The Slavs : A Cultural And Historical Survey Of The Slavonic Peoples (studies In World History Series)

INTRODUCTION: THE ESSENTIAL BACKGROUND … 1 ◦ The Slavs Are Europeans … 3 Linguistic and Religious Diversity … 3 Dependence and Independence … 6 A Common Interest: Opposition to the Turks … 8 Danger from Germany and Austria … 9 Dubious Collective Spirit … 10 Strength of Foreign Traditions and Influences … 11 ‘National’ Civilizations … 13 Some Over-Simplifications Corrected … 14 Parallelism, Not Congruence … 15 The Case of Russia … 16 Nationalism in Ferment: Pan-Slavism … 18 What Nationalism Divided, Socialism Must Unite … 19 Origins of the Slavs … 21 The Lusatian Civilization and Poland … 25 ◦ ◦◦◦◦◦◦◦◦◦◦◦◦◦◦◦◦ ◦ BOOK I. FROM ‘RUS’ TO RUSSIA (8th–15th CENTURIES) ◦ 1. THE EAST SLAVS … 29 ◦ I. The First Russian State … 29 ◦ Obscure Beginnings: the Age of the Primitive Community … 29 — The first Russian State; A Significant Controversy … 32 Russia as Kiev (9th–13th Centuries) … 34 — Achievements of the Scandinavian Princes … 34 — Political Discord, Unified Civilization, Linguistic Divergences … 35 — Kiev and the Outside World … 37 — Byzantium and Kiev. Conversion to Christianity … 38 — Kiev, Western Europe and Rome … 40 Kiev’s Economy – Traditional Agriculture and Its Long Career … 41 — Landlord and Peasant … 42 — The Towns … 42 — Caravan Routes to Byzantium … 44 — The Origins of Serfdom … 44 — A Golden Age? … 45 Signposts of a Civilization and Its Culture … 45 — Conscious National Spirit … 46 — Contrasts and Continuity … 47 ◦ II. Peace Under the Mongols …48 ◦ Novgorod: A Free Commercial City … 48 The Rise of the Second Russian State … 51 — Mongols and Russians … 52 — Russians versus Poles in Lithuania … 54 — The Emergence of Moscow … 55 — Danger from Lithuania Repulsed … 56 The Rise of Moscow 57 — A Society on the Move. Internal Colonization … 58 — Freedom and the Peasantry … 59 — Russians and non-Russian Natives: New Contacts … 60 — Rural Economy: Trade with the Outside World … 60 — Birth of the Rouble … 51 — Urban Liberties on the Wane … 61 — New Life in the Arts. Icon Painters: Theophanes and Rublev … 62 — Russia's Mesopotamia: A New Artistic Centre … 63 A Despotic State: The Great Reign of Ivan III … 66 — Decline of an Ancient Aristocracy; Rise of the New Men … 66 — Architecture for Monarchs … 68 ◦ 2. THE WEST SLAVS … 70 ◦ I. The Poles … 70 ◦ The Polish People … 70 Polish Agriculture … 72 Rural Government. Nobles and Peasants … 72 Towns under German Law … 74 Poland as a Baltic Power … 75 Russo-Polish Rivalry; and a Permanent Crusade … 76 Poland’s Latin Culture … 77 ◦ II. Czechs and Slovaks … 79 ◦ The Nation and the State … 79 The Czech Nation and the German Influx … 80 Bohemia's ‘Golden Age’ … 82 The Hussite Movement; Social and National Overtones … 85 Jan Hus: Patriot, Christian, Reformer … 85 The Hussite Wars … 86 An Extraordinary Experiment: Tabor … 86 Defeat … 88 The Hussite Heritage … 88 ◦ 3. THE SOUTH SLAVS — FLEDGELING STATES AND THEIR VICISSITUDES … 90 ◦ Alphabets at War … 90 Religious Literature. Regional Dialects … 92 Bulgaria and the Bogomils … 93 Unobtrusive Nationality: the Slovenes … 95 Political Durability: Croatia … 96 ◦ ◦◦◦◦◦◦◦◦◦◦◦◦◦◦◦◦ ◦ BOOK TWO: THE BALKANS IN TURKISH HANDS. RUSSIA: A CONTINENTAL EMPIRE (16th AND 17th CENTURIES) ◦ 4. THE SERBS ON THE CREST OF THE WAVE … 103 ◦ A Hardworking Peasant People … 103 Serbian Art … 105 Serbia's Independence Obliterated; the Turkish