The Emergence of Russian Panslavism, 1856-1870 PDF
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THE EMERGENCE OF RUSSIAN PANSLAVISM 1856-1870 Studies of the Russian Institute of Columbia University THE EMERGENCE OF RUSSIAN PANSLAVISM 1856-1870 by Michael Boro Petrovich 1956 COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY PRESS, New York THE TRANSLITERATION SYSTEM USED IN THIS SERIES IS BASED ON THE LIBRARY OF CONGRESS SYSTEM WITH SOME MODIFICATIONS LIBRARY OF CONGRESS CATALOG CARD NUMBER: 56-5880 © 1956 COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY PRESS, NEW YORK PUBLISHED IN GREAT BRITAIN, CANADA, INDIA, AND PAKISTAN BY GEOFFREY CUMBERLEGE: OXFORD UNIVERSITY PRESS LONDON, TORONTO, BOMBAY, AND KARACHI MANUFACTURED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA THE RUSSIAN INSTITUTE OF COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY THE RUSSIAN INSTITUTE was established by Columbia University in 1946 to serve two major objectives: the training of a limited number of well-qualified Americans for scholarly and professional careers in the field of Russian studies and the development of re- search in the social sciences and the humanities as they relate to Russia and the Soviet Union. The research program of the Russian Institute is conducted through the efforts of its faculty members, of scholars invited to participate as Senior Fellows in its program, and of candidates for the Certificate of the Institute and for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy. Some of the results of the research program are presented in the Studies of the Russian Institute of Columbia University. The faculty of the Institute, without neces- sarily agreeing with the conclusions reached in the Studies, believe that their publication advances the difficult task of promoting sys- tematic research on Russia and the Soviet Union and public under- standing of the problems involved. The faculty of the Russian Institute are grateful to the Rocke- feller Foundation for the financial assistance which it has given to the program of research and publication. STUDIES OF THE RUSSIAN INSTITUTE OF COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY Soviet National Income and Product in 1937 By Abram Bergson Through the Glass of Soviet Literature: Views of Russian Society Edited by Ernest J. Simmons The Proletarian Episode in Russian Literature, 1928-1932 By Edward J. Brown Management of the Industrial Firm in the USSR: A Study in Soviet Economic Planning By David Granick Soviet Policies in China, 1917-1924 By Allen S. Whiting Ukrainian Nationalism, 1939-1945 By John A. Armstrong Polish Postwar Economy By Thad Paul Alton Literary Politics in the Soviet Ukraine, 1917-1934 By George S. N. Luckyj The Emergence of Russian Panslavism, 1856-1870 By Michael Boro Petrovich To the memory of my Father PREFACE SOME TWO MONTHS after Hitler attacked the Soviet Union, the Kremlin resurrected the Panslavic idea. A Panslavic Committee met in Moscow on August 10, 1941, to call upon Slavs everywhere, about two hundred million of them, to unite against the German aggressors. Less than four years later, the Kremlin again put Pan- slavism to use in seeking to consolidate its new dominion over East- ern Europe. The author was in a position to watch both the defensive and the aggressive aspects of Soviet Panslavism at close range. In April, 1942, he attended the American Slav Congress in Detroit as a private observer. He again saw Panslavism operate in Yugoslavia in 1944-46 while a member of the OSS American Military Mission to Marshal Tito. More recently he observed its workings in Czecho- slovakia in 1948-49 while engaged in research for this study. It was this experience, coupled with an awareness of the increasingly im- portant role of the Slavic peoples in modern history, which prompted the present work. Nevertheless, in writing the pages which follow, the author has made an effort not to intrude the present upon the past. Parallels between Tsarist and Soviet Panslavism will no doubt suggest them- selves to the reader. Yet, like all past phenomena, Russian Pan- slavism of the nineteenth century must be studied for its own sake, and not as a "precursor," if it is to be understood. By Panslavism is meant the historic tendency of the Slavic peo- ples to manifest in some tangible way, whether cultural or politi- cal, their consciousness of ethnic kinship. Far from being an isolated phenomenon, Panslavism has its roots in the same soil which nourished its Western counterparts—Pan-Germanism, Pan-Latin- ism, and similar patterns of thought and action. If the term "Pan- slavism" has been used somewhat loosely, not only by the pro- tagonists and the enemies of this movement, but even by scholars, X Preface it is because the movement itself has consisted of scattered and sometimes mutually hostile forms. Manifestations ranging from vague expressions of Slavic cultural solidarity to more or less spe- cific programs for the political unification either of all the Slavs (plus certain non-Slavs) or of a regional grouping of several Slavic peoples have all been generally regarded as "Panslavic." In the nine- teenth century these forms included Austro-Slavism, an idea fos- tered especially by various Czech and Slovak leaders; Polish Mes- sianism; the Illyrian movement of the South Slavs; Slavic federalism as advocated by certain Ukrainian patriots; and Great Russian Panslavism. This study is limited to the last of these, and then only to the period of its emergence as a developed ideology and move- ment. This work is intended to be chiefly a contribution to the history of ideas rather than to the history of Russian foreign policy. The author hopes to describe the further course of Russian Pan- slavism in a subsequent volume. The structure of the present work requires some explanation. The opening chapter presents a survey of Panslavic manifestations in Russia before the reign of Alexander II, that is, before Russian Panslavism became a public movement with a distinct program. A chapter on Slavophilism in the 1840's offers an introduction to the philosophical origins of the Russian Panslavic ideology. The third chapter deals with the general concepts of the Panslavist ideology itself. The following chapters are devoted to more specific and practical ideas of Russian Panslavism or to organizations and activi- ties directed to putting these ideas into effect. The author belongs to a generation of young American students of Russian history which has not had access to Soviet libraries. Especially frustrating was his inability to make use of Panslavist archives in the Lenin Library—materials which the Institute of Slavic Studies of the Soviet Academy of Sciences has only recently begun to gather and to classify. Despite this handicap, over three quarters of the many sources used in the following study consist of the public writings and private correspondence of Russian Pan- slavists and their contemporaries. Most of these works were found in this country, though the author was fortunate in being able to use the resources of both the Russian Archive and the Slavic Li-
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