Johann Gottfried Herder and his chapter “Slavian nations”: Sources of Herder's views on the Slavic peoples

The chapter ‘Slavian nations’ of the historiosophical treatise ‘Ideas on the Philosophy of the History of Mankind’ by the German philosopher Johann Gottfried Herder had a significant influence on the Slavic intelligentsia of the early 19th century. Despite the fact that there is a significant number of studies in historiography studying and analyzing this influence, there are practically no works devoted to the facts of the formation of Herder's views on the Slavic peoples: what sources he used and what he borrowed from them, what ideas of the Enlightenment were reflected in this chapter. The authors of the article set themselves the task of analyzing a wide range of sources and ideas that could have shaped Herder's ideas about the Slavs in the chapter ‘Slavian nations’: both the influence of the ideas of specific authors and the works that Herder encountered throughout his life, and the influence of general ideas that dominated at the time of the end of the 18th century. The analysis included little-known to the scientific community works by J.K. von Jordan, A. Schlözer, J.K.W. Moesen, K.G. von Anton. In the course of the study, the authors came to the conclusion that Herder, first of all, perceives and cites many stereotypes that developed about the Slavs in the 18th century. Secondly, Herder is under the direct influence of German and Czech Slavic historiography. Several authors can be especially singled out: A. Schlözer, J.K.W. Moesen and K.G. von Anton, as well as J.K.W. von Jordan. Thirdly, the German philosopher either borrows and interprets the material he received from the works he read, or confirms with information from them any of his ideas about the Slavic peoples that he could have developed throughout his life.

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