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“The ‘Russian Idea’ describes the way Russia thinks about itself and its place in
the world. As never before, the world needs to understand the concept, and
Tsygankov provides a brilliant, historically grounded and detailed analysis that
guides us through the labyrinth. Clear, balanced and supremely well-informed,
this is essential reading for all those looking to understand Russia today.”
Richard Sakwa, University of Kent, UK

“The ‘Russian Idea’ in International Relations traces over centuries the three
central notions of Russia as a unique civilization and helps us understand how
Russian elites’ views of their conflict with the West is rooted in such longue
durée visions of the country. Andrei Tsygankov’s refined analysis is a must-read
to comprehend the roots of today’s tensions.”
Marlene Laruelle, The George Washington University, USA

“With this book, Professor Tsygankov cements his reputation as America’s

preeminent scholar of Russian foreign policy and intellectual thought … An
intellectual tour de force!”
Nicolai N. Petro, University of Rhode Island, USA
THE “RUSSIAN IDEA” IN INTERNATIONAL
RELATIONS

The “Russian Idea” in International Relations identifies different

approaches within Russian Civilizational tradition – Russia’s nationally
distinctive way of thinking – by situating them within IR literature
and connecting them to practices of the country’s international
relations.
Civilizational ideas in IR theory express states’ cultural
identification and stress religious traditions, social customs, and
economic and political values. This book defines Russian civilizational
ideas by two criteria: the values they stress and their global
ambitions. The author identifies leading voices among those
positioning Russia as an exceptional and globally significant system
of values and traces their arguments across several centuries of the
country’s development. In addition, the author explains how and
why Russian civilizational ideas rise, fall, and are replaced by
alternative ideas. The book identifies three schools of Russian
civilizational thinking about international relations – Slavophiles,
Communists, and Eurasianists. Each school focuses on Russia’s
distinctive spiritual, social, and geographic roots, respectively. Each
one is internally divided between those claiming Russia’s
exceptionalism, potentially resulting in regional autarchy or imperial
expansion, and those advocating the Russian Idea as global in its
appeal. Those favoring the latter perspective have stressed Russia’s
unique capacity for understanding different cultures and guarding
the world against extremes of nationalism and hegemony in
international relations.
 This book will be of interest to students and scholars of Russian
foreign policy, Russia–Western relations, IR theory, diplomatic
studies, political science, and European history, including the history
of ideas.

Andrei P. Tsygankov is Professor of International Relations and

Political Science at San Francisco State University. Recent
publications include Russian Realism: Defending “Derzhava” in
International Relations (2022) and Russia and America: The
Asymmetric Rivalry (2019).
WORLDING BEYOND THE WEST
Series Editors: Arlene B. Tickner, Universidad del Rosario,
Colombia, David Blaney, Macalester College, USA and Inanna
Hamati-Ataya, Cambridge University, UK

Historically, the International Relations (IR) discipline has established

its boundaries, issues, and theories based upon Western experience
and traditions of thought. This series explores the role of geocultural
factors, institutions, and academic practices in creating the concepts,
epistemologies, and methodologies through which IR knowledge is
produced. This entails identifying alternatives for thinking about the
“international” that are more in tune with local concerns and
traditions outside the West. But it also implies provincializing
Western IR and empirically studying the practice of producing IR
knowledge at multiple sites within the so-called “West.”

The Kyoto School and International Relations

Non-Western Attempts for a New World Order
Kosuke Shimizu

Russian Realism
Defending “Derzhava” in International Relations
Andrei P. Tsygankov

Globalizing International Theory

The Problem with Western IR Theory and How to Overcome It
Edited by A. Layug and John M. Hobson

The “Russian Idea” in International Relations

Civilization and National Distinctiveness
Andrei P. Tsygankov

For more information about this series, please visit:

www.routledge.com/Worlding-Beyond-the-West/book-series/WBW
THE “RUSSIAN IDEA” IN
INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS

Civilization and National Distinctiveness

Andrei P. Tsygankov
Designed cover image: © Getty Images
First published 2023
by Routledge
4 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN
and by Routledge
605 Third Avenue, New York, NY 10158
Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa
business
© 2023 Andrei P. Tsygankov
The right of Andrei P. Tsygankov to be identified as author of this
work has been asserted in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of
the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or
reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical,
or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including
photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or
retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers.
Trademark notice: Product or corporate names may be trademarks
or registered trademarks, and are used only for identification and
explanation without intent to infringe.
British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Names: Tsygankov, Andrei P., 1964– author.
Title: The “Russian idea” in international relations : civilization and
national distinctiveness / Andrei P. Tsygankov.
Description: Abingdon, Oxon ; New York, NY : Routledge, 2023. |
Series: Worlding beyond the West | Includes bibliographical
references and index.
Identifiers: LCCN 2022059992 (print) | LCCN 2022059993 (ebook) |
ISBN 9781032455600 (hardback) | ISBN 9781032455594
(paperback) |
ISBN 9781003377573 (ebook)
Subjects: LCSH: Russia (Federation)–Foreign relations–Philosophy. |
National characteristics, Russian.
Classification: LCC JZ1616 .T79 2023 (print) |
LCC JZ1616 (ebook) | DDC 327.47–dc23/eng/20230130
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2022059992
LC ebook record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2022059993
ISBN: 978-1-032-45560-0 (hbk)
ISBN: 978-1-032-45559-4 (pbk)
ISBN: 978-1-003-37757-3 (ebk)
DOI: 10.4324/9781003377573
Typeset in Bembo
by Newgen Publishing UK
 CONTENTS

List of Tables
Preface

1 Introduction

2 Russian Civilizational Ideas

3 Slavophiles

4 Communists

5 Eurasianists

6 The “Russian Idea” for Russia and the World

ndex
 TABLES

2.1 Russian Intellectual Currents

6.1 The “Russian Idea” (RI): Positions and Conditions of Influence
PREFACE

This book continues with the topic of Russian international relations

IR theory. While the first volume (Tsygankov 2022) analyzed
“Russian Realism,” the present book considers “Civilizational”
approaches. Following nineteenth-century writer Fyodor
Dostoyevsky, Russian philosophers and IR thinkers commonly
employ the notion of the “Russian Idea” (RI) to describe the
country’s nationally distinctive way of thinking. This volume aims to
identify different schools and ideas within the RI, or “Russian
Civilizational,” tradition by situating them within the IR literature and
connecting them to practices of the country’s relations with the
outside world.
The Civilizational tradition is the second broad school of thought
that emerged several centuries ago, alongside Statism or Realism,
that focuses on Russia’s national interests and protection of state
sovereignty. The Civilizational tradition also differs from that of
“Russian Westernizers,” who emphasize Russia’s similarities and the
importance of catching up with the West. I plan to explore ideas of
Westernizers in a future separate volume.
Parts of several chapters draw on my previously published
articles: “Mastering Space in Eurasia” (Communist and Post-
Communist Studies 36, 1, 2003, pp. 101–127); “Finding a
Civilizational Idea” (Geopolitics 12, 3, 2007, pp. 375–399); “The
Heartland No More” (Journal of Eurasian Studies 3, 1, 2011);
“Crafting the State-Civilization,” (Problems of Post-Communism 63,
3, 2016, pp. 146–158); “In the Shadow of Nikolai Danilevskii:
Universalism, Particularism, and Russian Geopolitical Theory,”
(Europe-Asia Studies 69, 4, 2017, pp. 571–593, copyright © 2017
University of Glasgow, reprinted by permission of Taylor & Francis,
www.tandfonline.com, on behalf of University of Glasgow); and
“Constructing National Values” (Foreign Policy Analysis 17, 4, 2021;
CC-BY 4.0). I thank the publishers for permission to use these
materials in the book.
At Routledge, I express my deep gratitude to the editors of the
Worlding Beyond the West series – Arlene Tickner, Inanna Hamati-
Ataya, and David Blaney – for their support and interest in Russian
IR. I also wish to thank Emily Ross, Hannah Rich, and all at the
press for their advice, assistance, performing editorial services, and
preparing the manuscript for publication.
While researching and writing the book, I had numerous
conversations with my father and frequent co-author, Pavel
Tsygankov, my wife, Julia Godzikovskaya, and many friends and
colleagues in Russia and the West. I thank them all for their
willingness to listen and offer suggestions for improving the book.
I dedicate this book to all those in the broadly defined IR
community who recognize the value of nationally distinctive thinking
about the world and do not reduce such thinking to national
exceptionalism.
In transliterating names from Russian, I have used “y” to denote
“ы”, to denote “ь” and “ъ”, “yu” to denote “ю”, “ya” to denote “я”, “i”
to denote “й” and “ий”, “iyi” to denote double “и”, “e” to denote “э”,
“kh” to denote “х”, “zh” to denote “ж”, “ts” to denote “ц”, “ch” to
denote “ч”, “sh” to denote “ш”, and “sch” to denote “щ”. I have also
used “Ye” to distinguish the sound of “е” (such as “Yevropa”) in the
beginning of a word from that in the middle of a word (such as
“vneshnei”). Everywhere, I did not distinguish between “е” and “ё”.
Spelling is retained in quotations.
Reference
Tsygankov, Andrei P. 2022. Russian Realism. London: Routledge.
1
INTRODUCTION

DOI: 10.4324/9781003377573-1

The idea of a nation is not what it thinks of itself in time, but what God thinks
of it in eternity.
Vladimir Solovyev (1989, 220)

