The Slavdom and the West in History and Culture (to the Publication of “Historical Letters about the Relations of the Russian Nation to its Tribesmen” by V.I. Lamansky)

The article serves as the introduction into the publication of the “Historical Letter” by V.I. Lamansky. The authors consider the context of V.I. Lamansky’s discourse concerning the reciprocal relations between the Slavs and the Germans. Considering these relations as inimical, V.I. Lamansky substantiated this idea by references to the opinion of German scholars about the Slavs. He showed the malignancy of the German cultural and political influence on the Slavs, something which leads to the loss of their nationality, based on the example of Czech and, to some extent, Croatian history. It is not a coincidence that the essential part of the second “Historical Letter” is based on the material of the Hussite movement and Thirty Years’ War which caused the germanisation of the Czech people. Lamansky attached great importance to the Hussite movement, as he considered it one of the highest manifestations of the Slavic self-consciousness (or at least of the Western Slavs). Based on the letters of the scholar showing his attitude to the Czech people, F. Palacky and other leaders of the Czech Revival, the authors demonstrate that Lamansky had probably borrowed the notion of “the Greek-Slavic world” as against the German-Roman world from German historiological literature. Being an adherent of Slavophilism, Lamansky considerably contributed to it. Particularly, he tried to more definitely formulate Slavophile’s attitude to the “Slavic question,” on which the attention of the founders of the movement had paid little attention. His interpretation of Slavic history was best realized in his master’s thesis “On the Slavs in Middle Asia, Africa and Spain” (1859). The second “Historical Question” was likely written soon after finishing work on the thesis and was a step on the way to his other serious work, namely his doctoral thesis “On Historical Studies of the Greek-Slavic World in Europe” (1871), as both “Historical Letters” and the dissertation were written from similar historiographical positions.