Conquest … 106 ◦ 5. FROM MOSCOW TO EURASIA … 108 ◦ I. Expansion in Siberia: The Russians on the Pacific … 108 ◦ Conquest in Siberia … 108 Russians and non-Russians … 110 Russian Siberia … 111 ◦ II. The Centralized Russian State … 112 ◦ Authoritarian Reforms … 112 Monarchical Compromise: A Brief Interlude … 113 From Feudal Supporter to State Servant … 114 Enforced Decline of the Trading Cities … 115 ◦ III. From Freedom to Serfdom … 116 ◦ Popular Revolts … 120 ◦ 6 FOUNDATIONS OF RUSSIA’S POWER … 123 ◦ I. A Mercantile Economy … 123 ◦ Slow Progress in Agriculture … 123 Urban Growth … 124 Moscow: Religion in the Life of a Great City … 125 How the People Lived … 126 The Upper Classes … 128 The Position of Women … 128 Economic Independence in Jeopardy; a Policy of Mercantile Self-Defence … 129 A Plutocratic Class and Its Brief Political Power … 131 A Burgher Grandee: the ‘Gost’ Nikitin … 131 ◦ II. Intellectual Trends – National Culture … 133 ◦ Attachment to the Past … 133 Religious Trends. Frustrated Heresies … 133 National Culture … 135 Kiev’s Contribution … 137 Time-lag in the Sciences … 138 Birth of the Theatre … 138 ◦ III. The Church in the Seventeenth Century … 139 ◦ Power of the Church … 139 A Great Schism … 141 ◦ ◦◦◦◦◦◦◦◦◦◦◦◦◦◦◦◦ ◦ BOOK THREE: MODERN STATES (1700-1860) ◦ 7. THE DAWN OF CAPITALISM IN RUSSIA … 147 ◦ I. Novel Achievements and Objectives … 147 ◦ Creative Practicality: Peter the Great … 147 The Reign of Bluff: Catherine II … 150 ◦ II. Broader Social and Economic Foundations … 152 ◦ Development of Trade and Transport … 152 The Century of Iron. A Great Industrial Region … 156 The Last Great Popular Revolt … 159 First Steps towards Industrial Capitalism … 160 Demography and Migration … 161 Villages and Towns … 163 The Beginnings of Deliberate Urban Development … 164 Urban Life … 166 ◦ III. An Age of Achievement – The Eighteenth Century … 166 ◦ Economic Thought … 169 Development of a National Spirit … 170 The Old and the New … 171 The Popular Arts at Their Best … 173 Noble and Official Art … 174 ◦ IV. Russian Society on the Eve of the Great Reforms … 177 ◦ The Church in State Harness … 178 The Nobles and the Nation … 179 Noblemen Wealthy and Needy … 182 The Troubled Conscience of the Nobles … 183 From ‘gosti’ to ‘bourgeois’ … 185 Origin of the Industrial Middle Class … 185 Paternalism and the Working Class … 188 Peasant Life: Subjection and Hope … 189 Peasant Ways of Life … 192 ◦ V. Intellectual Trends – Literature and the Arts … 193 ◦ The University’s New Role … 193 Russia's Future Debated … 194 Russian Literary Greatness … 196 Before the Reforms … 196 National Music … 197 ◦ VI. The Turn Of The Century … 197 ◦ 8. FROM GREATNESS TO DECLINE – THE POLISH STATE … 198 ◦ I. From the ‘Golden Century’ to the Partitions … 198 ◦ Liberal Aristocratic Monarchism … 198 — Religious Toleration in Poland … 199 — The ‘Golden Century’ … 200 — Literature and Language: Polish and Latin … 202 Rocks and Shoals … 203 — Poland Recaptured by Catholicism … 203 — Disaster Begins … 205 — Stagnation of the Nobility … 207 ◦ II. Death of a State, Survival of a Nation … 208 ◦ Facts and Conditions … 208 — Poverty of the People … 209 — Religious Differences … 210 — Interplay of Patriotism and Self-interest … 212 — Poland as ‘the Paradise of the Jews’? … 216 The Partitions … 216 — A Crowned philosophe: Stanislas Augustus … 217 — The Commission of National Education … 219 — Cracow, the Home of Patriotism … 220 — Upsurge