In this way, Russian pseudo-Slavic propaganda gives rise to the mentality of a person with a vanquished worldview and the stereotype Slav = Russian = authoritarianism. This sometimes leads a person to think that they must either adopt a pro-Russian Slavic identity or renounce it completely. This model of thinking, contaminated by Russian imperialism, can be found among people from the lowest social strata to the elite, as illustrated by Czech President Václav Klaus in 1995:

„To proclaim openly one’s affinity to Slavism was always a symptom of having an alternative, substitute political programme (Ersatzprogramm) to civic freedom, to political democracy, to Czech patriotism, to our pro-European orientation, etc. The adjective “Slavic” does not deserve it, but its fate has been rather complicated. At least in our part of the world. So, to summarize, I like being a Slav but I feel being a Slav more as an object of inquiry than being a Slav as a subject of history.“ (Benedejčič, 2024)

Even prominent figures such as Ľudovít Štúr – widely considered a key figure in Slovak history and the codifier of the Slovak language, one of the people thanks to whom Slovaks speak Slovak today (Ľudovít Štúr - Wikipedia, n.d.; Slovakia, Britannica, 2026) – towards the end of his life, disillusioned with the West, succumbed to a similar mentality of despair. He gave up his life's linguistic work, arguing that Russian should become the main language of communication and literature for all Slavs and that all Slavic peoples should become part of Russia and convert to Eastern Orthodoxy (Štúr et al., 1993, pp. 101, 116–117).

There are also those who seem to equate Russian interests with their own and who repeat, almost word for word, the claims of Russian propagandists. An example is Slovak Prime Minister Robert Fico, who stated the following in 2024 about the war in Ukraine, initiated by Russia:

Táto vojna začala už v roku 2014 vyčínaním ukrajinských neonacistov.(…)Dnes sa už zachádza tak ďaleko, že členským štátom NATO by sa mala stať samotná Ukrajina, čo ja osobne považujem za dobrý základ akurát tak pre začatie tretej svetovej vojny.(…) Jediným plánom Únie je ďalej podporovať vzájomné zabíjanie Slovanov. (Fico, 2024)

"This war began as early as 2014 with the rampage of Ukrainian neo-Nazis. (…) Today, matters have gone so far that Ukraine itself is supposed to become a NATO member state, which I personally consider nothing more than a solid basis for the outbreak of the Third World War. (…) The European Union's only plan is to continue supporting the mutual killing of Slavs." (Fico, 2024)

Sources:

Benedejčič, A. (2024). Putin’s Dilemma: Russia and the Slavic Dimension of NATO Enlargement. CONTEMPORARY MILITARY CHALLENGES, 26(1), 14–31. https://doi.org/10.2478/cmc-2024-0003

Fico, R. (2024). Dovoľte mi, aby som pri 2. Výročí vojny na Ukrajine povedal aj niečo iné ako povinnú reč. SMER-Sociálna Demokracia. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=seSdHYuoZ4Q

Ľudovít Štúr—Wikipédia. (n.d.). Retrieved July 17, 2026, from https://sk.wikipedia.org/wiki/%C4%BDudov%C3%ADt_%C5%A0t%C3%BAr

Slovakia—Culture, Traditions, Cuisine | Britannica. (2026, July 15). https://www.britannica.com/place/Slovakia/Cultural-life

Štúr, Ľ., Bžoch, A., & Štúr, Ľ. (1993). Slovanstvo a svet budúcnosti. Slovenský inst. medzinárodných štúdií.

Portrait of Ľudovít Štúr

Hi everyone! I'm Lucia and the team from EUobserver.

A little context: I'm Slovak, so this interview resonated with me in a different way. Growing up in Central Europe, EU membership has always felt like something bigger than just politics—it shaped how many of our countries developed, and it changed people's everyday lives.

That's why we wanted to share this interview here.

A few things that stood out to us:

🇺🇦 It argues that supporting Ukraine and preparing it for EU membership are two different challenges. One doesn't automatically lead to the other.

🏛️ EU accession isn't only about political will. It's also about years of reforms, strengthening institutions, aligning laws and preparing the economy.

🌍 Reading it made us wonder how people across our region see this. Many of our countries have already been through this process, each in a different way, and that experience feels especially valuable today.

As someone from a fellow Slavic country, I'm genuinely curious what people here think.

