Meanwhile the pan-Russian movement had been gaining apace. At first it had seemed that the new birth of Russia
Neo-Slav and pan-Russian movements.
would lead to a revival of pan-Slavism, directed not, as in the middle of the 19th century, against Austria but against Germany. In May 1908 a deputation of Russian the Slav members of the Austrian Reichsrat paid a ceremonial visit to the Duma at St Petersburg, and in this “neo-Slav” demonstration M. Dmowski, leader of the Polish party in the Duma, took part. In the following year, however, the situation was completely altered, a result due to the growing anti-Polish feeling in the Duma and, more especially, to the support given by the Austrian Slavs to the annexation of Bosnia and Herzegovina. This event caused the utmost excitement in Russia; the crown prince of Servia, who arrived in St Petersburg on the 28th of October to ask for the armed assistance of the tsar, was received with enthusiasm by all classes of the people; and, though armed intervention was impossible, M. Isvolsky took the lead in the abortive demand for a European conference (see Europe : History ). Neo-Slav dreams were now replaced by a passionate desire to consolidate the Russian empire on a purely Russian basis. Even the remnant of the “Cadets” had by this time renounced their sympathy with Polish aspirations, and in the matter of Finland the Duma proved itself even more imperial than the emperor himself. The Finnish question is dealt with elsewhere (see Finland : History ). Here it may suffice to mention, as illustrating the
The Duma and Finland.
changed temper of the Russian national assembly, that the Russian majority of the Duma included among the imperial questions in Finland which the Finnish diet ought to refer to the imperial legislature not only all military matters—as the tsar demanded (Rescript of October 14)—but the question of the use of the Russian language in the grand-duchy, the principles of the Finnish administration, police, justice, education, formation of business companies and of associations, public meetings, the press, the customs tariff, the monetary system, means of communication, and the pilot and lighthouse system. The old tendency illustrated by the outcome of the revolutionary movements of 1848 was once more in evidence—the tendency of merely artificial theories of democratic liberty to succumb to the immemorial instinct of race and race ascendancy.
As an international force Russia had been, of course, all but completely crippled by the outcome of the Japanese War and
International position of Russia.
the subsequent revolution. Her recovery, however, revealed the immense reserves of her strength. On the 30th of July 1907 she signed a convention with Japan of mutual respect for treaty and territorial rights, and guaranteeing the integrity of China. On the 31st of August of the same year the long period of mutual suspicion between Great Britain and Russia was closed by a convention for an amicable settlement of all questions likely to disturb the relations of the two Powers in Asia generally, including the demarcation of Persia into spheres of influence (see Persia : History ). This new entente with Great Britain, cemented by a visit paid by King Edward VII. to the tsar at Reval on the 9th June 1908, helped to knit close once more the loosened alliance with France, and so to preserve the threatened balance of Europe. That in the work of restoring its military position the Russian government had the support of the Russian parliament was proved by a subsidy of £11,000,000 voted by the Duma, on the 30th of December 1909, for the special service of the reorganization and redistribution of the army. ( W. A. P. )
Bibliography .—The history of Russia, especially that of the last few years, has formed the subject of a vast number of works, of very varying authority, in many languages. In Russia itself the first great history of the Russian empire was that of N. M. Karamzin (12 vols., St Petersburg, 1818-29; French translation, 11 vols., 1819-26), which, though reactionary in tone and largely superseded, remains a classic. The next monumental history of Russia, that of Sergei Mikhailovich Soloviev (29 vols., Moscow, 1863-75), marks the enormous advance made since Karamzin's day in historical method and research. Soloviev's history, from the earliest times to 1774, is based throughout on original investigation of sources, an therefore, though inferior to Karamzin's work as literature, is incomparably superior to it in authority. Of other works it is only possible to give a classified selection. In general, the reader must be warned that most Russian works on history, especially those dealing with recent years, are inspired by a violent party bias—the inevitable result of the conflict of diametrically opposed political ideals,—and this quality is shared by not a few foreign books about Russia.
Sources .—See Sienkiewicz, Recueil de documents relatifs à la Russie , 1502–1842 (1852); Soloviev, Russian Historical Writers ( Pisateli russkoe ist. in collected works, vol. xviii. sqq.); Nikolai Ivanovich Kostomarov (1817–1885), professor of history at Kiev and St Petersburg, whose monographs and researches are collected in his Sobranye sochinenye (collected) works, 21 vols., St Petersburg, 1903–6); V. Burtsev and S. M. Kravchinski, Za sto lyet , 1800–1896 . Documents relating to the political and social movements in Russia (London, 1897). There is a French translation by L. Leger (Paris, 1884), of the chronicle of Nestor, the main source for early Russian history. The publications of the Imperial Russian Historical Society of St Petersburg, amounting to upwards of 100 vols., are of great value. For diplomatic history, see F. F. de Martens, Recueil des traités conclus par la Russie avec les puissances étrangères (St Petersburg, from 1878 still incomplete), which contains valuable historical introductions based on unpublished sources; A. N. Rambaud, Recueil des instructions aux ambassadeurs de France , vols. viii. and ix., Russie, 1657–1793 (Paris, 1890).