Pan-Slavism

“ Other nations were depicted as slothful, selfish, decadent; and the decline in the prestige of Great Britain, France, and Russia to some extent justified these pretensions. The Tsar, by turning away from the Balkans towards Korea, deadened Slav aspirations. For the time Pan-Slavism seemed moribund. Pan-Germanism became a far more threatening force. ”

“ It was only natural that in the minds of these oppressed peoples should grow the conviction that the Tsar of Moscow was their defender, and that their interests are closely interrelated with the interests of Russia. The idea of Pan-Slavism, which never had either a practical significance, or even a proper formulation, was, undoubtedly, something artificial and untrue to life, but this spirit of unity between the Balkan peoples and Russia has been a direct and natural outcome of the existing social and historical conditions. ”

“ PAN-SLAVISM VERSUS PAN-GERMANISM Russia’s Part in the Servian Issue—Strength of the Russian Army—The Distribution of the Slavs—Origin of Pan-Slavism—The Czar’s Proclamation—The Teutons of Europe—Intermingling of Races—The Nations at War
Pan-Slavism against Pan-Germanism was the issue which was launched when the Emperor of all the Russias took up Servia’s quarrel with Austria-Hungary. Russia, if she wanted a ground for war, could have found no better one. The popularity of her aggressive big-brother attitude to all the Slavs was quickly attested in St. ”

“ The Pan-Slavonic idea will not work in Europe because the Slavs are beginning to prefer democracy to Pan-Slavism. The Russians have already painfully realised that truth in the Balkans, where the young Slav peoples have preferred to establish their little states on a democratic basis rather than to coalesce with Russia. That democracy is rapidly laying its axe against Slavonic unity can be judged from the case of Austria. ”

“ Pan-Slavism had really little root in the world until Russia, the chief Slav power, had beaten Napoleon. After that date its professors could hold up their heads, and maintain that Germany has reached her day, England her mid-day, France her afternoon, Italy her evening, Spain her night; but the Slavs stand on the threshold of the morning. This Slavonic idea reached a practical point when, in 1877, Russia drew her sword on behalf of the oppressed Slavonic nationalities of the Balkans.
Another example of the Slavonic faith is represented in the words of Skobeleff; "our enemy is the German. ”

“ If the Vienna Neue Freie Presse and other Austrian journals chose to represent―or rather misrepresent―them to the world as scheming pan-Slav agitators, as narrow minded nationalists, in whose country it was unsafe for a foreign tourist to travel, as incorrigible trouble makers who, more than any other people in Austria, were responsible for the existence in the empire of racial struggles, the belief eventually gained ground that they were Pan-Slavs, chauvinists, trouble-breeders. ”

“ He hoped the Alliance might develop to take in Poland, but at present Poland was in a difficult frame of mind, very readily jealous and not generally benevolent.
The Slavs are vociferous believers in unity. They invented the word "pan-humanity." It is the most vital idea in Russia. But is it not strange that the peoples who are the strongest believers in human unity are the most quarrelsome amongst themselves. The greatest weakness of the Slav nations lies in national vanity, egoism, and lack of solidarity. ”

“ Still more dangerous to the peace of the world was the ambition of the Pan-Slavs to overrun the Balkans. Our generation is familiar enough with the philosophy in the form of Pan-Germanism, and from this the mood of Russia in the days of Alexander III will be understood. The creed of the Pan-Slavs was a mixture of commercial greed, imperialistic ambition, the impulses of soldiers to use their weapons, and the desire of priests to enlarge their Church. ”

“ Having regard to the true wellfare of Slav nations, we declare it to be our desire and our firm will that the freedom of Slav nations, once attained, shall not be marred by external or internal oppression, either of the nation or of the individual. We want to labor not merely for external, but also for internal liberation. We want the Slavs to be what best answers to their true nature, namely democratic nations. ”

“ If Russia promotes a Pan-Slavistic propaganda among the diverse peoples, solely on the ground that the Slavs are linguistically related, and assumes a fictitious common racial origin, the actual usefulness of the nationalistic idea is lost sight of, and it is made the cover for the desire of expansion of power. ”