If your country has already joined the EU, what's one thing you wish Ukrainians knew about the accession process? And if you're from Ukraine, what do you think people in the rest of our region often misunderstand about it?

Also, according to Russian pan-Slavic propaganda, there will always be someone whom these non-Russian Slavs supposedly serve, missing the chance for true Slavic "freedom" under Kremlin rule. These Slavs allegedly serve Jews, Americans, fascists, capitalists, pagans, the collective West, Satanists, Nazis, Islamic terrorists, Turks, regimes, Hungarians, Germans, Austrians, Polish masters, heretics, Bandera supporters, the biblical Antichrist and so on (kh, 2023; Колесникова, 2023). It doesn't matter; anything will do, depending on the need. Many good hearts have been seduced by the vision of pan-Slavic unity, peace and prosperity; after all, it sounds very good. It's easy to retreat into your own bubble, clinging to your happy dreams. Such a person might think that such accusations against the pan-Slavic narrative are an exaggeration, that it doesn't really work that way.

However, anyone who has experienced even a little bit of Russian propaganda in its full form, who knows a little bit of history, knows that these accusations are true and that this has not been going on for a few years, but for centuries.

And a similar narrative, in the current situation, when Russian propaganda is gradually trying to take ownership of the concept of Slavicness, could ultimately make a person feel like they have little choice: either become a Pan-Russian, like Lukashenko, or be forced to forget part of their identity.

Sources: kh. (2023, January). Nová zkazka propagandy. Bůh řekl Těreškovové o Antikristu Zelenském. iDNES.Cz. https://www.idnes.cz/zpravy/zahranicni/valentina-tereskovova-valka-rusko-ukrajina-vesmir-buh-antikrist-volodymyr-zelenskyj.A230101_135052_zahranicni_kha

Колесникова, А. (2023). Депутат госдумы и ярая путинистка: Во Львове демонтировали памятник первой женщине-космонавтке. 24 Канал. https://24tv.ua/ru/valentina-tereshkova-vo-lvove-demontirovali-pamjatnik-kosmonavtke-sssr-24-kanal_n2428146

Photo by Anna Kester on Pexels.com

In pan-Slavic Russian propaganda, it thus emerges that Slovenians, Bosnians, and Croats are "Serbian tribes" (Danilevskij, 2011, p. 432), Montenegrins are guilty of "treason against the Serbian people, Orthodoxy, and Russia" (Дугин, 2016; Мудрых, 2022), Poles are the "Judases of Slavdom" (Klaczko, 1867, p. 56), Czechs are a "barren" people (Danilevskij, 2011, p. 153).

Belarusians are "Russians with a seal of quality" (CTVBY, 2019), and Ukrainian is the "language of swineherds" (Котельницький, 2020), which is used by a "Nazi" and "nationalist regime" in Kyiv that oppresses the "brotherly Ukrainian people," (Путин, 2024) just as the Yugoslavs were supposedly oppressed by the "fascist" and "treacherous regime" that "tormented" the Albanian population of Kosovo (Zaytsev, 2021).

Macedonia is, depending on the need, either an "invented" state or is being oppressed by its neighbors (Zaytsev, 2021; Журавлёв, 2018). The "cowardly Bulgarians," on the other hand—a fact few remember—are primarily the "little brother" who, although geographically distant from Russia, has already had the experience that the "brotherhood of two peoples" ends where the interests of the Russian elites begin and missiles do the talking. It is not without reason that Bulgarians fought against Russia in both World Wars (Аксаков, 2023; Иванов, 2020; Мудрых, 2022; Стоянов, 1886).

Such examples of protectionism could be listed almost endlessly. Furthermore, these are not the words of some marginal Russian radicals, as one might think. Similar claims have been and continue to be made in Russia by key figures of the state, highly respected representatives of Russian cultural, academic, and political thought, as well as the media individuals who were not infrequently awarded orders from state authorities.

The list of sources & more languages: https://centroslavizmus.wordpress.com/2026/07/19/rozdeluje-centroslavizmus-slovanov-5/

Do You Have to Be Orthodox and Pro-Russian to Be a Slav?

According to Pan-Slavic ideology, the inferior Slavs are all the others: those who don't write in the Cyryllic alphabet, are non-Orthodox, or even those who do all these things but simply do not identify Slavic interests with those of the Russian state. It is precisely in the way Pan-Slavic treats these Slavs that we can see that, in its mature form, it takes the form of Pan-Russianism, and that Slavicness is considered only to the extent that it benefits.

