Putin & Pan-Slavism in the Narrative of the Invasion of Ukraine
During the 19th century, nationalism emerged as a new idea that had become widespread across Europe. A vein of the emerging ideology was Pan-Slavism. This political, cultural and philosophical ideology argued in favour of the unity of all ‘Slavic’ people. This came at a time when many Slavic groups were subjugated or had been subjugated by ‘non-Slavs’. As a theory, it had huge implications for the end of the 19th century for many nations. Notably, it was the ideological basis for the creation of the multi-ethnic Slavic countries such as the former Yugoslavia and Czechoslovakia. Nevertheless, this ideology lost its relevance after the Second World War, declining over the decades. However, Vladimir Putin has revived this ideology, making it a crucial point of reasoning for his war in Ukraine.
Read along as we analyse the origins of pan-Slavism, its history in Russia, and its influence on the foreign policy of the Russian Federation during the last years.
Definition of Pan-Slavism
Pan-Slavism is quite broad and does not have a singular objective, with various Pan-Slav currents having existed since the beginning of the 19th century. Generally, it can be described as an ideology formed in the Slavic countries which emphasises the need for a national political unification based on ethnic, cultural and linguistic bases. However, this can be met under a variety of circumstances and political models.
Historical Origins of Pan-Slavism
Pan Slavism first appeared in the 17th century, through the writings of the Croat writer and theologue Juraj Križanić. He was one of the main proponents of the Pan-Slav principles and one of his main points was the necessity that Russia should lead the Slavic peoples.
Some of the ideas of Križanić would inspire later 19th-century romanticist artists among the Slavic peoples. These ideas served as a contraposition to absolutism on the one hand and German romantic nationalism on the other. This was a time when the only Slavic country that was independent was Russia, while all the other groups (Czechs, Poles, Croats, Slovenes, Serbians, etc) were either part of a non-Slavic country or had been taken by Russia. Under this situation, two umbrella schools of thought would develop among the different Slavic intellectuals. One a pro-European leaning and the other pro-Russian.
Pro-European Pan-Slavism
Some supporters of this school called for special status under the umbrella of the Austro-Hungarian Empire. They emerged out of Czechoslovakia after the Frist World War and created the Pan-Slavic colours (red, blue and white). This current of thought espoused ideas of equality among the different Slavic peoples, tending to embrace values stemming from Western European intellectuals.
Another vein in this line of thinking would emerge in Poland. Similar to the other Slavic peoples, the Poles were subjugated by foreign powers during the 19th century. Unlike other groups, however, Polish nationalists did not seek a general union of Slavs and instead concentrated on the restoration of a Polish State.
Pro-Russian Pan-Slavism
Our second school was the one that Križanić had first proposed, calling for a union of Slavs under the leadership of Russia. Due to Russia’s military might from its victories against the Ottomans and Napoleon, some intellectuals at the time decided the best way for the Slavic peoples to free themselves from empires such as Austria or the Ottomans would be to be under the control of Russia. This thinking would create in Russia what is called the “Slavophiles” and included intellectuals such as Konstantin Aksakov, Alexei Khomyakov, and Ivan Kireevsky.
These intellectuals, among others, did not only call for the unification of the different Slavic peoples under the leadership of the Tsar but also opposed a series of ideas that they deemed as “Western”, including industrialisation, rationalism, liberalism, and individualism. Instead supporting a rural, agricultural lifestyle, the mysticism of the Orthodox Church, and a communal view of society with the tsar as the supreme ruler.
