Panslavism

The doctrine of the Slavophils, which found ardent adherents in the elite of Russian educated opinion, might easily be perverted into a creed of Russian expansion. The Russian Government never identified itself wholly with this creed but frequently utilized it. Its principal exponent in this limited political sense was M. Kat kov (b. 1821), for many years the powerful and influential editor of the Moscow Gazette (1856-87). Katkov had much of the Slavophil in him, but aimed before all things at being the recog nized independent exponent of a specifically Russian political opinion. He safeguarded himself effectively from any charge of subservience to Government policy, which he constantly attacked in the most vigorous way, and more or less successfully took up the position of arbiter of patriotic Russian opinion.

Modern Thinkers and Writers.

There were others who went much further, notably the Panslavist writer N. Danilevsky (1822-85), who in 1869 published his chief work Russia and Europe. Danilevsky took no particular interest in the Slavophils, but considered that every Russian should necessarily be a born Panslavist. The principal public critic of his theory was the philosopher Vladimir Solovyev.

Unquestionably the intrusion of Russian dynastic and state interests into the questions raised by Panslavism, tended in many ways to hinder the realization of its ideals. It was impossible for the smaller Slavonic countries outside the Russian empire to have any full confidence in Russia during the long period (1831– 1915) in which Russian administration in Poland was based on a policy of extinction of the Polish nationality. Thus Poland's subjection to the Russian empire and her geographical situation as next of the Slavonic peoples to Russia, impeded any move ment in favour of Panslavism.

After the institution of the Russian Duma, 1905, the Czech statesman promoted, for a time successfully, a movement of co-operation between Slavonic members of the respective par liaments in which the Slav peoples were represented (1908-11). This so-called Neo-Slavophil movement, which was frankly po litical and relied on democratic representation, received severe rebuffs in the annexation of Bosnia to Austria (1908), and in the fiasco which, by Austrian intervention, terminated the collabora tion of Serbia and Bulgaria in the Balkan wars of 1912.

Consequences of the World War.

The World War com pletely revolutionized the Slavonic question. In the other Slavonic countries Communist propaganda had even less success than elsewhere, and Russia's relative withdrawal into Asia and defiance of the accepted principles followed by other governments put an effective end to any Russian leadership in the matter. Meanwhile, in Russia's default, as far as the other Slavonic countries were concerned, the Slavonic question travelled infinitely nearer to a solution than could ever have been dreamed before, but generally on lines adopted by the Western Powers of the Entente, and in particular on the basis of self-determination, which was the main principle adopted at Versailles in the delimitation of the new frontiers. New national states were constituted with far smaller minority elements than had been the case before. Of these new states the majority were republics. This led to a total revision of Slavonic aspirations, many of which were already practically achieved.

On the other hand Slavophilism in its purer form underwent a remarkable revival. The theory of Kireyevsky, which saw in the course of Western European history a bankruptcy of humanism, seemed to some remarkable Russian thinkers, such as Berdiayev and Bulgakov, to receive striking confirmation from the present situation in Russia, and these thinkers, calling attention to the historical fact that Byzantine Caesaro-Papism had ended with the fall of Tsardom, reverted to the first Slavophils in the hope of finding bases for deeper social consciousness for Russia.

See A. Fischel, Der Panslavismus bis zum Weltkrieg (1919; bib.; good, clear and generally fair account from standpoint of a political opponent) The Slavonic Review, passim especially in 1928.

(B.

P.)