-1.7563138

https://www.politifact.com/factchecks/2022/feb/25/vladimir-putin/putin-repeats-long-running-claim-genocide-ukraine/

https://world.time.com/2013/02/15/viewpoint-why-was-the-biggest-protest-in-world-history-ignored/

https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2021/may/22/thousands-gather-in-london-for-palestine-solidarity-march#:~:text=Speeches%20were%20made%20by%20Labour,Palestine%20demonstration%20in%20British%20history.

https://www.unhcr.org/refugee-statistics/download/?url=2bdB96

https://www.dw.com/en/fact-check-do-vladimir-putins-justifications-for-going-to-war-against-ukraine-add-up/a-60917168

https://www.unhcr.org/refugee-statistics/download/?url=D0j06d

Pericles' Funeral Oration

Thucidides: Pericles' Funeral Oration
 (Θουκιδίδης: Περικλέους Επιτάφιος λόγος)

From History of the Peloponnesian War  (Book 2. 34-46)

"Most of my predecessors in this place have commended him who made this speech part of the law, telling us that it is well that it should be delivered at the burial of those who fall in battle. For myself, I should have thought that the worth which had displayed itself in deeds would be sufficiently rewarded by honours also shown by deeds; such as you now see in this funeral prepared at the people's cost. And I could have wished that the reputations of many brave men were not to be imperilled in the mouth of a single individual, to stand or fall according as he spoke well or ill. For it is hard to speak properly upon a subject where it is even difficult to convince your hearers that you are speaking the truth. On the one hand, the friend who is familiar with every fact of the story may think that some point has not been set forth with that fullness which he wishes and knows it to deserve; on the other, he who is a stranger to the matter may be led by envy to suspect exaggeration if he hears anything above his own nature. For men can endure to hear others praised only so long as they can severally persuade themselves of their own ability to equal the actions recounted: when this point is passed, envy comes in and with it incredulity. However, since our ancestors have stamped this custom with their approval, it becomes my duty to obey the law and to try to satisfy your several wishes and opinions as best I may.

"I shall begin with our ancestors: it is both just and proper that they should have the honour of the first mention on an occasion like the present. They dwelt in the country without break in the succession from generation to generation, and handed it down free to the present time by their valour. And if our more remote ancestors deserve praise, much more do our own fathers, who added to their inheritance the empire which we now possess, and spared no pains to be able to leave their acquisitions to us of the present generation. Lastly, there are few parts of our dominions that have not been augmented by those of us here, who are still more or less in the vigour of life; while the mother country has been furnished by us with everything that can enable her to depend on her own resources whether for war or for peace. That part of our history which tells of the military achievements which gave us our several possessions, or of the ready valour with which either we or our fathers stemmed the tide of Hellenic or foreign aggression, is a theme too familiar to my hearers for me to dilate on, and I shall therefore pass it by. But what was the road by which we reached our position, what the form of government under which our greatness grew, what the national habits out of which it sprang; these are questions which I may try to solve before I proceed to my panegyric upon these men; since I think this to be a subject upon which on the present occasion a speaker may properly dwell, and to which the whole assemblage, whether citizens or foreigners, may listen with advantage.

"Our constitution does not copy the laws of neighbouring states; we are rather a pattern to others than imitators ourselves. Its administration favours the many instead of the few; this is why it is called a democracy. If we look to the laws, they afford equal justice to all in their private differences; if no social standing, advancement in public life falls to reputation for capacity, class considerations not being allowed to interfere with merit; nor again does poverty bar the way, if a man is able to serve the state, he is not hindered by the obscurity of his condition. The freedom which we enjoy in our government extends also to our ordinary life. There, far from exercising a jealous surveillance over each other, we do not feel called upon to be angry with our neighbour for doing what he likes, or even to indulge in those injurious looks which cannot fail to be offensive, although they inflict no positive penalty. But all this ease in our private relations does not make us lawless as citizens. Against this fear is our chief safeguard, teaching us to obey the magistrates and the laws, particularly such as regard the protection of the injured, whether they are actually on the statute book, or belong to that code which, although unwritten, yet cannot be broken without acknowledged disgrace.
"Further, we provide plenty of means for the mind to refresh itself from business. We celebrate games and sacrifices all the year round, and the elegance of our private establishments forms a daily source of pleasure and helps to banish the spleen; while the magnitude of our city draws the produce of the world into our harbour, so that to the Athenian the fruits of other countries are as familiar a luxury as those of his own.

