I. Kapodistrias and Alexandros Sturdza Headed the Anti-Western

I. Kapodistrias and Alexandros Sturdza headed the anti-Western Eastern trend which aimed through war against the Ottoman Empire to continue tsarist efforts for a dynastic succession in Constantinople in favor of the Russian Crown. "Sturdza rejected the tsar's belief that the Ypsilantis affair was part of a Europeanwide revolutionary conspiracy directed from Paris. Further, for Sturdza, to equate the Greek issue with revolts in Spain and Italy" (p. 35), both of which Sturdza condemned, was a mistake. He compared Greek insurrection to Russia's liberation from the Mongols and not at all as a liberal revolution. Chapter 2 is devoted to this "war party" of Russian religious traditionalists who were backed by the majority of the Russian people, whle chapter 4 deals with Westernist Russians it "Russia's Classical Awakening.' The last chapter on 'Legacies of Russian Philhellenism" reviews the author's conclusions. Because of its mixed character, the Greek cause "won support from liberals and conservatives, as well as radicals and reactionaries.... These multiple facets of Greek identity explain the appeal of the Greek cause to both proto-Westernizers and proto - Slavopiriles.' (pp. 162-63) Then the author tries to understand why in the period that followed the success of the Greek Revolution, there occurred the defeat of the Russian presence in the Balkans, even though it corresponded to the interests of a common non-Western Orthodox civilization; and why the West succeeded in replacing Russia on her own ground. His explanations are not complete. He singles out the danger for Greek national interests of the rise of pan-Slavism espoused by Russia. He recalls Dostoevskii's words: "Constantinople must be ours.... Russia alone is capable of raising in the Fast the banner of the new idea and of explaining to the whole Eastern world its new mission" (p. 166). He overlooks the fact that the Western model was forced upon the majority of the Greek people by a small group despised in Greece as European lackeys of the so-called French and English Parties. The Western view that Russian autocracy was backward was not shared by the majority of the Romeoi. The long- term consequences of the Russian defeat was that the Russian succession of the Ottoman Empire never took place; instead the Balkans and the Middle East were crumbled into small warring states controlled by the Western Powers. The last chapter, focusing on Russian intellectual developments are rather familiar. Following many previous studies on Philhellenism, the author devotes chapter 5 to a descriptive presentation of Russian Philheilenism in many Russian writers, while the whole of chapter 6 is devoted to "Pushkin and Greece," a well-known topic treated in many studies. Dimitri Kitsikis University of Ottawa W. H. Zawadzki. A Man of Honour: Adam Czartoryski as a Statesman of Russia and Poland 1795-1831. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1993. xviii, 374 pp. $121.50 Cdn. Distributed in Can- ada by Oxford University Press, Don Mills, Ontario. In the seventeenth century Poland encompassed the greatest extent of territory of any East I European state. Just before the first partition in 1772 Poland was the third largest European state in terms of population. The three partitions, the Napoleonic wars and the settlement at the Congress of Vienna made the Polish Question a central issue in European affairs up to the First World War and indeed later. From his parents' dynastic aspirations before his own birth in 1770 to his death in 1861 Adam Czartoryski was at the heart of the Polish Question, and, as far as any single individual not actually a head of state could have been, frequently the leading player in the unfolding tragedy of dismembered Poland. His ideas for the peaceful evolution of Europe were Wilsonian in scope. Some write of an age of Napoleon, others of an age of Met- ternich or of Palmerston. Czartoryski, in some ways their equal in importance untill 1861, re- mains a grey figure, not given much prominence in the usual run of books destined for a mass market. Perhaps this was because, as Hubert Zawadzki readily concedes in this long awaited study, Prince Adam was not a charismatic personality and not a natural leader of men and not even much interested in the exercise of power. Circumstances obliged him to go to Russia in 1795, and from then on he acted on his sincere belief that the cause of a revived Poland could only be achieved in association with Russia. The meretricious appeal of Napoleon and later the emerging regime of Louis Philippe swayed many Poles to hope for other, more dramatic, solu- tions, making Czartoryski's more realistic views seem drab or even impediments to instant re- sults. Czartoryski's hopes depended on the understanding and temperament of Alexander I, who turned out not to be equal to the role Prince Adam planned for him on the basis of Alexander's own aspirations. Even though Nicholas I took a harsher view of his Polish posses- sions, Czartoryski still believed that the Russian ruler was the key to improvements in the Congress Kingdom. Thus Czartoryski's beliefs caused him to follow a course beset with difficul- ties, unpopular with Poles and eliciting the suspicions of Russians. Furthermore much of his in- cessant activity took the form of writing memorials and appeals or discussions in the council chamber, and thus not in the glare of publicity. But if he proceeded on a fragile and swaying tightrope, it was nevertheless a straight and undeviating course, consistent with his own ideas and avoiding the betrayal of Polish aspirations or Russian interests. This is the reason for the book's title, A Man of Honour. Czartoryski served as Russian minister for foreign affairs for a few years, was involved in the Unofficial Committee advising Alexander I on reform, was a major figure in educational reform in Poland, the lover of the empress Elizabeth (Alexander's wife), put forward ideas about the future of Europe often ascribed to Alexander, was an active philhellene and a supporter of the Circassians in their struggle against Russian imperialism, wanted Balkan union, served against his inclination as the head of the temporary Polish government during part of the insurrection of 1830-31. Many of his ideas for Poland were followed by Alexander in establishing the Congress Kingdom in 1815, but the prince himself was shunted aside. All of these activities are thoroughly discussed. At the end of the book there is some discussion of Czartoryski as the head of a sort of Polish government in exile in Paris until his death. Recent studies by H. H. Hahn, Robert A. Berry and J. Skowronek of this period needed no further duplication. Access to Czartoryski's papers made it possible for Zawadzki to demonstrate that Czartoryski's role was more important, or reasonable, or different than previously thought or suspected. In fair- ness,he also points to Czartoryski's defects and mistakes. A few trifling caveats: he study of the spy d'Antraigues by Jacques Godechot is more rele- vant to Czartoryski scholarship than that cited by Zawadzki, by Jacqueline Chaumie'. In the British Library manuscripts (Wellesley Papers) are materials illuminating Prince Lubomirski's mission to London in 1811, Somehow there has crept into the text a reference to Emperor Paul III. One would wish that Zawadzki's claim that the document of 1812 ascribed to Czartoryski pleading for an independent Poland (published in Nesselrode's correspondence) was in fact written by Speranskii had not been relegated to a footnote with no further discussion. A later claim that Nesselrode's answer to this memorial was written in 1813 rather than in 1812 is easier to accept, but the author himself later refers to it as Nesselrode's views of 1812. .

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