RUSSIAN PLANS IN THE EAST.

Globe, Volume VIII, Issue 838, 1 March 1877, Page 3

RUSSIAN PLANS IN THE EAST.

[From the Pall Mall Gazette. ]

An account of the schemes of the various schools of Russian politicians for a solution of the. Eastern Question is given in a series of articles which have recently appeared in the AUgemoine Zeitung. There is hardly a single political book or pamphlet, says the writer, that has been published in Russia during the last thirty years which has not touched upon the question of the mission of that country on the Balkan and the Danube; this question has been as favorite a theme with Russian politicians as that of German unity was with the political writers of Germany after 18-18. The Panolavist agitation subsided for a while during the Polish insurnotion, which brought into prominence a bitter antagonism between two great branches of the Slavonic race, but it revived in 1867, when the rising in Crete again stirred the Russians to pursuit of their old ideal of a Russian Slavo-Orthodox mission— ie., the agglomeration of all the Slavonic popula tions professing the Greek religion round a Russian nucleus at Constantinople. The national policy of Russia has, indeed, always derived its greatest strength from her enthu siasm for the “Orthodox faith” —her desire to free the Greek cross from the yoke of the unbelievers, and to enter into possession of the legacy of the last G r eek K m per or of B y z an tiu m, who svas the uncle of the wife of the Russian Czar Ivan 111, All Russian politicians look forward to the destruction of the Turkish Empire as the first object of Russian policy in the Bast; they only differ as to the form of &U£i3iaii supremacy which is to take its

place. The Slavophils dream of an ecclesi astical Slavonic federation under the Czar, as its spiritual and political head, residing alternately at Constantinople and at Moscow ; the “ Great Russians ” would be satisfied with a system of Slavonic vassal States, ruled by members of the Romanoff family, under the Czar as suzerain ; and the revolutionary Panslavists of the old school ol Herzen and Bakunin wish for a union of Slavonic republics organised on a social democratic basis, the largest of these republics being formed out of the present Russian Empire. The most popular, however, of the Russian plans for a solution of the Eastern question is that developed by Danilevsky in his work entitled “ Russia and Europe,” which was published at St Petersburg in 1871, Hellenism and Romanism, he says, have from the earliest times represented two political tendencies which are entirely antagonistic to each other —those of federalism andcentralism. The former principle ruled at Byzantium, the latter in Rome. The heirs of Rome are the Germans ; those of Byzantium the Slavs ; and these two races have been in conflict for centuries. While Charlemagne, 800 years after the downfall of Rome, was founding the new RomanoGerman Empire, Rurik was creating a State destined to be the political centre of the Slavs, who received their religion not from Rome but from Byzantium, and whose apostles, Cyril and Methodius, had to contend all their lives with German ambition and intolerance, Both the Slavs and the Greek Church would have disappeared under the superior influences of German culture if a new and formidable obstacle to the spread of Germanism had not arisen in the Ottoman power. “As was rightly observed by the Patriarch An thy cuius, Providence created the Ottoman dominion as a protection against the Western heresy in the place of the declining Byzantine Empire.” What, asks Danilevsky, would have become of the Slavonic nation and the Orthodox Church if the Roman Catholic crusaders had permanently established themselves in the Holy Land, and if the Germans had gradually exterminated the Slava in Poland, Lithuania and Livonia, as they did the Celts, the Basques, and the Walloons in the territories formerly occupied by these races? “When Constantinople was surrounded by the Turks, the Council of Florence met to offer the Byzantines the assistance of the West on the condition that they should abjure their creed and adopt that of Rome ; but they- bravely withstood the temptation, and died like heroes rather than abandon their church

