Extensive pan-Slavism began much likePan-Germanism: both of these movements flourished from the sense of unity andnationalism experienced withinethnic groups after theFrench Revolution and the consequentNapoleonic Wars against traditional European monarchies. As in otherRomantic nationalist movements, Slavic intellectuals and scholars in the developing fields ofhistory,philology, andfolklore actively encouraged Slavs' interest in their shared identity and ancestry. Pan-Slavism co-existed with theSouthern Slavic drive towards independence.
Commonly used symbols of the Pan-Slavic movement were thePan-Slavic colours (blue, white and red) and the Pan-Slavic anthem,Hey, Slavs.
TheFirst Pan-Slav congress was held inPrague,Bohemia, in June 1848, during therevolutionary movement of 1848. The Czechs had refused to send representatives to theFrankfurt Assembly feeling that Slavs had a distinct interest from the Germans. TheAustroslav,František Palacký, presided over the event. Most of the delegates were Czech and Slovak. Palacký called for the co-operation of theHabsburgs and had also endorsed the Habsburg monarchy as the political formation most likely to protect the peoples ofcentral Europe. When the Germans asked him to declare himself in favour of their desire for national unity, he replied that he would not as this would weaken the Habsburg state: “Truly, if it were not thatAustria had long existed, it would be necessary, in the interest ofEurope, in the interest ofhumanity itself, to create it.”
The Pan-Slav congress met during the revolutionary turmoil of 1848. Young inhabitants of Prague had taken to the streets and in the confrontation, a stray bullet had killed the wife ofField MarshalAlfred I, Prince of Windisch-Grätz, the commander of the Austrian forces in Prague. Enraged, Windischgrätz seized the city, disbanded the congress, and establishedmartial law throughout Bohemia.
According to Slovak intellectualsJán Kollár andAndrej Ľudovít Radlinský, along with the prevailing Pan-Slavic views of the time, the Slavic nation consisted of four tribes, the Czechoslovak, the Polish, the Russian (East Slavs) and the Illyrian (Southern Slavs).
The first Pan-Slavic convention was held in Prague on June 2 through 16, 1848.[8] The delegates at the Congress were specifically bothanti-Austrian andanti-Russian. Still "the Right"—the moderately liberal wing of the Congress—under the leadership ofFrantišek Palacký (1798–1876), a Czech historian and politician,[9] andPavol Jozef Šafárik (1795–1861), a Slovak philologist, historian and archaeologist,[10] favored autonomy of the Slav lands within the framework of Austrian (Habsburg) monarchy.[11] In contrast "the Left"—the radical wing of the Congress—under the leadership ofKarel Sabina (1813–1877), a Czech writer and journalist,Josef Václav Frič, a Czech nationalist,Karol Libelt (1817–1861), a Polish writer and politician, and others, pressed for a close alliance with the revolutionary-democratic movement going on in Germany and Hungary in 1848.[11]
A national rebirth in the Hungarian "Upper Land" (nowSlovakia) awoke in a completely new light, both before the Slovak Uprising in 1848 and after. The driving force of this rebirth movement were Slovak writers and politicians who called themselves Štúrovci, the followers ofĽudovít Štúr. As the Slovak nobility wasMagyarized and most Slovaks were merely farmers or priests, this movement failed to attract much attention. Nonetheless, the campaign was successful as brotherly cooperation between the Croats and the Slovaks brought its fruit throughout the war. Most of the battles between Slovaks and Hungarians however, did not turn out in favor for the Slovaks who were logistically supported by the Austrians, but not sufficiently. The shortage of manpower proved to be decisive as well.
During the war, theSlovak National Council brought its demands to the young Austrian Emperor,Franz Joseph I, who seemed to take a note of it and promised support for the Slovaks against the revolutionary radical Hungarians. However the moment the revolution was over, Slovak demands were forgotten. These demands included an autonomous land within the Austrian Empire called "Slovenský kraj" which would be eventually led by a Serbian prince. This act of ignorance from the Emperor convinced the Slovak and the Czech elite who proclaimed the concept of Austroslavism as dead.