“ The Slavs have behind them a history dramatic to the utmost, varied, full of suffering, full also, of heroism in endurance or valor.
The present time is momentous for all nations, the future is a tangled riddle; for the Slavs this seems true in a double measure. To involved social problems is added race opposition in the breasts of neighbors, a deep, sullen historic hostility. Hence when a writer of power appears among the Slavs, whether he takes up the past or the present, he has that at hand through which he compels the whole world to listen. ”

“ I will go further and be so bold as to declare that it is the Western nations them selves who are responsible for the so-called Panrussianism, either by directly threatening the Slavs of Central and Southern Europe or by abandoning them helplessly to the German and Austro-Hungarian hegemony. ”

“ It is true that in our own political and social life the feeling of racial solidarity finds strong expression in our behavior towards Mongol and Negro. It is equally true that in Europe the Slavic world is moved to its depths by the Pan-Slavistic idea ”

“ This war, dividing all Europe, and indeed the whole world, into two camps, clearly demonstrates that if there is a common danger which threatens all the peoples of Europe and the whole of mankind, it is Pangermanism and not Panslavism. ”

“ Perhaps, from being more oppressed and beset by foes than any of the other Slavs, these nations have come to look upon their sense of race as a sheet-anchor to which they clung, at first with hope, and then with heart-felt love. To a Russian,104 Slavdom is the symbol of his protectorate, but to a Serbo-Croat it is the breath of life. ”

“ V.—This tendency of the Slav nations to draw closer together—a tendency which our adversaries denounce as a Panslavic peril that threatens Europe—is then, in fact, nothing but an effort to bring about a conscious synthesis of the best elements of the culture of Western Europe. The Slav nations have all hastened to accept Western civilisation. ”

“ The neighbours of the Slavs are both great and small; some indeed are the greatest nations of the world—e.g., the Germans, the Chinese, and the Japanese—nations which represent every gradation of European and Asiatic civilisation, differing in religion and in race.
The position of the Slavs in the world—in Europe and Asia—can be taken as central: on the West are the Germans, the Magyars and the Italians; on the East the Japanese and the Chinese; on the South the Turks, the Persians, &c. Thus, by the force of circumstances, Slav politics must be world politics. ”

“ Every thing will be conveyed in the remark, that in a state of society calculated to foster the worst passions of our nature, the slave derives no protection either from law or public opinion, and that ALL the cruelties which the Russians are reported to have acted towards the Poles, after their late subjugation, ARE SCENES OF EVERY-DAY OCCURRENCE in the southern states. ”

“ In the world of politics they must attain the degree of power necessary to safeguard their racial individuality and the freedom of the Slav peoples. This power must stand in due proportion to their capability for intellectual14 progress, and should in itself be a guarantee for the peace of the world in the future. For the Slav is not naturally domineering, and has no craving for power as a mere means of aggression. He belongs to a kindly race, melancholy, as shown in the national poetry in which his soul finds expression. ”

“ Is there none left for these forty-two millions of enslaved beings, still remaining in Europe, — subject, thus, to the rod, the lash, and the terrible knout, — liable, too, at times, to the horrors of starvation from the recklessness of their haughty masters? Is there no one to write a Russian "Uncle Tom," [14] to bring the picture of their wrongs before the world? Forty-two millions! — a greater number of white men existing in bondage, this moment, in a single country of Europe, than all the blacks that have been exported from Africa, altogether, in two centuries and a half! ”

“ So the tide from Slavland may swell, and the superfecund Slavs may push to the wall the Anglo-Americans, the Irish-Americans, the Welsh-Americans, the German-Americans, and the rest, until the invasion of our labor market by hordes of still cheaper West Asiatics shall cause the Slav, too, to lose interest in America, even as the Briton, the Hibernian, the Teuton, and the Scandinavian have lost interest in America. ”

“ The idea and conception of Panslavism are the produce of the latent political events on the Continent, viz. the idea of a re-crystallisation of a race of people comprising even now sixty millions, and which in former epochs extended from Archangelsk to Tissalonichi, where it bordered on the abodes of the Hellenic race. Having lost their primeval (Indian) civilisation by migrations which extend to times historical, the only monuments testifying to their most ancient origin are the languages of these various tribes,—the Russians, Czechs, Poles, &c. ”

