Are you patriotic? What does being patriotic mean to you?

I think that all of us humans should be patriotic. It is a feeling of being useful to your family to your people, to your country. In all you do, in every word you speak or write, in every move you make.

Now we come to the question. What does it mean to be patriotic?

Being patriotic means loving traditions of your place, family values that you have been taught, respecting your ancestors, recognising beauty and  goodness, as well as mistakes made by your nation. Patriotic means to always try to be better, work hard, and have vision and wisdom to guide you.

Patriotic means respecting all others and learning to accept diversity. That is the sign of patriotism, as it promotes the advancement of your own nation.

Patriotic means to pursue and protect others from yourself. Patriotic means not to go to war to conquer other places and the riches they have. Patriotism means to go to war only in two cases.

First to DEFEND your country.

Second, to finish the war, others started fighting against your people and your country.

All other reasons are nonsense and the sign of Neo-colonialism and extreme stupidity by those waging wars… Behind it is not democracy or some other “sweet” values propagated by the evil in sheep’s clothing. Like that so-called “board of peace.”

That brings me to one of the greatest thinkers of the nineteenth century, Vladimir Solovyov. If he were from the Western world, he would be praised infinitely. Maybe if he were like a Solzhenitsyn at the beginning, he would be widely quoted. He was one of a kind. He did not care about material things. Therefore, he was not at all widely accepted by those who spread the seeds of division.

Why?

I will share two things with you.

First, to be genuinely patriotic, one needs to fight evil. First inside and then outside of him.

“Is evil only a natural defect, an imperfection disappearing by
itself with the growth of good, or is it a real power, ruling our
world by means of temptations, so that to fight it successfully
assistance must be found in another sphere of being?
This vital question can be fully examined and solved only in
a complete system of metaphysics.”

This is what Solovyev left with us. He provided a unique warning with the title “The short story of the Antichrist.”

The second thing is to practice patriotism. That needs a decision and to sacrifice material, if material overcomes spiritual.

“He is very much present in the history of Russian literature, thanks both to his ideas and his numerous polemics against his contemporaries, and because of his personal friendships— among others, his friendship as a young man with the aged Dostoevsky at the time the novelist was embarking on writing The Brothers Karamazov. There is a deep affinity between Dostoevsky’s and Solovyov’s beliefs and, according to literary legend, the figure of Alyosha Karamazov is
modeled upon Solovyov.
Biographers of the poet-philosopher present him as an eccentric, a wanderer without a permanent address, and a nearly saintly altruist. In fact, in 1882, Solovyov abandoned his university career, dedicating himself to writing, living mostly on the landed estates of his friends, and giving away to the poor any money he earned, and not rarely also his clothes.
At the core of his philosophy, there is a vision of Sophia, Wisdom of God. According to legend, the most beautiful work of Byzantine art, the Church of Hagia Sophia (Holy Wisdom) in Byzantium (Istanbul), contributed to the conversion
of the Kievan Rus’ to Christianity in 988 a.p. At that time, Kiev’s pagan prince hesitated between Judaism, Islam and the Christianity of Rome. The messengers he sent to Byzantium brought back the news that in Hagia Sophia “we felt as if in Heaven.” Sophia (absent in Roman Catholicism) has been part of the tradition of the Eastern Church for many centuries, even appearing in some, Russian icons as a
fourth Person of the Holy Trinity.”

Extract from the Introduction by Czeslaw Milosz

I genuinely hope that this would be an inspiration to all who have pure human feelings of simple goodness. It is the main ingredient of Patriotism.

If not, let me use one Russian proverb.

” Do not be angry at the mirror, if you are ugly..”

All subscribers will be entitled to get Solovyev essays plus another 23 “abandoned” books by those who set the control of literature many many years ago… You know “Best Selling” this and Prize that….

February 21, 2026

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