The reconstruction of South-Eastern Europe

THE RECONSTRUCTION OF

upon Slav territories of Germans and Swedes as well as with the Tartar menace from the East. But although the Jagellons aggrandized and strengthened the Polish kingdom, Panslavism did not progress from the initial success when Lithuania joined Poland in a brotherly union.

When the Southern Slay countries were conquered by the Turks, many of their nobility emigrated to Poland and Russia, bringing with them hatred for the invader, grief over the loss of their fatherland, and hopes that Poland or Russia would come to the rescue. Notwithstanding all the entreaties of these emigrants and the patriotic hymns to Polish kings sung by Serbo-Croat poets of the seventeenth century, the Poles never undertook an organised campaign for the liberation of the Southern Slavs, although, under Jan Sobieski, they saved Austria by defeating the Turks under the walls of Vienna in 1683.

In the writings of the Serbo-Croat philosopher Krizanié ! may be found a nearly complete and clear vision of Panslavism. He was an ardent

1 Krizanié, a Serb Roman Catholic priest, was of noble but impoverished family; he was invited to Russia to assist in the revision of copies of the Scriptures. He was the first Slavophil or Panslavist, and hoped by means of a grammar and lexicon to unite the Slav peoples, with Russia as the elder brother. He was exiled to Tobolsk in 1660, notwithstanding that he was the teacher of Peter the Great: it is thought because he vigorously attacked the Greek Church in Russia. He was a sturdy champion of the Russians against German and Greek influence.

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