The reconstruction of South-Eastern Europe

SOUTH-EASTERN EUROPE

European races in their social evolution. In Russia it is still kept alive, thanks to special geographical and _ historico-political conditions. But it has the tendency to disappear with the abolition of serfdom and the political emancipation of the Russian peasantry just as the Southern Slav Zadruga—the family commune—has a tendency to break up under changed economic and social conditions.

The Panslay Congress held at Prague, 1848, was attended only by the delegates of Slav nationalities living in Austria. The Czechs, who promoted and organised the Congress, wished by the political co-operation of all Slavs of the Danubian monarchy to forge some weapon against the centralism and germanisation of Austria. The work of the Congress was organised on a practical basis; the discussions turned around the most urgent political and educational needs of the different Slav nationalities in Austria. It cannot be said that that Congress left no impression or remained without any influence. The ideas and the feelings of Slav solidarity were strengthened, and, as far as it was compatible with political conditions in Austria, some cooperation of the Slav nationalities was achieved in the Vienna Parliament. But it is very probable that the Germans, alarmed by this solidarity of the Slavs, and fearing to lose altogether their predominance in Austria, were induced more easily to grant not only autonomy to the Magyars, but further to deliver to them all other nationali-

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