anti-Slavic sentiment

{{Short description|Hostility, prejudice, or discrimination against Slavic peoples}}

Anti-Slavic sentiment, also called Slavophobia, refers to prejudice, collective hatred, and discrimination directed at the various Slavic peoples. Accompanying racism and xenophobia, the most common manifestation of anti-Slavic sentiment throughout history has been the assertion that some Slavs are inferior to other peoples. This sentiment peaked during World War II, when Nazi Germany classified most of the Slavs— especially the Poles, Russians, Belarusians, Serbs, Ukrainians, and Croats —as "subhumans" ({{Transliteration|de|Untermenschen}}) and planned to exterminate a large number of them through the Generalplan Ost and Hunger Plan.{{cite book | last = Longerich | first = Peter | title = Holocaust: The Nazi Persecution and Murder of the Jews | year = 2010 | isbn = 978-0-19-280436-5 | publisher = Oxford University Press | location = Oxford; New York | page = 241}}{{Cite book |last=Ingrao |first=Christian |title=Intellectuals in the SS War Machine |publisher=Polity Press |year=2015 |isbn=978-0-7456-6027-1 |edition=English |location=65 Bridge Street, Cambridge CB2 1UR, UK |pages=127–130, 157 |translator-last=Brown |translator-first=Andrew}}{{Cite book |last=Fritz |first=Stephen G. |title=Ostkrieg: Hitler's War of Extermination in the East |publisher=University Press of Kentucky |year=2011 |isbn=978-0-8131-3416-1 |pages=93-95, 253-260, 317}} Slavophobia also emerged twice in the United States: the first time was during the Progressive Era, when immigrants from Eastern Europe were met with opposition from the dominant class of Western European–origin American citizens; and again during the Cold War, when the United States became locked in an intensive global rivalry with the Soviet Union.Roucek, Joseph S. “The Image of the Slav in U.S. History and in Immigration Policy.” The American Journal of Economics and Sociology, vol. 28, no. 1, 1969, pp. 29–48. JSTOR, {{JSTOR|3485555}}. Accessed 6 Feb. 2024.

By country

= Albania =

At the beginning of the 20th century, anti-Slavism in Albania was developed by the work of the Franciscan friars {{Citation needed|date=June 2023}} who had studied in monasteries in Austria-Hungary,{{Citation |last1= Detrez |first1=Raymond |first2= Pieter |last2=Plas |title=Developing cultural identity in the Balkans: convergence vs divergence |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=TRttHdXjP14C&pg=PA221 |year=2005 |publisher=P.I.E. Peter Lang S.A. |location= Brussels |isbn=90-5201-297-0 |page= 220|quote=it led to adoption of anti-Slavic component }} after the recent massacres and expulsions of Albanians by their Slavic neighbours.{{Unreliable source?|date=June 2023}}{{cite book|author1=Koliqi, Ernesto|author2=Rahmani, Nazmi|name-list-style=amp|title=Vepra|year=2003|publisher=Shtëpía Botuese Faik Konica|page=183}} The Albanian intelligentsia proudly asserted, "We Albanians are the original and autochthonous race of the Balkans. The Slavs are conquerors and immigrants who came but yesterday from Asia." {{Unreliable source?|date=June 2023}}{{Citation |last=Kolarz |first=Walter |title=Myths and realities in eastern Europe |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=k1e2AAAAIAAJ&q=skanderbeg+inauthor:%22Walter+Kolarz%22 |year= 1972|publisher=Kennikat Press |isbn=978-0-8046-1600-3 |page=227 |quote=Albanian intelligentsia, despite the backwardness of their country and culture: 'We Albanians are the original and autochthonous race of the Balkans. The Slavs are conquerors and immigrants who came but yesterday from Asia.'}} In Soviet historiography, anti-Slavism in Albania was inspired by the Catholic clergy,{{Citation needed|date=June 2023}} which opposed the Slavic people because of the role the Catholic clergy{{Citation needed|date=June 2023}} and Slavs opposed "rapacious plans of Austro-Hungarian imperialism in Albania".{{cite web |url=http://www.albanianliterature.net/authors_classical/fishta.html |title=Gjergj Fishta, The Voice of The Albanian Nation |first= Robert |last= Elsie |author-link= Robert Elsie|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110605084332/http://www.albanianliterature.net/authors_classical/fishta.html |archive-date= 5 June 2011|url-status=dead |access-date=5 April 2011 |quote=Great Soviet Encyclopaedia of Moscow... (March 1950): "The literary activities of the Catholic priest Gjergj Fishta reflect the role played by the Catholic clergy in preparing for Italian aggression against Albania. As a former agent of Austro-Hungarian imperialism, Fishta... took a position against the Slavic peoples who opposed the rapacious plans of Austro-Hungarian imperialism in Albania. In his chauvinistic, anti-Slavic poem 'The highland lute,' this spy extolled the hostility of the Albanians towards the Slavic peoples, calling for an open fight against the Slavs".}}

