Panslavism

PANSLAVISM. - The term "P.", in its common acceptation, has always signified a plurality of currents and tendencies which, more precisely, ought to figure under other headings. The foreign policy of tsarist Russia, in the frictions between Russia on the one hand and Germany, Austria-Hungary and Turkey on the other, often underscored its interest in the Slavic peoples living within the frontiers of those Empires. Tsarist Russia, in short, never followed a determinate Pan-Slavist doctrine, but those movements of intellectuals and politicians that appealed to concepts of Slavic solidarism were welcome to it: Russian foreign policy thus had an important weapon in hand in its discussions with Berlin, Vienna and Constantinople. In reality, Russia had an immensely vast multiplicity of interests (in Europe as in Asia) and the Slavic problem was only one of these. The intellectuals of the lesser Slavic peoples often deluded themselves about the constant support of Russian foreign policy, without fully realizing the prudence with which the government of Petersburg proceeded on Slavic ground.

In general, tsarist Russia was not inclined to favor revolutionary movements, not even in the name of Slavic nationalism. The interest of Russian politicians went above all to the Balkan Slavs, geographically situated on the road to Constantinople and, moreover, of "Orthodox" confession. Russian interest in the Catholic Slavs was always lesser.

The "Slavophiles" (v.) developed, with a typically Russian accent, in the first half of the 19th century, romantic tendencies of Slavic solidarism, echoing moods widespread, moreover, also in the West, tending toward national "primacy" and, at the same time, toward new mystical universal values. From the Slavophile school, vaguely influenced by Herder, Schelling and Hegel, there later developed a P. less philosophical and less folkloric, more decisively reactionary and favorable to a Russian primacy within the Slavic world. Danilevsky, in a well-known book, Russia and Europe, projected around 1870 a great Slavic federation (including also Greeks, Romanians and Magyars), with Constantinople as its capital.

The tendencies toward Slavic solidarism had in Bohemia and in Slovakia a more literary, peaceful and liberal character. Kollár evoked in a famous poem the ancient Slavic peoples that had been becoming Germanized over the course of the centuries. Scholars of various tendencies occupied themselves with Slavic archaeology and dreamed of a closer brotherhood among the Slavic peoples. At the beginning of the 20th century, Kramář developed so-called Austro-Slavism, aiming to impress upon Austria a predominantly Slavic character, in an anti-German function, in close collaboration with Russia. Russian Pan-Slavists and romantic Czechoslovaks (supporters of Slavic solidarism) found at certain moments notable echo among Serbs, Croats and Slovenes. Numerous Slavic congresses (famous were those of 1848 and 1867, as well as some of the incipient 20th century) gave scant practical results. Profound indeed was the dissension between the principal Slavic peoples: Russians and Poles. In vain did some representatives of the lesser Slavic peoples attempt repeatedly to attenuate it. The Ukrainians, moreover, tended ever more to emancipate themselves from the Russians and were also in conflict with the Poles (in Galicia). No less profound were the conflicts between Serbs and Bulgarians and between Serbs and Croats. Nor were contrasts lacking between Poles and Czechs, especially over the region of Teschen.

The Bolsheviks traditionally recognized in all forms of P. and of Slavic solidarism an imperialist program or a romantic and bourgeois ideal. Following the evolution of the U.S.S.R. toward a greater valorization of Russian national traditions, numerous elements of "Slavism" were also inserted within the new Soviet policy. Russia resolved according to its own vision the conflicts existing among the lesser Slavic peoples: Königsberg became Kaliningrad; Poland reached the Oder (in exchange for Polish territories that passed to Russia); millions of Germans were removed from the Sudetenland and, at the moment of the Treaty of peace between the Allies and Italy, partly converging Russian and Western interests favored the Yugoslav thrust toward Friuli.

Wolf Giusti