Pan-Slavism as a doctrine of foreign policy has never been officially endorsed. It emerged, however, as an ideological cover for the external actions of imperial Russia, and even, though fleetingly and inconsistently, of the policy of the USSR. Part of the elite in Putin’s Russia flirted with Pan-Slavism, looking for bridges to project Russian influence in the Western Balkans (Serbia, Montenegro, North Macedonia, and even Slovenia).
Pan-Slavism as a movement came into being in the 19th century in Bohemia. The first to use the term was the Slovak linguist Jan Herkel. Pan-Slavism, in a political sense, carried the idea of liberating the Slavs from foreign rule and of fostering their cooperation for the benefit of cultural, economic and political unification. In Bohemia, it was one of the by-products of the process of cementing the national identity of a nation that had been under Germanization pressure for centuries. In the Balkans, Pan-Slavism was associated with the idea of liberation from the Turkish yoke and Austrian hegemony.
Pan-Slavism was quickly picked up and appropriated by Slavophilic intellectual and political circles in Russia. They pointed to the need to defend the Slavic lands against the bad influence of the West, isolate Russia from Western influences and focus its policy on the unification of the Slavs.
Pan-Slavism began to be associated with the idea of creating a federal union of Slavs, remaining under the political and cultural domination and leadership of the Russian Empire, ultimately even with the creation of a great all-Slavic union with the capital in Tsarograd (see the project by Nikolay Danilevskij). According to Mikhail Bakunin’s concept of a “great free all-Slavic federation”, Poland was to be part of the federation on equal footing as a free entity, similarly to the peoples of Lithuania (i.e. Belarusians) and Ukraine. “Our sword will not rest in its scabbard as long as at least one Slav is in German, Turkish or any other captivity,” wrote Bakunin in 1862.
The obduction of the idea by the great Russians resulted in a reluctant attitude towards the idea of Pan-Slavism in Poland. The National Democratic movement flirted with it, but mainly to play the anti-German card. The ideas of Pan-Slavism did develop among Poles, but assuming the unification of the Slavs without Russia.
Poles did not participate (with a few exceptions) in Slavic congresses organized in Russia. Which resulted in mutual dislike on the part of the Pan-Slavists and Poles. Poles were referred to in Russia as the “Judas of the Slavs”. The two-sided repulsion has survived to the present day.
Pan-Slavism became a driving force of Russia’s foreign policy thanks to Nikolai Ignatiev, Russia’s long-time ambassador to Istanbul in the 1860s and 1870s. His Slavophile program was used as a skillful cover for Russia’s expansion in southern Europe to conquer the Black Sea straits. Contrary to Foreign Minister Gorchakov’s official line, he focused on loosening Russia’s ties with Prussia (Germany) and Austria, weakening the influence of England in Turkey, and supporting the interests of Christians in the Ottoman Empire. As soon as in 1876, first Montenegro and then Serbia declared war on Turkey, Ignatiev assured (on his own initiative) their leaders of Russian support. And the Slavic Committee, established in the 1860s in Moscow, launched an active campaign to support the Slavic peoples in the Balkans. The command of Serbian forces was taken by the Russian general Mikhail Chernov, and over 5,000 Russian volunteers joined the armed units participating in the war.
Ignatiev is an example of a diplomat who did “great politics” with good results, using the fait accompli method. More than once, not twice, I met with diplomats who felt a similar mission to do great politics. Once, in a conversation with our deputy minister, one of the diplomats visiting Warsaw threw up an idea to convey to a country with which his country not only had no relations, but was also considered a true embodiment of evil, that his country would be ready to engage in some discreet dialogue. Soon as I was about to visit this country for consultations as the director of political planning at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, hence I was entrusted with the mission to deliver the message. During my stay, according to the instructions, I asked for a private chat with the Secretary of State in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of that country (he later made a great political career). I delivered the message (we even received an equally discreet reply), but it turned out that the whole action was a personal initiative of that diplomat (a high-ranking one, but only a bureaucrat), not agreed with the centre of political decisions. Nothing came out of the initiative, and it also had a bad effect, it seems, on the career of that initiator.
But Ignatiev succeeded! And in 1877, Russia went to war against Turkey in order to “save the Slavs.” The Pan-Slavist Danilevskij called this “national” war, and admittedly not without difficulties, but by the end of the year the Russian army was almost at the gates of Constantinople (10 to 15 versts away, that is, indeed, a stone’s throw away). Until it scared all of Europe. And the conditions of the peace in San Stefano of January 1878, were so humiliating for Turkey (they envisaged the creation of an autonomous Greater Bulgaria, the independence of Serbia and Montenegro), that they had to be adjusted to the detriment of Russia and the southern Slavs at the Berlin Congress in July of that year.
After the Berlin Peace, the Bulgarians’ “ingratitude” soon became apparent. The pro-Russian Alexander Battenberg was appointed Prince of Bulgaria, the constitution for it was written by a commission headed by the Russian High Commissioner Dondukov-Korsakov, and the government was administered by the Russians. Soon, however, the country was plunged into disputes between the prince and the elite, and the slogan “Bulgaria for Bulgarians” grew in popularity in the society. An open dispute flared up between the Bulgarians and their Russian protectors. The Bulgarians annexed, contrary to the Russian position, Eastern Rumelia, which was formally under Turkish rule. Russia severed diplomatic relations with Bulgaria.