This book studies the role of ideas in sustaining social communities

across time and space. In particular, I am interested to learn how
ideas formulated by non-Western nations reflect and preserve their
national unity and the sense of cultural distinctiveness. Russian IR
theory has come to accept the importance of samobytnost, or
national distinctiveness (Tsygankov and Tsygankov 2021). Following
the end of the Cold War, scholars have increasingly studied cultural
and civilizational interactions to understand sources of foreign policy
and patterns of inter-state relations (Huntington 1996; Inayatullah
and Blaney 2004; Hall and Jackson 2007; Katzenstein 2010; Spruyt
2020; Chebankova and Dudkevitch 2021). To contribute to our
understanding of these processes, I focus on Russian civilizational
ideas and conditions under which they serve as guides in national
development. Such ideas are often formed by intellectuals, whose
concepts and theories are then borrowed by politicians.1 Concepts
and theories subsequently play the role of springboards (Goldstein
and Keohane 1993) for becoming “isms,” each carrying names of
powerful intellectuals – Marxism, Leninism, Keynesianism, Ghandism,
Confucianism, and the like.
The Russian Question in the World
Like other nations, Russia strives to protect its values and interests
worldwide. The two – values and interests – are interrelated, yet
distinct. National interests develop in the context of the
contemporary international system and are based on a nation’s
historically formed self-perception. The idea of a nation is more
historically continuous and results from collectively overcoming
challenges – wars, revolutions, economic, demographic, and other
crises. By addressing these challenges, a nation builds a character
and develops a particular combination of values or long-term
preferences. These long-term preferences greatly assist a nation in
deciding and sustaining what it is and what it wants to accomplish in
the contemporary world.
Following the Soviet disintegration in 1991, Russia was
immediately guided by the idea of joining the Western community of
nations. Russian leadership assumed that the country’s historically
developed system of values, which included the concept of a strong,
socially responsible state and great power, would be compatible with
Western institutions of liberal democracy, free-market economy, and
international security preferences. The reality proved different.
Russia’s insistence on playing a unique role in European and
Eurasian affairs came into conflict with the West’s idea of expanding
its political, economic, and military institutions, resulting in multiple
crises in Russo-West relations.
Having reached no understanding with the West, Russia reframed
its national idea. It challenged Western liberal ideology and
capitalized on historically established values of conservative family
values, national sovereignty, a strong state, and great power
(Tsygankov and Tsygankov 2021). Because of the contemporary
conflict between Russia and the Western nations, the latter have
increasingly framed these values as “autocratic” and incompatible
with Western values (Tsygankov 2019; Diesen 2022; Sakwa 2023).
In the meantime, Russia’s insistence on its distinct interests and
active rapprochement with China and other non-Western nations
have led some observers to define Russia’s values in terms of their
Eastern or Eurasian opposition to those of the Euro-Atlantic West
(Lewis 2018; Lukin and Yakunin 2018).
In the second half of the 2010s, Russia capitalized on
“conservative” values, further challenging Western liberalism. The
crisis within the European Union, Brexit, and the election of Donald
Trump as US president, strengthened the Kremlin’s perception that
the age of liberalism is over and the world is entering a new era of
nationalism and nationally defined values. Russia cultivated special
relations with Euro-skeptics and critics of the liberal West in France,
Germany, and other countries. Russia also improved ties with the
conservative and friendly governments in Hungary, Italy, and Serbia
but maintained semi-frozen relations with pro-American Poland and
the Baltics.
In 2021, following the election of Joe Biden as US president,
Russia’s anti-Western turn led to a new crisis in relations with the
West. The Kremlin was determined to protect its sovereignty and
interests by refusing to discuss with Western officials issues of
human rights, such as jailing the opposition leader Aleksei Navalny,
expulsion of Western diplomats, sanctions against top-level
European officials, and shielding the Russia-friendly Belarus from the
EU criticisms of Belarus’s fraudulent presidential elections of August
2020. Soon after a short period of seemingly improving relations
with the United States and a productive bilateral meeting in Geneva
in June 2021, Putin formulated new demands for Russia’s security
from the United States and NATO, including ending the alliance’s
policy of admitting new members, such as Ukraine and Georgia. He
did not find the Western response sufficient. He remained convinced
that NATO-Ukraine cooperation and Kyiv’s possible preparations for
using force in Donbas constituted an existential threat to national
security. Russia’s decision to attack Ukraine on February 24, 2022,
reflected the deep sense of insecurity and perceived encroachment
on Russia’s interests and values by hostile Ukraine and the Western
powers (Gotz and Staun 2022; Kuzio 2022; Tsygankov 2023).
This discourse and actions of Russia merit further investigation.
The struggle for values and ideas intensifies as the world transitions
toward a new international system. The involvement of larger
societies and emotions, such as those concerning the Russia-Ukraine
war, is likely to complicate the processes of resolving interstate
disagreements, especially if such emotions are based on nationalist
indignation and scapegoating of others. These developments beg
the question of what it is that different nations are bringing to the
contemporary world, aside from the distinct preferences of political
elites. Precisely what is the national idea of Russia in this world?
Disagreements between Russian elites and those of the West are not
conclusive in answering the questions of values and a national idea
by which Russia stands, except for rejecting liberalism and
strengthening relations with non-Western nations.
Perhaps this question will be clarified by Russia’s contemporary
reassessment of its thirty years of experience with post-Soviet
development, during which Russia defined itself in terms of relations
with Western values. The war in Ukraine in 2022 has brought this
period to its closure. Contemporary Russia is less interested in
having its values recognized by the West than in protecting its
national security interests from perceived encroachment by Western
powers. After years of conflict and disagreement following the Cold
War, Russia does not expect to agree on important economic and
political issues with the West. However, Moscow feels threatened by
the Western economic and military policies, and the Kremlin hopes
to develop a greater sense of security from what it sees as the
West’s relentless global expansion.
Russia’s international activities are increasingly organized outside
the Western countries to reassess the nation’s values and rebuild its
internal foundations for future development (Krickovic and Pellicciari
2021; Diesen and Lukin 2021). As the world is becoming increasingly
multipolar, Russia’s search for security from the West is translating
into renewed efforts to strengthen political and economic relations
with countries in Eurasia, Asia, the Middle East, and other regions.
Russia’s new “National Security Strategy” adopted in July 2021
indicated that, while aiming to deter the West, Moscow plans to
considerably expand economic, political, and military ties with non-
Western nations such as China, India, Turkey, and Iran. In relations
with these nations, Russia does not feel that its security is
threatened, and it is ready to develop multiple projects to build a
post-Western world order on multipolar and multilateral foundations.
The fact that none of these nations have supported the West and
Ukraine in their confrontation with Russia strengthens the Kremlin’s
determination to limit relations with Western nations.
Overall, Russia has made essential headway in overcoming its
mental and material dependence on the West. In the future, this
development may translate into a renewed effort to challenge
Western policies and areas of global activities in partnership with
non-Western nations such as China, India, Turkey, Iran, South Africa,
and others. Alternatively, if Russia’s capacity is limited, its future
strategy may be defined by the need to reassess the capabilities of
global power and focus on internal state-building. Russian scholars
have argued for such a strategy since the 1990s by criticizing what
they saw as the Kremlin’s obsessive focus on containing the West
globally.2
In Russian history, the country has known periods of internal
concentration or foreign policy retreats from active involvement with
European/Western relations. The notion of concentration results
from Alexander II’s course following the Crimean War in the mid-
nineteenth century. Having lost the war, Russia chose to withdraw
from active participation in European affairs] while embarking on
“Great Reforms” at home, including lifting restrictions on economic
freedom, censorship, and political centralization. The intention was
to rebuild domestic foundations to return to great-power politics and
revive Russia’s pre-war interests and status.
Russia knew periods of relative isolation from the West even
before the post-Crimean period. In the fifteenth century, Ivan III
refused to cooperate with Catholic Rome by proclaiming the
independence of Russia’s interests and values and engaging in
Eurasian expansion. Russians later reformulated the idea as that of
the “Third Rome” that followed Byzantium rather than the Catholic
faith and political tradition. However, Muscovy collapsed following a
crisis of Ivan IV’s rule resulting in the period of political disorder
known as Smuta, or “Time of Troubles.” Russia, again, retreated
from active foreign policy until 1654, when it incorporated Ukraine,
assisting the Romanov’s rulers in confirming the identity of an East
Christian empire in the post-Muscovy period. In the eighteenth
century, Catherine the Great needed to withdraw from the Seven
Years’ War to minimize the risk of a major war and address pressing
economic issues. Each of these periods was required to deal with
various nation-building issues, including territorial unity, economy,
finance, and demography.

Arguing the “Russian Idea” (RI)

