Судан и Большой Ближний Восток

179 Alexander S. Zdanevich. The Crisis of Autocracy in Russia (the mid-19th — early 20th С.)... Last mentioned, but not least, became the most remote and exotic geographical point to which Russian volunteers rushed. It can be assumed that over a fairly long period of time, which seems to be the 19th century, the Russian volunteer movement evolved into some kind of “internationalism”. Unable to correct the situationwithin the borders of their fatherland and humbly look at the gradual collapse of a once powerful power, Russian passionaries could strive to fight for the honor and freedom of the oppressed. The reasons for their actions varied greatly. Of course, in the overwhelming majority we are talking about “service nobility”. The issue of studying the motivation of this layer of Russian society must be approached with extreme caution. But among the worthiest, there were, as in any war, adventurers and romantics. “The Boer society was romanticised as representing the virtues of a "natural peasant democracy", as opposed to the evils of capitalism, imperialism and authoritarianism. The clash between such dreams and South African realities often confused and baffled the young men. Many of them thought that they had already achieved hero status just because they had offered to shed their blood for a foreign people, and expected to be greeted like heroes upon their arrival”. 1 So, the Russian volunteer movement is a fusion of personal qualities of a person who finds himself in a situation where an internal readiness for action and a heightened sense of justice coincide with the current political situation. It is especially worth pointing out that there is and has always existed a fundamental difference between the selfless impulse of the individual and mercenaryism — quite widespread and popular at all times. In our study, we are talking only about the sincere impulse of the soul of a Russian person — a fundamentally noble and essentially gratuitous desire to help a neighbor who has suffered from the powers that be, or circumstances that are unfavorable and leading to the loss of justice, the acute shortage of which the Russian person has experienced at all times. 1 Davidson A., Filatova I. The Russians and the Anglo-Boer War 1899–1902. P. 61.