In the eighteenth and more particularly in the nineteenth century, Russia enjoyed a reputation for unusually strong currents of religious spirituality. Most frequently these mystical currents have been traced to peculiarly native traditions, such as the Eastern patristic literature and the “naturally” mystical bent of the Russian mind. The influence of Western mysticism has been minimized, if not entirely overlooked. Actually, Western mysticism and theosophy were eagerly absorbed in Russia by religiously oriented thinkers from the reign of Peter the Great on into the era of romanticism in the early nineteenth century. Finally, Western mystical sources provided the chief inspiration for the leading theologian and philosopher in late nineteenth-century Russia, Vladimir Soloviëv (1853-1900), whose thought in turn had a decisive impact on the intellectual currents of the so-called Silver Age of Russian culture before World War I.

It was along the eastern shore of the Adriatic, in Dalmatian coastal towns and on neighboring islands, in the narrow belt of territory that had escaped Turkish conquest, that the Croatian Renaissance developed. The literature of this period is considered the beginning of Croatian creative writing and the foundation of the Croatian revival, known also as the Illyrian movement, that occurred three centuries later. Why did this Slavic literature develop in this small territory, which had been taken away from the Hungaro-Croatian kingdom and annexed to the Venetian Republic (1409-20) and whose high administrative, military, and often ecclesiastical officials were imported from Venice? A brief survey of what took place during several centuries on this Dalmatian coastland—rocky and barren, but surprisingly rich in events of political and cultural importance—may provide some explanation.

In mid-October, 1878, an outbreak of the plague occurred in the obscure village of Vetlianka on the Volga. Eruptions of various virulent diseases were no rarity in the region of the lower Volga, but this particular calamity made a forsaken village world-famous. It embroiled Russia in a violent diplomatic and press campaign with Germany and Austria; it played a major role in the growth of a legacy of mistrust and suspicion of German motives in Russia; it once again made Russians and foreigners painfully or joyfully aware of the lamentable inadequacies of Russian administration; and, above all, it presented Bismarck with a welcome weapon in his campaign for the conclusion of the Dual Alliance of 1879. A purely domestic event, seemingly devoid of any international significance, thus came to play a major role in the development of the foreign policies of a number of great powers.