Россия и Запад

The most prominent members of the anti-German group were, unsurprisingly, those politicians and officials who favoured close ties with France and Britain. Among them were the two foreign ministers, Aleksandr Izvol’skii (1906–1910) and Sergei Sazonov (1910–1916), as well as Aleksandr Savinskii, chief of the cabinet of the Minister for Foreign Affairs (1901–1910). In his memoirs, he identifies the Drang nach Osten as the most important reason for the outbreak of World War I. Already since Frederick the Great, the Germans «inaugurated their systematic method of the colonization of Russia» and used «the Slavonic nations for extending [their] greatness»[1355]. While one might have expected a more subtle and historically informed analysis of the reasons for the war from such a high-ranking official, the true source of his prejudices comes out when he writes about his Baltic German colleagues. A: cording to him, these people «for the greater number remained German in soul and sentiment and faithful servants of the German cause». While the large number of «Baltic barons» in Russia’s Foreign Service was an undisputed fact, most of them had been in Russian service for generations and had only little co

When, for example, Izvol’skii was looking for an assistant in 1908, he chose Nikolai Charikov, not only as a former classmate, but also because he saw in him a man from «the traditional circle of Russian [as opposed to Baltic!] landed nobility», which he hoped would continue to dominate Russia’s political institutions[1357]. His opinion of officials with German background was in general utterly prejudiced. In his memoirs, he describes one of them in almost cartoon-like fashion as a person «qui représentait le type le plus accompli de ces fonctio

While Izvol’skii’s attitudes towards Germany were quite obvious, the case of his successor, Sazonov, is more complicated. He was not a straightforward anti-German, as has been suggested[1360]. At some point, he was even rumoured to «cater to the whims and caprices of the Kaiser» and, in a letter by Izvol’skii from 1912, to be «a friend of Germany»[1361]. His attitudes apparently changed as a result of the Liman von Sanders crisis in 1913, when a German military mission to Constantinople seemed to pose a vital threat to Russia’s interests and to challenge his personal reputation as Foreign Minister. Although this crisis was peacefully resolved, by the time he was writing his memoirs, after World War I, Sazonov had become a convinced nationalist, who employed all the familiar anti-German cliches, including Drang nach Osten and the final showdown between Slavs and Germans. Yet his image of Germany was still much more complex than one might expect. He attaches it to a specific historic development which bothered him not just as a politician, but also as an individual human being. Like many other educated Russians, Sazonov had always admired German music and literature, and he even welcomed the positive influence that German culture exerted within Europe. But with the foundation of the German Empire, all of this allegedly changed. Under the influence of «blood and iron» ideology, German culture degenerated into «Prussian civilization», and German arts and sciences took on a «barracks-like character». In sarcastic language, Sazonov elaborates on the results of these changes, in particular the psychology of Germans and their politicians. He attributes their self-righteous attitudes to a «Prussian official education» which made them «physically incapable to face with impartiality a Frenchman and even more a Slav» and he identifies a certain «nationalist frenzy» as a main characteristic of German national psychology[1362]. Although one could argue that this perception of Germany actually reflected historical reality (nationalism and militarism did indeed run high there), it is still quite reductionist with its notion of a physically predetermined national psychology and its absurd historical claims. If anything, Sazonov’s memoirs reflect a deep feeling of disappointment and bitterness about a country that he had once admired.

Diplomats with pro-German leanings unsurprisingly shared Sazonov’s positive views about German culture, but not his wider anti-German resentments. Petr Botkin, for example, who served at the Embassies in the USA and Portugal, remembered that he had to think of no one less than Goethe’s last words — «mehr Licht!» — when he first entered the dark corridors of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in St. Petersburg. He also was a great admirer of the music of Bach, Beethoven and, in particular, Richard Wagner, whom he mentions several times in his memoirs[1363]. Iurii Solov’ev, who later was one of the first tsarist diplomats to join the Bolsheviks, apparently had a late start in his Foreign Service career because of his pro-German attitudes. He had become a victim of Izvol’skii’s perso

It should be noted that some of these Baltic barons themselves held rather critical views of Germany and can thus not automatically be counted as pro-Germans simply because of their names and ancestries. Benckendorff, for example, was a passionate anglophile and an ardent supporter of Russia’s rapprochement with Britain, who believed that the German Empire posed the biggest danger to Russia It seems ironic then that the Anglo-Russian Entente (1907) had to be negotiated in St. Petersburg instead of London, allegedly because there was so little confidence in the perso

1355

Savinsky A. A. Recollections of a Russian Diplomat. London, 1927. P. 143–145.

1356

Lieven D. The Russian Civil Service under Nicholas II: Some Variations on the Bureaucratic Theme // JBfGOE. Vol. 29. 1981. P. 375.

1357

Tcharykow N. V. Glimpses of High Politics. Through War à Peace 1855–1929. London, 1931. P. 22, 268.

1358

Mémoires de Alexandre Iswolsky. Ancien ambassadeur de Russie à Paris (1906–1910). Paris, 1923. P. 131.

1359

Stieve F. Der diplomatische Schriftwechsel Iswolskis 1911–1914. Vol. 1. Berlin, 1924. P. 24.

1360

Lieven. Pro-Germans. P. 42 ff.

1361

Kalmykov A. D. Memoirs of a Russian Diplomat. Outposts of the Empire, 1893–1917. New Haven, 1971. P.251; Stieve F. Schriftwechsel. Vol. 2. P. 67.

1362

Sasonoff S. D. Sechs schwere Jahre. Berlin, 1927. P. 22, 44–46, 146–148, 203–204.

1363

Botkin P. S. Kartinki diplomaticheskoi zhizni. Paris, 1930. P. 23, 38 ff., 66, 67.

1364

Solov’ev Iu. Ia. Vospominaniia diplomata. 1893–1922. М., 1959. P. 206–235.

1365

Revelations of a Russian Diplomat. The Memoirs of Dmitrii I. Abrikossow. Seattle, 1964. P. 129.

1366

According to Abrikosov in ibid. P. 112, 129; see also: Taube M. von. Der großen [Catastrophe entgegen. Die russische Politik der Vorkriegszeit und das Ende des Zarenreiches (1904–1917). Leipzig, 1937. P. 146–147.

1367

Rosen R. Forty Years of Diplomacy. London, 1922. Vol. 2. P. 83–87, 92–100, 156–158.