Historical retreats to recover internal ideas and values became
possible because there was something to salvage. Orthodox
Christianity served as the foundation of the concept of Russia for
centuries. Russian philosophers stressed those foundations as
permanent regardless of their interpretation. In the words of the
country’s leading thinker, Vladimir Solovyev (1989, 220), “The idea
of a nation is not what it thinks of itself in time, but what God thinks
of it in eternity.”3 However, while grounded in Orthodox Christianity,
Russia’s system of values changed on various occasions to solve
contemporary tasks. Today, as the international system is becoming
increasingly post-Western, conditions emerge for Russia’s new
intellectual justification of its role in the world.
Russian philosophers Vladimir Solovyev and Nikolai Berdyayev
employed the expression “Russian idea” (RI) to capture the
nationally distinctive way of thinking. They followed the Russian
writer Fyodor Dostoyevsky, who was the first to coin the term in
1860 (Gulyga 2003, 13). Even before Dostoyevsky, Russian thinkers
constantly debated what counted as the country’s values and
national mission. The purpose of the present volume is to identify
different approaches within the RI, or “Russian Civilizational”
tradition by situating them within the IR literature and connecting
them to practices of the country’s relations with the outside world.
Scholars of Russian values and ideology or the RI have produced
considerable research. In the West, many of them have concentrated
on Russia’s historically distinct ideas formed by Orthodox Christianity
and exceptional conditions separating the country from the outside
world, especially the Western European region. These ideas have
translated into the missionary belief in protecting those people who
culturally gravitate to Russia while living outside its borders (Duncan
2000; Curanovic 2020). The cultural appeal of Russia has been
geographically limited, having its roots in Eastern Christian influence
in Eurasia and Eastern/Central Europe.
In political affairs, the described cultural and ideological affinity
has often resulted in a particular form of nationalism that some
scholars call imperial (Kolstø and Blakkisrud 2016; Laruelle 2019;
Kuzio 2022 Melvin 2022). The Russian state has preserved essential
characteristics of a traditional land-based multinational empire and,
therefore, hardly qualifies as fitting with a Western-style nation-
state. Scholars of Russian nationalism have studied various
dimensions of the country’s missionary worldview and expansionist
foreign policy (Tuminez 2000; LeDonne 2004; Van Herpen 2015;
Grigas 2016). These dimensions have come under new scrutiny
following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in 2022 (Burbank 2022; Snyder
2022).
Scholars of Russian political theory have traced Russian ideas and
policies to diverse concepts of national values – conservative
(Dunlop 1983; Pipes 2008; Robinson 2019; Diesen 2020), liberal
(Weidle 2000; Chebankova 2014; Malinova 2009), socialist
(Kolakowski 1976; Agurski 1987; Malia 1999; David-Fox 2015), and
others. Scholars have produced overviews of Russian political ideas
and identities (Berlin 1969; Billington 1970, 2004; Walicki 1990;
Gulyga 2003; Riasanovsky 2005; Chebankova 2020; Bykova, Forster,
and Steiner 2021). Concerning international relations, Russian ideas
fall into several broad traditions or schools – Westernizers,
Slavophiles, Communists, and Eurasianists. Although their main
origins are in the nineteenth to early twentieth centuries, some of
their roots can be traced to significant state-building periods, during
which Russian leaders had to make strategic choices of international
orientation. For example, the idea of Russia as independent from the
West found its expression in the fifteenth-century decision by Ivan
III to decline Rome’s invitation to a close partnership.
In this book, I focus on those traditions of Russian thought that
have been critical of the West and its dominant ideas – Slavophiles,
Communists, and Eurasianists.4 Slavophiles emerged in the first half
of the nineteenth century to stress Russia’s particular spiritual roots
(Riasanovsky 1954; Rabow-Edling 2006; Engelstein 2009).
Communists prioritized social justice and equality (Agurski 1987;
Malia 1999). Finally, Eurasianists focused on Russia’s special
geographic and spatial conditions as responsible for forming national
values and the RI (Hauner 1990; Bassin, Glebov, and Laruelle 2015).
All these currents of thought have sought to highlight the
distinctiveness of Russia as a civilization or a system of values with
national and global appeal. All of them have argued the importance
of combining the values of spirituality, social justice, and political
independence advocating the notion of the integral (tselostnyi)
Russia and the integral personality.5 Therefore, my presentation of
Slavophiles, Communists, and Eurasianists as stressing one of these
values over others should be viewed mainly as a methodological
choice that serves the purposes of analysis.
The analysis of distinctive Russian thinking fits with the recent
turn in IR theory aimed at reassessing the foundations of knowledge
about international relations. Scholars have produced significant
research about the West’s ideas and their reception by non-Western
cultures and/or civilizations (Katzenstein 2010; Spruyt 2020; Buzan
& Acharya 2021). They have shown that this reception has met a
complex reaction and opposition partly because these ideas and the
recipient cultures often result from the ethnocentric reading of
national values (Hobson 2012; Grovogui 2006). Scholars have
further demonstrated the difficulties of developing a cross-national
dialogue that is complicated by differences in religions, social
customs, historical traditions, and political systems (Inayatullah and
Blaney 2004). Civilizational ideas are often framed in exceptional
terms, allowing a limited space for learning from other cultures (Cha
2015). At the same time, such ideas may have global characteristics
so long as their content appeals to the outside world. The extent to
which such ideas are capable of dialogue remains debatable.

Exceptionalism and Global Dialogue

Echoes of the identified IR discussion can be found in the research
on the RI. Many scholars have studied the RI as defined by claims to
national exceptionalism, potentially resulting in regional autarchy or
imperial expansion. Scholarship that stresses themes of
exceptionalism is abundant in both Russia and the West. In Russia,
the nationally exceptional mode of thinking has progressed since the
maxim, “Moscow is the Third Rome.”
 The mirror-image position is presented in the West. It is similar to
the one formed in Russia, except it views the RI from its own
pejorative and ethnocentric perspective – as enslaving, dark, and
dangerous for humanity rather than contributing to liberation and
enlightenment of the outside world (Smith 2019). Russia’s
contentious, conflictual relations with the West, the Ottoman Empire,
and other civilizations have reinforced this kind of thinking. It
remains popular in various social and political circles and feeds off
the renewed Russo-Western conflict (Sakwa 2023).
The second position presents the RI as global in its appeal and
potentially transformative, even while rooted in a special religious
tradition and particular geographic settings and historical conditions.
Those favoring such a perspective have stressed Russia’s unique
capacity for understanding different cultures and guarding the world
against extremes of nationalism and hegemony in international
relations. The nation’s cultural renaissance is associated with
Alexander Pushkin’s poetry, “The Wanderers” art, Piotr Tchaikovsky’s
music, and Fyodor Dostoyevsky’s literature. It was widely recognized
as reflecting the perception of Russia as a global bridge, not a
fortress. In philosophy, the most prominent voice favoring such
perception and advocating Russia’s capacity to bridge Catholic Rome
and Orthodox Christianity was Vladimir Solovyev. In the late
nineteenth – early twentieth centuries, he battled with the national
fortress mentality as advanced by Russian Pan-Slavists and radical
critics of Christian Europe.
In this book, I trace the intellectual evolution and the social
conditions for both interpretations of the RI. I situate my analysis in
contemporary IR discussions. The vital debate in IR concerns
relations between global and Western knowledge, on the one hand,
and locally grounded approaches, on the other. The two sides are
connected in various ways. Their relations include dialogue and
mutual adaptation but can also be based on alienation and
exceptionalism. Some who embrace and celebrate cultural
differences still demonstrate a commitment to global knowledge
(Buzan and Acharya 2021). Others remain skeptical that such
knowledge is possible, arguing its deep cultural roots – Western or
non-Western.
In addition to exploring the position of dialogue among Russian
thinkers, I study the nature of exceptionalist attitudes by contrasting
the two sides’ arguments and the social conditions responsible for
their principal divergence. To identify progress in the development of
global IR knowledge, we ought to understand both positions and the
relevant social contexts of their emergence.
These contexts are both internal and external. European/Western
developments have deeply influenced Russia, but they have been
processed inside the country based on its historical experience and
cultural and political conditions. The exceptionalist interpretations of
the RI have emerged or been revived under conditions of Russia–
West conflict and polarization. In contrast, the dialogue perspectives
drew their inspiration from the relative openness of the West and
Western intellectuals to outside influences.
Today’s Russia, again, demonstrates both positions. The ongoing
conflict between Russia, on the one hand, and the United States and
European powers, on the other, has revived the discourse of national
exceptionalism inside the country, particularly concerning the West.
Within these circles, Russia is presented as a conservative autarchic
civilization principally opposed to political, economic, and cultural
developments within Western societies (Linde 2016; Kuzio 2022).
Russian exceptionalism expresses itself in two ways: defensive
and expansionist. The two attitudes manifest themselves in all
civilizations, Western and non-Western (Cha 2015). Defensive
exceptionalism is akin to the siege fortress mentality that aims to
preserve national values in a community with fixed cultural, political,
and economic boundaries shielded from the outside, particularly
from the Western world. Defensive exceptionalism is a form of
nationalism under perceived self-weakness and inability to expand
national values abroad. On the other hand, the expansionist form of
exceptionalism assumes both the need and ability to promote a
civilization’s “universal” values and ideas.
However, Russian thinkers have also continued to produce ideas
of cross-cultural dialogue and global understanding. Such theories
stress the capacity of Russia to initiate political and civilizational
dialogues in the world by capitalizing on the nation’s geographical
position between Europe and Asia, the religious tolerance, and the
political and economic status of a “semi-periphery” between the
Western center and the non-Western periphery in the global
economy (Gefter 1991; Shakhnazarov 2000; Tsygankov 2008;
Malyavin 2015). Russia has engaged in various political and cultural
dialogues in the Middle East, the Caucasus, and greater Eurasia. It
has contributed to the development of multilateral formats in Asia.
Under some conditions, Russia can revive the dialogue with the West
and contribute to a mutual understanding between Western and
non-Western nations preventing the development of a dangerous
economic and military conflict.
Dialogue, of course, is not synonymous with replacing the values
of one nation with those of another. Like exceptionalism, dialogue is
a complex concept that incorporates different dimensions. It refers
to various forms of international communication, exchange of ideas,
and mutual learning. Scholars identified dialogue and communication
based on rational interests, shared values, and the capacity for
empathetic understanding of others (Inayatullah and Blaney 2004;
Hamati-Ataya 2011; Pasha 2011; Petito 2016). Dialogue can be
limited and extensive, with the capacity to penetrate different areas
and dissolve previously existing social boundaries and barriers. In
international relations, a deep cross-cultural dialogue is constrained
by historically formed values and national priorities. The remaining
chapters of the book will demonstrate that dialogues proposed
within Russian civilizational traditions also have limitations.
Slavophiles, Communists, and Eurasianists each have their versions
of engaging nations outside Russia in dialogue and learning from
them. However, their proposed engagement and learning have often
meant to be conducted on Russia’s terms or without threatening
what their authors see as the nation’s fundamental values and moral
principles.
Given the depth of the country’s conflict with the West, the
exceptionalist position prevails in Russia. It remains to be seen how
the RI will progress in the future. Some of its advocates have
described Russia’s ability to change the world through the force of a
positive example. Others have been skeptical. Most, however, have
agreed that Russia can “teach the world some important lesson,” as
famously diagnosed by Pyotr Chaadayev.