. , . Even now the Slavs in Turkey would rather remain under the yoke of Islam than accept the rule of Roman Catholic Austria.” Islam, pursues the author, has now played its part, and a new protector of Orthodoxy and Slavism has arisen in the great Russian State, which continues the Imperial traditions of Philip and Alexander of Macedon, and confronts the Romano-German Empire founded by Charlemagne. The idea of dividing Turkey between Russia and Austria, which might have been entertained in the time of the Empress Catherine, is now impracticable; “ the cession of the smallest portion of Slavonic territory to Austria would be a crime against Slavism, and would be incompatible with Russia’s interests.” Nor is it the interest of Russia to annex any part of Turkish territory for herself, and still le&a lo revive a Greek Empire in the East, for this would be simply to create “anew Austria,” in which the Slavs would be held in subjection by alien nationalities. The only possible solution, concludes Danilevsky, is the creation of a Slavonic confederacy under the hegemony of Russia This idea is much older than that of Panslavism, properly so called. It was first started by the ” United Slavb” in 1823. This society, which was founded by thirty-six Russian officers, raoit of whom afterwards took part in the “ Decabrist” revolution on the accession of the Emperor Nicholas in 1825, at first proposed a union of the eight principal sections of the Slavonic race—the Russians, the Servians, the Bulgarians, the Czechs, the Slovaks, the Slovenes, the Lusations, and the Poles; but finding this impracticable, it determined to accept a Constitution drawn up by its chief the celebrated Pestel, for Russia, Lithuania, and Poland, It came to an untimely end, however, through the revolution of 1825, when all its members were sent to Siberia, and nothing more was heard of its plans in Russia till many years after. The successors of the “ United ilava ” were the revolutionists of the school of Herzen ; and the importance attached by their leader, who was the bitterest opponent of the Emperor Nicholas, to the acquisition of Constantinople for a Slavonic Confederation under Russia is strikingly shown by the following extract from a letter addressed by Herzen to Mazziui in 3850 “ Byzantium is the eternal dream of Russia, the beacon which since the tenth century has always been before her eyes, the Rome of the ‘ barbarians of the Bast.’ Byzantium gave Russia her religion and civilisation, saved her from Catholicism, from the Roman law, and from feudalism : it sent to Russia, when it fell under the attacks of the Ottomans, the double-headed eagle as the dower of the daughter of the Pahnologi who was the wife of the first Muscovite Czar ; it gave no rest to Peter the Great and his successors, even after they had taken Livonia, Eathoma, Finland, Lithuania, and the blood stained fragments of Poland. May wo yet live to see the day when the double-headed eagle, rejuvenated by the icy breezes of the north, will alight on the dome of the Aya Sofia—-when Stamboul shall fall and Byzantium rise again.” But Herzen, like Danilevsky and nearly all other Russian writers on the subject, holds that no part of Turkey should bo directly annexed to Russia, The proposal which finds most favour is that Constantinople should be at the absolute disposal of Russia, not, however, as the Russian capital, but as that of a confederation. After emancipating all the Rlavouic m’.e-n (the destruction of the Austro • Hungarian Empire is an essentia) part of all Russian plana in the East), Russia would annex to her own territories the Dobrudscha, the delta of the Danube, Galicia, and the eastern part of Hungary, and then form a great Eastern confederacy, with herself at its head. The members of this confederacy would be : —lst, Russia ; 2nd, the Czech kingdom, comprising Bohemia, Moravia, and North-western Hungary; 3rd, the Servian kingdom, com prising Servia, Montenegro, Bosnia, Herzegovina, Northern Albania, theßanat, Croatia, Slavonia, Dalmatia, Carniola. Gorz, and Styria, down to the Drave ; 4th, the kingdom of Bulgaria ; oth, the Roumanian kingdom, comprising Koumania, the southern part of Bukovina, Transylvania, as far us the Maroscb, and a portion of Hussiah sß3sarabia, ia exchange for

which Russia would get the Dobrudscha, &c; 6th, the Greek kingdom, comprising the Moroa, Thessaly, Epirus, the south westen portion of Macedonia, the isles of the Arch; md ago, and the Asiatic coast of the M£*■■<*■ vea, Crete. Rhodes, and Gyprus; 7ih, ih ‘daijar kingdom, comprising those parts or Hungary and Tranayivania which would remain after the above distribution had beer, carried out; and Bth, the territory of Tzari grad (Constantinople), including Roumelia. the Asiatic coast of the Bosphorus, the Sea of Marmora and the Dardanelles, the peninsula of Gallipoli, and the island of Tenedoa. It will be observed here that other nationali ties besides the Slavonic would be included in the proposed couferation, and this would no doubt be necessary in order to make it a compact political organism. The above plan is of course only meant as an ideal towards which Russian policy should aim ; but it has also a practical significance, inas* much as it shows in what direction the political writers of Russia wish their Government to proceed,