„You Do Not Hear The Cry of the People to Whom You Owe So Much…“: The Image of the Bulgarians in Russian Pan-Slavism of the 19th Century
„You Do Not Hear The Cry of the People to Whom You Owe So Much…“: The Image of the Bulgarians in Russian Pan-Slavism of the 19th Century

Summary/Abstract: In the 19th century, the idea of Pan-Slavism was widespread among the Slavic nations. However, the very concept of Slavic reciprocity had different connotations in various fields of culture. The ‘imperial’ or ‘Russian’ Pan-Slavism that became wide-spread in Russia was characterized by identification of interests of all Slavism with the interests of the Russian politics. It began to form in the 1820s and developed mainly on the basis of the South Slavic material. At the same time, the Bulgarians were the focus of ‘imperial’ Pan-Slavic theories. Through the example of works by Y.I. Venelin, A.F. Veltman and I.P. Liprandi, this paper traces the process of gradual transformation of the Bulgarians into one of the key elements of the ‘Russian’ Pan-Slavic theories of 1820-1870s. For a long time, the fantasies of Pan-Slavists found no response among the political elites. However, the situation changed radically after the Crimean War. The ideas about Russian-Bulgarian reciprocity expressed by Venelin formed the core of the theory of imperial Pan-Slavism and, thanks to state and near-state figures like Liprandi, they became an integral part of the Russian policy in the Balkans in the second half of the 19th century.

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