A Distinction between Early Pan-Slavism and Russian Pan-Slavism

Abstract

It has been 107 years since the collapse of Tsarist Russia. However, the military conflicts between Russia and Ukraine going on currently might be an indicator of the significant carryover of the Pan-Slavism policy during the Tsarist period. Thus, this work draws on historical evidence of Russia, Yugoslavia and Poland, analyse the difference between the origins of consciousness of Slavic nature in Russia and other regions in Europe, and compare the core values of Pan-Slavism with that of Russian Pan-Slavism, in order to investigate the discrepancy and relation between the two forms of ideology. The research shows that Russian Pan-Slavism was actually a radical thinking that combined the alienation of Pan-Slavism proposed by the Slavs under the control of other multinational empires than Russia with the expansion ambitions of the Russian rulers, and that the core of Pan-Slavism was a regional might’s oppression over other nations, which depended on the power dynamics following the trend of the ages. This work defines Russian Pan-Slavism detailedly and provides a clarification of a misconception of Pan-Slavism inside and outside Russia.