The ideas of Pan-Slavism were not popular with tsars in the first half of the 19th century, as kings all over Europe saw the new nationalist movements as threats to their absolute power. Nevertheless, after the Russian defeat in the Crimean war (1853–1856), and the Polish liberation uprising (1863–1864), the new Tsar Alexander II started to plan reforms for his empire and approach the new Slavic ideology as a way of creating cohesion in Russia. It became a necessity to control the growing feeling of nationalism and embrace the Pan-Slavism that the previous intellectuals were espousing. Russian authorities promoted pro-Russian polish intellectuals Stanislaw Staszic, and August Cieszkowski and established the Pan-Slav Congress celebrated in Moscow in 1867. Pan-Slav ideas spread like fire among the Russian intelligentsia, such as Ivan Aksakov, Nikolai Danilevsky, Mikhail Pogodin and Vladimir Lamansky, and even the military, with generals like Vladimir Cherkassky, Mikhail Chernyaev, Mikhail Skobelev and Rostislav Fadeev.
These Pan-Slav intellectuals had significant political influence in the 70s, especially during the Russian-Turkish war of 1877–1878, when it came to foreign policy actions. Russia secured the independence of the Balkan states from Turkish dominion, and from that point forward Russia had its new foreign policy.
This would have huge implications for both Russia’s internal and external policies.
Internally, the Russian government created policies of “Russification”. In the 19th century, the Russian Empire was one of the biggest in the world, home to many religions, languages, and ethnicities. However, Russian tsars began to force the Russian language, culture, and traditions on the different groups, stripping them of their ethnic identities and creating a homogenous country. The Russian government would also crackdown on writers and other artists that promoted such identities. This Pan-Slavism fast became an ideological tool for justifying warfare against their neighbours, under the guise of protecting Slavic people, and as a way of homogenizing Russia.
On the external front, Russia would start alliances with other non-bordering Slavic nations, most notably Serbia and others with growing opposition to the Germanic states: Germany, Austro-Hungary and to a lesser degree Sweden. In these cases, Pan-Slavism was used to justify warfare, like protecting Southern Slavs from Austria or “freeing” the poles living under German rule. This climaxed with the First World War, the Fall of the Russian Empire, and the independence of various Slav states, such as Ukraine.
Some Pan-Slav intellectuals heavily denounced the new Ukrainian republic as a fictitious creation of the West. Prince Pyotr Troubetzkoy denounced Ukrainian culture as “not a culture but a caricature”, and Georgy Vernadsky explained that “the cultural schism of Ukrainians is only a political fiction. Historically speaking it is clear that Ukrainians are branches of a unique Russian people.”
The Soviet Union would later try to expand into these regions both after the Frist and the Second World Wars. However, the Soviet Union did not embrace Pan-Slav rhetoric as it was not interested in nationalism. Its expansion was based on geostrategic necessity and international communist ideology. However, the Soviet Union could not escape nationalism indefinitely
Pan Slavist thinkers and Vladimir Putin
The different nationalist movements, together with economic stagnation would cause the collapse of the Soviet Union and create a new line of independent republics based on ethnic grounds, Russia being the largest of them.
A new generation of pan-Slavist thinkers appeared, connected to Russian nationalism and the Kremlin, most notably Vladimir Putin. Like the Slavophiles of the 19th century, Putin and his circle believe that Western values are intrinsically harmful to Russian society and therefore for Russia to regain its place as a regional superpower it must maintain core values which are “Orthodoxy, Autocracy, and Nationality”. Vladimir Putin demonstrated this when he cited reactionary thinker Ivan Ilyin as the basis of his political thinking. Ilyin is a rather unknown thinker, he expressed the ideas of Russian nationalism and anti-Ukrainian sentiment, writing that “Ukraine is the region of Russia that is most in danger of division and conquest. Ukrainian separatism is artificial, devoid of genuine foundations.”
Ilyin’s texts would serve as the connection between the old Slavophile writers and the new generations. The best example of modern intelligentsia guiding the rationale behind the new Russian Slavism is Aleksandr Dugin. His ideas are expressed in a variety of books, such as Foundations of Geopolitics (1997) and The Fourth Political Theory (2009). He is one of the main proponents of Novorossiya, a theoretical confederation of Russian speaking regions that would cover all of Eastern and Southern Ukraine and take away its access to the sea. His ideas connect Slavic identity with the favoured traditional religiousness, authoritarianism, and illiberalism, as well as a firm rejection of western ideas. His power resides in indirect ideological influence over Russian foreign policy and was very influential when it came to defining the strategy for the invasion of Ukraine. As Dugin has worked as the adviser to Sergey Naryshkin, head of the Russian Intelligence Services.
