SUMMARY:

The article presents the problem of the cultural rebirth of the nations on the western fringes of the Russian Empire in the historical, philosophical, and political conceptions of the Slavophiles and the prominent linguist Aleksander Hilferding. Prior to the January Uprising of 1863, Hilferding called (in a more consistent way than other Slavophiles, such as the hesitant Ivan Aksakow) for Russia to use the rising ethnic nationalisms. He also encouraged support for the development of the Byelorussian and Ukrainian languages. He saw in the Byelorussian and Ukrainian national revival movements not separatisms but regionalisms within the “triune” Russian nation, i.e., supporters of the program for a Russian nation revival and the Russification of the Empire. They were supposed to serve as a transitional stage in implanting Russian national consciousness in the peasants of the Western Province and in protecting them from Polonization. Hilferding was the author of educational reform programmes that aimed at the Slavic “re-education” of the Poles, especially by inculcating a Slavic and Russian model of culture in the peasants. This was to be accomplished by teaching them in their native language but using textbooks printed in the Russian alphabet. Attempts to introduce the Russian alphabet, especially in the primary education of the peasants, are examples of activities connected with that program. The Slavophile periodical Den’ promoted extending such activities to the Estonians and Latvians.
Hilferding’s projects on the Polish matter, however, became the basis for a complete program concerning the Western provinces. Thanks to the “liberal bureaucrats”, Hilferding was able to present his program for all the western provinces in the periodical Russkii Invalid. He suggested supporting the autochthonous distinctiveness of the peasantry on ethnic and cultural levels. Hilferding wanted Russia to take over the function of the awakening and protecting force in the revival and national liberation of Eastern Europe and the Balkans. In his view, a pan-Slavism that was limited to the Slavic nations could not successfully compete with other pan-nationalisms, which, like pan-Germanism and pan-Scandinavism also tried to influence the nations of the Russian Empire.
Hilferding did not foresee the consequences of the national awakening and the natural evolution of ethno-nationalisms from cultural and linguistic distinctiveness to a national movement expressing political demands. He assumed those processes would be stopped under Russian control at the cultural distinctiveness stage. Hilferding’s complete program, however, was not realized by the Russian administration. It was treated as utilitarian.