Organization of the Book

In this book, I trace the intellectual evolution and social conditions
for both exceptional and global interpretations of the RI. I develop
my argument in several steps.
Chapter 2 provides an overview of civilizational ideas and their
role in the global world. I explain their roots and significance for
constructing national identity and foreign policy. I also explain how
civilizational ideas rise and fall by utilizing insights from the
ontological (in)security theory and using examples from Russian,
Chinese, and Western experiences. I then apply the conceptual
framework for understanding Russia’s civilizational position in the
international system and the renewed search for national identity. I
contrast my explanation with those stressing predominantly political
and culturally essentialist factors. I further develop a classification of
the leading intellectual currents among Slavophiles, Communists,
and Eurasianists for their subsequent analysis in Chapters 3–5. The
classification aims to position Russian civilizational ideas in terms of
their nationally exceptional and global content and their inter-
relations in various historical contexts. Finally, I briefly describe
Russia’s search for new civilizational ideas of exceptionalist and
global varieties following the Soviet dissolution.
The subsequent Chapters 3–5 review Russia’s main civilizational
schools – Slavophile, Communist, and Eurasianist – each stressing
the RI’s spiritual, social, and spatial dimensions. Therefore, I define
each of these schools as sufficiently inclusive of incorporating diverse
thinkers who sometimes disagree with each other. Adopting such a
broad definition allows me to identify: Slavophiles as all those who
stress Russia’s spiritual/Christian foundations; Communists as all
those focusing on the country’s distinctive egalitarian economic and
social institutions; and Eurasianists as all those concentrating on
geoeconomic and geopolitical relations within the region that
differentiates and connects Europe, Asia, and the Middle East. I
identify leading exceptionalist and global voices within these
civilizational schools and trace their arguments across several
centuries of Russia’s historical development. My goal here is to
identify exciting and potentially fruitful ideas for understanding the
contemporary debate on RI.
Chapter 3 analyzes Slavophile ideas that have reflected Russia’s
spiritual conditions associated with Orthodox Christianity and the
commune-based free peasant labor. I review the evolution of
Slavophile thought from the first half of the nineteenth century to
the post-Soviet developments. Such developments include: the early
Slavophiles (Aleksei Khomyakov and Konstantin Aksakov); Pan-
Slavists (Nikolai Danilevsky and Ivan Aksakov); Vladimir Solovyev
and his followers, such as Nikolai Berdyayev; the critics of the Soviet
system (Ivan Ilyin and Alexander Solzhenitsyn); and more recent
figures (Alexander Panarin).
I selected these figures to illustrate the diversity of Slavophile
arguments developed by leading figures across time. While
convinced of their values’ superiority over Western ones, Slavophiles
diverged concerning preferred relations with European nations. For
instance, Khomyakov, Kireyevsky, and Solovyev believed in reviving
Christian ideas jointly with Europe. However, Pan-Slavists and anti-
Soviet Slavophiles were motivated by their alienation from Europe
and sought to preserve Russianness in separation from the West.
Finally, I select the figure of Panarin to demonstrate the complexity
of the post-Soviet search for national identity. Initially a supporter of
pro-Western development, Panarin became disillusioned and shifted
to the position of strengthening Russia as an anti-Western Orthodox
empire.
The chapter explains the described divergence in Slavophile
thinking by Russian thinkers’ perceived conditions of Western
civilization and Russia. Russia-European political conflicts have
contributed to the rise of exceptionalist ideas that aimed to preserve
the perceived authenticity of Christian ideals. Russian thinkers
developed defensive (fortress) and offensive (expansionist) ideas of
an exceptionalist nature as Russia and the West diverged in their
political and social directions. The revolutionary upheavals of the
1840s or liberal political protests of the 2010s were perceived as the
retribution of the European continent for abandoning traditional
values in favor of “corrupting” individualism and secularism.
Chapters 4 and 5 follow the framework of Chapter 3 by analyzing
the development of Communist and Eurasianist thought,
respectively. Unlike the spiritual emphasis of Slavophiles,
Communists and Eurasianists stress the distinctiveness of Russia’s
social and spatial conditions in forming national values. My purpose
here, as in the previous chapter, is to demonstrate the diversity of
these civilizational schools’ arguments and explain the historical and
political context in which these arguments are formed.
For analyzing Communists (Chapter 4), I have selected arguments
by the nineteenth-century thinkers, Bolsheviks, and Soviet Marxists
of the late Soviet and post-Soviet periods. While Bolsheviks
developed exceptionalist ideas of offensive (the World Revolution)
and defensive (Socialist in One Country) nature, some of the late
Soviet thinkers sought to position the Soviet Union’s dilemmas as
requiring dialogue with the West. The post-Soviet conditions also
produced ideas ranging from exceptionalism to global dialogue.
For analyzing Eurasianism (Chapter 5), I have assessed ideas that
emerged in the late nineteenth century and shaped the school’s
further development throughout the twentieth and early twenty-first
centuries. Eurasianism is primarily known for its defensive
exceptionalist orientation, although some Eurasianist theories
demonstrate expansionist and globally dialogical approaches. For
example, in some of Eurasianism’s versions, the contemporary idea
of the “greater Eurasia” positions Russia as economically, politically,
and culturally open to outside influences rather than as an autarchic
region isolated from the West.
The concluding chapter summarizes my findings on Russian
civilization ideas, reflects on their various criticisms, and discusses
the implications of the book’s argument for the future relations of
Russia with the outside world. I also reflect on the impact of the
Russia-Ukraine war on Russian thinking and its potential to
contribute to building a more secure and integrated world. Such a
world can only result from global dialogues initiated from below or
civilizational ideas that remain open to the outside world and
capable of cross-cultural conversation.

Notes
1. The reverse is also true.
2. Tsygankov 2022, chap. 5 documents this criticism by Russian
scholars.
3. Italics as in the original.
4. I will consider Westernizers in a separate volume. As a school with
a particular influence among educated Russian elites, they merit a
special investigation.
5. For analyses of Russian thinking as searching for integral or
holistic personality in harmony with the outside world, see Gulyga
2003; Hahn 2022.

Further Reading
Russia-West: Relations and Perception
Dowling, M. 2021. Writing Russia The Discursive Construction of
AnOther Nation. Routledge.
Malia, M. 1999. Russia Under Western Eyes. Cambridge, MA: Harvard
University Press.
McDaniel D. 1996. The Agony of the Russian Idea. Princeton, 1996.
Peris, D. 2021. Custiniana: The many histories of a single trip to
Russia 180 years ago, and why it matters today. Kritika:
Explorations in Russian and Eurasian History 22, 2.
Smith, M. 2019. The Russia Anxiety. New York: Penguin
Tsygankov, A. 2012. Russia and the West from Alexander to Putin.
Cambridge UP.
Sakwa, R. 2023. The Russia Scare. Routledge.

Russian Political Thought and IR Theory

Berlin, I. 1969. Russian Thinkers. New York: Penguin.
Gulyga, A. 2003. Russkaya ideya i eye tvortsy. Moscow: Eksmo.
Bykova, M. F., M. Forster, and L. Steiner, (eds.) 2021. The Palgrave
Handbook of Russian Thought. Palgrave.
Chebankova, E. 2020. Political Ideologies in Contemporary Russia.
McGill-Queen’s University Press.
Diesen, G. 2020. Russian Conservatism. Boulder, CO: Rowman &
Littlefield.
Kaczmarska, K. 2020. Making Global Knowledge in Local Contexts.
Routledge.
Kelly, I. 1998. Toward Another Shore: Russian Thinkers Between
Necessity and Chance. Yale UP
Kochtcheeva, L. 2020. Russian Politics and Response to Globalization.
Palgrave.
Leatherbarrow, W. and D. Offord, eds. 2010. A History of Russian
Thought. Cambridge UP.
Lebedeva, M. 2019. Russian Studies of International Relations. New
York: Ibidem.
Lynch A. 1987. The Soviet Study of International Relations.
Cambridge UP.
Morozov, V. 2015. Russia’s Postcolonial Identity. Palgrave.
Oskanian, K. 2021. Russian Exceptionalism between East and West.
Palgrave.
Neumann, I. B. 2015. Russia and the idea of Europe, 2nd ed.
London: Routledge.
Pipes, R. 2008. Russian Conservatism and Its Critics. New Haven:
Yale UP.
Riasanovsky, N. V. 2005. Russian Identities. Oxford UP.
Robinson, P. 2019. Russian Conservatism. Cornell UP.
Tsygankov, A. 2022. Russian Realism. London: Routledge.
Weigle, M. A. 2000. Russia’s Liberal Project. Pennsylvania State
University.
Walicki, A. 1990. A History of Russian Thought from Enlightenment to
Marxism. Stanford.

Russian Nationalism and Messianism

Brudny, I. 2000. Reinventing Russia: Russian Nationalism and the
Soviet State. Harvard UP.
Curanovic, A. 2020. The Sense of Mission in Russian Foreign Policy.
Routledge.
Duncan P. J. S. 2000. Russian Messianism. Routledge.
Dunlop, J. 1983. Russian Nationalism. Princeton UP.
Kolstø, P. and H. Blakkisrud, eds. 2016. The New Russian Nationalism.
Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press.
Kuzio, T. 2022. Russian Nationalism and the Russian-Ukrainian War.
Routledge.
Lohr, E. 2003. Nationalizing the Russian Empire. Harvard UP.
Laruelle, M. 2019. Russian Nationalism. London: Routledge.
Suslov, M. 2020. Geopolitical Imagination: Ideology and Utopia in
Post-Soviet Russia. New York: Ibidem, Columbia UP.
Tuminez, A. S. 2000. Russian Nationalism since 1856. Boulder, CO:
Rowman & Littlefield.

Dialogue and Exceptionalism in International

Relations
Acharya, A. 2011. Dialogue and discovery. Millennium 39, 3.
Callahan, W. A. 2008. Chinese visions of world order: Post-hegemonic
or a new hegemony?, International Studies Review 10, 4.
Cha, T. 2015. The formation of American exceptional identities,
European Journal of International Relations 21, 4.
Chakrabarty, D. 2000. Provincializing Europe: Postcolonial Thought
and Historical Difference. Princeton University Press.
Grovogui, S. 2006. Beyond Eurocentrism and Anarchy. Palgrave.
Habermas, J. 1990. The Philosophical Discourse of Modernity.
Cambridge: Polity Press.
Hamati-Ataya, I. 2011. The “Problem of Values” and international
relations scholarship. International Studies Review 13.
Hutchings, K. 2011. Dialogue between whom? Millennium 39, 3
Inayatullah, N., and Blaney, D. L. 2004. International Relations and
the Problem of Difference. Routledge.
Pasha, M. K. 2011, Western nihilism and dialogue. Millennium 39, 3.
Petito, F. 2016. Dialogue of civilizations in a multipolar world.
International Studies Review 18, 1.
Said, E. W. 2003 (1979). Orientalism. London: Penguin Books.
Tickner, J. A. 2011. Dealing with a difference. Millennium 39, 3.
Tripathi, 2021. International relations and the ‘Global South.’ Third
World Quarterly 42, 9.
Yong-Soo, E. 2019. Global IR through dialogue. The Pacific Review.