“ The Slav peoples are so jealous of their individuality that, though living under the constant menace of the Germans, they always have had, and still do have, grave differences between themselves, not only in their political disputes—e.g., the Poles with the Russians, and the Serbians with the Bulgarians— but also contests on the subject of their dialects and their nationalities ”

“ These are the men, indeed, who witnessing the actual enslavement of such civilized and humane people as the Austrians, Czechs, Poles, French, Dutch, Norwegian and Belgians would all too willingly close their eyes and simulate disbelief in that which is stark and dread reality. These are men who with fatalism as their creed come intellectually to be anesthetized by it; who, proclaiming fate an ally, have become its most pathetic servants. ”

“ Thus, at an epoch when perpetual war raged all over the world, when from time immemorial prisoners of war everywhere formed the bulk of the slaves for domestic labor and for traffic, the Slavi alone were humane toward their captives. ”

“ The several Slav nations have not wandered so far as have other peoples from the cradle of their race, where at one time they formed groups which were identical and united, or at least with very few distinguishing marks. Moreover, the slower development of their civilisation, and their economic life, which is not so rich as that of other nations, have also tended to preserve the uniformity and the unity of their character. ”

“ We know that Berlin-Bagdad is only a new form of the German anti-Slav plan. The first cry for war at Berlin was directed against the Serbians and the Russians.
In Central Europe, between Russia and Germany, there is a belt of small nations. On each side of this belt there lie powerful States; the small nations adjoin one another only in this particular intermediate region. Some are independent, or at least autonomous, Hungary (the Magyars) for instance. But, by the side of these, three oppressed nations claim political independence—the Poles, the Czechs, and the Jugo-Slavs. ”

“ On the other hand, Germany holds two Slav nations under a very real yoke and Austria-Hungary oppresses four. The last-mentioned Slav nations therefore have Panslavic aspirations to a greater extent than other States, and Havlícek used to describe these aspirations as “Little Panslavism.” But it is at Vienna and Budapest that the greatest fuss is made about Panslavism. In Hungary the accusation of Panslavism is sufficient to condemn a man for high treason. ”

“ In the West the Slavs are remarkable for the density of their population and for their intellectual development (the Czechs have fewer illiterates than the Germans of Austria-Hungary) , whilst in Northern Europe and Asia we find primitive peoples in a very rudimentary stage of civilisation.
To sum up, Panslavic centralisation is not desirable, either from a geographical point of view or from the point of view of historical evolution. Oppressed by the Germanic nations, we claim political liberty and national independence ”

“ At home he has suffered from political oppression and poverty; he has had little education of body or mind; he is subject to his primitive impulses as the west European long ago ceased to be. It is not easy for America to assimilate large numbers of such backward peoples, but the Slav is coming at the rate of three hundred thousand a year. The Slav is depended upon for the hard labor of mine and foundry, of sugar and oil refineries, and of meat-packing establishments. Hundreds and thousands are in the coal and iron regions of Pennsylvania, Illinois, Ohio, and West Virginia. ”

“ The all-pervading and very distinct impression which remains is that the Slavs have very distinct national aims, which they are prepared to pursue with an utter persistence and ruthlessness, of which no other peoples are capable. ”

“ The Slavs lack collective wisdom. Where there are three thinking Slavs, there are always three quarrels. People who wish to rule must learn to act wisely together; yet in the history{122} of the Slavs this collective wisdom, this inability of one group to acknowledge the equality of the other, has been their greatest lack.
“The Russian revolution failed, even as the Polish revolution failed, and as the Czechs’ will fail, because they lack collective wisdom. ”

“ And the only means of accomplishing this end is for Germany to hack her way throughix the decrepit ethnic masses that obstruct her path and to impose her higher civilization on the natives. Poland was the first vile body on which this experiment was tried, and it has been found, and authoritatively announced, that the Slavs are but ethnic manure, useful to fertilize the seed-fields of Teutonic culture, but good for little else. The Latin races, too, are degenerates who live on memories and thrive on tolerance. ”