Let it not be supposed that in thus regarding the primary triumph of Russia over Sweden as a victory of the Sclavonic over the Germanic race, we are dealing with matters of mere ethnological pedantry, or with themes of mere speculative curiosity. The fact that Russia is a Sclavonic empire is a fact of immense practical influence at the present moment. Half the inhabitants of the Austrian empire are Sclavonians. The population of the larger part of Turkey in Europe is of the same race. Silesia, Posen, and other parts of the Prussian dominions are principally Sclavonic. And during late years, an enthusiastic zeal for blending all Sclavonians into one great united Sclavonic empire has been growing up in these countries, which, however we may deride its principle, is not the less real and active, and of which Russia, as the head and the champion of the Sclavonic race, knows well how to take her advantage.[1]
- ↑ "The idea of Panslavism had a purely literary origin. It was started by Kollar, a Protestant clergyman of the Sclavonic congregation at Pesth, in Hungary, who wished to establish a national literature by circulating all works, written in the various Sclavonic dialects, through every country where any of them are spoken. He suggested that all the Sclavonic literati should become acquainted with the sister dialects, so that a Bohemian, or other work, might be read on the shores of the Adriatic as well as on the banks of the Volga, or any other place where a Sclavonic language was spoken; by which means an extensive literature might be created, tending to advance knowledge in all Sclavonic countries; and he supported his arguments by observing that the dialects of ancient Greece differed from each other like those of his own language, and yet that they formed only one Hellenic literature. The idea of an intellectual union of all those nations naturally led to that of a political one; and the Sclavonians, seeing that their numbers amounted to about one third part of the whole population of Europe, and occupied more than half its territory, began to be sensible that they might claim for themselves a position to which they had not hitherto aspired.
"The opinion gained ground; and the question now is, whether the Sclavonians can form a nation independent of Russia, or whether they ought to rest satisfied in being part of one great race, with the most powerful member of it as their chief. The latter, indeed, is gaining ground among them; and some Poles are disposed to attribute their sufferings to the arbitrary will of the Czar, without extending the blame to the Russians themselves. These begin to think that, if they can not exist as Poles, the best thing to be done is to rest satisfied with a position in the Sclavonic empire, and they hope that, when once they give up the idea of restoring their country, Russia may grant some concessions to their separate nationality.