Disgusted by the Emperor's policy, in 1849, Ľudovít Štúr, the person who codified the first largely usedSlovak language, wrote a book he would nameSlavdom and the World of the Future. This book served as a manifesto where he noted that Austroslavism was not the way to go anymore. He also wrote a sentence that often serves as a quote until this day: "Every nation has its time under God's sun, and thelinden [a symbol of the Slavs] is blossoming, while theoak [a symbol of the Teutons] bloomed long ago."[12]
He expressed confidence in theRussian Empire however, as it was the only country of Slavs that was not dominated by anybody else, yet it was one of the most powerful nations in the world. He often symbolized Slavs as being a tree, with "minor" Slavic nations being branches while the trunk of the tree was Russian. His Pan-Slavic views were unleashed in this book, where he stated that the land of Slovaks should be annexed by the Tsar's empire and that eventually, the population could be not onlyRussified, but also converted into the rite ofOrthodoxy, religion originally spread byCyril and Methodius during the times ofGreat Moravia, which served as an opposition to theCatholic missionaries from theFranks. After theHungarian invasion of Pannonia, Hungarians converted intoCatholicism, which effectively influenced the Slavs living inPannonia and in the land south of the Lechs.
However, the Russian Empire often claimed Pan-Slavism as a justification for its aggressive moves in the Balkan Peninsula of Europe against the Ottoman Empire, which conquered and held the land of Slavs for centuries. This eventually led to theBalkan campaign of the Russian Empire, which resulted in the entire Balkan being liberated from the Ottoman Empire, with the help and the initiative of the Russian Empire.[13] Pan-Slavism has some supporters among Czech and Slovak politicians, especially among the nationalistic and far-right ones, such as People's Party – Our Slovakia.
DuringWorld War I, captured Slavic soldiers were asked to fight against "oppression in the Austrian Empire". Consequently, some did. (seeCzechoslovak Legions)
The creation of an independentCzechoslovakia made the old ideals of Pan-Slavism anachronistic. Relations with other Slavic states varied, sometimes being so tense it escalated into an armed conflict, such as with theSecond Polish Republic where border clashes overSilesia resulted in a short hostile conflict, thePolish–Czechoslovak War. Even tensions between Czechs and Slovaks had appeared before and during World War II.
Austria feared that Pan-Slavists would endanger the empire. In Austria-Hungary Southern Slavs were distributed among several entities:Slovenes in the Austrian part (Carniola,Styria,Carinthia,Gorizia and Gradisca,Trieste,Istria), Croats andSerbs in the Hungarian part within the autonomousKingdom of Croatia-Slavonia and in the Austrian part within the autonomousKingdom of Dalmatia, and inBosnia and Herzegovina, under direct control from Vienna. Owing to a different position within Austria-Hungary, several different goals were prominent among the Southern Slavs of Austria-Hungary. A strong alternative to Pan-Slavism wasAustroslavism,[15] especially among the Croats and Slovenes. Because the Serbs were dispersed among several regions, and the fact that they had ties to the independentnation state ofKingdom of Serbia, they were among the strongest supporters of independence of South-Slavs from Austria-Hungary and uniting into a common state under Serbian monarchy.
When in 1863 theAssociation of Serbian Philology commemorated the death ofCyril a thousand years earlier, its presidentDimitrije Matić talked of the creation of an "ethnically pure" Slavonic people, "With God’s help, there should be a whole Slavonic people with purely Slavonic faces and of purely Slavonic character."[16]
At the end of the Second World War, thePartisans'mixed heritage leader Josip Broz Tito became Yugoslav president, and the country become a socialist republic, with the motto of "Brotherhood and Unity" between its various Slavic peoples.
With the exception of Russia, the Polish nation has the distinction among other Slavic peoples of having enjoyed independence as a part of various entities for several centuries prior to the advent of Pan-Slavism.
After 1795,Revolutionary andNapoleonic France had influenced many Poles who sought thereconstitution of their existing country—particularly since France was a mutual enemy of Austria, Prussia, and also Russia. Russia's Pan-Slavic rhetoric had alarmed the Poles. Pan-Slavism was not fully embraced among Poles after the early period. Poland did nevertheless express solidarity with those of its fellow Slavic nations that had suffered oppression and were seeking independence.
While Pan-Slavism as an ideology was inimical toAustro-Hungarian interests, Poles instead embraced the wide autonomy within the state and assumed a loyalist position towards the Habsburgs. Within the Austro-Hungarian polity, they were able to develop their national culture and preserve thePolish language, both of which were under threat in bothGerman andRussian Empires. A Pan-Slavic federation was proposed, but on the condition that theRussian Empire would be excluded from such an entity. After Poland regained its independence (from Germany, Austria and Russia) in 1918, no internal faction considered Pan-Slavism as a serious alternative, viewing Pan-Slavism asRussification. During Poland's communist era, theUSSR used Pan-Slavism as a propaganda tool to justify its control over the country. The issue of Pan-Slavism was not part of current mainstream politics and is widely seen as an ideology of Russianimperialism.