of National Literature. Committed Writers … 220 — The Epoch of the Reforms; Patriotism Resurgent … 221 — Insurrection of a People … 227 — Survival of a Nation … 229 ◦ 9. DEPENDENT AND SUBJECT NATIONS … 232 ◦ I. Decline of Bohemia … 232 ◦ A Czech Sovereign: George of Podebrady … 232 Temporary Religious Peace … 232 The Nobles in Power … 233 The Reformation in Bohemia … 234 German and Catholic Pressure … 235 Brilliant Cultural Achievements … 236 The National Catastrophe … 237 The Slovaks and the Czechs … 239 The Age of Baroque … 239 Economic and Social Inequalities … 241 ◦ II. The South Slavs: the Sleepy Balkans … 243 ◦ Partition by Ottoman Conquest … 242 Dubrovnik, a Gateway to the West … 243 The Slavs in the Holy Roman Empire … 244 Slav Unity and the Reformation … 244 The Slavs in the Ottoman Empire … 246 ◦ ◦◦◦◦◦◦◦◦◦◦◦◦◦◦◦◦ ◦ BOOK FOUR: NATIONALISM AND THE SLAV PEOPLES (1861-1917) ◦ 10. RUSSIA AT THE CROSSROADS – ACCELERATED DEVELOPMENT … 251 ◦ I. Demography and the Onward Drive of Colonization … 251 ◦ Acquisition and Settlement of New Territories … 251 The Cossack Hosts … 255 ◦ II. The Effects of the Great Reforms … 258 ◦ Peasant Emancipation: Dependence in a New Form … 258 Harder Times for the Peasants … 260 The Nobles and the Wind of Change … 262 Development of the Middle Classes … 263 ◦ III. A Delayed ‘Industrial Revolution’ … 264 ◦ On the Road to Capitalism. Uneven Development … 264 Monopolistic Tendencies … 270 Revival of the Manual Crafts … 273 ◦ IV. The Changing Social Structure … 274 ◦ A Two-way Process: Decadence and Enrichment among the Nobility … 274 The Church’s Apparent Power … 276 Rise of the Industrial Middle Class … 279 The Self-made Man … 281 The Middle Class on the Threshold of Politics … 282 Growth of a Proletariat … 282 Urban Outcasts … 285 ◦ V. Progress in Education and the Sciences … 287 ◦ Universities and Schools … 287 Russian Contributions to Science … 289 Prominence of Women … 289 ◦ VI. The Arts and the Nation … 291 ◦ Half a Century of Great Literature … 291 Realistic Painting and Abstract Art … 296 Russian Music Conquers the World … 299 ◦ 11. RUSSIA AS A BOURGEOIS NATIONAL STATE … 301 ◦ I. The Capitals at the Turn of the Century … 301 ◦ II. From Autocracy to the Constitution … 305 ◦ Revolutionary Agitation … 305 — Slavophilism on the Defensive … 305 — Populism and Marxism … 306 — The Great Turning-Point: 1905 … 313 New Social Forces … 320 — A Rural ‘Third Estate’? … 320 — The Middle Classes on the Make … 323 ◦ III. Nationalism or Federalism? … 324 ◦ The Problem of the Nation and Its Nationalities … 324 A Special Case: the Jews … 326 The Ukrainian Nation … 327 Another Centre of Ukrainian Nationalism … 330 The Travelling Theatre and Its Contribution … 330 ◦ IV. Before the Storm – a Summary of Russian Progress … 331 ◦ 12. VITALITY UNDAUNTED – POLAND 1815-1914 … 336 ◦ I. The Polish People: Prolific, Unanimous, Divided … 336 ◦ The Kingdom of the Congress … 338 Romanticism and the Patriotic Upsurge … 340 The Insurrection of 1863 … 343 ◦ II. Three Confluent Destinies … 344 ◦ The Polish Diaspora … 344 The Training-Ground: Galicia … 344 Resistance to Germanization … 345 Attempted Russification … 346 ◦ III. Hopes of Liberation … 347 ◦ 13. NATIONAL RENAISSANCE IN BOHEMIA-SLOVAKIA … 350 ◦ I. Preconditions of Revival … 350 ◦ The Czech State: Fiction and Reality … 350 Economic and Social Conditions … 352 ◦ II. Recovering the Slav Heritage … 352 ◦ Role of the Intellectuals and