Grigor Parlichev

“In Greek I sang like a swan, now in Slavic I cannot even sing like a donkey.”

“When […] we had crossed the border between Turkey and Greece, a Greek trader, my fellow traveler, dismounted from his horse and kissed the soil. “We have trodden upon Hellenic ground,” he said.—My God! How red this ground is!—Yes! Because it is saturated with blood! I immediately made some verses, which I also declaimed with a prophetic inspiration. My intoxication intensified when I first saw the famous Parthenon from a distance.”