A part of the Croats and all the Slovenes, together with the Czechs, the Poles, and the Ukrainians of Gali-cia, and some Romanians, remained under the Austrian part of the monarchy.. BUL
Trang 1Ruthenians Neither group had any autonomous rights
or guarantees of free cultural development
A part of the Croats and all the Slovenes, together
with the Czechs, the Poles, and the Ukrainians of
Gali-cia, and some Romanians, remained under the Austrian
part of the monarchy They were disappointed by the
fact that, unlike Hungary, the other areas of the
king-dom only received provincial autonomy, with equal
rights for all languages in local administration, the
courts, and the schools Even the Poles had to give up
claims for a real national self-government Particularly
opposed to the 1867 settlement were the Czechs Under
these conditions, the leadership of the Czech national
movement passed from the moderate Old Czechs to the
radical Young Czechs
BULGARIAN NATIONALISM
During the 1870s another Balkan crisis was
approach-ing in connection with the Bulgarian independence
movement When the Turks repressed a revolt in 1876
in Bulgaria, Russia again intervened and made an
agreement with Austria and Hungary The Balkan
Pen-insula was divided into autonomous states, and both
Austria and Hungary were promised some rewards in
Bosnia-Herzegovina The confl ict ended in a complete
victory for Russia, allied with all Balkan nations In the
Peace Treaty of San Stefano, signed on March 3, 1878,
Romania, Serbia, and Montenegro were declared fully
independent, and a large Bulgarian state was created
The borders, however, confl icted with the aspirations of
other Balkan peoples Alarmed at this extension of
Rus-sia’s infl uence, European leaders met to discuss
bound-aries at an international congress held in Berlin, where
the Peace of San Stefano was completely revised
The disappointment felt by the Bulgarians
con-vinced them that Russia was their only protector
Ser-bia and Romania became independent principalities In
Bulgaria, Alexander of Battenberg, the nephew of the
Russian czar, was chosen as prince There was a strong
movement for real independence, both in the
princi-pality and in the Turkish province of Eastern Rumelia
These incompatible policies led to inevitable clashes in
which Alexander proved unpredictable The union of
Eastern Rumelia with Bulgaria was fi nally achieved in
1885 Battenberg’s replacement by Ferdinand of
Saxe-Coburg in 1887 strengthened German and
Austro-Hungarian infl uence in Bulgaria
In the 1878 Berlin Congress, Austria was granted
the provisional right to occupy Bosnia-Herzegovina
That acquisition introduced almost 2 million Orthodox
and Muslims into the Habsburg realm This was a blow
to Serbia, which had hoped to gain these provinces with their predominantly Serbian population Nevertheless, after 1878 Serbia pursued a pro-Austrian policy under Obrenovich, who proclaimed himself king of Serbia in
1882 When he declared war on Bulgaria in 1885 after Bulgaria’s occupation of Eastern Rumelia, Serbia was defeated After securing Thessaly from Turkey in 1881, Greece fought another war against the Ottoman Empire
in 1897 that only brought minor remedies regarding the Thessalian frontier
ONGOING NATIONALISTIC CONFLICT
It was not until the 1905 revolution that Europe real-ized the importance of nationalism within the Russian Empire Before that crisis, the dissatisfaction of the non-Russian minorities did not appear be serious In the czarist empire, the Russian majority seemed immense because the Ukrainians and the White Russians were not offi cial nationalities However, the larger non-Rus-sian ethnic groups made steady progress in their national consciousness The Byelorussians, the Ukrainians, and other nationalities formed a belt of foreign elements along Russia’s western frontier Russia kept even the most developed nationalities under strict control Even the Poles had to postpone their hopes for liberation, focusing instead on economic and social progress
In the Baltic, the Estonians and the Latvians emerged in opposition to Russifi cation Landmark events in the rise of Estonian nationalism included the
compilation of the national epic (Kalevipoeg, published
1857–61) and a later collection of popular traditions
Similarly, the Latvians created their own epic (Lacple-sis) and started a collection of popular songs The
Lithuanian national renaissance was different because
a medieval tradition of independence could be evoked
A new tendency arose that disregarded the tradition of the former Polish-Lithuanian Union and based Lithu-anian nationalism on ethnic and linguistic grounds Writing in the Lithuanian language was making prog-ress despite restrictions imposed by the Russian gov-ernment Lithuania’s nationalism, however, carried no clearly expressed political aim
Discouraged by Russia’s imperialism, many Slavs looked with hope to the Habsburg monarchy, where the problem of nationalities was continually discussed in an entirely different spirit from that in the czarist empire The nationalities of Austria and Hungary were
divid-ed into two groups—nations that were living entirely within the monarchy and those with smaller fragments
in other nations As for the latter, an additional distinc-tion should be made between minorities attracted by an
48 Balkan and East European insurrections