Scholars … 352 Prague as the Mecca of the Slavs under the Empire … 355 From a People to a Nation: Slovakia in Transition … 357 Czech Culture … 358 ◦ III. Premonitions of the Future … 360 ◦ The Germans in Recession … 360 Independence and Revolution … 362 Individuality of Slovakia … 363 ◦ 14. THE BALKANS HALFWAY TO LIBERATION … 364 ◦ I. The Northern Sector: Vienna and Budapest … 364 ◦ Illyrianism: Decline and Fall of a Dream … 364 Croatian Literature … 365 Birth of a Nation: the Slovenes … 366 The Voivodina and the Rise of Serbia … 368 ◦ II. The Istanbul Sector … 369 ◦ Serbia’s Progress towards Independence … 369 Serbian Literature and the Patriotic Movement … 371 The Bulgarian Renaissance … 373 An Ally of Serbia: Bosnia … 378 ◦ III. From Pan-Slavism to ‘Balkanization’ … 379 ◦ Nationalism's Motley Victory … 379 Experiment in Macedonia … 382 ◦ ◦◦◦◦◦◦◦◦◦◦◦◦◦◦◦◦ ◦ BOOK FIVE: THE SLAVS DRAW CLOSER TOGETHER (1917-1960) ◦ 15. THE SOVIET UNION – A GREAT EXAMPLE … 390 ◦ I. A New Ideal … 390 ◦ Changing the Mentality of the Peasant … 390 ‘Communist Man’: Myth or Reality? … 394 Federalism and the Peoples: Byelorussia and the Ukraine … 395 ◦ II. Social And Political Realism … 398 ◦ Socialist Culture … 398 Realism and Truth: Literature, Painting and Music … 400 — Literature … 400 — Painting … 404 — Music … 405 Tradition and Revolution in Writing and the Film … 406 ◦ III. Past And Future … 408 ◦ Have the Russians been de-Christianized? … 408 Rural Craftsmen … 410 The New Image of the Towns … 411 Widening Power and Influence … 413 Threats to Socialism … 414 Future Prospects … 417 ◦ 16. FROM INDEPENDENCE TO CONSOLIDATION: POLAND AND CZECHOSLOVAKIA … 419 ◦ I. Poland … 419 ◦ Precarious Unity … 419 Resurrection among the Ruins … 421 A Socialist City: Nowa Huta … 423 The New Warsaw … 425 Democratic Education … 425 Variety in the Arts and Literature … 426 ◦ II. Czechoslovakia … 430 ◦ The Masaryk Republic … 430 — Western-Style Parliamentary Democracy … 430 — Independence in Peril … 433 Socialist Czechoslovakia … 434 ◦ 17. THE SLAV PEOPLES OF THE BALKANS: BULGARIA AND YUGOSLAVIA … 440 ◦ I. Bulgaria Under the Soviet Union’s Wing … 440 ◦ II. Originality: Yugoslavia … 443 ◦ Dictatorship and Assimilation … 443 From a Federal to a Socialist Republic … 446 The Federal Solution … 447 ◦ CONCLUSION: DIVERSITY AND UNITY: A NEW WORLD IN THE MAKING … 451 ◦ Bibliography … 453 Glossary … 459 Chronological Tables … 467 Index … 487 INTRODUCTION: THE ESSENTIAL BACKGROUND ... 1 ◦ The Slavs Are Europeans ... 3 Linguistic and Religious Diversity ... 3 Dependence and Independence ... 6 A Common Interest: Opposition to the Turks ... 8 Danger from Germany and Austria ... 9 Dubious Collective Spirit ... 10 Strength of Foreign Traditions and Influences ... 11 ‘National’ Civilizations ... 13 Some Over-Simplifications Corrected ... 14 Parallelism, Not Congruence ... 15 The Case of Russia ... 16 Nationalism in Ferment: Pan-Slavism ... 18 What Nationalism Divided, Socialism Must Unite ... 19 Origins of the Slavs ... 21 The Lusatian Civilization and Poland ... 25 ◦ BOOK I. FROM ‘RUS’ TO RUSSIA (8th–15th CENTURIES) ◦ 1. THE EAST SLAVS ... 29 ◦ I. The First Russian State ... 29 ◦ Obscure Beginnings: the Age of the Primitive Community ... 29 — The first Russian State; A Significant Controversy ... 32 Russia as Kiev (9th–13th Centuries) ... 34 — Achievements of the Scandinavian Princes ... 34 — Political Dis¬cord, Unified Civilization, Linguistic Divergences ... 