= Italy =

File:Inmate at the Rab concentration camp.jpg in the Italian Rab concentration camp on the island of Rab in what is now Croatia. Most of the people who were detained in this camp were Slavs (primarily Croats and Slovenes).]]

{{See also|Anti-Croatian sentiment|Croatia-Italy relations|Italian fascism and racism#Slavs}}

In the 1920s, Italian fascists hated the Yugoslavs, especially the Croatians and Serbs. They accused the Serbs & Croats of having "atavistic impulses" and they also claimed that the Yugoslavs were conspiring on behalf of "Grand Orient Masonry and its funds". One anti-Semitic claim stated that the Serbs were involved in a "social-democratic, masonic Jewish internationalist plot".Burgwyn, H. James (1997) Italian Foreign Policy in the Interwar Period, 1918–1940. Greenwood Publishing Group. p.43.

Benito Mussolini considered the Slavic race inferior and barbaric.{{cite book |url=http://www.provincia.lucca.it/scuolapace/uploads/quaderni/ricordo2012.pdf |title=I profugi istriani, dalmati e fiumani a Lucca |language=it |trans-title=The Istrian, Dalmatian and Rijeka Refugees in Lucca |publisher=Instituto storico della Resistenca e dell'Età Contemporanea in Provincia di Lucca |chapter=Il confine orientale: una terra, molti esodi |trans-chapter=The Eastern Border: One Land, Multiple Exoduses |date=10 February 2012 |editor=Sestani, Armando |quote=When dealing with such a race as Slavic – inferior and barbarian – we must not pursue the carrot, but the stick policy. We should not be afraid of new victims. The Italian border should run across the Brenner Pass, Monte Nevoso and the Dinaric Alps. I would say we can easily sacrifice 500,000 barbaric Slavs for 50,000 Italians. |pages=12–13 }}{{Dead link|date=September 2023 |bot=InternetArchiveBot |fix-attempted=yes }}[https://znaci.org/00001/179.pdf Resistance, Suffering, Hope. The Slovene Partisan Movement 1941-1945], Ljubljana 2008, {{ISBN|978-961-6681-02-5}}, p. 27 He believed that the Croats were a threat to Italy because they wanted to seize Dalmatia, a region which was claimed by Italy, and he also claimed that the threat rallied Italians at the end of World War I: "The danger of seeing the Jugo-Slavians settle along the whole Adriatic shore had caused a bringing together in Rome of the cream of our unhappy regions. Students, professors, workmen, citizens—representative men—were entreating the ministers and the professional politicians."Mussolini, Benito; Child, Richard Washburn; Ascoli, Max; & Lamb, Richard (1988) My rise and fall. New York: Da Capo Press. pp.105–106. These claims often tended to emphasize the "foreignness" of the Yugoslavs by stating that they were newcomers to the area, unlike the ancient Italians, whose territories were occupied by the Slavs.