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2
RUSSIAN CIVILIZATIONAL IDEAS

DOI: 10.4324/9781003377573-2

[W]‌e are called to solve most of the problems of the social order, to complete
most of the ideas that have arisen in old societies, to answer the most
important questions that occupy humanity.
Pyotr Chaadayev (1991, 150)

With Pyotr Chaadayev, many Russian thinkers believe in their

country’s unique mission and the ability “to answer the most
important questions” of humanity. However, the belief in a global
mission has not been shared by others who have thought about their
country as a self-sufficient civilization developing in isolation from
the West. For instance, according to Ivan Ilyin (1992, 328), the
meaning of the Russian idea is limited to Russia, which must strive
to create an original Russian spiritual culture rather than teach
others or learn from them.1
This chapter discusses the nature of global and nationally
exceptionalist ideas of civilization as articulated in various historical
and cultural settings. I discuss the content of such ideas and the
conditions of their rise and fall using examples from the West,
Russia, and China. I also introduce a typology of civilizational ideas
based on their content and degree of openness.
This framework is then applied to the leading schools of Russian
civilizational thinking. Global or dialogical thinking among
Slavophiles, Communists, and Eurasianists has developed in the
context of Russia’s internal confidence and perception of the outside
world – until recently, the West – as sharing some essential values
with Russia. Alternatively, exceptionalist thinking results from the
nation’s internal weakness and perception of a hostile international
environment. Historically, the country’s meaningful outside world has
been constructed around the West. Today, however, Russian
leadership is increasingly positioning the country vis-à-vis non-
Western nations in Eurasia and outside. Dialogue and exceptionalism
are now progressing in both Eastern and Western global contexts.

Civilizational Ideas in the Global World

This section explores the content and variety of civilizational ideas,
including American, European, Soviet, and Chinese. In particular, I
analyze the content and conditions for the rise and decline of the
theories of “the end of history” (Francis Fukuyama), the “clash of
civilizations” (Samuel Huntington), the “world system” (Immanuel
Wallerstein), the “international society” (Hedley Bull), the “new
thinking” (Mikhail Gorbachev), and Tianxia as developed by Chinese
scholars. Some of these ideas are more globally appealing than
others. The section reflects on why some have gradually lost their
international appeal while others have not. I also discuss the
insufficiency of existing explanations articulated by cultural
essentialists, realists, and liberals.

