The reconstruction of South-Eastern Europe

‘SOUTH-EASTERN EUROPE

the Serbian delegate, Mr. Vladan Georgevicé, stated categorically that he was sure Serbians would never accept that proposition, as they considered literature to be the means for the political, scientific, and moral progress of the people, a task which could only be achieved by writing books in the national idioms.

The old Slavophil movement in Russia died out quietly, but a new movement, again springing from the small and oppressed Slav nations, was now started, aiming at the closer union of the Slavs, in order to further their economic and political independence. The Czech deputy, Kramarz, was recognised as its initiator and leader. This Neoslavism returned to Kmizani¢’s ideas two centuries old. The movement acknowledged all Slav nations as independent and accomplished individual communities, every one of them having the right to full recognition and national development according to their own national and social ideal. Co-operation between them was necessary for the realisation of their ideal of freedom and self-government. Besides and before Kramarz, the most prominent leaders of Panslavism were Vodnik (Slovene poet), Kollar (Slovak bard), and Shafarik (Slav antiquary), all belonging to small oppressed Slav nationalities of Austria-Hungary, and their teaching was the direct result of the intolerable conditions in which their kinsfolk lived. The movement remained barren of any practical results, and the last SerboBulgarian War was a hard blow to those who

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