Material encouragement of Slavic "awakeners" as a tool for the Russian Empire to spread the idea of ​​Pan-Slavism (second half of the 19th century)

Abstract

One might think that the theme of the process of national modernization of the Slavic society has already been sufficiently and thoroughly researched by scholars. However,the study of the material factor of existence of the Slavic intellectuals and of the circumstances of their activities will enable not only to extend our comprehension of the conditions of work of the awakeners, but it will also reveal some internal and external motives of their publicity, highlight particular pages of the self-seeking interest of the Russian Empire to the intellectual side of the Slavic awakeners. The existing factsallow us to assert that the content of the ideological beliefs of national ideologists was quite often correlated with the carriers’ status and material capabilities. Therefore, it is quite logical that the West Slavic figures (and it is mainly them who laid foundations of the national science) used every opportunity to earn money for the realization of their humanitarian projects. In addition, in many cases in order to solve their household problems, awakeners were forced to serve “spiritual whims” of their “mature sponsors”, and this surely interfered with the process of implementing their personal creative plans and narrowed the system of their ideological beliefs. With this in mind, in the context of its Western policy the Russian Empire skillfully used the financial and material factors to maintain its image of the country, as a “patron” of the Slavs, this, of course, could not help bearing the political subtext. Besides, in the number of cases, the authorities stimulated the masterminds of the Slavic revival in the direction of elimination of the integration ideology of Slavic unity.