Civilizational Idea: The Global and the

Exceptional
Every large nation tends to assume that its values are not limited to
national boundaries but have certain universal qualities. This vision
is sustained in ideas that aim to capture meanings developed across
time and space in response to various historical developments. I
refer to these ideas as civilizational. Civilizational ideas are national
Another random document with
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 It had hitherto been a legal maxim promulgated by the jurists, and
unanimously recognized by the potentates, of the Moslem world that
the title of Khalif, or Successor of the Prophet, was the peculiar
attribute of that monarch whose dominions included the cities of
Medina and Mecca. The control of the territory of the Hedjaz was
thus considered to carry with it a degree of distinction and sanctity
corresponding to that now conferred upon the successors of St.
Peter by the choice of the conclave and the ceremonies of
investiture which attend the accession of the spiritual sovereigns of
Rome. The princes of the Abbaside dynasty had preserved their title,
even after they had been deprived of the greater part of their empire;
but now, descended to a state of tutelage to powerful vassals, and
restricted in jurisdiction to the walls of their capital, they appeared to
all true believers unworthy of an appellation which implied so much
responsibility and had been the incentive to so much renown.
Considerations of respect for ancestral greatness, the claims of
religious prejudice and established custom, so revered by the
Oriental, no longer existing in their former intensity, the Ommeyade
Sultan did not hesitate to appropriate, in the character of the most
opulent and distinguished of Moslem rulers, a title that had been
virtually abandoned by a dynasty whose degenerate princes had
demonstrated their incapacity to defend it, or even to appreciate the
proud and holy distinction which its possession implied. Conscious of
his merits, and believing that the past achievements of his reign had
earned for him an honor which the imbecility and dependence of the
monarchs of Bagdad had forfeited, Abd-al-Rahman issued an edict
in which he assumed the titles of Amir-al-Mumenin, Commander of
Believers, and Al-Nassir-al-Din-Allah, Defender of the Faith.
For three years the disorders which agitated the kingdom of Leon
suspended hostilities between the Christians of the North and the
khalifate. After many months of anarchy, defiled by horrible crimes,—
crimes which recall the worst scenes that disgraced the revolutions
of the Visigothic empire, assassinations, tortures, the blinding of
some royal captives, the poisoning and starvation of others,—
Ramiro II., a prince of great address and experience, ascended the
throne. Through his intrigues with the governor of Saragossa, of the
powerful family of the Beni-Haschim, he obtained the support, and at
length received the allegiance, of the latter. Garcia, King of Navarre,
was also induced to join the confederacy, which, thus including all
the provinces of the North, both Christian and Moslem, offered an
unbroken and formidable front to the power of the Khalif.
Once more the intrepid Abd-al-Rahman prepared for war. The
issue of the campaign was everywhere favorable to his arms.
Ramiro was worsted in a series of battles. Mohammed, the insurgent
chief of the Beni-Haschim, was besieged in his capital, and either the
fears or the clemency of his sovereign restored to him the trust he
had so flagrantly betrayed. The monarch of Navarre and his mother,
whose ambition had taken advantage of the youth and inexperience
of her son, were compelled to sue for pardon at the feet of the Khalif,
and to receive from his hands, as suzerain, the government of those
states which had formerly been transmitted by Sancho the Great as
an independent kingdom.
Elated beyond measure by his triumphs, Abd-al-Rahman
conceived the idea of a grand expedition that might conquer the
infidel states of the North and exterminate, or expel forever, those
obstinate and dangerous enemies whose enterprise was a constant
reproach to the zeal of the Mohammedans and a menace to the
prosperity and safety of the khalifate. In accordance with this
resolution the Djihad was proclaimed. A hundred thousand men
rushed to arms. Volunteers came from Egypt, Syria, Mauritania, and
the Libyan Desert to be present at the humiliation of the infidel, and
to share in the plunder of his fields, his churches, his palaces. Great
magazines of provisions and munitions of war were collected in
suitable localities. Pack-trains composed of thousands of beasts of
burden were assembled. No precaution was neglected to insure
success. Surrounded by his splendid body-guard, the Khalif
appeared in person at the head of this immense host, but, with a
want of tact which did little credit to his knowledge of human nature,
he bestowed the command upon Nadja, a Slave, to the exclusion of
the nobles, who saw with inexpressible indignation their hereditary
pretensions to command subordinated to the favor enjoyed by an
officer of inferior rank and of more than plebeian extraction. The
Moslems came upon the allied army of Leon and Navarre at the
village of Alhandega, not far from Salamanca. Undaunted by the
superior numbers of the enemy the Christians bravely sustained the
attack. The treachery of the Arab officers, invested with important
commands, aided the intrepidity of the Leonese; the aristocratic
chieftains, preferring the gratification of their resentment and defeat
at the hands of the infidel to victory under a general of base and
ignoble lineage, withdrew, and the Moslems underwent a terrible
defeat. The commander-in-chief was killed. Whole divisions were
destroyed; many distinguished soldiers were dragged away to the
dungeons of Leon and Pampeluna; and the Khalif himself, with only
forty-nine survivors of his numerous escort, succeeded with the
greatest difficulty in escaping the swords of the Christian cavalry.
The imminent peril he had incurred, the sudden disappearance of his
magnificent army, and, perhaps, the consciousness of the impolicy of
his conduct or fear that fortune had averted her face from him, so
affected Abd-al-Rahman that he never again exposed his person in
the field of battle.
But the results of a victory which promised to be so advantageous
to the cause of Christendom was, as usual, nullified by the personal
quarrels and revolutionary proceedings of the conquerors. The
County of Castile, a dependency of the Asturian crown, grown
powerful through the signal abilities and eminent services of its
present ruler, Ferdinand Gonzalez, a personage famous in mediæval
history and fable, aspired to the name and privileges of an
independent kingdom. Its governor was a vassal whose fief was
hereditary, but who held his office at the pleasure of the monarch,
and, so far as the scanty annals of the age afford information, no
province of the Peninsula was more inclined to turbulence and
sedition. To distract the attention and divert the aims of this
dangerous population, the Kings of Leon subdivided the province
into four portions; but the counts who subsequently ruled it found no
difficulty in reconciling their pretensions when resistance to the
central authority was involved. A new plan was then devised by
Ordoño II. The four counts were decoyed, upon a specious pretext,
to a conference at Tejiare, on the borders of Castile and Leon, and
put to death. The county now remained without a recognized leader
until the rise of Ferdinand, whom the admiring gratitude of the
Spaniards has exalted to the station of a demigod, and to whose
prowess is to be justly attributed the foundation of the famous
monarchy of Castile.
The claims of Ferdinand Gonzalez to the affection and confidence
of his people had been established by many gallant deeds in war
and by noble acts of private munificence in peace. In the numerous
campaigns of Ramiro II. his voice had always been heard in the
thickest of the fray. The spoil he collected from the enemies of Christ
he bestowed in the erection of religious houses, in whose charters
the name of the founder’s suzerain was ostentatiously omitted. His
influence was so great that the sovereign was forced to overlook
these insults to his dignity, and to even seek to gain the support or
secure the neutrality of his formidable vassal by the marriage of his
own daughter to the son of Ferdinand. The attention of the count had
been, of late, engrossed by the expeditions of the Moslems which
ravaged his territory, but the rout of Alhandega gave him an
advantage; and, formally revoking his allegiance, he declared war
against the King of Leon. Ramiro, however, soon proved too strong
for his rebellious vassal. Ferdinand was thrown into prison, his
estates were confiscated, and the government of his dominions
transferred to a stranger. But neither the promises nor the threats of
the sovereign could shake the fidelity of the Castilians. In public acts
and proclamations they defiantly effaced the name of Ramiro and
inserted that of Ferdinand. Their devotion carried them to the verge
of idolatry. They made a statue, arrayed in the habiliments of the
illustrious exile, and, on bended knee, proffered to the senseless
marble their unfaltering and reverent homage. Finally, their
enthusiasm impelled them to march in a great body to the capital
and demand the release of their lord, a request which the King of
Leon saw proper to grant, but only under conditions that deprived the
Count of Castile of much of his political influence and power.
The death of Ramiro was the signal for a bitter contest between
his sons, Ordoño and Sancho, for the possession of the throne of
Leon. The assistance of Ferdinand Gonzalez was invoked by the
younger son Sancho, and the Count of Castile, perceiving the
advantages that he would enjoy in the rôle of king-maker and which
must eventually lead to his entire independence, seized without
hesitation the golden opportunity. A bloody civil war ensued, in which
Navarre also became involved, and hatred of the infidel was
forgotten in the furious encounters of domestic strife. In the
meantime, the armies of Abd-al-Rahman ravaged at will the
Christian frontier. Raid followed raid with the assurance derived from
constant impunity. The market-places of the Andalusian cities were
heaped up with the significant trophies of victory,—crosses and
crucifixes, embroidered vestments and jewelled censers, side by
side with ghastly pyramids of heads, the number of the latter in one
instance reaching five thousand. Distracted by the double peril of
Castilian revolt and Moslem invasion, Ordoño III. sent ambassadors
to Cordova to solicit peace. A treaty was drawn up by which the
Leonese King agreed to surrender a number of the castles which
protected the frontier; but before this condition could be fulfilled
Ordoño died, and his brother Sancho, who succeeded him,
peremptorily refused to execute the treaty. Hostilities were thereupon
renewed; an Arab force invaded Leon; and a decisive victory gained
by the general of the Khalif, Abu-Ibn-Yila, taught the imprudent
Sancho the folly of resisting, without adequate resources and
preparation, the growing power of the Moorish sovereign.
Sancho appears to have been a prince of ability and resolution,
but his ideas of the royal prerogative were too decided for his age.
Ambitious to enjoy the arbitrary rights which had been conferred by
the ancient Visigothic system, he bent all his efforts to the
suppression of the aristocracy, and, what was more dangerous still,
neglected to conciliate the ecclesiastical order, whose wealth, and
the veneration with which it was regarded, would have made it a
dangerous antagonist for any monarch. The experiment, always a
hazardous one, was doubly so in the case of Sancho, to whom
fortune had denied those personal characteristics which elicit the
applause or captivate the attention of mankind. An excessive and
increasing obesity rendered him incapable of locomotion without
assistance, and he had long since found it impossible to mount a
horse. Among an active and athletic people whose trade was war,
whose pastimes were found in the chase and the field, and with
whom all martial exercises were at once a pleasure and a necessity,
the spectacle of a helpless monarch, like Sancho the Fat, was one
calculated to excite only sentiments of the deepest contempt. But
when to this physical disadvantage were added an arrogant and
despotic bearing and an ill-concealed intention to retrench the
privileges of the nobility, whose members considered themselves, by
reason of the theoretically elective character of the crown, almost
equal in dignity, as many of them were superior in prowess, to the
princes of the reigning house, the disdain of the subjects of Sancho
was changed into apprehension lest the unwieldy monarch who
excited their ridicule might ultimately develop into a merciless tyrant.
A plot, to which Ferdinand Gonzalez, the professional agitator of the
time, was a party, was formed; Sancho was compelled to take refuge
in Navarre; and Ordoño IV., a hunchback, whose base and servile
nature corresponded with the deformity of his person, was raised to
the Leonese throne. Received with every demonstration of sympathy
by his grandmother, the martial Tota,—the virtual ruler of Navarre
who, for thirty years, had tried with various success the fortune of
war with the emirs of Cordova,—Sancho experienced little difficulty
in obtaining the promise of her aid in the recovery of his crown. But
Navarre, a mountainous and thinly peopled region, was now
exhausted by continued hostilities, and, indeed, had never been
strong enough to cope unaided with the more extensive kingdom of
Leon. An alliance with some foreign power was therefore an
indispensable requisite for the successful prosecution of the design.
In the formation of this alliance no choice was possible. One
monarch alone, the Ommeyade Khalif, whose resources were
sufficient to accomplish the desired end, could be approached, and
that monarch was separated from the Navarrese queen by the
remembrance of all the outrages of incessant warfare, of the
enslavement and decapitation of thousands of her subjects, as well
as by the barrier of a hostile faith, whose ill-comprehended and
purposely distorted tenets were the abomination of every Christian.
Other considerations rendered the present concession to the
demands of a detested adversary even more galling. The warlike
princess had commanded the Navarrese at the rout of Alhandega.
She had seen the pride of the Ommeyades abased. She had trailed
their banner in the dust. Multitudes of captives and incalculable spoil
had attested the prowess of her subjects. The greatest of the
Moslem sovereigns had fled before her arms. The emergency,
however, admitted of no alternative, and demanded the sacrifice of
pride and the oblivion of past injuries, which, in the eyes of Tota,
were eclipsed by the present outrage upon her family. Another
motive impelled her to have recourse to Abd-al-Rahman. The
infirmity of Sancho was certainly not constitutional, and perhaps was
not incurable. The reputation of the Jewish and Arab physicians for
learning and skill was unequalled in the world, and the most eminent
practitioners of that calling were residents of Cordova. It was evident
from the experience of Sancho that the recovery of his health was an
indispensable condition of his restoration to power. Sacrificing her
prejudices to imperative necessity, and with a reluctance she could ill
conceal, Tota despatched a formal embassy to the capital of the
khalifate.
Abd-al-Rahman received the envoys of the Queen of Navarre with
