Slavic Reciprocity and Greek‐Cypriot Enosis as the Nineteenth‐Century Forms of the Law of Progress

Abstract

In the context of Hobsbawm's thesis about the nineteenth‐century law of progress, the author studies Kollár's and Štúr's conception of Slavic reciprocity, which he compares with the Greek Great Idea (Megali Idea) and the Greek‐Cypriot idea of enosis. He came to the conclusion that there is greater similarity, especially between Štúr's conception and enosis, since they both required state‐political as well as territorial unification of Slavs or Greeks, unlike Kollár's conception, which was, rather, a cultural and literary reciprocity project. As a historical paradox, the author considers the fact that the practical and feasible conception of enosis was never carried out, while Kollár's theoretical conception and Štúr's highly unlikely model became, in a modified form, a reality after the First and Second World Wars.