PANSLAVISM. — The term “p.,” in its common usage, has always denoted a plurality of currents and tendencies that would more accurately be described under other headings. The foreign policy of tsarist Russia, in its conflicts with Germany, Austria-Hungary, and Turkey, often emphasized its interest in the Slavic peoples living within the borders of those empires. Tsarist Russia did not, in short, ever adhere to a specific panslavist doctrine, but it welcomed those intellectual and political movements that invoked the idea of Slavic solidarity: Russian foreign policy thus gained an important tool in its dealings with Berlin, Vienna, and Constantinople. In reality, Russia had a vast array of interests (in Europe as in Asia), and the Slavic question was only one of them. The intellectuals of the smaller Slavic peoples often deluded themselves about the steadfast support of Russian foreign policy, without fully grasping the caution with which the government in St. Petersburg proceeded on the Slavic question.
In general, tsarist Russia was not inclined to favor revolutionary movements, even in the name of Slavic nationalism. Russian statesmen were chiefly concerned with the Slavs of the Balkans, situated geographically on the road to Constantinople and, moreover, of the “Orthodox” confession. Russian interest in Catholic Slavs was always far less pronounced.