Pan-Slavism Essay, Research Paper

Pan-Slavism

It has been the goal of the Slavs to create a pan-Slav empire,

and unite the slaves which are spread throughout Europe. Some

groups wanted to create the empire in order to get independence

from their country, while others opposed the creation of the

empire because of fear that Russia will become too powerful.

Most of the opposing force came either before or after the big

Pan-Slavism movement. From 1948-1869 we only see opinions

for the creation of a Pan-Slav empire and none opposing at the

time when it was in full impact.

Way before the Slav movement gained a surge of popularity,

Jan Kollar a poet had strong opinions for having the Slavs united.

He said In other nations humanity comes after nationality.

Among the Slavs nationality comes after humanity trying to

show how important it would be for the Slavs to unite. Kollar

who was a romantic poet wanted other Slavs to show their pride

of their nationality.

After Kollar we do not see any pro Slav unity but we see

allot of people speaking against it. In an editorial in

Contemporary Austrian Review we see opposition of Slav unity

because of fear of Russian takeover. It is suggested that the

Austrian s should lead the Slav s and than be able to destroy any

chance of a Russian Pan-Slavism. So they supported Pan-Slavism

but not for the right reasons. Karel Havlicek says that

Nationality is not only determined by language, but also by

customs, religion, form of government, state of education,

sympatheis, etc…. but the Slav nation do not have any of these in

common.

Then in 1848 we start seeing allot activities for Pro-Slav

unity. Bronislaw Trentowski a Polish Intellect wants to unite the

Slavs but first of all have the polish people freed and then liberate

the rest of the Slav nations. We see the same sort of thinking

from many other Slav countries, we ll unite the pan-Slavs so that

we will be able to get our freedom or lead the Slavs so that we can

be in control. In the article written by Nikolay Danilevsky we see

a perfect proof of what I said before. He says Russia must steel

them and itself in the spirit of independence and Pan-Slavic

consciousness so what he is saying is that Russia should be for

Slav unity but they should be in charge.

From my reading I see that the main reason that

Pan-Slavism did not have a chance to happen is because of

selfishness. Every nationality that is a part of the Slavs wanted to

be the one in control this causes disagreements and allows for the

opposing forces to win. I found it to be confusing that there were

no opposition during the time that Pan-Slavism was at full force,

the only opposition is 25 years after the Pan-Slav movement had

it s greatest surge if population. This made it hard for me to

analyze the political and cultural issues for Slavism.