From the Shadow of Empire: Defining the Russian Nation through Cultural Mythology, 1855–1870

In Place of a Conclusion: The Legacy of Reform-Era Nationalism

R eform-era thinkers recast historical mythology to accommodate a dramatic shift in national self-perception—the growing understanding of the nation as a political construct—that marked the 1850s and 1860s. Under the traumatic impact of the Crimean defeat, writers of divergent ideological persuasions sought to chart Russia’s future by exploiting the tale of the founding of the state, legends of Cossack independence , memories of popular wars, and the story of the Russian people’s spiritual birth. These narratives, with their aura of antiquity, helped foster a sense of the nation’s immutable nature. By invoking pivotal events of the past, they also helped to justify emerging projects of national transformation as a return to deeply ingrained ways of life. Once the reforms were set in motion, defining the nation through collective memories made it possible to absorb innovations while maintaining a sense of national continuity . Moreover, new renditions of basic historical myths proved instrumental in the dialogue between the public and the government in the context of 183 In Place of a Conclusion The Legacy of Reform-Era Nationalism the unfolding transformations. As we have seen, intellectuals refashioned the past in an effort to press the authorities to alter traditional imperial policies—to shore up the Russian people’s position as the “reigning nationality ,” unify the heterogeneous population of the empire on the basis of allegiance to its ethnic core, and enlist the ruler in the Russian cause. Articulated by thinkers from across the political spectrum, these projects competed with one another, converging at only a few points. But these points of agreement disclose the overarching tendencies of reform-era nationalism . What brought all these writers together was their effort to reconsider the empire-nation dichotomy. They approached empire as an ongoing process, with the nation as its central topos and main agent. Employing national mythology, a broad group of intellectuals based the nation’s claim to greatness on its status as the builder and defender of empire, as an emblem of hope for the Slavs and for the entire Orthodox world. This understanding of the empire-nation nexus, expressed in various forms of cultural production, found its most systematic articulation toward the end of the reform era in Nikolai Danilevsky’s Russia and Europe (1869). Serialized initially in the journal Zaria, the work was regarded by Dostoevsky, who avidly followed its installments, as “the future handbook [nastol’naia kniga] for all Russians.”1 Most of the other protagonists of my study also welcomed Russia and Europe or even, like Nikolai Strakhov, propagated it. Though each of them, including Dostoevsky, could or did suggest something to add, alter, or correct in it, the book united reform-era nationalists more than it divided them. Danilevsky forcefully synthesized the major nationalist arguments then in circulation and put forward a vision of the empire as an “organic” outgrowth of Rus’—as an everexpanding stage where the Russian people’s historical drama continued to unfold. Russia and Europe might be considered the compendium of the principal ideas of reform-era nationalism. Subsequent generations of Russian thinkers regularly referred to this source, either to agree with or refute it. For this reason, a brief discussion of its main points provides a logical coda to my study. In the 1840s Danilevsky, like Dostoevsky, had belonged to the radical Petrashevskii circle, a group of young intellectuals who advocated the socialistic ideas of Fourier. In 1849, also like Dostoevsky, he was arrested and imprisoned, though for a much shorter period and under much less severe conditions. In prison, again like Dostoevsky, he reread the Bible and 184 In Place of a Conclusion repudiated his previous atheistic and socialist views.2 During his relatively short exile and over the next several decades, Danilevsky distinguished himself by producing major studies in statistics, ecology, and biology.3 In Russia and Europe, he mobilizes his professional knowledge and skills to buttress nationalist ideology with scientific argument. Danilevsky applies the assumptions of natural science to history in order to produce a theory of “cultural-historical types” that provide the conceptual framework for his vision of humanity’s future. He draws extensive parallels between the evolution of species and that of “cultural-historical types”(or “civilizations”) to claim that the distinctive traits of each “type”— a combination of racial, social, political, and artistic characteristics— constitute the basis of its development, a process similar to evolution in the...