Count Galeazzo Ciano, Mussolini's son in law, and the Foreign Minister of Fascist Italy who was later executed by Mussolini, wrote the following entry in his diary:{{Cite book|last=Ciano|first=Galeazzo, conte|url=https://www.worldcat.org/oclc/910968625|title=The war diaries of Count Galeazzo Ciano 1939–1943|date=2015|others=Alan Sutton|isbn=978-1-78155-448-7|location=[Stroud]|oclc=910968625}}

{{blockquote |text=Vidussoni comes to see me. After having spoken about a few casual things, he makes some political allusions and announces savage plans against the Slovenes. He wants to kill them all. I take the liberty of observing that there are a million of them. "That does not matter." he answers firmly.}}

=Canada=

In Canada, many xenophobic white supremacists were deeply tied to their nation's "Anglo-Saxon" culture, specifically from the early 1900s to the end of World War II. The Ku Klux Klan in Canada was prominent in the provinces of Saskatchewan and Alberta, both of which have a relatively high Eastern European ethnic population. Immigrants from Ukraine, Russia, and Poland were frequently denounced and targeted.{{cite web |url=https://minorityrights.org/minorities/eastern-european-canadians/ |title = Eastern European Canadians - Minority Rights Group| date=19 June 2015 }}

During World War I, thousands of Ukrainian Canadians were seen as "enemy aliens" as Canadian nativists saw them as a "threat" to Canada's Western European heritage. Due to this, many of them were interned in concentration camps. There was constant discrimination towards Ukrainians who recently immigrated from the Austro-Hungarian Empire.{{Cite web|url=https://www.thecanadianencyclopedia.ca/en/article/ukrainian-internment-in-canada|title = Ukrainian Internment in Canada | the Canadian Encyclopedia}}

= Germany =

Though anti-Slavic sentiments reached their peak during Nazi Germany, Germany has had a long history of Slavophobia. In particular, the Germanic people of Prussia often depicted Polish people in a negative light, which paralleled future Slavophobia in the Nazi regime.{{Cite journal |last=Jaworska |first=Sylvia |title=Anti-Slavic imagery in German radical nationalist discourse at the turn of the twentieth century: a prelude to Nazi ideology? |journal=Patterns of Prejudice |issue=45 |pages=435–452}}

{{ill|Nikolay Ulyanov|ru|Ульянов, Николай Иванович}} in his 1968 article " Замолчанный Маркс" (Hushed-up Marx) provides ample evidence of anti-Slavism the founders of Marxism, Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels.{{ill|Nikolay Ylyanov|ru|Ульянов, Николай Иванович}} https://vtoraya-literatura.com/pdf/uljanov_zamolchanny_marx_1969_text.pdf " Замолчанный Маркс" (Hushed-up Marx)], «Возрождение» № 201, 1968, reprinted in 1969 by {{ill|Possev-Verlag|ru|Посев (издательство)}} For example, in his 1849 article "The Magyar Struggle," Engels wrote that the Slavs living in the Austrian Empire were "barbarians" who "needed to be saved" by the Germanic Austrians.{{Cite news |last=Engels |first=Friedrich |date=January 1849 |title=The Magyar Struggle |url=https://marxists.architexturez.net/archive/marx/works/1849/01/13.htm |work=Neue Rheinische Zeitung}}

Gustav Freytag's 1855 novel Soll und Haben ("Debt and Credit") was one of the most-read German novels of the 19th century, and contained antisemitic sentiments as well as depictions of Poles as incompetent.{{Cite web |last=Petersen |first=Hans-Christian |title=Between Marginalization and Instrumentalization: Anti-Eastern European and Anti-Slavic Racism {{!}} illiberalism.org |url=https://www.illiberalism.org/between-marginalization-and-instrumentalization-anti-eastern-european-and-anti-slavic-racism/ |access-date=2024-02-05 |website=www.illiberalism.org/ |language=en-US}}

== Nazi Germany ==

File:Der_Untermensch.jpg brochure "Der Untermensch" published in 1942. 4 million copies of the propaganda pamphlet were printed by Nazi Germany and distributed across occupied territories. The racist booklet portrayed Slavs, Jews and various inhabitants of Eastern Europe as primitive people.Sources:

