First Greetings of the Slavophiles to the New Reign” and a Discussion on the Foreign Policy Strategy of the Russian Empire in 1894—1895

With the beginning of the reign of Emperor Nicholas II, the revising the foreign policy strategy and tools for its implementation became a more acute question in Russian socio-political thought. The overwhelming majority demanded the continuation of the previous line. On November 10, 1894, the outstanding historian Slavist V. I. Lamansky held a speech at the Slavic Charitable Society in which he called for a revision of the basic principles of Russian foreign policy. Lamansky insisted that active intervention in international conflicts throughout almost the entire 19th century followed a political line aimed at realizing the interests of opponents of the Russian Empire, primarily Austria-Hungary and Germany. Lamansky called for sobering up in foreign policy, for focusing exclusively on Russia's national interests. Lamansky’s speech provoked a sharp reaction in both Russian and Eastern European public thought. Its discussion continued in 1894 and 1895. Previously unpublished evidence is introduced into scientific circulation ‒ fragments of letters from I. V. Yagić to university Slavists and F. F. Oldenburg to I. V. Lamansky himself. These documents, coupled with already well-known documents (some of which fell out of the field of view of researchers of international relations and socio-political thought), largely enrich the history of polemics on key foreign policy issues in Russia at the end of the 19th and beginning of the 20th centuries. V. I. Lamansky’s speech itself can be considered as one of the earliest manifestos of political realism. Following previous foreign policy principles led the Russian Empire to be drawn into the First World War

Ancient history · Economic history · Empire · Foreign policy · Political science · Politics · Reign · History · Law · Soviet and Russian History