35 — Kiev and the Outside World ... 37 — Byzantium and Kiev. Conversion to Christianity ... 38 — Kiev, Western Europe and Rome ... 40 Kiev’s Economy – Traditional Agriculture and Its Long Career ... 41 — Landlord and Peasant ... 42 — The Towns ... 42 — Caravan Routes to Byzantium ... 44 — The Origins of Serfdom ... 44 — A Golden Age? ... 45 Signposts of a Civilization and Its Culture ... 45 — Conscious National Spirit ... 46 — Contrasts and Continuity ... 47 ◦ II. Peace Under the Mongols ...48 ◦ Novgorod: A Free Commercial City ... 48 The Rise of the Second Russian State ... 51 — Mongols and Russians ... 52 — Russians versus Poles in Lithuania ... 54 — The Emergence of Moscow ... 55 — Danger from Lithuania Repulsed ... 56 The Rise of Moscow 57 — A Society on the Move. Internal Colonization ... 58 — Freedom and the Peasantry ... 59 — Russians and non-Russian Natives: New Contacts ... 60 — Rural Economy: Trade with the Outside World ... 60 — Birth of the Rouble ... 51 — Urban Liberties on the Wane ... 61 — New Life in the Arts. Icon Painters: Theophanes and Rublev ... 62 — Russia's Mesopotamia: A New Artistic Centre ... 63 A Despotic State: The Great Reign of Ivan III ... 66 — Decline of an Ancient Aristocracy; Rise of the New Men ... 66 — Architecture for Monarchs ... 68 ◦ 2. THE WEST SLAVS ... 70 ◦ I. The Poles ... 70 ◦ The Polish People ... 70 Polish Agriculture ... 72 Rural Government. Nobles and Peasants ... 72 Towns under German Law ... 74 Poland as a Baltic Power ... 75 Russo-Polish Rivalry; and a Permanent Crusade ... 76 Poland’s Latin Culture ... 77 ◦ II. Czechs and Slovaks ... 79 ◦ The Nation and the State ... 79 The Czech Nation and the German Influx ... 80 Bohemia's ‘Golden Age’ ... 82 The Hussite Movement; Social and National Overtones ... 85 Jan Hus: Patriot, Christian, Reformer ... 85 The Hussite Wars ... 86 An Extraordinary Experiment: Tabor ... 86 Defeat ... 88 The Hussite Heritage ... 88 ◦ 3. THE SOUTH SLAVS — FLEDGELING STATES AND THEIR VICISSITUDES ... 90 ◦ Alphabets at War ... 90 Religious Literature. Regional Dialects ... 92 Bulgaria and the Bogomils ... 93 Unobtrusive Nationality: the Slovenes ... 95 Political Durability: Croatia ... 96 ◦ BOOK TWO: THE BALKANS IN TURKISH HANDS. RUSSIA: A CONTINENTAL EMPIRE (16th AND 17th CENTURIES) ◦ 4. THE SERBS ON THE CREST OF THE WAVE ... 103 ◦ A Hardworking Peasant People ... 103 Serbian Art ... 105 Serbia's Independence Obliterated; the Turkish Conquest ... 106 ◦ 5. FROM MOSCOW TO EURASIA ... 108 ◦ I. Expansion in Siberia: The Russians on the Pacific ... 108 ◦ Conquest in Siberia ... 108 Russians and non-Russians ... 110 Russian Siberia ... 111 ◦ II. The Centralized Russian State ... 112 ◦ Authoritarian Reforms ... 112 Monarchical Compromise: A Brief Interlude ... 113 From Feudal Supporter to State Servant ... 114 Enforced Decline of the Trading Cities ... 115 ◦ III. From Freedom to Serfdom ... 116 ◦ Popular Revolts ... 120 ◦ 6 FOUNDATIONS OF RUSSIA’S POWER ... 123 ◦ I. A Mercantile Economy ... 123 ◦ Slow Progress in Agriculture ... 123 Urban Growth ... 124 Moscow: Religion in the Life of a Great City ... 125 How the People Lived ... 126 The Upper Classes ... 128 The Position of Women ... 128 Economic Independence in Jeopardy; a Policy of Mercan¬tile Self-Defence ... 129 A Plutocratic Class and Its Brief Political Power ... 131 A Burgher Grandee: the ‘Gost’ Nikitin ... 131 ◦ II. Intellectual Trends – National Culture ... 