{{cite book |last1=Müller, R. Ueberschar |first1= Rolf-Dieter, Gerd |title= Hitler's war in the East, 1941-1945 |publisher= Berghahn Books |year=2009 |isbn=978-1-84545-501-9 |location= 150 Broadway, New York, NY 10038, United States |pages=245}}
{{Cite journal |title=Der Untermensch |url=https://digital.kenyon.edu/bulmash/1077/ |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20201126075206/https://digital.kenyon.edu/bulmash/1077/ |archive-date=26 November 2020 |journal=Bulmash Family Holocaust Collection|date=January 1942 }}
{{cite book |last1=E. Aschheim |first1= Steven |title=The Nietzsche Legacy in Germany, 1890-1990 |publisher=University of California Press |year=1992 |isbn=0-520-08555-8 |location= Los Angeles, California, United States |pages=236, 237 |chapter=8: Nietzsche in the Third Reich}}]]

Anti-Slavic racism played a significant role within the ideology of Nazism.Bendersky, Joseph W. (2007).A concise history of Nazi Germany Plymouth, U.K.: Rowman & Littlefield. [https://books.google.com/books?id=ATCXucbTYX0C&pg=PA161 p. 161-2] Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party held the belief that Slavic countries - particularly Poland, the Soviet Union, and Yugoslavia, as well as their respective peoples - were "Untermenschen" (subhumans). According to their viewpoint, these Slavic nations were deemed to be foreign entities and were not considered part of the Aryan master race. Nazi Germany depicted the Soviet Union as an "Asiatic enemy" of Europeans, in addition to portraying its population as inferior subhumans controlled by Jews and communists.{{cite book |last=Longerich |first=Peter |title=Holocaust: The Nazi Persecution and Murder of the Jews |publisher=Oxford University Press |year=2010 |isbn=978-0-19-280436-5 |location=Oxford; New York |page=241}}

Hitler’s autobiography Mein Kampf expressed anti-Slavic views. He wrote: “One ought to cast the utmost doubt on the state-building power of the Slavs,” and from the beginning, he rejected the idea of incorporating the Slavs into Greater Germany.A Ridiculous Hundred Million Slavs: Concerning Adolf Hitler's World-view

Jerzy Wojciech Borejsza, page 41, Wydawnictwo Neriton and Instytut Historii Polskiej Akademii Nauk, 2006

Hitler considered the Slavs to be racially inferior, because, in his view, the Bolshevik Revolution had put the Jews in power over the mass of Slavs, who were, by his own definition, incapable of ruling themselves but were instead being ruled by Jewish masters.{{cite book|author=Megargee, Geoffrey P.|author-link=Megargee, Geoffrey P.|title=War of Annihilation: Combat And Genocide on the Eastern Front, 1941|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=QSpUZ6t6BPwC&pg=PA4|year=2007|publisher=Rowman & Littlefield|isbn=978-0-7425-4482-6|pages=4–}} He considered the development of modern Russia to have been the work of Germanic, not Slavic, elements in the nation, but believed those achievements had been undone and destroyed by the October Revolution,Bendersky, Joseph W. (2000) A History of Nazi Germany: 1919–1945. Plymouth, UK: Rowman & Littlefield. p.177. in Mein Kampf, he wrote, “The organization of a Russian state formation was not the result of the political abilities of the Slavs in Russia, but only a wonderful example of the state-forming efficacity of the German element in an inferior race.”Martyn Housden, Hitler: Study of a Revolutionary?, page 36.