During the time of theSoviet Union,Bolshevik teachings viewed Pan-Slavism as a reactionary element associated to theRussian Empire.[18] As a result, Bolsheviks viewed it as contrary to their Marxist ideology. Pan-Slavists even faced persecution during theStalinist repressions in the Soviet Union (seeSlavists case). Nowadays, ultranationalist parties like theRussian National Unity party advocate for a Russian-dominated 'Slavic Union'.[citation needed]
Map of the European Union andSlavic speaking countries. Slavic countries in the EU in royal blue, other EU countries in teal and non-EU Slavic countries in medium blue.
The authentic idea of the unity of the Slavic people was all but gone afterWorld War I when the maxim "Versailles andTrianon have put an end to all Slavisms".[19] During theCold War, all Slavic peoples were in union under the dominance of the USSR, but pan-Slavism was rejected as reactionary to Communist ideals, and this unity was largely put to rest with thefall of communism in Central and Eastern Europe in the late 1980s, leading to the breakup of federal states such asCzechoslovakia andYugoslavia.[20][21]Varying relations between the Slavic countries exist nowadays; they range from mutual respect on equal footing and sympathy towards one another through traditional dislike and enmity, to indifference. No forms, other than culture and heritage oriented organizations, are currently considered forms of rapprochement among the countries with Slavic origins.[22] The political parties which include Pan-Slavism as part of their program usually live on the fringe of the political spectrum, or are part of controlled and systemic opposition inBelarus,Russia andoccupied territories, as part of an irredentistpan-slavist campaign by Russia.[23][24]
While Pan-Slavism remains popular in moderate and extremist political circles, its popularity subsided in the public. After the failure ofYugoslavism andCzechoslovakism, nationalism in Slavic nations now focus on self-definition and non-ethnic relations (likeHungary and Poland). TheRusso-Ukrainian War had a divisive role,[31] and pro-Russian sentiment became less popular. Tensions also rose on the Ukrainian side, and for economic reasons Ukrainian grain exports had to be banned for a time in multiple Slavic countries such as Poland and Slovakia, after the protest of farmers in multiple European countries.[32][33]
Similarities of Slavic languages inspired many to createzonal auxiliaryPan-Slavic languages for all Slavic people to communicate with one another. Several such languages were constructed in the past, but many more were created in theInternet Age. The most prominent modern example isInterslavic.[34]
Pan-Slavic countries, organisations, and alliances appear in various works of fiction.
In the 2014 turn-based strategy4X gameCivilization: Beyond Earth there is a playable faction called the Slavic Federation – a science fiction vision of Eastern Europe and Western Asia, reformed into a powerful unified state with a focus on aerospace, technological research, and terrestrial engineering.[35][36] Its leader, a former cosmonaut named Vadim Kozlov voiced by Mateusz Pawluczuk, speaks a mixture of Russian and Ukrainian with a heavy Polish accent.[37][38] In the historicalgrand strategy games ofCrusader Kings II andEuropa Universalis IV, the player is able to unite Slavonic territories via political alliances and multi-ethnic kingdoms.[39] The real-time strategy gamesAncestors Legacy and the HD edition ofAge of Empires II feature fictionalised versions of theearly Slavs that incorporate and fuse elements from different Slavic nations.[39]
^The Eighteenth Century: A Current Bibliography. American Society for Eighteenth Century Studies. 1992. p. 162.ISBN9780001610996.... the work of some early "Panslavic" ideologues in the sixteenth (Pribojevic) and seventeenth (Gundulic, Komulovic, Kasic,...)
^Kamusella, Tomasz (2008-12-16). "The Slovak Case: From Upper Hungary's SlavophonePopulus to Slovak Nationalism and the Czechoslovak Nation".The Politics of Language and Nationalism in Modern Central Europe (reprint ed.). Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan. p. 539.ISBN9780230583474. Retrieved16 October 2022.Kollár's and Šafárik's vision appealed for cultural unity of all the Slavs and for political cooperation and eventual unity of the Slavic inhabitants of the Austrian Empire.
^Robert John Weston Evans, Chapter "Nationality in East-Central Europe: Perception and Definition before 1848".Austria, Hungary, and the Habsburgs: Essays on Central Europe, c. 1683–1867. 2006.
