Русские церковные предметы в славянских землях (1830‒1880-е годы): Благотворительность или политика?
Russian Church objects in the Slavonic lands (1830–1880s): Charity or politics?

Summary/Abstract: The support for Orthodoxy in South-Eastern Europe and the Middle East in the 19th and the beginning of the 20th century was an important method of Russian policy in the Ottoman Empire and the independent Balkan states. The eastern question was finally formed by 1830; the great powers (Britain, France, Austria and Russia) came into strong concurrence with each other for domination in the Ottoman lands. In this situation the material aid from Russia for the Balkan churches and monasteries raised substantially. With the development of the idea of Slavonic unity, especially in the period of political Panslavism (1850–1870-s) mainly the Slavonic lands were supported. Wide-scale campaigns of help for the church institutions of Bosna, Herzegovina, Montenegro, Serbia, Bulgaria were aimed at counteracting the Catholic (Austrian and French) propaganda and the Islamization of the Orthodox population. Sending of books, church utensils, icons and gifts for the bishops, as well as distributing of donations was not carried through chaotically, but according the political ends of Russia. Initiatives from private persons, motivated by pious reasons were not excluded either. The support was presumably offered to those abbots and bishops who demonstrated pro-Russian sympathies. A special place in the distribution of church objects was given to the regions threatened by the propaganda of union with Rome, especially in Macedonia. России. Attention was paid also to Bosna and Montenegro, where the Austrian agents were active. The Russian church books and school manuals successfully competed with editions spread by the Patriarchate of Constantinople and the Austrian government. The material aid aimed at strengthening the positions of Russia in the Balkans and to create a pan-Slavic, and later a pan-Orthodox «home» under its guidance. The article, based on archive documents, is focused at the research of the tendencies and mechanisms of providing the material support as an instrument of «soft power» of Russian policy and also brings some clarifications to the picture of dynamics of the eastern question and the Russian Balkan relations in Modern times.

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