Because, according to the Nazis, the German people needed more territory to sustain its surplus population, an ideology of conquest and depopulation was formulated for Central and Eastern Europe according to the principle of Lebensraum, itself based on an older theme in German nationalism which maintained that Germany had a "natural yearning" to expand its borders eastward (Drang Nach Osten). The Nazis' policy towards Slavs was to exterminate or enslave the vast majority of the Slavic population and repopulate their lands with millions of ethnic Germans and other Germanic peoples.{{cite book|author=Housden, Martyn|title=Hitler: Study of a Revolutionary?|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=5mSiIrV24DEC&pg=PA138|year=2000|publisher=Taylor & Francis|isbn=978-0-415-16359-0|pages=138–}}{{cite book|author1=Perrson, Hans-Åke|author2=Stråth, Bo|name-list-style=amp|title=Reflections on Europe: Defining a Political Order in Time and Space|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=P32dNnKCYLcC&pg=PA336|year=2007|publisher=Peter Lang|isbn=978-90-5201-065-6|pages=336–}} According to the resulting genocidal Generalplan Ost, millions of German and other "Germanic" settlers would be moved into the conquered territories, and the original Slavic inhabitants were to be annihilated, removed or enslaved. The policy was focused especially on the Soviet Union, as it alone was deemed capable of providing enough territory to accomplish this goal.Hitler, Adolf (1926). Mein Kampf, Chapter XIV: Eastern Orientation or Eastern Policy. Quote: "If we speak of soil [to be conquered for German settlement] in Europe today, we can primarily have in mind only Russia and her vassal border states."

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| quote = "Hitler gave the already existing ideas of anti-Semitism, anti-Bolshevism and anti-Slavism the form of a genocidal alternative: either we survive or the Jews, Bolsheviks, Slavs – the people of the East – do. Based on theories of a racial hierarchy, he built the directives for an extermination programme aimed at part of the population of Europe and Asia and the creation of a Teutonic “New Order”. ... The concept of Nazi Lebensraum cannot be fully explained without bluntly stating an important motivational element of his conquests in the East: anti-Slavism."{{Cite book |last=Borejsza |first=Jerzy W. |title=A ridiculous hundred million Slavs: Concerning Adolf Hitler's world-view |publisher=Polskiej Akademii Nauk |year=2017 |isbn=978-83-63352-88-2 |location=Warsaw, Poland |pages=176 |translator-last=French |translator-first=David}}

| author = - Polish historian Jerzy Wojciech Borejsza

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As part of the Generalplan Ost, Nazi Germany developed the Hunger Plan, a forced starvation programme which involved the seizure of all of the food which was produced on Eastern European lands and the delivery of it to Germany, primarily to the German army. The full implementation of this plan would have ultimately resulted in the starvation and death of 20 to 30 million people (mainly Russians, Belarusians, and Ukrainians). It is estimated that in accordance with this plan, over four million Soviet citizens were starved to death from 1941 to 1944.Snyder, Timothy (2010) Bloodlands: Europe between Hitler and Stalin. New York: Basic Books. p.411. The resettlement policy reached a much more advanced stage in occupied Poland because of its immediate proximity to Germany.

For strategic reasons, the Nazis deviated from some of their ideological theories by forging alliances with Ukrainian collaborators{{citation needed|date=March 2025}}, the Independent State of Croatia (established after the invasion of Yugoslavia), the Slovak State (established after the occupation of Czechoslovakia{{citation needed|date=March 2025}}) and Bulgaria. Yugoslav general Milan Nedić would also lead Nazi Germany's Serbian puppet government.{{cite news|url=https://encyclopedia.ushmm.org/content/en/article/axis-invasion-of-yugoslavia#:~:text=The%20Germans%20and%20their%20Axis,or%20by%20joining%20the%20partisans.|title=Axis Invasion Of Yugoslavia|publisher=United States Holocaust Memorial Museum|accessdate=November 7, 2022}} The Nazis officially justified these alliances by stating that the Croats were "more Germanic than Slav", a notion which was propagated by Croatia's leader Ante Pavelić, who espoused the view that the "Croats were the descendants of the ancient Goths" who "had the pan-Slavic idea forced upon them as something artificial".Rich, Norman (1974) Hitler's War Aims: the Establishment of the New Order. New York: W. W. Norton & Company. p.276-7.Hitler, Adolf and Gerhard, Weinberg (2007). Hitler's Table Talk, 1941–1944: His Private Conversations. Enigma Books. p.356. Quoting Hitler: "For example to label the Bulgarians as Slavs is pure nonsense; originally they were Turkomans."Davies, Norman (2008) Europe at War 1939–1945: No Simple Victory. Pan Macmillan. pp.167,209. Hitler also believed that the Bulgarians were "Turkoman", while the Czechs and Slovaks were Mongolians in their origins. After conquering Yugoslavia, attention was instead focused on targeting mainly the nation's Jewish and Roma (Gypsy) population.

