Pan-Slavism and Slavophilia in Contemporary Central and Eastern Europe: Origins, Manifestations and Functions

435 Pages·2023·8.002 MB·English

by  Mikhail Suslov, Marek Čejka, Vladimir Ðorđević

Pan-Slavism and
Slavophilia in
Contemporary Central
and Eastern Europe
Origins, Manifestations and Functions
Edited by
Mikhail Suslov · Marek Čejka ·
Vladimir Ðorđević
Pan-Slavism and Slavophilia in Contemporary
Central and Eastern Europe
“This collection is an important contribution in both the historical and contem-
porary analysis of Pan-Slavism. It places this concept in context of Yugoslavism,
as well as Russian appeals to Slavic and Orthodox solidarity and competing Euro-
pean identity. This book will become a standard study on the topic through its
comprehensive and systematic approach, covering most Slavic countries and not
treating Pan-Slavism as just a type of failed meta nationalism, but as an important
idea informing the Slavic world today.”
—Florian Bieber, Professor of Southeast European History and Politics, University
of Graz, Austria
“The heyday of Pan-Slavism may be long gone, but the idea of the brotherhood
of Slavs continues to inspire a range of cultural, civilisational and geopolit-
ical imaginations in Europe. This book is a veritable treasure trove for anyone
interested in the curious evolution of this understudied phenomenon and its
contemporary ramifications.”
—Filip Ejdus, Associate Professor at Faculty of Political Science, University of
Belgrade, Serbia

· ˇ ·
Mikhail Suslov Marek Cejka
-
Vladimir Ðordevic´
Editors
Pan-Slavism
and Slavophilia
in Contemporary
Central and Eastern
Europe
Origins, Manifestations and Functions
Editors
Mikhail Suslov Marek Cˇejka
Department of Cross-Cultural Department of Territorial Studies
and Regional Studies Mendel University Brno
University of Copenhagen Brno, Czech Republic
Copenhagen, Denmark
Vladimir Ðord-evic´
Department of Territorial Studies
Mendel University Brno
Brno, Czech Republic
ISBN 978-3-031-17874-0 ISBN 978-3-031-17875-7 (eBook)
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-17875-7
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Preface
The term ‘Pan-Slavism’ may sound quite archaic in the context of today’s
world as if being some sort of a utopian pan-ideology that belongs only in
the pages of history textbooks. Perhaps this impression is also helped by
the current political situation, in which two of the largest Slavic nations—
the Russians and the Ukrainians—are immersed in a brutal conflict caused
by the Russian invasion. And although the Slavic nations of the Balkans
are no longer, as they were in the 1990s, at war with each other, their
mutual relations are certainly no model of fraternal coexistence. The
concept of Pan-Slavism, which has so strongly resonated among the Slavic
nations since the nineteenth century, thus seems to be, at face value, dead.
The situation, however, is much more complicated, with Pan-Slavism
still having a strong potential for political and societal mobilisation. Even
a pan-nationalist—in our case Pan-Slavic—emphasis on ‘equality’ among
fraternal nations can be but one of the driving forces of future disputes
and, possibly, conflicts in the Slavic world. Where is the line that sepa-
rates the attitude: They are like us, let’s be friends—as between today’s
Russians and Serbs—from the attitude: They are like us, but in the mean-
time they have become traitors and fascists—as between today’s Russians
and Ukrainians? Can it not also be a Pan-Slavic line that, apart from
its emphasis on geopolitical friendship, also produces enormous internal
tensions between ‘fraternal’ nations, even mutual hatred? In other words,
are there also certain elements of Pan-Slavism that cause not only ‘fra-
ternal love’ to flourish between ‘Slavic brothers’ but also cruel fratricidal
v
vi PREFACE
struggles and conflicts as well? This publication, consisting of contribu-
tions by numerous experts on the subject, provides answers to the above
questions, taking into consideration both historical and contemporary
perspectives.
Conceptually, Pan-Slavism belongs to the so-called pan-nationalisms or
macro-nationalisms, the origins of which are associated with the rise of the
era of national awakenings and nationalism and their parallel ‘pan-variants’
of the nineteenth century. The main underlying idea can be identified
as an attempt to transcend more isolated national identities and create a
higher, ‘pan-national’ identity, which could have involved—in the spirit
of the geopolitics of the time—a significantly larger, more readily defen-
sible, and economically more independent territory than the area of just
one nation state.1 In this context, Pan-Slavism, which was constituted
approximately in the period 1830–1840, was the first modern politically
conceptualised pan-nationalism.2 But pan-nationalisms could also serve as
a veil for the pragmatic interests of imperial states, which in the case of
Pan-Slavism was Tsarist Russia; in the case of Pan-Germanism, Germany;
and in the case of Pan-Turkism, the Ottoman Empire (or as still perceiv-
able when speaking about the ambitions of the current Turkish president,
Recep Tayyip Erdog˘an).
