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| Russian Troops Blockade Ukrainian Soldiers at a Base in Crimea, 10 March 2014 |
Russian foreign policy is a puzzle inside a riddle
wrapped in an enigma, and the key is Russian
nationalism.
Winston Churchill (Paraphrased)
The Russian traditions of messianism and expansionism took on racial overtones in the 19th century, adding another frightening aspect to the world's perceptions of autocratic Russia. As with some of the revolutionary theories, this racialized thinking developed abroad, having Czech and German roots. Russia embraced it, applied it more diligently, and passed it onto the rest of the world and posterity, in particular, on to Germany's Nazi Party.
In the course of the 19th century, the spread of the rights of man had been linked to the spread of the rights of nations to rule themselves. Napoleon's attempt to redraw the map of Europe was rebuffed, and the Napoleonic wars led to the formation of a wave of nation-states. In Europe this form of nationalism (as originally conceived) would culminate in the unifications of Italy (1870) and Germany (1871). The language of nationalism shifted over time, becoming used to suppress the rights of minorities and to build support for regimes challenged by liberal and socialist popular movements within the core ethnic population. The rhetoric of blood as in "blood line" or "blood sacrifices" to differentiate peoples started appearing. Nationalism became ethnic. It encouraged people with similar folk origins, independent of their history, present circumstances, or location, to bond in kinship. In a way, this neo-nationalism was just the opposite of its earlier namesake. Rather than all citizens pledging allegiance to the state or a government (unifying the nation), the new nationalist's first loyalty was to the tribe (dividing nations with multiple ethnic groups).
In Russia especially, this form of nationalism would take on an irrational, violent dimension. Once set loose in Russia, this impulse led to a new ideology known as pan-Slavism, inspiring pogroms against the Jewish population and fostering an increasingly virulent form of anti-Semitism. Eventually, during the revolution of 1905, a virulent nationalist, counterrevolutionary movement known as the Black Hundreds would explode out of this trend.
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| Tsar Nicholas II Visits with a Deputation of the Black Hundreds in 1907 |
In large empires, such as Austria-Hungary or tsarist Russia, this emerging form of nationalism initially led to a heightened self-awareness by minorities and conquered people. In Russia, the now-alarmed establishment's response was to turn this around with an insistence on "one, indivisible Russia," believing that non-Russians could be turned into Russians. This policy, of course, would never appeal to the non-Russian population, but the overall approach had some other flaws. What about the non-Russian Slavic peoples who had been absorbed into the empire? Furthermore, this Russia indivisible policy was too inwardly focused for an empire still interested in outward expansion.
The solution found for these complications by influential Russians was to adopt something called "Pan-Slavism." It was never official state policy, but it would periodically dominate state policy. Not just Russians, but their fellow Slavs, were united in their messianic mission. Other Slavs were also divinely "chosen” and thus superior to all other nationalities.
This anchored the empire politically with a Slavic core and supplied a rationale for international adventurism ranging from dabbling in the affairs of other countries with Slavic minorities (like the Balkans) to acquiring territory for Slavic population expansion from inferiors (like the Ottomans) to simple conquest of other Slavs (like the Poles).
This new form of Russian nationalism was a clear threat to all its neighbors. Pan-Slavs claimed as early as 1870 that the best possible starting point for an enlarged Pan-Slav empire would be the disintegration of the Hapsburg empire. Later in that decade, Pan-Slavists in the tsar's government maneuvered the country into a war with the Ottomans for the purpose of capturing Constantinople. Later, after Russia's expansionist aims in the East were defeated by the Japanese, the Pan-Slavists next steered the nation to focus on the Balkans. The Pan-Slav movement had set the table for World War I. It embroiled Russia in the Balkans, where crisis piled on crisis, and one was sure to become unmanageable and lead to war. The July Crisis after the Archduke's assassination also provided—albeit with considerable risk—the double opportunity of swallowing a chunk of the Austro-Hungarian Empire and capturing the Dardanelles and Constantinople from the Ottomans. Behind the tsar's decision to mobilize and go to war was the Russian version of neo-nationalism—Pan-Slavism.
These nationalistic trends led to the fall of the Russian Empire and its replacement by communism, which itself has come and gone, but they made a major impact on another attitude that seems to be reemerging with a vengeance in the 21st century—anti-Semitism.
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| 19th-Century Anti-Semitic Cartoon |
By about 1870, the ruling elites in Russia—at least those who were not already secret supporters of the revolutionaries—had internalized Pan-Slavism. This took place just as Russia's Jewish population began escaping the Pale of Settlement (areas away from the heart of the empire where they were allowed to live. After the assassination of Alexander II in 1881 by members of the People's Will, anti-Semitic elements were given an excuse to retaliate against the empire's Jews when it was discovered that two of the conspirators were Jewish. Anti-Jewish legislation was passed, and pogroms and mass violence directed against Jews followed.
Pogroms themselves were nothing new. Historically, violence against Jews in Russian territory was sporadic and located on the periphery of the core of the empire. It was not until the post-assassination days that the pogroms became a mass movement, originating in cities and spreading to villages via rivers and railroads. Initially, attacks were directed mostly against property rather than individuals. It was estimated that about 250 such events occurred in this period. Casualty counts are unreliable and often mix Jewish deaths with rioters killed by troops suppressing the violence, but most sources suggest the number of killed Jewish victims were in the dozens during this period. Although this first wave of pogroms was suppressed by 1882, they reappeared with less frequency through the 1880s and '90s. The pogroms had a number of serious detrimental effects on Russia for its future.
Postscript
The material in this series, I hope, gives a thought-provoking summary of major movements, political, social, and ideological, that influenced events in Russia throughout the 19th and 20th centuries. Each of Russia's four faces, Messianic, Imperial, Revolutionary, and Nationalistic, exerted a powerful influence across multiple levels of Russian society, often with sadly ironic consequences, such as the assassination of Alexander II, who was in fact a progressive tsar implementing social reforms such as freeing the serfs, and the emigration of tens of thousands of Jews to nations, notably the United States, where they were freer to worship and engage in political, social, and economic activities.
Each face also heavily influenced the major global events of the 20th century, and perhaps beyond, including of course the Great War, the Russian Revolution, the establishment of the Soviet Union, the export of revolutionary techniques and anti-Semitism, the run-up to World War II, the Holocaust, and the annexation and reintegration into the Soviet Union of former imperial territories, including the Baltics, Central Europe, the Balkans, and Central Asia, among others. Indeed, as I write this in March 2014, the faces of Russia appear yet again in the current Ukrainian crisis. [And, again as I republish this in the spring of 2024 during the ongoing Russian–Ukranian war.]
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