Beyond Contemporary Scholarship and toward Exploring Current Manifestations of Pan-Slavism

Abstract

This review article addresses academic contributions on the topic of Pan-Slavism published in the 2000–2020 period by reviewing the scholarly literature based on two categories: publications discussing traditional/historical forms of Pan-Slavism, and those focusing on the contemporary forms of Pan-Slavism. Further, the article introduces considerations on the need to study contemporary Pan-Slavism and its manifestations in a more coherent manner and from several vantage points that, to date, have been largely unaddressed in the scholarship at hand. The article not only fills the research gap in this regard but additionally points toward research challenges concerning contemporary Pan-Slavism that should be addressed in the future.

Revisiting Pan-Slavism in the Contemporary Perspective

“…As the literature review indicates, the current research on Pan-Slavism is severely limited, offering relatively few analyzes and covering an arguably small number of topics. What remains most problematic in this respect is that the academic contributions do not seem to be in communication with each other (Đorđević et al 2021), and as mentioned previously herein. We are, nevertheless, fully aware of the fact that works discussing Pan-Slavism scholarly literature and Pan-Slavism culture do not necessarily need to be communicating with those works discussing other perspectives within the same topic.…”

“…With respect to the theoretical debate above, the research on Pan-Slavism can be divided into two major categories: 1) a traditional/historical Pan-Slavism and 2) more contemporary perspectives/manifestations of Pan-Slavism (Đorđević et al 2021). The authors treating historical perspectives of Pan-Slavism in the 18 th , 19 th , and early 20 th centuries are more numerous, while there are a relatively small number of authors focusing on the more contemporary perspectives, most of them treating the relationship between Pan-Slavism and politics in the present-day context.…”

“…As shall be shown, academic production has been mostly limited to Pan-Slavism in terms of treatment from a historical perspective, whereby the space for addressing contemporary (and resurgent) political, social, economic, and cultural aspects within Pan-Slavism remains marginal in size. Hence, the international academic field hosts relatively few, if any, contributions with developed ties to each other, remaining deficient as such (Đorđević et al 2021). Furthermore, despite the continuing interest paid to the region inhabited by the Slavic peoples and cultures in the post-communist period, political reflection on the present degree of Slavic unity has generally escaped scholarly attention.…”

“…This article is part of that project. We are, of course, aware of the fact that academic treatments of the said topic have been produced in recent decades in other languages, primarily in several Slavic languages and in German, leaving the English-based field limited in size (Đorđević et al 2021). Last of all, our current research on Pan-Slavism, with respect to its contemporary perspectives and manifestations, has allowed us to gain valuable insights that we present herein.…”

“…Last of all, our current research on Pan-Slavism, with respect to its contemporary perspectives and manifestations, has allowed us to gain valuable insights that we present herein. We are doing so in the belief that the research field may benefit from this, making this article both an instrument offering direction that future research may take and a repeated call to researchers to engage on the topic (Đorđević et al 2021).…”