Dugin is not the only Pan-Slav personality influencing Kremlin policy. Two people, in particular, have had large roles in connecting the Russian ethnic and foreign policies with its religious identity. Konstantin Malofeev, owner of Tsargrad TV, and hard-line conservative had tried to establish connections between the Kremlin and similar-minded movements in the Slavic world, such as Bulgaria. Then there is Bishop Tikhon Shevkunov, a very influential cleric, who is rumoured to be Putin’s confessor and part of his inner circle. Shevkunov is a defender of a doctrine within the Orthodox Church called “canonical territory”. This doctrine means that the spiritual territory of the Church is broader than the borders of the Russian Federation and encompasses Belarus, Ukraine, and Kazakhstan. Under this worldview, all Eastern Slavic nations come from one historical nation in Kyiv, the birthplace of the Christian conversion of the eastern Slavs, and a spiritual cradle. This doctrine follows the historic Russia centred Pan-Slavic views but under a religious prism.
The last figure is Yuri Kovalchuk. He is one of the closest advisors of Vladimir Putin, and an overall obscure figure when compared to the others, and is known as Putin’s “personal banker”. He is the largest shareholder of one of Russia’s main banks, Rossiya; controls several major media channels and newspapers; is said to be Putin’s banker and has built the president’s main palaces. He has been called Russia’s unofficial number two. Similar to the previous ones, he holds Slavophile tendencies and defends Russian nationalism and imperialism.
The war in Ukraine is not the only action taken by the Russian government that has a Pan-Slavic connection. Another is the historic alliance with Serbia, whose government shares a similar ideology, although to a lesser degree.
Since 2018, the Russian Duma has enacted new policies that marginalise regional languages in the Caucasus or Central Asia. Policymakers specified that these bills must “enshrine Russian” as the “language of the state-forming nationality” and the Russian people as the ethnic group that “created the nation”. This is prominent rhetoric in the Baltic states, in countries like Latvia or Estonia where the Russian minority feels side-lined politically and culturally by the non-Slavic majority. In these situations, the Russian diplomatic core has always sought to protect these groups, gaining greater influence in the Baltics.
Pan Slavism and the narrative behind the invasion of Ukraine
As previously mentioned, these ideas have greatly influenced Russia’s foreign policy. So, let us now discuss the Pan-Slavic narrative behind the Russian invasion of Ukraine.
In July 2021, Vladimir Putin published a document called “On the Historical Unity of Russians and Ukrainians”. In that document, the Russian President ‘analysed’ the history of Russia and Ukraine, concluding that the Ukrainians and Russians are the same people and that the Ukrainian identity is nothing more than a creation of the West, as a way to weaken and destabilise Russia. His reasoning goes back to the 16th century when the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth started a supposed process of “Polonisation” and “Latinisation” ousting the previous Russian Orthodox culture with the help of local elites. According to Putin, the result of this centuries later would be the Ukrainian identity. From that point onward Putin asserts that the internal fights within Ukraine have been a fight between the “pro-Western elites” of Ukrainian identity and the “Orthodox pro-Russian peasantry”.
For Putin, this new identity was supported by Austrian officials during WWI as a way of weakening Russia. The text remarks that Ukraine has seen an economic decline for the past few decades due to “Westernised and Europeanised elites”, that are purposely sacking the country and driving it away from what is for Putin the future for the country; a partnership with Russia.
