³the incomplete grandiosity of Russia²

[Olga Meerson]

My ear remembers an expression "nesostoiavsheesia velichie" (несостоявшееся величие)". Ironically, when I checked now on line, all the contexts were about some nation of Eastern Europe--Polish, Hungarian, or Czech. The sites, of course, were all Russian nationalist! But this may mean that Russian nationalists have begrudged someone for a prior application of the expression to their own empire--or that the expression referring to Russia, itself was a form of such begrudged verbal recycling, parodial, polemical and whatnot.

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