СРБИ У ПОЛИТИЧКО-КУЛТУРНИМ КОНЦЕПЦИЈАМА РУСКИХ СЛОВЕНОФИЛА (шездесете–седамдесете године XIX века)
SERBS IN THE POLITICAL AND CULTURAL CONCEPTS OF RUSSIAN SLAVOPHILES (The 1860s and 1870s )

Summary/Abstract: The 1860s represent one of the turning points in the history of the Serbian liberation movement and the relations between Serbia and Russia. Leading figures of Serbia, led by Prince Mihailo and Ilija Garašanin, had a clear plan for Serbian liberation and unification, insisting on the principle “the Balkans to the Balkan peoples”, while Russia, on the other hand, saw Serbia as the pillar of the Balkan Christian revival. While Russian diplomacy led by Prince Gorchakov pursued a cautious policy after the experience of the Crimean War, Russian Slavophiles, among whom Alexei Khomiakov, the Aksakov brothers, Pogodin, Samarin, Hilferding, and others played a leading role, were in favor of a more active Russian policy in the Balkans. They believed that the liberated Slavic states should form a Slavic federation under the auspices of Russia, which should play the role of the protector of all Slavs, especially Orthodox Slavs. The Slavophiles especially insisted on religious unity, believing hat Orthodoxy should be the unifying spiritual force of the entire Slavic but also of the Orthodox Christian world. Those more conservative went so far as to believe that a true Slav could only be an Orthodox Slav. The charitable activities of Slavophiles, among which Countess Antonina Bludova and other ladies from aristocratic society played a prominent role, as well as the dynamic activity of the Moscow (1858) and St. Petersburg (1869) Slavic committees contributed to the preservation of schools and churches among Orthodox Serbs in the Ottoman Empire. The paper presents several examples of assistance in the erection of schools and churches in Bosnia, Herzegovina, Dalmatia, and Old Serbia, but also donations of books, icons, clothing, and other church items to the Principality of Serbia and to Montenegro. Among Serbs, Metropolitan Mihailo in the first place, and then many other prominent Serbs from all Serbian countries, had the strongest ties with Russian Slavophiles, such as Countess Bludova and Ivan Aksakov. The activities of Russian Slavophiles were directed primarily towards Orthodox Serbs, neglecting Serbs of the Catholic and Islamic faiths because that did not fit into their cultural and political views of the revival of the Slavic world. Nevertheless, the strengthening of ties between the two peoples contributed to the spread of knowledge about Serbs in the Russian environment, which in previous decades was quite modest.

• Details
• Contents