Slavic Reciprocity and Greek-Cypriot Enosis as the Nineteenth-Century Forms of the Law of Progress

Abstract

In the context of Hobsbawm's thesis about the nineteenth-century law of progress, the author studies Kollár's and Štúr's conception of Slavic reciprocity, which he compares with the Greek Great Idea (Megali Idea) and the Greek-Cypriot idea of enosis. He came to the conclusion that there is greater similarity, especially between Štúr's conception and enosis, since they both required state-political as well as territorial unification of Slavs or Greeks, unlike Kollár's conception, which was, rather, a cultural and literary reciprocity project. As a historical paradox, the author considers the fact that the practical and feasible conception of enosis was never carried out, while Kollár's theoretical conception and Štúr's highly unlikely model became, in a modified form, a reality after the First and Second World Wars.