133 ◦ Attachment to the Past ... 133 Religious Trends. Frustrated Heresies ... 133 National Culture ... 135 Kiev’s Contribution ... 137 Time-lag in the Sciences ... 138 Birth of the Theatre ... 138 ◦ III. The Church in the Seventeenth Century ... 139 ◦ Power of the Church ... 139 A Great Schism ... 141 ◦ BOOK THREE: MODERN STATES (1700-1860) ◦ 7. THE DAWN OF CAPITALISM IN RUSSIA ... 147 ◦ I. Novel Achievements and Objectives ... 147 ◦ Creative Practicality: Peter the Great ... 147 The Reign of Bluff: Catherine II ... 150 ◦ II. Broader Social and Economic Foundations ... 152 ◦ Development of Trade and Transport ... 152 The Century of Iron. A Great Industrial Region ... 156 The Last Great Popular Revolt ... 159 First Steps towards Industrial Capitalism ... 160 Demography and Migration ... 161 Villages and Towns ... 163 The Beginnings of Deliberate Urban Development ... 164 Urban Life ... 166 ◦ III. An Age of Achievement – The Eighteenth Century ... 166 ◦ Economic Thought ... 169 Development of a National Spirit ... 170 The Old and the New ... 171 The Popular Arts at Their Best ... 173 Noble and Official Art ... 174 ◦ IV. Russian Society on the Eve of the Great Reforms ... 177 ◦ The Church in State Harness ... 178 The Nobles and the Nation ... 179 Noblemen Wealthy and Needy ... 182 The Troubled Conscience of the Nobles ... 183 From ‘gosti’ to ‘bourgeois’ ... 185 Origin of the Industrial Middle Class ... 185 Paternalism and the Working Class ... 188 Peasant Life: Subjection and Hope ... 189 Peasant Ways of Life ... 192 ◦ V. Intellectual Trends – Literature and the Arts ... 193 ◦ The University’s New Role ... 193 Russia's Future Debated ... 194 Russian Literary Greatness ... 196 Before the Reforms ... 196 National Music ... 197 ◦ VI. The Turn Of The Century ... 197 ◦ 8. FROM GREATNESS TO DECLINE – THE POLISH STATE ... 198 ◦ I. From the ‘Golden Century’ to the Partitions ... 198 ◦ Liberal Aristocratic Monarchism ... 198 — Religious Toleration in Poland ... 199 — The ‘Golden Century’ ... 200 — Literature and Language: Polish and Latin ... 202 Rocks and Shoals ... 203 — Poland Recaptured by Catholicism ... 203 — Disaster Begins ... 205 — Stagnation of the Nobility ... 207 ◦ II. Death of a State, Survival of a Nation ... 208 ◦ Facts and Conditions ... 208 — Poverty of the People ... 209 — Religious Differences ... 210 — Inter¬play of Patriotism and Self-interest ... 212 — Poland as ‘the Paradise of the Jews’? ... 216 The Partitions ... 216 — A Crowned philosophe: Stanislas Augustus ... 217 — The Com¬mission of National Education ... 219 — Cracow, the Home of Patriotism ... 220 — Upsurge of National Literature. Committed Writers ... 220 — The Epoch of the Reforms; Patriotism Resurgent ... 221 — Insurrection of a People ... 227 — Survival of a Nation ... 229 ◦ 9. DEPENDENT AND SUBJECT NATIONS ... 232 ◦ I. Decline of Bohemia ... 232 ◦ A Czech Sovereign: George of Podebrady ... 232 Temporary Religious Peace ... 232 The Nobles in Power ... 233 The Reforma¬tion in Bohemia ... 234 German and Catholic Pressure ... 235 Brilliant Cultural Achievements ... 236 The National Catastrophe ... 237 The Slovaks and the Czechs ... 239 The Age of Baroque ... 239 Economic and Social Inequalities ... 241 ◦ II. The South Slavs: the Sleepy Balkans ... 243 ◦ Partition by Ottoman Conquest ... 243 Dubrovnik, a Gateway to the West ... 243 The Slavs in the Holy Roman Empire ... 244 Slav Unity and the Reformation ... 