Entangled Paths Toward Modernity: Contextualizing Socialism and Nationalism in the Balkans

1. The Russian connection and the geography of revolution

1. The Russian Connection and the Geography of Revolution If the itineraries via which Enlightenment thought entered the Balkans encompassed a broad geographical space, predominantly Western and Central Europe, and to a far lesser extent Eastern Europe, the itineraries of early socialism signaled a reversal of this geographical configuration . For the central-northern part of the Balkans (Serbia, Bulgaria and Romania) Russia was to become the major revolution-exporting country. Exposure to Russian influences was instrumental in the adaptation of early socialist theory (1870s–1880s). This does not go to say that variants of Western socialism did not exercise any influence in these countries, they were, however, proportionately of subordinate significance. Moreover, chunks of Western socialist thought infiltrated the Balkans in a roundabout way, often mediated, that is, through Russian channels. Almost ironically, Western ideas like Marxism were reinterpreted within the Russian context and adapted to Russian traditions and needs.3 Such an encounter between Russia and Western Marxism was the birth of Russian populism, whose adaptation we will follow in the case of Serbia. Serbian radicalism, as an adaptation of an eastern variant of socialism, was in its turn to compete within the Serbian­ context with more direct Western influences, such as liberalism. The case of Serbian radicalism is illustrative of the entangled itineraries in the circulation of ideas and their geographical distribution within the European peripheries. Indisputably, Russian populism in its multiple variants constituted the initial and most authoritative socialist paradigm in all three countries (Bulgaria, Serbia and Romania) before it was slowly substituted by (Western) Marxism, a process that started around the mid-1880s and made headway in the 1890s. Altogether, the early influence of Russian populism in the central-northern Balkans has been underrated and deserves a thorough re-evaluation.4 While in Serbia Russian populism developed into a powerful political movement and was eventually institutionalized also as a political party, in Bulgaria and Romania it furnished the initial hotbed for the reception of Marxism and social 20 II. Intellectuals democracy. In Bulgaria, it formed a common reference point between Socialists and the early Agrarians, before agrarianism was codified theoretically by Aleksander Stamboliiski. In Romania, the centrality and the urgency of the unresolved agrarian question undermined the prospects of Marxism as a plausible alternative. Rather, a peasant-oriented populism would continue to challenge Marxism until the first decade of the twentieth century. The above picture does not apply for the most southern part of the Balkans, Greece, which, until approximately the time of the Third International, remained out of the orbit of Russian populism and Russian socialist influences altogether. Greek socialist intellectuals in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries received their theoretical influences exclusively through Western channels (with the exception of Georgios Sklēros, who is an exceptional case anyhow). For the greatest part of the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries Greek socialist intellectuals remained altogether isolated from the principal centers and paradigms of their time. This led, first, to eclectic adaptations of peripheral movements of lesser theoretical vigor like British Fabianism (Platon Drakoulēs) and French ouvrierism (Nikos Giannios), and second, to a negligent theoretical home production that did not achieve international standardization until approximately the First World War. Summing up, the linguistic border dividing the central-northern Slavic-speaking Balkans from its most southern part demarcates and coincides with the boundary of the influence of eastern socialism in the nineteenth century. While Romance-speaking Romania was an obvious exception, the geographical proximity to Russia in this case proved the decisive criterion. Romania was a crucial junction and a gateway in the flow of illegal literature and revolutionaries from East to West and the other way around. Moreover, the first generation of Socialists/ Populists in Romania was not of Romanian ethnic origin in the main. For the central-northern Balkans, the shift in paradigms (from populism to Marxism) meant a renewed shift in geographical emphasis from East to West. Until the final prevalence of Marxism, which signaled a reorientation of emphasis towards Western Europe, a consistent alignment with Western social democracy, particularly in its German variant (SPD),5 and affiliation with the Second International of course, the Russian connection remained for the central-northern part of the Balkans a most 21 1. The Russian Connection and the Geography of Revolution authoritative source. The long period of transition from one paradigm to another (1880–1890) was, moreover, characterized by a mixed and eclectic coexistence...