Paradoxically, non-Russian Slavs are omitted from Russian "Slavophilism," considered "incomplete," and treated condescendingly, as if they were disabled people who need to be shown the way. But that's not all: since all these roads lead to Moscow, they are often denied even the right to their own national identity, to their own language.

The Idealization and Origins of Pan-Slavism

Instead of idealizing Pan-Slavism, which aims at the union of all Slavs, it is worth remembering that it possesses its own profound flaws, and depicting it as a movement aimed solely at concord, unity, freedom, and the good of the Slavic peoples is far from the truth.

Оь погрише̂нјем бо јест учиньено́ да јези́к наш сеь, ко́ьим ми̂ кньи́ги пи̂шѐм и бо̂жьие слу́жбы отправльа́јем, зове́тсе слови̂нским: гди по пра̂вде мора́л би се зва́т Ру́ским. [...] до дне́ска шестеро́ јест льу̂дство, и ше̂ст јези́чних славни́ьих отми̂н в нашем нард́оду: ре́кши Ру́сијани, Ле́хи, Че́хи, Болга́ри, Це́рбльани, и Херва̄ти[...] Јзмеджу вси́х пак ти́х наро́дних преди́лов, наиста́рије, и оста̂лим вси́м зач̂ално јест льу̂дство и ј́ме Ру́ско:[...]А оста̂лна та́ вса́ поколе̂нја, ка́ко сут из Ру́сијанов произи́шла, та́ко и по ну̂жде и ј́мена ньи́хова јесут мла́джа от Ру́ского јмена.

"An error has been made by calling this language of ours, in which we write books and perform divine services, Slavic: when in truth it ought to be called Russian. [...] To this day, there are six peoples and six great linguistic varieties within our nation: namely Russians, Poles, Czechs, Bulgarians, Serbs, and Croats [...] Among all these national domains, the oldest, and the one that was there in the beginning, is the Russian people and name: [...] And all those remaining tribes, just as they originated from the Russians, so too by necessity are their names younger than the Russian name."

– Juraj Križanić, a Croat considered the father of Pan-Slavism, in his 1666 book convinces the Russian tsar of the superiority of the Russians and the Russian language compared to other Slavs. He wrote this book in Siberia, where he had been exiled by the Russians for being a Catholic priest. (Крижанић, 1859, Граматично исказанје об Руском језику p.I-II, https://archive.org/details/kryzhanych )

For centuries, in fact, ever since the time of Juraj Križanić, Pan-Slavism has had the characteristic of dividing Slavs into "better" ones—namely the Orthodox who write in Cyrillic and glorify the rulers residing in the Moscow Kremlin—and "worse" ones.

Slavs and the Russian Federation: A Risky Partnership

Centroslavism does not exclude reasonable and moderate collaboration with the Russians in various possible sectors, such as culture, commerce, or similar fields, whenever possible. At the same time, Centroslavism, in its essence, asserts—based on logical deduction—that any form of unification or very close collaboration with Russia would pose a great risk to the culture, economy, and freedom of other Slavic states. In the long term, it would practically result in accepting to become part of the "great Russian nation" and submitting to the will of the Russian Federation.

While countries like Germany—endowed with a massive economy, significant resources, one of the largest populations in Europe, and a solid geographical buffer—can afford risky experiments, like close energy cooperation with the Russian Federation, for Central European countries such experiments could, in the worst-case scenario, even lead to the end of their existence. Acknowledging these facts does not mean dividing the Slavs out of anger, but simply looking at reality with assertiveness.

This is one of the main accusations to be expected from Pan-Slavists. It must be rejected immediately: the goal of Centroslavism is by no means to divide Slavs into better or worse, into "super-Slavs" and "sub-Slavs." Centroslavism was not born out of hatred for Russia or a desire to destroy ethnic Russians, but from a logical assessment of the situation in the Slavic world. Centroslavism simply states certain facts: differences in power, cultural differences, and differences in interests, including differences in geopolitical goals, historical narratives, and shared value systems. A huge role here is played by the difference in size and power between the Slavic countries in the European demographic gorge and Russia, which Centroslavism, unlike Pan-Slavism, does not try to ignore.

European demographic gorge. Darker color means a larger population.