Page:The Spirit of Russia by T G Masaryk, volume 1.pdf/326

300 into a number of crown lands, it has been extremely difficult for the Slovenes to preserve their consciousness of national independence; or at least, traditions of the past have failed to keep memories of this independence alive as in the case of the other Slav peoples. The Bohemians, Poles, Serbs, Croats, and Bulgars, have been politically independent and have effected noteworthy performances in the fields of statecraft and civilisation. It is owing to the small-scale character of Slovene development that the intelligentsia of this people tends in cultural matters to lean upon the Croats and the Czechs.

In this connection reference may also be made to the segments of nongerman nationalities in Germany, the Wends and the Kassubs, some of whom deliberately endeavour to foster a separatist national sentiment, seeking cultural associations with the Slav peoples respectively nearest to them linguistically and geographically, the Wends turning to the Czechs and the Kassubs to the Poles.

Whereas the Russians are an extremely numerous people, the other Slav nations are comparatively small; a similar numerical disproportion is displayed between the lesser Slav peoples on the one hand and the Germans and other great nationalities on the other; hence arise difﬁcult problems for sociologists and statesmen, both as regards the little nations and the great ones.

In an epoch of association and of political alliances and ententes, the notable national similarities between the Slav peoples, their geographical proximity, and the political dependence of many of them have close associations with the panslavist question.

In the Turkey of earlier days there long existed religious relationships between the Serbs and the Bulgars on the one hand and the Russians on the other, and these tended indirectly and directly to assume a political complexion. At an early date official Russia formulated her antagonism to Turkey in a program of liberating the Christian nations of the Balkans.

The relationships between Russia and Austria-Hungary were determined by like considerations.

The Bulgars partly owed their political enfranchisement to their relationship to Russia, but their idea of national renaissance dates from the eighteenth century, and may be considered to have originated with the appearance in the year