"If we turn to our military policy, there also we differ from our antagonists. We throw open our city to the world, and never by alien acts exclude foreigners from any opportunity of learning or observing, although the eyes of an enemy may occasionally profit by our liberality; trusting less in system and policy than to the native spirit of our citizens; while in education, where our rivals from their very cradles by a painful discipline seek after manliness, at Athens we live exactly as we please, and yet are just as ready to encounter every legitimate danger. In proof of this it may be noticed that the Lacedaemonians do not invade our country alone, but bring with them all their confederates; while we Athenians advance unsupported into the territory of a neighbour, and fighting upon a foreign soil usually vanquish with ease men who are defending their homes. Our united force was never yet encountered by any enemy, because we have at once to attend to our marine and to dispatch our citizens by land upon a hundred different services; so that, wherever they engage with some such fraction of our strength, a success against a detachment is magnified into a victory over the nation, and a defeat into a reverse suffered at the hands of our entire people. And yet if with habits not of labour but of ease, and courage not of art but of nature, we are still willing to encounter danger, we have the double advantage of escaping the experience of hardships in anticipation and of facing them in the hour of need as fearlessly as those who are never free from them.

"Nor are these the only points in which our city is worthy of admiration. We cultivate refinement without extravagance and knowledge without effeminacy; wealth we employ more for use than for show, and place the real disgrace of poverty not in owning to the fact but in declining the struggle against it. Our public men have, besides politics, their private affairs to attend to, and our ordinary citizens, though occupied with the pursuits of industry, are still fair judges of public matters; for, unlike any other nation, regarding him who takes no part in these duties not as unambitious but as useless, we Athenians are able to judge at all events if we cannot originate, and, instead of looking on discussion as a stumbling-block in the way of action, we think it an indispensable preliminary to any wise action at all. Again, in our enterprises we present the singular spectacle of daring and deliberation, each carried to its highest point, and both united in the same persons; although usually decision is the fruit of ignorance, hesitation of reflection. But the palm of courage will surely be adjudged most justly to those, who best know the difference between hardship and pleasure and yet are never tempted to shrink from danger. In generosity we are equally singular, acquiring our friends by conferring, not by receiving, favours. Yet, of course, the doer of the favour is the firmer friend of the two, in order by continued kindness to keep the recipient in his debt; while the debtor feels less keenly from the very consciousness that the return he makes will be a payment, not a free gift. And it is only the Athenians, who, fearless of consequences, confer their benefits not from calculations of expediency, but in the confidence of liberality.

"In short, I say that as a city we are the school of Hellas, while I doubt if the world can produce a man who, where he has only himself to depend upon, is equal to so many emergencies, and graced by so happy a versatility, as the Athenian. And that this is no mere boast thrown out for the occasion, but plain matter of fact, the power of the state acquired by these habits proves. For Athens alone of her contemporaries is found when tested to be greater than her reputation, and alone gives no occasion to her assailants to blush at the antagonist by whom they have been worsted, or to her subjects to question her title by merit to rule. Rather, the admiration of the present and succeeding ages will be ours, since we have not left our power without witness, but have shown it by mighty proofs; and far from needing a Homer for our panegyrist, or other of his craft whose verses might charm for the moment only for the impression which they gave to melt at the touch of fact, we have forced every sea and land to be the highway of our daring, and everywhere, whether for evil or for good, have left imperishable monuments behind us. Such is the Athens for which these men, in the assertion of their resolve not to lose her, nobly fought and died; and well may every one of their survivors be ready to suffer in her cause.

"Indeed if I have dwelt at some length upon the character of our country, it has been to show that our stake in the struggle is not the same as theirs who have no such blessings to lose, and also that the panegyric of the men over whom I am now speaking might be by definite proofs established. That panegyric is now in a great measure complete; for the Athens that I have celebrated is only what the heroism of these and their like have made her, men whose fame, unlike that of most Hellenes, will be found to be only commensurate with their deserts. And if a test of worth be wanted, it is to be found in their closing scene, and this not only in cases in which it set the final seal upon their merit, but also in those in which it gave the first intimation of their having any. For there is justice in the claim that steadfastness in his country's battles should be as a cloak to cover a man's other imperfections; since the good action has blotted out the bad, and his merit as a citizen more than outweighed his demerits as an individual. But none of these allowed either wealth with its prospect of future enjoyment to unnerve his spirit, or poverty with its hope of a day of freedom and riches to tempt him to shrink from danger. No, holding that vengeance upon their enemies was more to be desired than any personal blessings, and reckoning this to be the most glorious of hazards, they joyfully determined to accept the risk, to make sure of their vengeance, and to let their wishes wait; and while committing to hope the uncertainty of final success, in the business before them they thought fit to act boldly and trust in themselves. Thus choosing to die resisting, rather than to live submitting, they fled only from dishonour, but met danger face to face, and after one brief moment, while at the summit of their fortune, escaped, not from their fear, but from their glory.

