NATIONAL CHALLENGES TO DECENTRALIZATION: AUTONOMY AND FEDERATION IN THE RUSSIAN LIBERAL DISCOURSE, 1900-1914 Tatiana Khripachenko A DISSERTATION in History Presented to the Faculties of the Central European University in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy Budapest, Hungary 2014 CEU eTD Collection Supervisor of Dissertation Prof. Alexei Miller Copyright in the text of this dissertation rests with the Author. Copies by any process, either in full or part, may be made only in accordance with the instructions given by the Author and lodged in the Central European University Library. Details may be obtained from the librarian. This page must form a part of any such copies made. Further copies made in accordance with such instructions may not be made without the written permission of the Author. I hereby declare that this dissertation contains no materials accepted for any other degrees in any other institutions and no materials previously written and/or published by another person unless otherwise noted. CEU eTD Collection ii Abstract The dissertation is devoted to the analysis of the political debates on autonomy and federation between the Russian liberals and the representatives of the Finnish, Polish and Ukrainian national movements in late imperial Russia. Looking for the allies among the national movements the leadership of the Constitutional Democratic Party was open to discuss the possibility of decentralization of Russia. However, the Kadets’ initial plan for Russia’s reorganization was challenged by various national discourses regarding autonomy and federation. Moreover, the meaning of these terms essentially differed from what the Kadets initially understood by them. The main reason for the failure of an alliance of the Kadets with the national movements was a principal incompatibility of the initial assumptions of all the participants of a dialogue. This, however, did not exclude the possibility of finding a compromise, yet it could only be tactical, and did not presuppose the principal convergence of the programs regarding Russia’s reorganization. CEU eTD Collection iii Acknowledgements First of all, I would like to express my sincere gratitude and appreciation to my supervisor Professor Alexei Miller for his constant scholar and moral support in the course of my entire intellectual endeavor. His realism and strict discipline were crucial to finishing my work in time. I owe a great intellectual debt to Professors Alfred J. Rieber and Mikhail Dolbilov, who have considerably enriched my research perspective. I am also deeply thankful to Professors Balázs Trencsényi, Susan Zimmermann, Marsha Siefert, Maciej Janowski, and Karl Hall for their interest in my work and care. I would like to thank Professor Henrik Stenius for inviting me into the Finnish intellectual environment. His comments and advice helped me a lot to fathom the complexities of the Finnish case. At the same time, I am very greatful to Professors Martin Schulze-Wessel, Martin Aust, Jana Osterkamp, and Jens Kersten who welcomed me at Ludwig-Maximilians University in Munich and whose rich and inspiring consultations were very helpful at the final stage of my work. I would also like to express my warmest appreciation to Viktor Taki, Andrei Cusco, Franziska Davies, Irina van der Vet, and Piotr Głuszkowski for their willingness to listen and help in any time. Generous grants of Gerda Henkel, Center of International Mobility, as well as the Center of the Polish-Russian Dialogue and Reconciliation enabled my library and archival reseach. I owe a great debt to my parents and to my family, who were always supportive of my undertaking, and to whom I dedicate this work. CEU eTD Collection iv Table of Contents Introduction .................................................................................................................... 1 Chapter 1. The Blindfolded Alliance: Russian Liberals in the Search of Support in the Borderlands .................................................................................................................. 28 Principles Declared ...................................................................................... 29 Opening up the Borderlands ......................................................................... 32 Approaching the Allies ................................................................................ 43 The Deal with the Poles ............................................................................... 62 Chapter 2. The "Finnish Question" and the Concept of "Non-Sovereign State" ......... 75 The "Finnish Question" in the Political Discussions ................................... 77 A dispute on the limits of the Finnish Autonomy ........................................ 89 A Concept of "Non-Sovereign State" ........................................................... 93 The Theory of "Non-Sovereign States" for the Finnish Case ...................... 99 Finland as "Staatsfragment" ....................................................................... 105 Russian Liberals' Interpretation of Georg Jellinek's Position .................... 110 Chapter 3. The “Polish Question”: Contesting the Meaning of Autonomy ............... 119 Polish Parties and the Question of Autonomy ........................................... 122 The Deal with the Wrong Partner .............................................................. 132 Autonomy in the Program of the National Democrats ............................... 136 After the Manifesto of October 17th ........................................................... 144 Polish Declaration in the First Duma ......................................................... 154 The Second Duma: A Step towards a More Realistic Position? ................ 164 CEU eTD Collection The Third Duma: the Dead End ................................................................. 176 Chapter 4. The “Ukrainian Question”: Real Politics and Federative Utopia ........... 188 Dragomanov’s Tradition and Nationalism as a New Phenomenon ........... 191 The Ukrainian Political Groups ................................................................. 199 The Spring of 1905 ..................................................................................... 210 v The Window of Opportunities: The First and the Second Duma ............... 229 A Turn to the Right and New Hopes .......................................................... 239 Chapter 5. When the Eyes Opened: Inner Challenges of the Liberal Theory .......... 258 From Self-Government to Autonomy ........................................................ 259 Theoretical Approach to Autonomy and Federation .................................. 268 The Kadets and the Union of Automists .................................................... 282 Conclusion ................................................................................................................. 293 Bibliography .............................................................................................................. 303 CEU eTD Collection vi Introduction In April 1917, Max Weber published an article “Russia’s Transition to Pseudo- Constitutionalism.”1 Commenting on the perspectives of peace between Germany and Russia, Weber emphasized the chauvinism of Russian bourgeoisie and Russian liberal intelligentsia. This imperialist legend, and especially the Greater Russian claim to dominance within Russia itself, remained alive even in the bourgeois intelligentsia, and even during the heyday of the whole Liberation Movement. Before the slightest guarantee of the achievement of liberty, which was supposedly the only goal, as early as 1905 almost all the leading personalities of the Union of Liberation (though not the unjustly maligned Mr. Peter Struve) had turned their gaze towards Constantinople and the Western border. They disputed the existence of a Ukrainian identity, and acknowledged Polish autonomy only with the view to creating external friends for a future expansion of Russia, and they proclaimed the “liberation” of every imaginable nation as the task of Greater Russia, whilst at home everything remained to be done towards the achievement of “liberation.” Meanwhile, the little group of ideologues belonging to old Dragomanov school, who were striving for the transformation of Russia into a genuinely equal federation of nationalities, were, even then, either deceivers who had themselves been deceived or completely without influence and in constant fear of arousing of Greater Russian chauvinism of their comrades.2 The representatives of Russian right-wing parties, who saw federalism as identical to separatism, would have recognized in Weber’s words a biased perspective of a German scholar, who sought to weaken Russia and compel it to concede the German claims. Nevertheless, Weber’s view of Russian liberal intelligentsia deserves a greater attention.3 Weber, who published in 1906 two serious works on Russia, had close connections with a few Russian liberal activists. 4 Bogdan Kistiakovsky, an 1 Max Weber, “Russia’s Transition to Pseudo-Constitutionalism” Idem. The Russian Revolutions. CEU eTD Collection Edited and translated by Gordon C. Wells and Peter Baehr (Cambridge: Polity Press, 1995), 241-260. 2 Ibid., 243-244. 3 Curiously enough, that Max Weber’s position regarding the national minorities inside Germany was no less chauvinistic. In particular, Weber developed a rigid anti-Polish stance in his evaluation of the agrarian situation in Posen.