MATERIALS FOR THE STUDY OF THE WORK AND THOUGHT OF ARNOLD J. TOYNBEE
by Teodoro Tagliaferri (University of Naples Federico II)
No. 19 (August 17th, 2023)
WRITINGS ON THE EMPIRES IN WORLD HISTORY, XV
NOTE
Toynbee’s very first, much neglected assessment of Central Eastern and Eastern Europe’s political situation at the breaking of WWI. Notable, among other things, for his largely apologetic and idealizing approach to the imperial dimension of Russian history. Toynbee’ attitude, which was obviously motivated by his anxiety to justify Britain’s alliance with autocratic Tsardom in a liberal and progressive key, mirrors in an inverted form – in terms of ideological exploitation of Russia’s imperial past – its current demonization in the mass media (especially the Italian ones). The main difference is the very lower intellectual level of nowadays “professional” historians turned propagandists.
A.J. Toynbee, Russia, the Slav Peoples, and Panslavism at the breaking of the First World War (1914)