A Russian Slavophile in a Quest for Europe: The Images of Russia and Europe in V. Lamansky’s book State Secrets of Venice

Abstract

The main focus of the article is a detailed reconstruction of the reception of State Secrets of Venice, the main historiosophical work by V. Lamansky. The article also provides comments on State Secrets received from Russian and foreign researchers. On the basis of the review written by A. Budilovich, the article gives a detailed exposition of Lamansky’s work. It is shown that although Lamansky’s work is formally aimed at the reconstruction of the history of political assassination in Venice in the XV–XVIII centuries, it emphasizes the new elucidation of the Eastern Question as reduced to the problem of Russian and European relations. The facts given in the work are only valuable as a means of the illustration of the idea of the profound controversy between the Romano-Germanic and Greek-Slavic worlds. On this point, the authors demonstrated the continuity between the historisophy of the early Slavophiles (firstly A. Khomiakov) and Lamansky’s historical methodology. It is shown that both early- and later-Slavophiles considered the historical problematics as based on the actual cultural situation. The article proves that Lamansky’s State Secrets of Venice is rather of the political type; it strives to give a moral conviction of European politics, that is, to show Europe in its own true image. In this regard, the authors consider State Secrets of Venice as a work which more fully expresses the later-Slavophile conception of Europe. The article also shows Lamansky’s relation to pan-slavism. It is noted that Lamansky regarded Austro-slavism negatively; he understood it as an attempt to drive Slavs apart and to turn them against Russia, which, in his opinion, is the only true defender of Slavic interests.