distinguished courtesy, and directed them to announce to their royal
mistress that he would at once send an ambassador to her court,
who would prescribe the conditions under which he would accede to
her requests.
The Jew Hasdai was the agent designated by the Khalif to
discharge the duties incident to this important mission. One of the
most adroit and experienced negotiators of the time, the versatile
genius of Hasdai had enabled him to attain to almost as exalted a
rank in the profession of medicine as he had reached in the arts of
diplomacy. He was further qualified for the post by his enjoyment of
the confidence of his sovereign; by his thorough acquaintance with
foreign tongues, including the idiom of the Christians; and by his vast
erudition and elegant manners, which fascinated all with whom he
came in contact. The occasion was one that required an emissary of
more than ordinary ability. The instructions of Hasdai included a
demand for the cession of ten fortresses in the territory of Leon, to
be made as soon as the usurper had been expelled; and that
Sancho himself, his uncle Garcia,—the nominal King of Navarre, in
whose name Tota exercised the royal authority,—and the Queen
should come in person to Cordova and sign the treaty. While no
material objection was interposed to the first condition, in the
discussion of the second it required all the address of Hasdai to
overcome the repugnance of Tota to the humiliation that such a step
implied. Finally, however, the eloquence and craft of the envoy
prevailed, and, attended by a numerous company of ecclesiastics
and nobles, the three Christian monarchs began their tedious
journey. Their passage through the Moslem dominions was attended
with every manifestation of public curiosity that such an extraordinary
circumstance could excite. Immense crowds lined the highways.
Cities and villages were emptied of their population, whose dense
masses often seriously interfered with the progress of the escort.
The arrival of the sovereigns at Cordova was signalized by a
magnificent reception, more appropriate to victorious allies than to
petitioners for the recovery of a throne. But the tact of the Khalif led
him to disguise, as far as possible, the humiliating character he had
compelled his guests to assume; and his dignity was at the same
time enhanced by the exhibition of that opulence and grandeur which
the occasion enabled him to display. The treaty was duly signed, and
it was concerted between the parties that the power of the khalifate
should be directed against Leon, while the forces of Navarre made
simultaneously a diversion towards Castile, to prevent the co-
operation of Count Ferdinand with the enemy.
No event of his long and brilliant reign did more to increase the
prestige and strengthen the authority of the famous Moslem ruler
than this stroke of profound policy. The enthusiasm of the people
was unbounded. The feuds of centuries were, for the moment,
forgotten in the indulgence of the feelings of national pride and
exultation. The Jewish and Moslem poets contended with each other
in celebrating a triumph without parallel in the annals of Islam, and
lauded the fortune and the glory of a prince whose achievements
had humbled the pride of the common enemy of their respective
sects.
Meanwhile, the medical skill of the accomplished Hasdai had
perceptibly reduced the enormous bulk which had virtually cost the
unfortunate Sancho his crown, and, by the time the Moslem army
was ready to march, he had fully recovered his former lightness and
activity. The campaign was of short duration. City after city was
taken; the entire kingdom renounced the usurper, and Ordoño was
driven into the Asturias. The expedition of the Navarrese was
attended with equal success. Ferdinand’s army was beaten, and he
himself taken prisoner. The mountaineers now refused to shelter any
longer a dethroned monarch whose personal character rendered him
unworthy of their sympathy, and Ordoño was compelled to flee into
Castile.
This decisive campaign was the last of the warlike enterprises of
the great Abd-al-Rahman. An imprudent exposure brought on an
attack of pulmonary disease, which defied the skill of the ablest
physicians, and, after an illness of several months, the most
renowned sovereign who had occupied the Ommeyade throne of the
West expired at the age of seventy years.
His reign lacked but a few weeks of reaching the extraordinary
length of half a century. His deeds, however well authenticated,
seem almost to pass the bounds of human credulity. When he
received the sceptre, the regal authority was scarcely recognized
within the narrow circuit of the walls of the capital. When that sceptre
fell from his palsied grasp, the haughty descendants of the Visigoths,
the champions of the Christian faith, the hitherto invincible
mountaineers whose pride and bigotry exceeded even their valor,
were his devoted vassals and tributaries. The most formidable
rebellion that had ever afflicted the Peninsula—a rebellion of thirty
years’ standing—was crushed. The physical traces of that long and
disastrous struggle were removed; the hatred which sprang from it,
more implacable than even the aversion of sect to sect, was allayed.
A foreign invasion which threatened not only the destruction of his
race, but the extirpation of all knowledge and all civilization, was
checked, and a long respite given to the cause of science and the
avocations of peace. His predecessor bequeathed to him an
uncertain revenue drawn from a precarious tribute; his own genius,
besides providing for the enormous expenses of government, for the
construction of great public improvements, and for the demands of a
luxury without precedent in its extravagance, was still enabled to
leave in the public treasury a sum equal to a hundred million dollars.
 A powerful navy assured the safety of the coast from foreign
attack, and permitted the development of a commerce whose agents
had already established themselves in every province of Europe,
Africa, and Asia. As a result of this extensive trade, the bazaars of
the Andalusian cities abounded with objects of luxury, whose
existence had hitherto been unsuspected by the isolated population
of the Peninsula. The effects of this intimate and constant
intercourse with many nations were, moreover, disclosed by a
marked refinement of manners, by an increased degree of mental
activity, by a high appreciation of the benefits conferred by the
possession of learning, and by the emancipation of the human mind
from those theological prejudices which, in every age, have been at
once the cause and the evidence of a condition of abject intellectual
servitude.
The fame of Abd-al-Rahman had penetrated the most remote and
barbarous regions of the globe. Princes of every rank in friendly
rivalry endeavored, by every resource of munificence and adulation,
to secure his friendship and promote his interests. Splendid
embassies, bearing rare and priceless gifts, were frequently seen in
the streets of the capital. The most remarkable of these was one
despatched by Constantine Porphryogenitus, the Byzantine emperor,
whose pride made him ambitious to surpass, in the superb
appointments and pompous ceremonial of his representatives, the
reputed magnificence of his distant ally. But exhibiting, as it did, all
the evidences of the opulence and grandeur of the master of the
Eastern Empire, the embassy of Constantine was eclipsed by the
gorgeous blaze of the Ommeyade Court. Its reception recalled the
extravagant tales of Oriental romance. The approaches to the palace
were lined with the guards of the Khalif, whose gay uniforms,
burnished armor, and jewel-hilted scimetars glittered in the dazzling
rays of an Andalusian sun. Beautiful awnings of silk were suspended
over court-yard and archway. The halls of the Alcazar were hung
with cloth of gold and silver, and with tapestry whose folds exhibited
intricate patterns of the most exquisite arabesques. Through gardens
of aromatic plants, through colonnades of many-colored marble, over
floors of polished mosaic, the envoys were conducted to the
audience chamber. Here were seated the Khalif and the members of
his family, while ranged around them stood the great civil and military
dignitaries of the empire, the chiefs of the eunuchs, the officials of
the royal household. After a profound obeisance, the ambassadors
presented the letter of their sovereign. It was of sky-blue parchment,
inscribed with letters of gold. The seal was also of the same precious
metal; it bore on one side the effigy of the Saviour, and on the other
the medallions of Constantine and his son. The letter was enclosed
in a golden box carved with wondrous skill, and it, in turn, was
placed in a case enveloped in tissue of silk and gold. On the lid of
this case was a mosaic portrait of the Greek emperor.
In order to impress the ambassadors with the talents and literary
acquirements of his courtiers, as well as to do them honor, the Khalif
had appointed a famous orator and poet to pronounce an address of
welcome, which should, at the same time, exalt the glories of his
reign and the grandeur of his empire. But the august presence in
which he found himself, and the consciousness of his inability to do
justice to his subject, so affected the impressible nature of the
chosen exponent of the eloquence of Cordova that he was unable to
utter a single word. Then the Khalif called upon one after another of
the wise men at his side, whose skill in improvisation had heretofore
never failed them, to greet the Grecian embassy, but they also were
silent. At last, unsolicited, a Persian, named Mondhir-Ibn-Said, a
recent arrival at the court, arose, and repeated some appropriate
and extemporaneous verses, full of the glowing images and
extravagant metaphors which are the delight of the passionate
Oriental. When he concluded, neither the presence of royalty, nor the
stately and dignified etiquette of the court, could repress the
applause of the delighted audience, and the Khalif recompensed the
fortunate poet with a purse of gold, and at once appointed him—for
he was learned in the law—Chief Kadi of Cordova. The envoys,
having received every attention in the power of their generous host,
were dismissed, accompanied by a vizier charged to offer, in the
name of the Khalif, a number of splendid horses, arms, and coats of
mail to the Byzantine emperor.
The account of another embassy of an entirely different character
which arrived some time afterwards is instructive, as affording a
curious picture of the manners of the time. The Khalif having formed,
from the accounts of mendacious travellers, an exaggerated idea of
the extent and resources of Germany, and desirous of opening
diplomatic relations with that power, sent to Otho, the son of Henry
the Fowler, a letter, accompanied with the usual presents. The chief
of the embassy, a Mozarabic bishop, perished on the journey, and
the missive was delivered by his companions, who were ignorant of
its contents. The pride of Abd-al-Rahman had permitted him to
incorporate into his letter expressions which were not complimentary
to the Trinitarian belief, or, as the chronicle suggestively remarks, “in
it the German emperor was much better treated than the God of the
Christians,” trusting to the tact of the bishop to soothe any irritation
that might arise from its perusal. Otho, having read it, in the absence
of all explanation, naturally construed the language of the Moslem as
a deliberate insult to his religion, treated the envoys with marked
indignity, removed them from the precincts of the court, and for three
years wholly ignored their presence, except to restrain them of their
liberty.
Then he determined to retaliate in kind. A letter was drawn up by
the Archbishop of Cologne, in which the vocabularies of profane and
ecclesiastical abuse were exhausted in search of epithets to be
heaped upon Mohammed. A messenger was now sought to convey
this scurrilous epistle, for, while many could be found who were
willing to write it, few were inclined to run the risk attending its
delivery; for it was well known that among the Moslems vituperation
of the Prophet was inexorably punished with death. Finally, John de
Gorza, a fanatic monk, whose austere life had obtained for him a
reputation for unusual piety, voluntarily offered himself as a
candidate for the perilous duty which almost necessarily involved the
penalty of martyrdom. His services were accepted in default of those
of an ambassador of superior dignity, and three ecclesiastics of
equal rank were selected to accompany him, and to share the
doubtful fortunes of the enterprise. All arrangements having been
completed, this singular embassy set forth from the court of Otho
with but slight probability of its return. Arrived without accident at
Cordova, the monks were detained in one of the suburbs pending
the negotiation which Abd-al-Rahman deemed it proper to enter into
with them touching the offensive letter of the emperor, whose
contents were no secret at the Mussulman court. The Khalif found
himself placed in an unpleasant dilemma. The law was severely
explicit concerning the treatment of such as blasphemed the name of
Mohammed. Should the envoys deliver the letter of Otho,
responsibility would attach to their act as the representatives of their
sovereign, and yet their execution would be, in the eyes of the world,
a serious violation of the law of nations. Every effort was made to
induce John de Gorza to retain the letter and present only the gifts
which accompanied it. The services of the shrewdest diplomatists of
the court were enlisted for this purpose. But the stubborn fanatic, in
whom the splendors of the Moslem empire aroused only a feeling of
disdain, was not to be convinced by the insinuating arts nor
intimidated by the menaces of the emissaries of the Khalif. The
difficulty was at length adjusted by John de Gorza consenting to
apply to his royal master for another letter to be substituted for the
objectionable one in his possession. This was done, and, after a
delay of eighteen months, preparations were made for the reception
of the embassy. Now, however, a fresh obstacle was interposed by
the obstinacy of monkish prejudice. The rigorous etiquette, as well
as the elegance and decorum of the Moslem court, were insulted by
the coarse and tattered garments and uncleanly appearance of the
German envoy. Attributing his condition to poverty, the Khalif sent
him a large sum of money to be expended in procuring suitable
clothing. True to his profession, the unselfish anchorite at once
bestowed the whole amount in alms upon the poor. The Khalif,
unable to repress his admiration for the consistent and
uncompromising character of the bold ecclesiastic, exclaimed, “By
Allah! were he only clothed with a bag, I will see him.”
Introduced with every form of ceremonious courtesy into the
presence of the most brilliant court in Europe, John de Gorza,
unawed by the majesty of the monarch and apparently unimpressed
by the new and dazzling scenes that met his eye, bore himself with a
calm dignity and self-possession little to be expected from his
previous conduct; and Abd-al-Rahman, greatly pleased with his
candor and humility, accorded him before his departure the unusual
distinction of a private audience, and finally dismissed him with every
token of honor and esteem.
This period is remarkable for the success of a handful of
adventurers, who, in the closing years of the preceding century, had
established themselves on the coast of France, and whose
enterprise, had they received substantial aid from the government of
Cordova, might have affected, in no small degree, the ultimate fate
of Christian Europe.
In the year 889, a band of twenty Moorish pirates were driven by a