Pan-Germanism, having originated slightly before Pan-Slavism and
being partly defined in cultural terms,3 preceded other pan-nationalisms,
such as Pan-Arabism and Pan-Scandinavism. Although pan-nationalisms
resonated with many of their supporters until the end of the nineteenth
century, they could not ultimately compete with other nationalisms in
terms of political mobilisation and ideological convincingness, insofar as
1 See Suslov, M. (2012). ‘Geographical Metanarratives in Russia and the European East:
Contemporary Pan-Slavism’, Eurasian Geography and Economics, 53(5): 575–595. Also,
Ðord-evic´, Vladimir, Marek Cˇejka, Ondrˇej Mocek, and Martin Hrabálek. (2021). ‘Beyond
Contemporary Scholarship and toward Exploring Current Manifestations of Pan-Slavism’,
Canadian-American Slavic Studies, 55(2): 147–159.
2 Adams, I. (2001). Political Ideology Today. Manchester: Manchester University Press.
p. 73.
3 See Kohn, H. (1949). ‘Arndt and the Character of German Nationalism.’ The Amer-
ican Historical Review 54(4): 787–803. Also, Kohn, Hans. (1952). ‘Pan-Slavism and
World War II’, In American Political Science Review, 46(3), 1952: 699–722. Also,
Ðord-evic´, Vladimir, Marek Cˇejka, Ondrˇej Mocek, and Martin Hrabálek. 2021. “Beyond
Contemporary Scholarship and toward Exploring Current Manifestations of Pan-Slavism”,
Canadian-American Slavic Studies, 55(2): 147–159.
PREFACE vii
one of the main problems of pan-nationalisms was their vagueness and
low practical feasibility, as they could not compete with more clearly
defined particularist nationalist programmes.4 In addition, the vague defi-
nition of ‘Slavic unity’, which relativised the differences between the
individual Slavic nations, proved to be one of the greatest weaknesses of
Pan-Slavism. Although Russia later became the most well-known ‘protec-
tor’ of Pan-Slavist ideas, at least the first significant variant of Pan-Slavism
did not count on Russian political influence: ‘Austro-Slavism’ (circa
1846–1918) and later also ‘Neo-Slavism’ (circa 1908–1918) embodied
the efforts of the many Slavic nations living in the Habsburg Empire
towards a comprehensive emancipation, which, however, was to take place
within the liberalising atmosphere of the Habsburg empire rather than
under the whip of Russian Tsarist autocracy.5 Gradually, however, Russia
started increasingly using Pan-Slavism in its imperialist policies.
This ‘classical’ era of Pan-Slavism was subsequently ended definitively
by the disintegration of Austria-Hungary after the First World War, when
the more particular emancipatory ambitions of many Central and South
Slavic nations were fulfilled. The Pan-Slavism born in Habsburg Austria
thus lost its relevance, and the most significant state in the Slavic world,
Russia, was transformed into Soviet Russia (and then the USSR), which
started using other concepts besides Pan-Slavism in its foreign policy, for
instance Eurasianism. Pan-Slavism6 is often seen today as an historical
and extinct form of pan-nationalism.7 As indicated above, this percep-
tion ignores the fact that today we can witness the revitalisation of
4 Ðord-evic´, V., Cˇejka, M., Mocek, O. and Hrabálek, M. (2021). ‘Beyond Contemporary
Scholarship and toward Exploring Current Manifestations of Pan-Slavism’, Canadian-
American Slavic Studies, 55(2): 147–159.
5 Henaxeva, Zor Cepgeevna. (1984). Ideuno-politiqecka r obpbba v Qexii i
Clova kii v naqal e XXv : qexi , lcovaki i neoclavizm, 1898–1914. Moskva : Nauka.
Also, Ðord-evic´, Vladimir, Marek Cˇejka, Ondrˇej Mocek, and Martin Hrabálek. (2021).
‘Beyond Contemporary Scholarship and toward Exploring Current Manifestations of
Pan-Slavism’, Canadian-American Slavic Studies, 55(2): 147–159.
6 Laruelle, M. (2008). Russian Eurasianism – An ideology of Empire, Baltimore: The
John Hopkins University Press. Also, Laruelle, Marlene. 2008. ‘Alternative Identity, alter-
native religion? Neo-paganism and the Aryan Myth in contemporary Russia’, In Nations
and Nationalism, 14 (2): 283–3.