== After Nazi Germany ==

Though Slavophobia became less prevalent after WWII, it still persisted to some degree and still persists today. Slavic immigrants in Germany experience discrimination due to their accents, their surnames, and their cuisine.{{Cite news |last=Zingher |first=Erica |date=2020-11-22 |title=Jüdische Kontingentflüchtlinge: Was wächst auf Beton? |url=https://taz.de/!5727852/ |access-date=2024-02-05 |work=Die Tageszeitung: taz |language=de |issn=0931-9085}} Since the invasion of Ukraine by Russia in 2022, Russian speakers in Germany have faced increased discrimination, including collective blame for Russia's actions in the war, despite most having lived in Germany for decades and many not being Russian at all. Since the Russian language was the lingua franca of the Soviet Union, an immigrant living in Germany who speaks Russian could be from anywhere that was influenced by the Soviet Union.

= Greece =

Traditionally,{{when|date=November 2022}} in Greece, Slavic people were considered "invaders who separated the glory of Greek Antiquity, by bringing an era of decline and ruin to Greece – the Dark Ages".{{Cite book |last=Curta |first=Florin |title=The Edinburgh History of the Greeks, c. 500 to 1050 |date=30 January 2011 |publisher=Edinburgh University Press |isbn=978-0-7486-3809-3 |page=3 |doi=10.3366/edinburgh/9780748638093.001.0001 |quote=But during and after the Civil War of 1943-1949, the 'Slavs' themselves became a national enemy. Throughout the Civil War, the Slav Macedonians of northern Greece made an important contribution to the Communist cause. A strong link was thus established between national identity and political orientation, as the Civil War and the subsequent defeat of the left-wing movement turned Slav Macedonians into the Sudetens of Greece (Augustinos 1989: 23). By 1950, those embracing the ideology of the right saw their political rivals as the embodiment of everything that was anti-national, Communist, and Slavic. To hold Fallmerayeran views thus became a crimen laesae maiestatis. Dionysios A. Zakythinos, the author of the first monograph on medieval Slavs in Greece, wrote of the Dark Ages separating Antiquity from the Middle Ages as an era of decline and ruin which was brought by Slavic invaders (Zakythinos 1945: 72 and 1966: 300, 302 and 316). In the United States, Peter Charanis regarded Emperor Nikephoros I as the hero who saved Greece from Slavonicisation (Charanis 1946). The early medieval Slavs thus became a historiographic problem, to slavikon zetema.}} In 1913, when Greece took control of Slavic-inhabited areas in Northern Greece, the Slavic toponyms were changed to Greek, and according to the Greek government, this was "the elimination of all the names which pollute and disfigure the beautiful appearance of our fatherland."{{Cite book| last1 = Danforth |first1 = Loring M | author1-link = Loring Danforth |title= The Macedonian conflict : ethnic nationalism in a transnational world|date= 1995|publisher= Princeton University Press |isbn= 0-691-04357-4|page = 69|oclc= 32237371}}

