The Czechoslovak Review/Volume 3/Pan-Slavism

by Jaroslav Victor Nigrin

Pan-Slavism
By JAROSLAV VICTOR NIGRIN.

 

It is important at the outset to differentiate in this article between the tendencies and aims of Pan-Slavism and Pan-Germanism, for the similarity of the terms might, perhaps, confuse the casual reader. Pan-Germanism attempted to organize “Deutschthum”, Germans in Germany, Austria, and those found anywhere else, for the purpose of advancing the influence and power of the German empire all over the globe. Pan-Germanism had distinct domineering and expansive tendencies which led to the present war, and it is due only to the united effort of the rest of the world that the dangerous enemy of the liberties of mankind was defeated. Pan-Slavism, on the contrary, manifested itself in two currents: the first, a child of the aspiration and hope of the Russian governmental circles, which died along with Pan-Germanism and which aimed to unite the various Slavic peoples under the scepter of the Romanovs and wished to herd them into the Russian orthodox church. A very good account of these plans and tendencies may be found in an excellent book on pre-war Russia, “Russian Affairs”, by Geoffrey Drage. The other current, the real Pan-Slavism, had nothing to do with the policy of the Russian government, it was and is a democratic movement among various Slavic peoples which never dreamed of conquest, but merely aspired to liberation; never aimed at domination, but only desired a common understanding among the kin races for mutual security, for the interchange of intellectual achievements and to promote the advancement, prosperity and security of the people.

Pan-Slavism, then, is a purely intellectual and a thoroughly democratic movement. It was not brought into life by any warrior, politician, or ruler, but it is a product of poetical inspiration, having been first clearly announced by the dean of modern Bohemian poets, Jan Kollar (1793–1852). In 1830 in his essay “On Names, Origins and Antiquity of Slavs,” he thus defined the aims of Pan-Slavism: This movement is to consist in an effort to make the spiritual wealth of the various Slavic nations the common possession of the entire race through an interchange of ideas secured by reading the literature of the individual nations. (Since there exists a strong resemblance between the various Slavic tongues, it is very easy for any Slav to learn any other Slavic language, and such literary interchange is quite feasible.) This literary intercourse actually took place and created the idea of common unity among the Slavic people. It created the idea of strength which would result from a closer welding of the broken national forces and so gave life and vigor to the Slavs who were struggling for freedom. For let us not forget that the Slavs at the beginning of the nineteenth century were no where free: In Russia the czar and his court were foreign to the people; Poland was torn into three parts, with all its liberties trampled under foot of the conquerors; Bohemia was under the yoke of Austria; and the Jugo-Slavs were under the tyranny of Austria and Turkey. Under such conditions nobody dreamed of dominating others. To free themselves, to live their own untrammeled national life was the only desire of the oppressed peoples. The Slavic nations, inspired by their poets, were awakening and with the dawn of the XlXth century they began their long and wearisome struggle for freedom. The Turkish domination was cast off first, and the last shackles were broken in the present war. It was this feeling of brotherhood which helped the mutual liberation and which also helped so splendidly to win the great war. The Slavic soldiers of Austria were sent to battlefields, but they resolved not to fight against their Russian and Serbian brothers. Their refusal to fight for the benefit of their Teutonic masters upset the whole campaign. Austria was helpless against Russia and Serbia, and Germany, by sending help to her partner, had to weaken her own western front. The Slavic soldiers, notably the Czechoslovaks, were not satisfied with a passive resistance; they surrendered in whole brigades and went over to the Allies and re-entered as volunteers against their former masters. In the heroic deeds of the Czechoslovak volunteers we see the dream of the poet crystallized into acts. New nations, so to speak, were being born to the world; new democracies, the peoples of Comenius, of Kosciusko, of Tolstoy, were coming into existence, peoples whose lives, intellectually and industrially, will add permanently to the wealth of the human race.

Though this Pan-Slavic movement is of a recent origin, there has been, nevertheless, always a feeling of unity and close relationship among the Slavic nations. It is interesting to note how this feeling manifested itself in the past and what results it has brought about in the present. In 860 the great ruler of the Moravian realm (that was the name of Czechoslovakia in those days) Rostislav, seeing the necessity of modernizing his people by accepting Christianity and wishing also to counteract the Germanizing influence of the Teutonic missionaries, turned to Constantinople for Slavic-speaking missionaries. Two ardent brothers, Cyril and Method, were sent in response to this request, and although using the Jugo-Slav dialects, they were well understood by the northern Slavs. These first Pan-Slav missionaries brought as a gift seeds of all future culture: a new alphabet based upon the Greek, which in a modified form is still used by the Russians and some Jugo-Slavs. The Bible and the whole Church liturgy was translated into Slavic and written in new chacracters.

This union between the Moravians and Jugoslavs was ended, however, by the permanent settlement of the Magyars along the Danube. They drove a wedge between both peoples and what were the results? The southern Slavs and the Greeks were left to be defeated by the Turks. The north-western Slavs became dependent upon Rome spiritually and culturally, and the Czechs were constantly menaced by the German “kultur” until finally they were almost swallowed up by it. Russia cut off by the Tartar hordes from the western world and from Constantinople as well, became Oriental in life and was not to return to European ways until the advent of Peter the Great.