A year later another Russian intellectual close to Putin called Timofey Sergeytsev wrote an infamous text called “What Russia should do with Ukraine”. The text, published on the 3rd of April 2022, declared that the majority of Ukrainians are “Nazis” and called for policies to “denazify” the country and ensure the elimination of the Ukrainian identity. These policies included the political and cultural disintegration of Ukraine and the usage of forced labour, imprisonment and the death penalty as punishment. This text was published on the same day as the bodies of civilians were discovered, following the retreat of Russian forces from Bucha. The article was condemned by many diplomats from Europe and the Americas, for its potential usage as a rationalisation for genocide. On the other hand, a point that this essay makes is that the “Ukrainian Nazim” is not so much related to the WWII Banderite movement, but rather to Pro-Europeanism.
The two documents show that Pan-Slavism theories from the 19th century are being used as a way to legitimise the Russian invasion. As has been said, the Russian branch of Pan-Slavism was heavily influenced not only by Orthodox Christianity but also by authoritarianism and a Russo centric view of the Slavic world; focusing on Western Europe as a political and moral menace that must be countered. Pan-Slavism in the 19th century was used by Russia to justify its military actions and to destroy regional cultures on the basis that they were fake and a product of “unwelcomed western influence”. In the same way that Poland was seen as a threat in the 19th and early 20th century by Russia, Ukraine is now seen as just a fake identity in a supposed elaborate plot by European and American politicians to weaken Russia. This is the position explained by Ivan Ilyin and the narrative that Putin espouses.
When Putin says “Nazism” it means the “Westernisation” of Ukraine, using this as a means to create cohesion among Russians. For many Russians when they think of “Nazism”, it is seen as the worst expression of a western ideology attacking Russia.
It is important to mention the role of the Orthodox Church in both the Pan-Slavism of the 19th century and the new one. In both cases, one of the main factors that separate Russian pan-Slavism from European pan-Slavism is that in the first one the role of the Orthodox Church is very important for unification among Slavs. It has the support of clerics and religious conservative Russian businessmen, and so Putin observes how this is still very much relevant. In that sense, the most traditionalist wing of the Orthodox Church has always seen Western influence in Ukraine as a threat to its “canonical territory” and its traditionalist values. Regardless that the values of the Ukrainians are still much more conservative than western Europeans.
However, not all of this was for ideological reasons. The reasons for the invasion are strategic. Ukraine, with its vast land, energy resources, agricultural production, and high population (in Russia with low birth rates) is of big importance to Moscow’s foreign policy and keeping it away from the European Union is a big necessity. The invasion of Crimea and Donbas seem to be measures of precaution for Russia, but now the hostility has made it so that the only way to keep Ukraine under its sphere of influence was through direct military occupation and oppression. Putin needed to brand the actions as ideological, and pan-Slavism was used. This is very similar to when under the pretext of defending the Slavic people, Russia embraced conquest policies in both the Black and Baltic Seas in the 20th century.
Conclusion
The actions of Russia in Ukraine and the actions to justify its invasion have very clear parallels with the actions of Russia in the 19th century most notably its repression of the different Polish uprisings, its interventions in the Balkans, and the repression of ethnic minorities within the empire.
At the end of the day, every nation with expansionist policies needs an ideological justification beyond the simple strategic convenience. In the case of Russia during the end of the 19th century, pan-Slavism became this narrative and now after the fall of the Soviet Union, with a Russia not based on ideological grounds as much as cultural ones is taking it back again. As much as Russia’s past or present presented itself as a nation that was trying to protect other people from “Western Imperialism”, this narrative was also used to justify not only Russian nationalist policies (both inside and outside of the country) but also to justify authoritarianism and one-man leadership.
The narrative does not seem to have worked when it comes to creating a wide and solid pro-Russian section within Ukraine. Nevertheless, it is helping Putin to maintain his support within Russia, as well as gaining some support among the political classes of a variety of post-Communist countries. This is yet another challenge that the EU will have to face both for maintainability in neighbouring countries and to avoid any destabilisation in its member states.