Anti-Slavic sentiment escalated during the Greek Civil War, when Macedonian partisans, who aligned themselves with the Democratic Army of Greece, were not treated as equals and suffered discrimination everywhere, they were accused of committing a "sin" because they chose to identify themselves as Slavs rather than Greeks.{{Cite journal|last= Rossos|first= Andrew|date= 1997|title= Incompatible Allies: Greek Communism and Macedonian Nationalism in the Civil War in Greece, 1943–1949|journal= The Journal of Modern History|volume= 69|issue= 1|pages= 56|doi= 10.1086/245440|s2cid= 143512864|issn= 0022-2801 |quote= The terror campaign which was unleashed after Varkiza against the entire Left by the Greek Right was directed with special vehemence against the Macedonians. In addition to the ideological "treachery" of supporting EAM-ELAS, they were attacked for committing the ultimate "sin" of not being, or rather not considering themselves, Greeks. They were condemned as Bulgars, komitajis, collaborators, autonomists, Sudetens of the Balkans, and so forth, and threatened with extermination.}} The Macedonian partisans were subjected to threats of extermination, physical attacks, murder, attacks on their settlements, forcible expulsions, restrictions on freedom of movement, and bureaucratic problems, among other discriminatory acts. Although they were allied with the Greek Left, due to their Slavic identity, the Macedonians were viewed with suspicion and animosity by the Greek Left.{{Cite journal|last= Rossos|first= Andrew|date=1997|title=Incompatible Allies: Greek Communism and Macedonian Nationalism in the Civil War in Greece, 1943–1949|journal=The Journal of Modern History|volume=69|issue=1|pages=42–43|doi= 10.1086/245440|s2cid= 143512864 |issn= 0022-2801}}

In 1948, the Democratic Army of Greece evacuated tens of thousands of child refugees, both Greek and Slavic in origin.{{Cite book|last1= Danforth |first1 = Loring M. | author1-link = Loring Danforth |title= The Macedonian conflict : ethnic nationalism in a transnational world|date= 1995|publisher= Princeton Univ. Press|isbn= 0-691-04357-4|location= Princeton, NJ|page= 54|oclc= 243828619}} In 1985, the refugees were allowed to re-enter Greece, claim Greek citizenship, and reclaim property, but only if they were "Greek by genus", thus prohibiting those with a Slavic identity from obtaining Greek citizenship, entering Greece, and claiming property.{{Cite book|title=Denying ethnic identity : the Macedonians of Greece|date= 1994|publisher= Human Rights Watch|others= Human Rights Watch/Helsinki (Organization : U.S.)|isbn= 1-56432-132-0|location= New York |pages= 27|oclc=30643687}}{{Cite web|title=Press Release|url= http://www.greekhelsinki.gr/english/pressrelease/9-2-97.html}}

Today, the Greek state does not recognize its ethnic Macedonian and other Slavic minorities, claiming that they do not exist, with Greece therefore having the right not to grant them any of the rights that are guaranteed to them by human-rights treaties.{{Cite journal|last= European Commission Against Racism and Intolerance|date= 2009|title= ECRI REPORT ON GREECE (Fourth Monitoring Cycle).|journal=Council of Europe|pages=62}}

= United States =

The United States of America has a long history of Slavophobia. Slavophobia began in earnest during the "second wave" of European immigration in the early 1900s, when many people from Southern and Eastern Europe were immigrating to the US. They faced opposition from the "old" immigrants, who were mostly from Northern and Western Europe. These attitudes culminated in the Immigration Act of 1924, which established quotas for and limited the numbers of people from Southern and Eastern European countries who were allowed to enter the US.{{Cite web |last1=Magazine |first1=Smithsonian |last2=Diamond |first2=Anna |title=The 1924 Law That Slammed the Door on Immigrants and the Politicians Who Pushed it Back Open |url=https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/1924-law-slammed-door-immigrants-and-politicians-who-pushed-it-back-open-180974910/ |access-date=2024-02-06 |website=Smithsonian Magazine |language=en}} Slavic peoples were considered to be people of an "inferior race" who were unable to assimilate into American society. They were originally not considered to be "fully white" (and thus fully American), and Slavic peoples' "whiteness" continues to be a debate to this day, but most people consider them to be of Caucasian culture.{{Cite web |title=Not Quite White: Arabs, Slavs, and the Contours of Contested Whiteness {{!}} Silk Road Cultural Center |url=https://silkroadculturalcenter.org/digital-media/not-quite-white/ |access-date=2024-02-06 |website=silkroadculturalcenter.org |language=en-US}}

