AHC/WI: Pan-Slavism popular among Poles
- Thread starter Klisz
- Start date
I googled it twice before clicking on the link. I'm not an old person, I don't think of Wikipedia as inaccurate, just missing information at times.
To get that, I think you would need the Poles to be Orthodox. I think that is what separated them from the rest of the Slavs. Maybe slap on a more aggressive but less proselytizing, for lack of a word, Ottoman Empire, and walla, a Poland active in the Slavic community. It's up to others to tell what happens.
What about having Wenceslaus III of Poland and Bohemia survive, and cement his rule in the two Kingdoms.
Yes, and they were very active in Pan-Slavism, in addition to mostly Muslim Bosnians. There was even significant pan-Slavic sentiment in Catholic Czechia, to the south.
The problem with the Croats is that the Most Croats are speaking Serbian aka Stokavian, prevent that and we would have nicer relations between Serbs and Croats.
This. 'Pan-Slavism' was a wonderful idea in theory, but in practice, it meant accepting Russian domination. Poles had had quite enough of that, thank you.
A united, powerful Polish state.
Pan-Slavism was attractive to two kinds of Slavs:
Those affiliated with the largest and most powerful Slavic state (Russia).
Those subject to the rule of non-Slavs.
OTL, Poles were subject to the rule of other Slavs.
There is an alternate path: Poland conquered and dominated by a non-Slavic country. Prussia, Hungary, maybe even Lithuania.
Would it be in Germany's interest to have a independent pan Slavic Poland? It could pull the other slavic nations away from russia
For it to do that, it would need to be as powerful/influential as Russia, which Germany doesn't want at all.
And Austria-Hungary is the state that needs to get rid of pan-Slavism, not Germany. Poles are the only slavs in Germany, and as previously mentioned, they aren't too keen on pan-Slavism.
As for the OP, you'd have to change pan-Slavism as an ideology from being a euphemism for pan-Russianism. A weaker Russia is probably your best bet, or a Poland that isn't partitioned and subjugated quite brutally.
The big problem with pan-Slavism is that the Slavic cultures are already quite diverse by the time nationalism of the 19th century starts agitating for it. The South, West and East Slavs have some things in common, but the cultural differences and especially religious ones make the union a tricky proposition.
If you want pan-Slavism in its OTL form (amounting to, as one prominent Pole put it, "merging all the Slavic rivers in the Russian sea") to be popular, I think this is the only way. And for pan-Slavism to remain popular for more then a few years after the liberation, you should also get rid of Poland's liberal culture. Otherwise you have the same recipe for disaster which in our timeline caused the November Uprising after just 15 years of "union" with Russia. So you likely need a distant point of divergence. The 14th century seems about right.
Otherwise you need to tweak things a bit, such as turning pan-Slavism into essentially neo-Slavism, or making Russia less autocratic, and so on.
Avoid the "Golden Liberty".
Seriously, Russia's unpopularity in Poland really got off the ground when It, as much or more than any other power, exploited governmental paralysis via proxy vetoes to the point where the Russian Ambassador claimed precedence over the Polish King by the mid 1700s.