244 The Slavs in the Ottoman Empire ... 246 ◦ BOOK FOUR: NATIONALISM AND THE SLAV PEOPLES (1861-1917) ◦ 10. RUSSIA AT THE CROSSROADS – ACCELERATED DEVELOPMENT ... 251 ◦ I. Demography and the Onward Drive of Colonization ... 251 ◦ Acquisition and Settlement of New Territories ... 251 The Cossack Hosts ... 255 ◦ II. The Effects of the Great Reforms ... 258 ◦ Peasant Emancipation: Dependence in a New Form ... 258 Harder Times for the Peasants ... 260 The Nobles and the Wind of Change ... 262 Development of the Middle Classes ... 263 ◦ III. A Delayed ‘Industrial Revolution’ ... 264 ◦ On the Road to Capitalism. Uneven Development ... 264 Monopolistic Tendencies ... 270 Revival of the Manual Crafts ... 273 ◦ IV. The Changing Social Structure ... 274 ◦ A Two-way Process: Decadence and Enrichment among the Nobility ... 274 The Church’s Apparent Power ... 276 Rise of the Industrial Middle Class ... 279 The Self-made Man ... 281 The Middle Class on the Threshold of Politics ... 282 Growth of a Proletariat ... 282 Urban Outcasts ... 285 ◦ V. Progress in Education and the Sciences ... 287 ◦ Universities and Schools ... 287 Russian Contributions to Science ... 289 Prominence of Women ... 289 ◦ VI. The Arts and the Nation ... 291 ◦ Half a Century of Great Literature ... 291 Realistic Painting and Abstract Art ... 296 Russian Music Conquers the World ... 299 ◦ 11. RUSSIA AS A BOURGEOIS NATIONAL STATE ... 301 ◦ I. The Capitals at the Turn of the Century ... 301 ◦ II. From Autocracy to the Constitution ... 305 ◦ Revolutionary Agitation ... 305 — Slavophilism on the Defensive ... 305 — Populism and Marxism ... 306 — The Great Turning-Point: 1905 ... 313 New Social Forces ... 320 — A Rural ‘Third Estate’? ... 320 — The Middle Classes on the Make ... 323 ◦ III. Nationalism or Federalism? ... 324 ◦ The Problem of the Nation and Its Nationalities ... 324 A Special Case: the Jews ... 326 The Ukrainian Nation ... 327 Another Centre of Ukrainian Nationalism ... 330 The Travelling Theatre and Its Contribution ... 330 ◦ IV. Before the Storm – a Summary of Russian Progress ... 331 ◦ 12. VITALITY UNDAUNTED – POLAND 1815-1914 ... 336 ◦ I. The Polish People: Prolific, Unanimous, Divided ... 336 ◦ The Kingdom of the Congress ... 338 Romanticism and the Patriotic Upsurge ... 340 The Insurrection of 1863 ... 343 ◦ II. Three Confluent Destinies ... 344 ◦ The Polish Diaspora ... 344 The Training-Ground: Galicia ... 344 Resistance to Germanization ... 345 Attempted Russification ... 346 ◦ III. Hopes of Liberation ... 347 ◦ 13. NATIONAL RENAISSANCE IN BOHEMIA-SLOVAKIA ... 350 ◦ I. Preconditions of Revival ... 350 ◦ The Czech State: Fiction and Reality ... 350 Economic and Social Conditions ... 352 ◦ II. Recovering the Slav Heritage ... 352 ◦ Role of the Intellectuals and Scholars ... 352 Prague as the Mecca of the Slavs under the Empire ... 355 From a People to a Nation: Slovakia in Transition ... 357 Czech Culture ... 358 ◦ III. Premonitions of the Future ... 360 ◦ The Germans in Recession ... 360 Independence and Revolution ... 362 Individuality of Slovakia ... 363 ◦ 14. THE BALKANS HALFWAY TO LIBERATION ... 364 ◦ I. The Northern Sector: Vienna and Budapest ... 364 ◦ Illyrianism: Decline and Fall of a Dream ... 364 Croatian Literature ... 365 Birth of a Nation: the Slovenes ... 366 The Voivodina and the Rise of Serbia ... 368 ◦ II. The Istanbul Sector ... 369 ◦ Serbia’s Progress towards Independence ... 369 Serbian Litera¬ture and the Patriotic Movement ... 