Slavophobia in the US ramped up again during the Cold War, when Slavic peoples of all nationalities were considered enemies due to the United States' distrust of the Soviet Union.Michail, Eugene. “Western Attitudes to War in the Balkans and the Shifting Meanings of Violence, 1912-91.” Journal of Contemporary History, vol. 47, no. 2, 2012, pp. 219–39. JSTOR, {{JSTOR|23249185}}. Accessed 6 Feb. 2024. War in the Balkans (which America often had a part in) was considered inevitable due to the Balkan peoples' "propensity for extreme war violence." The United States government, while claiming to advocate for national determination for small countries, has denied national determination to many of the countries in Eastern Europe and the Balkans.{{Cite web |last=Kuhner |first=Jeffrey T. |title=Acute Slavophobia |url=https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2003/may/31/20030531-092841-6224r/ |access-date= |website=Washington Times}} As a result, many Slavic people in the US and Western countries felt pressure (and continue to feel pressure) to Anglicize their surnames and downplay their Slavic culture.{{Cite web |last=Brooks |first=Hannah |date=2022-05-02 |title=Opinion {{!}} My child's grandparents didn't want her to have their Russian surname. Now I get why. |url=https://www.nbcnews.com/think/opinion/putin-ukraine-russia-war-russian-immigrants-paying-price-rcna26971 |access-date=2024-02-06 |website=NBC News |language=en}} For example, as shown in the film The Founder, Czech-American Ray Kroc stubbornly insisted on seizing control of the McDonald's brand from the McDonald brothers, when he could have easily stolen their system and built his own company. He recognized that the real value of the company was in its name; people were less likely to eat at a restaurant called "Kroc's".{{cite book |last1=Halberstam |first1=David |author1-link=David Halberstam |title=The Fifties |date=1993 |publisher=Random House |location=New York |isbn=9780449909331 |page=163 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=0oTOw0Q8NWkC&pg=PA163}}

In American pop culture, Slavic people (specifically Russians) are usually portrayed as either nefarious, violent criminals{{Cite news |date=2012-09-05 |title='I Want You To Off Azimoff!' -- East European Stereotypes On U.S. TV |url=https://www.rferl.org/a/east-european-stereotypes-on-us-tv/24698997.html |access-date=2024-02-06 |work=Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty |language=en}} or as unintelligent, oblivious comic relief.{{Cite web |last=Raskin |first=Hanna Rachel |date=2007-04-11 |title=For make benefit writer of remarkable satiric novel |url=http://mountainx.com/arts/art-news/041107absurdistan/ |access-date=2024-02-06 |website=Mountain Xpress |language=en-US}}{{Cite journal |last=Orlova |first=Olesya Gennadievna |title=The American Movies As A Discourse And A Sourсe Of Russian Stereotypes |journal=European Proceedings|series=European Proceedings of Social and Behavioural Sciences |date=2021 |volume=Language and Technology in the Interdisciplinary Paradigm |pages=123–136 |doi=10.15405/epsbs.2021.12.17 |doi-access=free }} "Dumb Pole" jokes or "Polish jokes" (derogatory jokes towards Polish people) are just one manifestation of anti-Polish sentiment in America, and can be found in all sorts of media from many time periods.{{Cite web |title=The Anatomy of a Polish Joke |url=https://culture.pl/en/article/the-anatomy-of-a-polish-joke |access-date=2024-02-06 |website=Culture.pl |language=en}}

Slavophobia has had a resurgence in America following Russia's invasion of Ukraine, where Russian-Americans and people of Russian descent have been collectively blamed for the Russian government's actions.{{Cite web |last=Umbrasko |first=Ricards |title=Beyond Ukraine: The West Has an Eastern Europe Problem {{!}} Opinion {{!}} The Harvard Crimson |url=https://www.thecrimson.com/article/2022/3/9/umbrasko-eastern-europe/ |access-date=2024-02-06 |website=www.thecrimson.com}}

References

Notes

=Examples of anti-Slavic literature=

Zecker, Robert M. "“A Slav Can Live in Dirt That Would Kill a White Man”: Race and the European “Other”." Race and America's Immigrant Press: How the Slovaks were Taught to Think Like White People. London: Bloomsbury Academic, 2011. 68–102.

Bloomsbury Collections. Web. 5 Oct. 2021. http://dx.doi.org/10.5040/9781628928273.ch-004