"So died these men as became Athenians. You, their survivors, must determine to have as unfaltering a resolution in the field, though you may pray that it may have a happier issue. And not contented with ideas derived only from words of the advantages which are bound up with the defence of your country, though these would furnish a valuable text to a speaker even before an audience so alive to them as the present, you must yourselves realize the power of Athens, and feed your eyes upon her from day to day, till love of her fills your hearts; and then, when all her greatness shall break upon you, you must reflect that it was by courage, sense of duty, and a keen feeling of honour in action that men were enabled to win all this, and that no personal failure in an enterprise could make them consent to deprive their country of their valour, but they laid it at her feet as the most glorious contribution that they could offer. For this offering of their lives made in common by them all they each of them individually received that renown which never grows old, and for a sepulchre, not so much that in which their bones have been deposited, but that noblest of shrines wherein their glory is laid up to be eternally remembered upon every occasion on which deed or story shall call for its commemoration. For heroes have the whole earth for their tomb; and in lands far from their own, where the column with its epitaph declares it, there is enshrined in every breast a record unwritten with no tablet to preserve it, except that of the heart. These take as your model and, judging happiness to be the fruit of freedom and freedom of valour, never decline the dangers of war. For it is not the miserable that would most justly be unsparing of their lives; these have nothing to hope for: it is rather they to whom continued life may bring reverses as yet unknown, and to whom a fall, if it came, would be most tremendous in its consequences. And surely, to a man of spirit, the degradation of cowardice must be immeasurably more grievous than the unfelt death which strikes him in the midst of his strength and patriotism!

"Comfort, therefore, not condolence, is what I have to offer to the parents of the dead who may be here. Numberless are the chances to which, as they know, the life of man is subject; but fortunate indeed are they who draw for their lot a death so glorious as that which has caused your mourning, and to whom life has been so exactly measured as to terminate in the happiness in which it has been passed. Still I know that this is a hard saying, especially when those are in question of whom you will constantly be reminded by seeing in the homes of others blessings of which once you also boasted: for grief is felt not so much for the want of what we have never known, as for the loss of that to which we have been long accustomed. Yet you who are still of an age to beget children must bear up in the hope of having others in their stead; not only will they help you to forget those whom you have lost, but will be to the state at once a reinforcement and a security; for never can a fair or just policy be expected of the citizen who does not, like his fellows, bring to the decision the interests and apprehensions of a father. While those of you who have passed your prime must congratulate yourselves with the thought that the best part of your life was fortunate, and that the brief span that remains will be cheered by the fame of the departed. For it is only the love of honour that never grows old; and honour it is, not gain, as some would have it, that rejoices the heart of age and helplessness.

"Turning to the sons or brothers of the dead, I see an arduous struggle before you. When a man is gone, all are wont to praise him, and should your merit be ever so transcendent, you will still find it difficult not merely to overtake, but even to approach their renown. The living have envy to contend with, while those who are no longer in our path are honoured with a goodwill into which rivalry does not enter. On the other hand, if I must say anything on the subject of female excellence to those of you who will now be in widowhood, it will be all comprised in this brief exhortation. Great will be your glory in not falling short of your natural character; and greatest will be hers who is least talked of among the men, whether for good or for bad.

"My task is now finished. I have performed it to the best of my ability, and in word, at least, the requirements of the law are now satisfied. If deeds be in question, those who are here interred have received part of their honours already, and for the rest, their children will be brought up till manhood at the public expense: the state thus offers a valuable prize, as the garland of victory in this race of valour, for the reward both of those who have fallen and their survivors. And where the rewards for merit are greatest, there are found the best citizens.

"And now that you have brought to a close your lamentations for your relatives, you may depart."