Transformation of the Slavdom idea and reflections on Russia in the Slo-vak political thought of the second half of the 19th century

Abstract

We find sources of reflections on mutual coope­ration of the Slavic nations in Slovak cultural and political environment in the mid-19^th century in the works of Ján Kollár. Views on the form of cooperation in this area, even in the scope of Slovak thinking in the 19^th century, differ significantly, however. The causes lie in the different answers to the question of what importance Russia, as the dominant “trunk” of Slavdom, should play in association with the idea of Slavic mutuality. L. Štúr’s idealizing view on Tsarist Russia in the work Slovanstvo a svet budúcnosti (Slavdom and the World of the Future) as on a political guarantor capable of governmentally arching over the development of the individual Slavic nations in a direction toward the higher culture quality represented by the Russian nation, is subsequently in Slovak culture-political discourse critically doubtful. In opposition to this view an alternative conception of Slavic mutuality was formulated. Its new unifying dimension, aside from culture, becomes an emphasis on the unified civic and political goals of the individual Slavic nations (representatives of the New School were J. Palárik, J. Mallý and others). After the political failure of the New School, however, an ap­proach again was asserted in Slovak political thinking which reflects Russia as a key actor in the realization of national and civic rights of the Slavs (for example, S. H. Vajanský).