7 Ðord-evic´, V., Cˇejka, M., Mocek, O. and Hrabálek, M. (2021). ‘Beyond Contemporary
Scholarship and toward Exploring Current Manifestations of Pan-Slavism’, Canadian-
American Slavic Studies, 55(2): 147–159.
viii PREFACE
this concept in updated and reinterpreted forms, hence the usage ‘his-
torical’ Pan-Slavism, either in a more comprehensive way or only with
respect to certain aspects of it. Even these new forms of Pan-Slavism are
very vague, and—like the traditional ones—are perhaps even more diffi-
cult to define and grasp. For some aspects of this Pan-Slavic revival, it
would be more appropriate to use the term Slavophilia, as they may also
contain political aspects of Slavic unity and often oscillate on the border
of largely romantic-cultural perception of today’s Slavic identity. Very
often, contemporary references to Pan-Slavism may highlight Russian
influence in various political (largely nationalist) and cultural contexts
and discourses, at times being about directly pro-Russian politics, only
shrouded in a certain Pan-Slavic garb.8
New forms of Pan-Slavism/Slavophilia have in the last decade been
visibly (ab)used for illiberal political agendas in the Slavic societies where
the Christian Orthodox milieu often plays a major role in identity
politics—primarily in contemporary Russia under the rule of Vladimir
Putin, with that country’s foreign policy ambitions having grown signif-
icantly and some aspects of Pan-Slavism having re-emerged (or been
introduced).9 However, similar tendencies can be found in other Slavic
countries without a predominantly Orthodox milieu, as the case of
the very secular Czech Republic indicates.10 These new forms of Pan-
Slavism/Slavophilia may manifest themselves in both domestic and
foreign policy, where they can disproportionately favour Russian atti-
tudes and ambitions; deepen anti-democratic, anti-civic, and populist
tendencies; and at the same time threaten EU integration.11
8 Ðord-evic´, V., Cˇejka, M., Mocek, O. and Hrabálek, M. (2021). ‘Beyond Contemporary
Scholarship and toward Exploring Current Manifestations of Pan-Slavism’, Canadian-
American Slavic Studies, 55(2): 147–159.
9 Suslov, M. (2012). ‘Geographical Metanarratives in Russia and the European East:
Contemporary Pan-Slavism’, Eurasian Geography and Economics, 53(5): 575–595. Also,
Ðord-evic´, Vladimir, Marek Cˇejka, Ondrˇej Mocek, and Martin Hrabálek. (2021). ‘Beyond
Contemporary Scholarship and toward Exploring Current Manifestations of Pan-Slavism’,
Canadian-American Slavic Studies, 55(2): 147–159.
10 Ðord-evic´, V., Cˇejka, M., Mocek, O. and Hrabálek, M. (2021). ‘Beyond Contem-
porary Scholarship and toward Exploring Current Manifestations of Pan-Slavism’,
Canadian-American Slavic Studies, 55(2): 147–159.
11 Ðord-evic´, Vladimir, Marek Cˇejka, Ondrˇej Mocek, and Martin Hrabálek. (2021).
‘Beyond Contemporary Scholarship and toward Exploring Current Manifestations of Pan-
Slavism’, Canadian-American Slavic Studies, 55(2): 147–159.
PREFACE ix
Last of all, what also needs to be mentioned, and what this volume also
addresses, are the more current and rather specific forms of Pan-Slavism,
whereby a certain number of cultural (and, in most cases, quite apolitical)
conceptions of Slavic unity have also begun to emerge, inspired by the
more contemporary trend of the rise of various neo-pagan movements.12
Therefore, this multifaceted nature and the differences in understandings
of contemporary manifestations of Pan-Slavism are important, though
(unjustly) neglected, and pose a challenge for the research of nationalisms
and related issues in the context of the Slavic world. This volume, there-
fore, is intended to bring a deeper and more systematic insight to these
complex issues, providing an update to the field that is both well-deserved
and an invitation to further research on the topic at hand.
Brno and Copenhagen Marek Cˇejka
May 2022 Mikhail Suslov
-
Vladimir Ðordevic´
12 See Golovneva, E. (2018). The Native Faith: Religious Nationalism in Slavic Neo-
Paganism September 5, 2018, Online: https://brewminate.com/the-native-faith-religi
ous-nationalism-in-slavic-neo-paganism/. Also, Laruelle, Marlene. 2008. ‘Alternative Iden-
tity, alternative religion? Neo-paganism and the Aryan Myth in contemporary Russia’, In
Nations and Nationalism, 14 (2): 283–3.