PANSLAVISM. 



007 



populations made up largely of other peoples. 

 The Poles, Little-Russians, Czechs, vindes, 

 .:*, Sloventzi, Serbs, and Bulgarians, arc 

 thus Mtiiatr.l. The establishment of a Blavio 

 state or union involves the disruption or de- 

 bt nu-tion, by a war of conquest, of all the 

 States of Southern and Eastern Europe. In 

 case the attempt should be made, Northern 

 Europe, united and aided by its immense supe- 

 riority in culture, would not fail to overcome 

 the rude and unassimilated Slavic masses. 

 Not \\ ithstanding certain traits of resemblance, 

 the several Slavic stocks differ very materially 

 in language, sympathies, customs, and tradi- 

 tion-;. Harmony in religion is also wanting 

 among them; not quite two-thirds of them 

 are of the Greek religion, the other third being 

 attached to Catholicism, to Protestantism, and 

 even to Mohammedanism. The strongest and 

 predominant Slavic stock are the Great-Rus- 

 sians, or Muscovites, numbering about 40,000,- 

 000. Some recent historians and ethnographers 

 (Drschinski and Henry Martin) deny that these 

 are to be reckoned among the Slavi, or are of 

 the Aryan race at all, and maintain that they 

 are in part of Finnish, in part of Turanian de- 

 scent. They are distinguished from the Slavi, 

 as these writers hold, by marked differences in 

 popular spirit, in sympathy, and in social 

 organization, particularly in the want of indi- 

 viduality, and these differences have not di- 

 minished in the course of the century. If this 

 view is correct, the idea of Panslavism must 

 prove totally fallacious. It would practically 

 denote nothing less than the demand that the 

 Muscovite should not only exercise a primacy 

 and supremacy over the other Slavic stocks, 

 hut that they should suffer themselves to be 

 absorbed in it as the most numerous and most 

 homogeneous branch of the race, receiving 

 from it language, religion, and social and po- 

 litical systems. 



The Russian Government has never publicly 

 recognized the idea of Panslavism. On the 

 other hand, it has shown, in its enterprises 

 against the Poles, the Little-Russians, and the 

 "White-Russians, that it does not intend to 

 accord to these nationalities parity of consid- 

 eration with the Great-Russians, or Muscovites, 

 but that its only thought is to Russianize them, 

 nnd that not by means of a superior intelli- 

 gence, but by a very rude and despotic con- 

 straint. It uses Panslavism to advance its 

 political plans and views, and to render the 

 other Slavonic stocks convenient instruments 

 for keeping the neighboring states in a dis- 

 turbed condition, and for weakening them. 



Panslavism deserves to be regarded as more 

 than a threat : it is a reality. It is more of a 

 defensive, negative, than of a positive, con- 

 structive nature. In Russia it is the expression 

 of the thirst for aggrandizement, which is in- 

 nate in the Great and Little Russians as well 

 as in the White-Russians in Lithuania and 

 Volhynia, and it instinctively strives after the 

 extension of the Russian Empire to the heart 



of Europe, and the acquisition of a largo mari- 

 time tract, in order to come in close contact 

 with the more highly-rivili/.ed peoples of 

 Western Europe, whose influence the Russians 

 perceive they need, to aid them in liberalizing 

 and making more active their half-Asiatic in- 

 stitutions. Except as to the functions of the 

 Czar, there is nothing specifically national in 

 the social or political system of the Russians. 

 The ideu of Panslavism was started by the 

 Russians for the purpose of conciliating the 

 Poles. They regard them as their most hated 

 enemies, and would not consent to the restora- 

 tion of an independent Polish kingdom, because 

 it would cut them off from the mouths of the 

 rivers, and from the seaports, and reduce 

 Russia to an Asiatic inland power. The Rus- 

 sians succeeded, indeed, in outwardly subject- 

 ing the Poles, but they possess only a feeble 

 talent for national reconstruction, and on this 

 account would not be able to Russianize them, 

 unless Russia could exhibit a spiritual supe- 

 riority, a higher degree of culture, than Poland. 

 There would remain then nothing but the out- 

 ward domination over the Poles, which, not- 

 withstanding the Polish nation has probably 

 forever outlived its existence as a state, involves 

 the consequence of frequent convulsive efforts 

 of reaction against political and religions op- 

 pression. Europe has no longer any interest 

 in the resurrection of the Polish kingdom. It 

 would bring with it too many difficult political 

 complications, not only for Russia, but also for 

 Prussia (on account of the Polish province of 

 Posen, and the only half-Germanized province 

 of West Prussia) and Austria, while the Poles 

 would not be able to give assurance that they 

 would form an effective barrier against Russia. 

 While the Poles reject the idea of Panslav- 

 ism as that of the political lordship of their 

 oppressors, the doctrine has found more rec- 

 ognition among the Slavi under Austrian and 

 Turkish rule. With the Austrian Southern 

 Slavi and Czechs this was a consequence of 

 the absolute character of the bureaucratic ad- 

 ministration which used the nationalities prin- 

 cipally as the instrument of its levelling policy. 

 By its oppression it has awakened in them an 

 inclination partly natural, and partly sustained 

 by artful means toward peoples of the same 

 race, although religious differences, the want 

 of an independent economic existence of 

 their .own, and the bonds of habitual inter- 

 course with these peoples, were great obstacles. 

 While the Czech, whose enlightenment is all 

 the result of German culture, dreams of the 

 restoration of a Czech kingdom, and of the 

 crown of Wenceslaus, his vision is opposed by 

 the presence of a numerous German popula- 

 tion, which prevents the victory of the ^Slavi 

 element, and by the military and political inter- 

 ests of Germany, which does not permit the 

 erection of a Slavi outpost in its own interior. 

 It remains to bo observed what influence the in- 

 troduction of the constitutional principle in Aus- 

 tria, and the development of liberal elements in 



