Slavic unity
Modern science divides the Slavs into southern, western and eastern Slavs. Southern – these are the Bulgarians, Macedonians, Slovenes and Serbo-Croatians; Western – Poles, Czechs, Slovaks and Serbians; eastern – this is the Ukrainians, Russian and Byelorussians.
Slavic peoples occupy a significant territory of the European continent. And if they had united in Slavic unity, there would not have been a bigger and more powerful state in the world.
People on the lands of today’s Slavic states appeared thousands of years ago. Appeared and immediately won the title of the most freedom-loving and friendly people. Whichever enemy they step on their land, the Slavs joined their efforts and ruthlessly smashed the uninvited guests. Shoulder to shoulder they fought both on the feather grass field Kulikovo, and on the green fields near Grunwald.
The main center of the unity of the Slavic peoples could become Russia, which became the historical successor
For the author of “The Lay of Igor’s Campaign,” the Russian land is first and foremost the people that inhabit it. And these people were Slavs. At the present time, when social and national conflicts are taking place in the South Slavic lands, “The Lay of Igor’s Host” sounds particularly acute. It is like a spiritual testament of past generations, a reminder and a warning that calls to love our Motherland and preserve its unity.
The memory of the Slavic unity for many centuries was alive among the Bulgarians. In the 18th century, during the Bulgarian Renaissance, the monk Paisii Hilendarsky in the “History of the Slavic-Bulgarian” wrote about how after the Flood the descendants
The inviolable ties of fraternal friendship and mutual assistance have been linking the Bulgarians and Russians for more than one century. It is worth remembering the blacksmith of the Brahman, who wrote about the Slavic writings, St. Cyril and Methodius – the Slavic enlighteners, Grigory Tsamblak – the Bulgarian religious figure and writer, the first metropolitan of the principality of Lithuania, who wrote in Church Slavonic, Bulgarian, Serbian, Old Russian and Old Belorussian. Is this not an eloquent testimony of the true unity of the Slavic peoples?
And how many Russian soldiers-volunteers died in the end of the XIX century during the Bulgarian-Turkish war! Crossing the Danube, crossing the Balkans, Plevna, Shipka, Sheinovo have a common meaning in the history of Russia and Bulgaria.
And not only Bulgaria. In the seventies of the XIX century the entire Slavic world rose to help liberate the Bulgarian, Bosnian and Herzegovinian lands from the rule of the Janissaries. A single patriotic impulse then engulfed Russian society. Realizing that Russia itself is in crisis and can not enter the war), Emperor Alexander II still signed a manifesto declaring war on Turkey. It is no accident that Emperor Alexander was nicknamed the Liberator: he not only signed a manifesto on the abolition of serfdom in Russia, but also extended a helping hand to the brotherly Bulgarian people. His name and the name of General Skobelev, like the names of thousands of Russian soldiers, are forever inscribed in gold letters in the history of the Bulgarian-Russian friendship.
At that time, the Bulgarians who lived in Russia were looked upon as heroes. Remember the novel by I. Turgenev “On the Eve”. It was written just before the Bulgarian-Turkish war. And the Russian girl Elena Stakhova, hearing the story of a young Bulgarian dreaming of the liberation of her country, exclaims: “To liberate your Motherland! These words are even terrible to pronounce, so they are great!” Still not knowing Insarov, Elena is already reaching out to him with all her heart. He seems to her a romantic hero, capable of giving his life in a just struggle for liberation from the Ottoman yoke.
And after acquaintance with Insarov, the first impressions are replaced by a sincere feeling that fills Elena’s life with a new meaning. For the sake of a loved one Elena leaves everything that was familiar and dear to her since childhood, and leaves for a distant, unknown country. Even the death of Dmitry, who became her husband, does not stop Elena. The author does not say anything about Elena’s future fate. But I want to think that she, faithful to Dmitri’s memory, goes to the nurses of mercy, and only then her traces are lost in the flame of the national liberation Bulgarian-Turkish war. Many examples of Slavic unity we find also in the history of the First and Second World Wars. The true essence of this unity poet N. Aseev embodied in such lines:
On “their” Ukraine, on “their” Belarus
Such live Piracy and Marousi,
And these people, seriously, not for the sake of sight,
Nowhere, we will never give offense.
The destinies of the Slavic peoples are closely intertwined. And it is hardly worth destroying the historically formed unity of the Slavic peoples. Our time is testing it for strength. But I believe that the day will come when all the Slavic streams “merge into the river alone, as the source of one.”
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