Although a pro-Russian coup was staged unsuccessfully in 1886, Prince Alexander abdicated and emigrated, in accordance with the will of Tsar Alexander III. But Ferdinand Sachsen-Coburg was made king of Bulgaria, contrary to Russia’s opinion. Bulgaria, which Ignatiev intended to be a citadel of Russian influence in the region, broke away from its dependence on Russia. Not surprisingly, Bismarck did not miss the opportunity to tangibly point out that Russia’s ethnic and religious policy in the region had finally collapsed. “The liberated nations will never show gratitude, they only know how to demand.”
Russia’s influence among the Balkan Slavs faded away. In addition, the Serbs moved closer to Austria (they moved back to Russia only in 1908, after the Austrian annexation of Bosnia). Only Montenegro remained close to Russia. In 1899, Tsar Alexander would toast (bitterly) to ” Russia’s only faithful friend: Prince Nicholas of Montenegro”.
The first Balkan war (in 1912-13), waged by the anti-Turkish Bulgarian-Serbian alliance forged under the patronage of Russia, testified to the community of Slavic interests, but already in the Second Balkan War (which began only a month after the first, due to the feud over the division of territorial spoils after Turkey) all neighbours stood against Bulgaria, including the Slavs (Serbs and Montenegrins).
But it was Russia’s alliance with Serbia that became the key link in activating the alliance and mobilization algorithms that led Europe to World War I.
In World War I, once liberated from the Turkish yoke, Bulgaria now allied with the former oppresor: Turkey, and against the liberator and protector: Russia. It was a final blow to Pan-Slavism. After the First World War, the Serbs managed to collect the Slavs in the formula of Yugoslavia, but it too fell apart painfully with the end of the Cold War. Even in the winter of 1948, discussions were held about the establishment of the Yugoslav-Bulgarian federation (Tito agreed to the accession of Bulgaria as a union republic, but Dmitrov insisted on a confederation). The failure of the discussion accelerated the conflict between Stalin and Tito.
Pan-Slavism did not develop into a significant force among the Western Slavs as well. In Bohemia, after the split in the so-called Austro-Slavic movement (also known as the All-Czech Movement) in 1876, the Young Czech party emerged from it, and its Pan-Slavism took on extremely pro-Russian and anti-German colours.
At the end of the nineteenth century, the critique of Pan-Slavism gave rise to Neo-Slavism. It was popular among Czech national activists and was supported, among others, by Tomáš Masaryk. He rejected Russian claims to domination over other Slavs. He also demanded that the Slavic community be based on democratic principles. The doctrine assumed basically the reunification of Czechia and Slovakia (but also in the optimistic scenario of Poland) and a loose relationship with Russia. Neo-Slavism distanced itself from such elements of pro-Russian Pan-Slavism as the thesis about the superiority of some Slavic groups over others, and from recognizing the domination of any religion in the life of the community.
The first organized assembly of supporters of Neo-Slavism was the congress in Prague in 1908, and Roman Dmowski attended it (he wanted to use the movement to transfer the Polish problem to the international level and obtain the undefined autonomy of the Kingdom of Poland within the Russian Empire). The movement, despite initial support from some Russian ideologues, did not gain momentum there. And the efforts to emancipate the movement from Russian influence led to an increase in nationalism among Russian pan-Slavists and the emergence of the so-called Russian Neo-Slavism.
The gradual decline of the Neo-Slavism movement began in 1910, when its third and last congress in Sofia was held, inter alia, without the participation of Poles.
After the end of World War I, the influence of Pan-Slavism (and Neo-Slavism) was marginalized as a result of the development of nationalist tendencies in Slavic countries and regional rivalry, even conflicts (the Polish-Czechoslovak dispute over Cieszyn Silesia). In a sense, Yugoslavia was then the only relic of Neo-Slavic thinking.
At the end of World War II, Stalin began to think about the use of Pan-Slavism. His armies were then to invade the lands of the western and southern Slavs and, through Pan-Slavism he wanted to build the image of Russia as the “older Slavic sister” and a liberator. He described the war as a clash between Teutonic hegemonism and noble Slavicism. After the war, he was credited with having Pan-Slavism reinforced by communist ideology as his vision of Europe. He was to tell Dzilas that if the Slavs remained in unity and solidarity, no one would even dare to lift a finger to threaten them.
And in Moscow, the newly established All-Slavic Committee (formed in 1941) began to gain significance. Eastern European diplomats, as can be judged from their reports, including Poles, spent no less time there in the first post-war years than in the Central Committee of the CPSU and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
The thesis that in Poland’s foreign policy the second most important goal after the alliance with the USSR should be Slavic solidarity was picked up in the first post-war years even by Gomułka himself. But soon he had to come to terms with the decision to expel the Yugoslav brothers from the socialist family of Slavic nations. And talks about the solidarity of the Slavs plunged into futile excersize.
Pan-Slavism as a political doctrine is irrevocably dead today. Many Slavophiles in Putin’s Russia see the war between Russia and Ukraine in 2022 as fratricidal bloodshed. Russia has lost (not for the first time in its history) any moral title to refer to the idea of the Slavic community.