tempest into the Gulf of Grimaud, which washes the shores of Lower
Provence. Their predatory habits tempted them to explore the
adjacent country; a village was surprised and plundered; and further
investigation convinced them of the advantages which chance had
thrown in their way for the foundation of a permanent colony. It was
indeed an ideal spot for a robber stronghold. The commerce of the
Northern Mediterranean was within easy reach. The harbor was
retired and capacious. Lofty mountains covered with dense forests
surrounded it. From their summits could be discerned the highly-
cultivated plains of France, for generations free from the inroads of
the marauder, whose inhabitants, ruled by a succession of incapable
princes, were wholly destitute of the martial spirit which supplies the
neglect of royal protection in a hardy peasantry, and who had been
long unaccustomed to the use of arms. Near at hand were the Alps,
through whose unguarded passes access was obtainable to the
smiling valleys and rich cities of Italy, a country which has been the
goal of every military adventurer of Western Europe in both ancient
and modern times.
The Moslem freebooters lost no time in apprising their friends and
comrades of their discovery. Recruits from Spain, Sicily, and Africa
daily swelled their ranks. It was not long before a score of castles—
each the seat of a marauding chieftain—crowned the heights
overlooking the Gulf of Grimaud and the Forest of Fraxinet. With
profound sagacity, these enterprising bandits sold their support to
the feudal barons, whose quarrels perpetually vexed the petty states
of Provence, always choosing the weakest for their allies. Thus they
held the balance of power, and, enriched by the plunder of civil war,
acquired each year a larger measure of influence and importance.
Their relentless cruelty gave them a weight out of all proportion to
their numbers or their valor. Their excesses were the terror of the
peasantry. By the end of the ninth century, they had crossed the
Alps, threatened Turin, destroyed many monasteries, and laid waste
the plains of Montferrat and Piedmont. They established themselves
on the Po. In 935 they had advanced to the borders of Liguria. Their
depredations extended as far as the city of Genoa. The passes of
Mount Cenis and Mount St. Bernard were in their hands. From their
strongholds in the Alps they stopped all traffic and levied
contributions on every traveller. They carried their arms into
Switzerland, and penetrated to the shores of Lake Constance. They
burned churches and abbeys under the walls of Marseilles. The city
of Nice still bears, in the name of one of its quarters, a souvenir of
Saracen occupation.
In France, by reason of its proximity to their colony and the
greater facilities it offered to their movements, their incursions were
more frequent and disastrous. Much of the level country was
depopulated. In the strongest cities alone was security to be found.
Almost the entire territory of Provence, Languedoc, and Dauphiné
was at one time subject to the visitations of this awful scourge. So
strongly had these daring banditti intrenched themselves in the
mountains of Southwestern Europe, that the princes in whose
dominions they were found were unable to dislodge them. It is hinted
by Liutprand that the embassy of John de Gorza had for its principal
object the cessation of their ravages, through the intervention of the
Khalif, a statement by no means improbable.
Be this as it may, it was not long after that event that the power of
the Moslem colonists began to decline. For a time the influx of
recruits, the appropriation of women, and the institution of
polygamous households threatened a superiority in numbers as well
as in arms, and a permanency of occupation, conditions whose
danger had been exemplified by the Arab conquests in the South.
These fears, however, proved without foundation. The Christians
gradually recovered their ground. Castle after castle fell before their
assaults. Dependent upon their own efforts, the Moslem pirates
could not sustain the combined attack made upon them from every
side, and, before the death of Abd-al-Rahman, they had lost their
influence as a disturbing force in those countries which they had for
three-quarters of a century made the scene of their depredations.
The operations of these chieftains were never divested of the
character of brigandage. Except in time of common danger, they
acted independently of each other. The permanent success which is
derived from a union of forces and concerted political action never
attended their arms. Yet, without organization and deprived of the
support of any foreign government, they maintained their footing in a
hostile territory for nearly a hundred years. Their only resources
were the plunder they obtained from their neighbors. Their only
recruits were adventurers like themselves, attracted by the hope of
booty. Their harems were filled by their forays, and their race
propagated at the expense of the enemy. No chronicle, Christian or
Arab, explicitly states that they were even countenanced, still less
assisted, by the Khalifate of Cordova. Yet no opportunity so
favorable to the extension of the Faith and the conquest of Europe
was ever offered to the Spanish Moslems. The strategic importance
of these piratical strongholds was far greater than that of the
exposed settlements of Septimania. They were easily accessible by
sea. With trifling labor they might have been rendered impregnable.
They controlled the passes of the Alps. They menaced the great
cities of Marseilles, Arles, and Narbonne. As a point of concentration
for an invading army their value was indisputable. Difficult of
approach, they commanded the rich plains of Provence and
Languedoc, of Piedmont and Lombardy. The facility with which their
marauding and undisciplined garrisons overran the adjacent
provinces as far as Genoa and Grenoble is suggestive of the results
which might have been accomplished by the systematic operations
of a great military power like that of Abd-al-Rahman III., supported by
the resources of the most opulent and warlike nation of the age.
The domestic policy of Abd-al-Rahman gave indications of the
same genius that directed his military campaigns and diplomatic
negotiations. The exact administration of justice, the vigilance of a
numerous and well-appointed police, the supervision of an
incorruptible magistracy, guaranteed to every class of society the full
enjoyment of the rights of person and property. The prevalence of
order and the suppression of crime were no less evident in regions
far remote from the seat of government than in the immediate
precincts of the capital.
The love of pomp and the prodigal display of luxury kept even
pace with the increasing wealth and multiplied resources of the
empire. The temples were enriched with the spoils and decorated
with the trophies of the churches and monasteries of the infidel. The
Great Mosque of the capital was enlarged, its court enclosed with a
graceful arcade and cooled by delicious fountains. The palaces and
gardens of Cordova surpassed in extent and equalled in
magnificence the famous ones of Bagdad and Damascus. In the
charming and luxurious retreat of Medina-al-Zahrâ, the Khalif
transacted the daily routine of business; received foreign
ambassadors; heard and decided contests for literary precedence;
determined questions of civil and ecclesiastical law. Entertaining, not
without reason, a profound distrust of the Arab element, which
composed the most intelligent portion of his subjects, he committed
the principal offices of government and entrusted the care of his
person to the Mamlouks, or Slaves, a class of servile origin, whose
numbers—through royal favor, the possession of marked capacity for
affairs, and the habit of implicit obedience—soon rose to
extraordinary power and influence in the state. This term was applied
at first to captives taken in war by the Arabs themselves, or sold to
them by the barbarian nations of Germany. But by degrees the name
acquired a more extensive significance, and came to include all
persons of foreign birth or base extraction employed in the civil and
military service of the khalifate. Almost every nation and tribe from
the shores of the Caspian to the western extremities of Lusitania
were represented in this important class, the alien birth and
dependent character of whose constituents divested them of
sympathy with the other subjects of the empire, and assured their
unwavering devotion to the interests of their master. From the
earliest days of the emirate, an enormous traffic had been carried on
in slaves with Christian countries, principally with France and Italy.
Its profits, originally monopolized by Jews, were, in time, shared by
Christian ecclesiastics; and it has been established by
incontrovertible evidence that at least one pope did not disdain to
replenish the coffers of the Church by an expedient so prejudicial to
the interests of religion and humanity. The monasteries of the South
of France were largely devoted to the manufacture of eunuchs; those
on the Meuse were also especially celebrated on this account, the
unfortunate subjects for mutilation being procured by the monks
through the purchase of children from the peasantry. The Slave
caste, while it included a considerable proportion of eunuchs, was by
no means, however, limited to individuals of that unfortunate class.
Although condemned by adverse fortune to a subordinate and
frequently to a humiliating position in the scale of society, the
inferiority of the Slave, in this respect, was more than compensated
by the authority he exercised, by the wealth he was enabled to
accumulate, and by the consideration he enjoyed as the chosen
agent of the Khalif in posts of responsibility and confidence. The
highest employments were entrusted to these strangers, to the
prejudice of the ancient aristocracy whose lineage could be traced to
the Pagan guardians of the Kaaba and the Companions of the
Prophet. The royal body-guard was entirely composed of Slaves.
Introduced into the country at an age when youth is most susceptible
to outward impressions, they imbibed, through intimate association,
through the influence of example, through religious instruction, and
through considerations of personal interest, the habits, the
prejudices, and the faith of the Moslems. Some amassed large
fortunes in trade. Others rose to important commands in the army.
Many maintained establishments which surpassed those of the
nobility in pomp and extravagance, and themselves owned
multitudes of slaves. Not a few were noted for their scholarly
attainments; possessed extensive libraries; participated with credit in
the public debates which amused the leisure of the court; and
acquired no inconsiderable reputation in the pursuits of literature.
This epoch of Moorish dominion, agitated by foreign war and
intestine disturbance, was likewise oppressed by the calamities of
nature and the grievous machinations of domestic treason. In the
year 915, the Peninsula was visited by a famine of unparalleled
severity. A long-continued drought, which defied the skill of the
hydraulic engineers and the resources of an irrigating system that
was the admiration of Europe, wasted the land. A pestilence
followed, as usual, in the wake of the famine. Deprived of all means
of subsistence and consumed by disease, the unhappy peasantry
perished by thousands. The streets and highways were obstructed
with the dying and the dead. The mosques were crowded day and
night with suppliants, who implored the pity of a God who seemed to
have turned His face in anger from His children. Such was the
mortality that the survivors were unable to afford to the deceased the
rites of burial. Every effort was exerted by the government to
alleviate the public misery, but the distress was so general that the
liberality of the Khalif was unable to produce any great improvement
in the lamentable condition of his subjects, whose violent measures
to obtain the necessaries of life not infrequently required the
intervention of military force. The measure of national misfortune
was filled by the ruin wrought by a terrible hurricane that swept the
coasts of Africa and Andalusia, and by a conflagration that destroyed
the larger portion of the capital.
Abd-al-Rahman had two sons, named respectively Al-Hakem and
Abdallah. Of these, the first was the heir apparent, who, though
greatly esteemed and respected for his noble character and princely
virtues, was still generally considered as inferior to his brother in
literary ability as well as in those showy qualities and
accomplishments which dazzle the eyes of the populace. In an evil
hour, the ambitious Abdallah, incited by his friend the theologian Ibn-
Abd-al-Barr, was induced to agree to the assassination of Al-Hakem,
and a plot was hatched with that end in view. Unhappily for their
success, a spy had introduced himself into the councils of the
conspirators, and they were secretly arrested. Some were impaled.
Ibn-Abd-al-Barr anticipated the executioner by suicide; and Abdallah,
in spite of the magnanimous intercession of the injured Al-Hakem,
was strangled in prison. The happiness of the Khalif was deeply and
permanently affected by a deed in which paternal affection was
sacrificed to a sense of public duty; and to the day of his death the
memory of the untimely fate of his son constantly haunted his
thoughts and imparted to his character a melancholy which no
diversion could charm away, and no triumph, however glorious,
could entirely efface.
The greatness of the Moslem power in Spain under Abd-al-
Rahman III. is to be attributed to the extraordinary administrative
capacity of that renowned monarch. The glory in fact is exclusively
his own. The attention he paid to the minute details of government
was not less marked than the skill with which he directed to a
successful issue enterprises of the greatest magnitude and
importance. He was the impersonation of imperial despotism. No
sovereign of his race had hitherto centred in his person, to the
exclusion of all other sources of authority, the prestige, the honor, the
dignity of empire. He possessed in a remarkable degree those
talents which facilitate the subordination and amalgamation of hostile
elements of society long accustomed to anarchy, a task far more
difficult than the conquest of great nations. The discernment he
exhibited in abolishing all taxes not authorized by the traditional law
of Islam acquired for him the public confidence at the very beginning
of his reign. The history of that period exhibits a picture of religious
toleration in vivid contrast to the revolting crimes perpetrated by the
Sees of Constantinople and Rome. So little was this great prince
influenced by sectarian prejudice, or even by ordinary considerations
of policy, that he was with infinite difficulty dissuaded from appointing
to the highest judicial office of the realm a renegade, whose father
and mother still belonged to the Christian communion. The
assumption of the title of khalif, attended by the alteration in the
coinage and the modification of the public prayers in the mosques—
acts that confirmed to him the attributes of his new and well-merited
dignity—gave him great prominence in the Mohammedan world. The
achievements of a quarter of a century certainly entitled him to a
distinction which his pride and wisdom now induced him to
appropriate, and which was destined to contribute a new and
powerful impulse to the civilization of Western Europe. His popularity
called forth such multitudes of volunteers. when the Holy War was
proclaimed that care had to be taken lest the shops be left without
clerks and the fields without laborers.