East Slav's "Unity"

[Russell Valentino]

One finds a very similar set of ideas among apologists for South Slavic
unity, particularly in the interwar period. An example (from the
"Programme" of the London-based "Yugoslav Committee" published during WWI):
"The Southern Slavs or Jugoslavs, who include Serbs, Croats, and Slovenes,
are one and the same people, known under three different names." One of the
short-hand expressions for this at the time was the "three-named people."
The trope in both the South and East Slav cases probably has German
Romantic roots. There is a pretty extensive literature on this in the case
of Yugoslavia.

Russell Valentino

At 12:28 AM 7/7/2004, you wrote:
>Dear Uladzimir,
>
>the notion of the "triedinstvo" was indeed a nineteenth century trope (based
>on an interpretation of the historical development of a cultural and
>political unity that presumably existed in Kievan Rus') and it was not
>necessarily just a Russian (although mostly Russian) idea. It was often and
>to a varying degree shared by representatives of national historiographies,
>for example, by Hrushevsky or Drahomaniv (Dragomanov), not to mention Mykola
>Kostomariv (Nikolai Kostomarov).
>
>Sergey Glebov
>
>
>----- Original Message -----
>From: "Uladzimir Katkouski" <uladzik at MAILBOX.HU>
>To: <SEELANGS at LISTSERV.CUNY.EDU>
>Sent: Tuesday, July 06, 2004 7:35 AM
>Subject: [SEELANGS] East Slav's "Unity"
>
>My question is about the alleged "triedinstvo": As you know, in Russian
>textbooks in 19th and 20th century (and maybe earlier) there was a very
>popular notion, that East Slavs were allegedly one single "Russian"
>nation, consisting of the "Great Russians", "White Russians" and "Small
>Russians", and that they were really "one nation" for a "long" time, and
>then "suddenly" they broke apart thanks to the "bad Polish influence" or
>something like that.

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