Panslavism

Panslavism, a movement with the aim of drawing closer together all the various races of Slavonic stock, and combining their influence in political and other directions. Some extreme Slavophils have even proposed an actual amalgamation in nationality, language, literature, and religion. The first literary representative was the Slovak poet Kollar (q.v.), and the movement showed first in Bohemia (q.v.), where the philological and historical work of Schafarik and Palácky contributed to give it impetus. The Poles of Prussia resisted Germanisation; Serbs, Slovaks, and Croats asserted their rights against their Magyar masters; and the still less fortunate Slavs of Turkey gladly swelled the chorus. But at the first great Panslavic congress at Prague in 1848 the most convenient medium of intercourse proved to be the tongue of the alien Germans! Russia, after being called to suppress the Hungarian revolution, came to be regarded as the protector of all Slavs; and the papers and periodicals of Russian Slavophils, such as Aksakoff and Katkoff, heartily promoted this growing feeling. The growing dominance of Russia caused the Poles to withdraw their hearty support, and even the Czechs began to fear that Panslavism, under Russian guidance, looked like Panrussism. There were no Poles at the second congress at Moscow in 1867; but Russia found a most receptive field for her propaganda in Bulgaria, Serbia, and Macedonia. And in the recurrent crises of the Eastern Question (q.v.) Russia became more pronouncedly the protector of all Eastern Christians. The Austrian Slavs felt themselves put into the background by the re-constitu- tion of the Austro-Hungarian monarchy in 1867, which gave so much more power to the Magyars. The war in the Balkan Peninsula in 1875–78 was doubtless largely due to Panslavist intrigue as well as to Christian grievances; but the rearrangements that have taken effect since the Berlin treaty, especially the resolute self-assertion of the Bulgarians, have somewhat disillusioned Russian Panslavists. See SLAVS, RUSSIA; and Häusler, Der Panslavismus (Berlin, 1886 et seq.).