Introduction

Abstract

During the past quarter-century Soviet historians have published a steady flow of monographs, articles, and document collections on the Eastern Question. (1) To a certain extent this flurry of scholarly activity stems logically from a long-term national interest in the Balkans. Russian historians and even Russian public opinion in the nineteenth century placed great importance on the Black Sea basin, the Straits, and south-eastern Europe in general for a variety of strategic, economic, religious, racial, and emotional reasons. However, unlike their prerevolutionary counterparts, who tended to underscore the religious, national, and emotive content of St. Petersburg's relations with the Balkan Christians (2), Soviet Marxist writers not surprisingly place more emphasis on socio-economic determinants in explaining the vicissitudes of the Eastern Question. Still, as the tone of the articles appearing here in translation suggests, recent Soviet works affirm the affinity and friendship between the Russian and Balkan Slavs and to a lesser degree, as in the case of Greece, the significance of Orthodox religious bonds.