^Vick, Brian E. (2014). "Between Reaction and Reform".The Congress of Vienna: Power and Politics after Napoleon. Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press. p. 275.ISBN9780674745483. Retrieved16 October 2022.The willingness to work in part with national sentiments within the Habsburg framework [...] went to the top: to Stadion, but also to Metternich. Metternich's commitment could be seen in a small symbolic way in his Habsburg folk-dress costume theme ball, but also appeared in his plans for Austria's reacquired Italian and Polish provinces. Metternich did not favor a full federal remodelling of the Habsburg Empire, as some have suggested, but neither did he oppose concessions to a presumed national spirit as much as several critics of that interpretation have contended. [...] Metternich and the Austrians certainly believed that there was an Italian national spirit, one that they feared and opposed if it pointed to national independence and republicanism, and they did intend to combat it through a policy of 'parcelization,' that is, bolstering local identities as a means to damp the growth of national sentiment. [...] Metternich and Franz, for instance, hoped to appeal to 'the Lombard spirit' to counteract 'the so-called Italian spirit.'
^See Note 134 on page 725 of theCollected Works of Karl Marx and Frederick Engels: Volume 14 (International Publishers: New York, 1980).
^See the biographical note on page 784 of theCollected Works of Karl Marx and Frederick Engels: Volume 14.
^See the biographical note at page 787 of theCollected Works of Karl Marx and Frederick Engels: Volume 14
^abSee Note 134 on page 725 of theCollected Works of Karl Marx and Frederick Engels: Volume 14.
^(Slovak:Každý národ má svoj čas pod Božím slnkom, a lipa kvitne až dub už dávno odkvitol.)Slovanstvo a svet budúcnosti. Bratislava 1993, s. 59.
^Frederick Engels, "Germany and Pan-Slavism" contained in theCollected Works of Karl Marx and Frederick Engels: Volume 14, pp. 156-158.
^Yavus, M. Hakan; Sluglett, Peter (2011).War and Diplomacy: The Russo-Turkish War of 1877-1878 and the Treaty of Berlin. Salt Lake City: University of Utah. pp. 1–2.ISBN978-1607811503.
^Magocsi, Robert; Pop, Ivan, eds. (2005), "Austro-Slavism",Encyclopedia of Rusyn History and Culture, Toronto: University of Toronto Press, p. 21
^Association of Serbian Philology: Hiljadugodišnja 1863:4
^"In other words, the Pan-Slavic resentment is not strange to the Russian Eurasianists, however, this is prevailingly limited to the post-Soviet space. Therein lies the difference between the Eurasians and the Russian radical nationalists in their contemporary attitude to Pan-Slavism. Radical nationalists are the only ones who follow up with the tradition and ideational message of the Central- and South-European Pan-Slavism of the tsarist Russia. Pan-Slavism serves as their tool for demonstrating decisive anti-Western attitudes and as an "historical" folklore employed in domestic-political battles, which sound so sweet to the Russian ear. The ideas of Pan-Slavism only find some echo with the part of some Serbian and partly Slovak nationalists" Alexander Duleba, "From Domination to Partnership - The perspectives of Russian-Central-East European Relations", Final Report to theNATO Research Fellowship Program, 1996-1998[1]
^abWagner, Lukas (2009),The EU's Russian Roulette(PDF), Tampere: University of Tampere, pp. 74–78,85–90, retrieved19 March 2017
Abbott G. European and Muscovite: Ivan Kireevsky and the origins of Slavophilism (Cambridge University Press, 1972)
Agnew H. Origins of the Czech National Renascence (University of Pittsburgh Press, 1993)
Carole R. The Slovenes and Yugoslavism, 1890-1914 (Columbia University Press, 1977)
Djokic D. (ed.) Yugoslavism. Histories of a Failed Idea, 1918-1992 (Hurst and Company, 2003)
Gasor A., Karl L., Troebst S. (eds.) Post-Panslavismus. Slavizität, Slavische Idee und Antislavismus im 20. und 21. Jahrhundert (Wallstein Verlag, 2014)
Geier, Wolfgang (2022).Panslawismus [Pan-Slavism]. Enzyklopädie des europäischen Ostens, vol. 20,4. Klagenfurt: Wieser,ISBN978-3-99029-535-9.
Golub I., Bracewell C. The Slavic Idea of Juraj Krizanic, Harvard Ukrainian Studies 3-4 (1986).
Osmańczyk, Edmund Jan (2003)."Pan-Slavism".Encyclopedia of the United Nations and International Agreements: N to S. Taylor & Francis. pp. 1762–.ISBN9780415939232. Retrieved22 September 2018.
Petrovich B.M. The Emergence of Russian Panslavism, 1856-1870 (Columbia University Press, 1956)
Note: Forms of nationalism based primarily onethnic groups are listed above. This does not imply that all nationalists with a given ethnicity subscribe to that form ofethnic nationalism.
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