371 The Bulgarian Renais¬sance ... 373 An Ally of Serbia: Bosnia ... 378 ◦ III. From Pan-Slavism to ‘Balkanization’ ... 379 ◦ Nationalism's Motley Victory ... 379 Experiment in Macedonia ... 382 ◦ BOOK FIVE: THE SLAVS DRAW CLOSER TOGETHER (1917-1960) ◦ 15. THE SOVIET UNION – A GREAT EXAMPLE ... 390 ◦ I. A New Ideal ... 390 ◦ Changing the Mentality of the Peasant ... 390 ‘Communist Man’: Myth or Reality? ... 394 Federalism and the Peoples: Byelorussia and the Ukraine ... 395 ◦ II. Social And Political Realism ... 398 ◦ Socialist Culture ... 398 Realism and Truth: Literature, Painting and Music ... 400 — Literature ... 400 — Painting ... 404 — Music ... 405 Tradition and Revolution in Writing and the Film ... 406 ◦ III. Past And Future ... 408 ◦ Have the Russians been de-Christianized? ... 408 Rural Craftsmen ... 410 The New Image of the Towns ... 411 Widening Power and Influence ... 413 Threats to Socialism ... 414 Future Prospects ... 417 ◦ 16. FROM INDEPENDENCE TO CONSOLIDATION: POLAND AND CZECHOSLOVAKIA ... 419 ◦ I. Poland ... 419 ◦ Precarious Unity ... 419 Resurrection among the Ruins ... 421 A Socialist City: Nowa Huta ... 423 The New Warsaw ... 425 Democratic Education ... 425 Variety in the Arts and Literature ... 426 ◦ II. Czechoslovakia ... 430 ◦ The Masaryk Republic ... 430 — Western-Style Parliamentary Democracy ... 430 — Independence in Peril ... 433 Socialist Czechoslovakia ... 434 ◦ 17. THE SLAV PEOPLES OF THE BALKANS: BULGARIA AND YUGOSLAVIA ... 440 ◦ I. Bulgaria Under the Soviet Union’s Wing ... 440 ◦ II. Originality: Yugoslavia ... 443 ◦ Dictatorship and Assimilation ... 443 From a Federal to a Socialist Republic ... 446 The Federal Solution ... 447 ◦ CONCLUSION: DIVERSITY AND UNITY: A NEW WORLD IN THE MAKING ... 451 ◦ Bibliography ... 453 Glossary ... 459 Chronological Tables ... 467 Index ... 487 "The Slavs is a book of original conception and wide scope: it covers over a thousand years of history, from the eighth century to the present day. The Slav peoples, inhabiting the eastern fringes of Europe, were latecomers to civilization. They developed as separate nations, and although they have now been brought together under a single ideology, this relative uniformity makes a strong contrast with the diversity and tumult of the past. The Eastern Slavs (Russians, Ukrainians, Byelorussians), the Poles, the Czechs and Slovaks, the Croats and Slovenes, the Bulgars and Macedonians -- each of these groups followed a path of its own. Eventful and often tragic, Slav history in all periods is fascinatingly strange. In most Slavic countries, the Middle Ages have dovetailed directly with the modern world. Serfdom did not disappear from Russia until the mid-nineteenth century. Economic development was late. But change, when it came, was stupendously rapid: the switch to capitalism took place far more quickly than in the West, and the new social forms it brought with it turned out to be mushroom growths. After two world wars and the revolution of 1917, the social and economic structure of the twentieth-century Slav world is still in the process of radical transformation. The author has successfully disentangled the confusion of nationalities, languages and religions in Slavic history. The author presents a vivid, evocative picture -- both of remote periods, in all their charm and naiveté, and of the present day, which he treats in an unusually objective spirit."--Dust jacket