The Middle Ages find the Poles and the Czechs isolated by the Magyars from the Jugoslavs. The intercourse between these two northern peoples was always intimate, but unfortunately the circumstances and the lack of leadership did not bring a real community of interest. Friendship among the people implies democracy, but Poland was quickly changing into an aristocracy run by selfish nobles, while the masses of the people were reduced to serfdom; and the king became a mere figurehead. The terrible result of this policy is well known. Torn into three pieces the weakened Poland became the prey of its foes and languished under a foreign yoke until the great liberating war also rehabilitated this unhappy land. In Bohemia the religious strifes and wars brought a weakening of ancient democratic institutions and finally the great maelstrom of the Thirty Years’ War delivered this country definitely and helplessly into the hands of inimical Hapsburgs. There is no doubt that a strong national ideal was needed to cure the excesses of Polish nobility on the one side and the religious strifes in Bohemia on the other. Great men felt the need of such an ideal and sought to bring it to life by uniting both nations and by creating a union which by its force would give self-confidence to the people. Jan Žižka, the great Hussite general ,advised his people in 1422 to elect a Polish prince, Sigmund Koribut, for king and thus end religious wars. Hussite wars stirred passions, however, that would not listen to reason. A second similar attempt was made by the wise and democratic king, George Poděbrad, who on his deathbed in 1471, advised the estates of his realm to discard his own sons in succesion in favor of Vladislav Jagielo, son of the Polish king. Vladislav, a lad of 15 years, was unfortunately a weakling under whom the religious differences grew worse, while the masses of the people were slowly deprived of their liberties by the unscrupulous nobles. So the dream of creating a strong Slavic state with access to the sea for Bohemia was again nullified, and while Poland was approaching internal anarchy with its liberum veto, Bohemia, due to internal dissension, fell into the clutches of the Hapsburgs.

The reawakening of democracy and of the nationalistic consciousness of individual rights was a harbinger of political democracy destined to live and grow. People would no longer remain passive subjects; they wanted to live as nations, each nation representing a large family governed on a democratic basis. Kollar’s appeal for unity of Slavs which would be the source of strength of the kindred peoples, a strength which would obtain for them respect and freedom, was actually the voice of the entire people and was therefore eagerly listened to. So when the memorable year 1848 brought from France a new call to break the shackles of oppression and to establish the rule of freedom, the Slavs, stirred by Kollar’s call, summoned the first Pan-Slavic Congress to Prague. Over 340 delegates representing all Slav nations assembled in this metropolis May 29, 1848, to give to Pan-Slavism a definite form and to agree upon ways and means to realize the needed unity. June the 7th, a solemn declaration was addressed to the peoples of Europe; this declaration is one of the most remarkable historical documents of the middle of the nineteenth century. The declaration proclaimed that the noble watchwords of the French Revolution: Liberty, Equality, and Fraternity, hold good not only for individuals, but also for the natural groups of peoples, the nations. It denounced absolutism and presented a plan to change Austria into a constitutional federal state existing for the protection of smaller nationalities composing it. It was to be something like our United States. This was the plan of the great Bohemian historian and statesman Palacký. The Poles demanded reunion of their torn fatherland, while the Jugoslavs demanded full freedom from the Turkish yoke. The memorable manifesto ends in a fiery appeal to Europe for a congress of all European nations.

A congress of peoples and not of governments, which proclaimed such modern and progressive ideas, could not find hearing in the era of Metternich, of Prussia’s growth and the height of Russian autocracy. Furthermore revolutionary winds were blowing through Europe and the people were everywhere too busy with their local problems; so the appeal of the Slavs was left unheeded. The Germans stigmatized the congress of Prague as high treason. Did they feel already that united Slavs would block the German expansion plans? The Magyars also opposed the congress furiously, denouncing it through Prince Esterhazy to the emperor, and only the French welcomed the proposal.

The revolution of 1848 blew over Europe very quickly with only meager results; the grasp of absolutism was too strong and the people not yet sufficiently united in purpose. In Germany Bismarck built with blood and iron and created the German Empire. Austria, under the rule of Francis Joseph, became a dual monarchy where Teutons and Magyars divided power and with the help of governmental machinery, oppressed the Slav majority. This majority entered then upon a slow constitutionally managed struggle against oppression. While the Poles were bitterly opposed to everything Russian, many Bohemians and most Jugoslavs looked at this time to Russia as to the future savior of Slavs, but many dissented. Among Bohemian politicians it was especially the brilliant Havlíček who knew Russia thoroughly, having spent several years there as teacher. He opposed Rusophilism vigorously, for according to his views nothing could be expected for the Slavs from the autocratic Russian government. To work with the Poles seemed hopeless and Havlíček advocated a union of Bohemians with the Jugoslavs. The eyes of the Bohemians were thus turned south. Austria opposed this friendship with alarm. When the Balkan war came in 1912 in which Serbia and Bulgaria threw off the last remnants of the Turkish rule, Bohemian newspapers, volunteers and Red Cross workers showed unmistakably and vigorously their sympathies for the Jugoslavs.

The “league of free nations,” the plan of the Prague Slavic Congress of 1848, is being realized now by Allied statesmen in Paris. It is interesting to ask, whether this league means an end of Pan-Slavism? This is hardly probable. Just as in ordinary life there are persons whom we cherish with more affection than others, so in the society of nations there are bound to be certain groupings of interest and sentiment among peoples closely related. There is no danger to the peace of the world in such ententes, especially when they are effected between Slav peoples. A close understanding between the Czechoslovaks and Jugoslavs that already exists will, let us hope, be followed by the cordial friendship of Poland; through the mediation of the Czechoslovaks and Jugoslavs the old bitterness existing between the Poles and the Russians shall be overcome, and western Slavic influence will be substituted in Russia for German influence.

Pan-Slavism in this sense—a spirit of cooperation among all the Slav nations—will prevent most effectually the one great danger to the success of the League of Nations, the possibility of German control of Russia’s resources in men and materials.