In May, 1926, the retired First Marshal of Poland and former Chief of State (1918-22), Józef Piłsudski, at the head of certain military units devoted to his person and with the enthusiastic approval of the political and social forces of the Polish Left, staged a successful coup d'etat against the Polish parliamentary system dominated since the elections of November, 1922, by an agglomeration of Right-Center political parties. Though on the morrow of his victory Pitsudski moved swiftly and effectively to avert the devolution of his coup into a genuine social or even political revolution—to the consternation and disappointment of his allies on the Left—the May, 1926, crisis nevertheless became the great watershed of Polish political life between the two world wars. It signaled the failure and death of parliamentary democracy throughout the area of East Central Europe, and its divisions have run deep within Polish political memories to this day.

In the historiography of the Russian intelligentsia, liberal Slavophilism has suffered a sad neglect. Whereas Marxist and Populist historians alike have hallowed the radical Westernizers, the liberal Slavophiles have been relegated to a minor position, and Slavophilism presented as an ideology of obscurantist conservatism. In one respect this is understandable: the liberal Slavophiles were above all moderates and did not offer the violent expressions of resentment against the existing order that appealed so much to the revolutionary mentality. But although moderate, Slavophilism in the forties and fifties was a powerful progressive force, instrumental in bringing about the Great Reforms. In their concrete notions of reform and their determination and ability to carry them out, the liberal Slavophiles far surpassed the Westernizers, who in the forties were still groping in the labyrinth of Hegelian philosophy and who in the fifties were disoriented by the failure of the revolution of 1848.

In the early months of 1841, when Lermontov was briefly in Petersburg on leave from the Caucasian front, he played a practical joke on his literary friends by solemnly convening them for a reading of a new novel and presenting them instead with a short and unfinished tale of the supernatural. The circumstances surrounding this episode were chronicled by Countess E. P. Rostopchina, herself a popular author of the period:

Once he declared that he would read to us a new novel entitled Shtoss, the reading of which he calculated would take at least four hours. He insisted that we gather early in the evening and that the doors be locked against outsiders. All his wishes were fulfilled, and about thirty selected persons assembled.

The Baltic countries, which were absorbed by the Russian Empire between 1721 and 1795 (Estonia and Livonia in 1721, Latgale in 1772, Lithuania in 1793 and 1795, and Courland in 1795), have played a significant role in Russian economic life, and have been regarded as an important, if not a vital Russian outlet to the Baltic Sea. Before the First World War 20.6 per cent of all Russian imports and 28 per cent of all Russian exports passed through the Latvian territory alone. This was not only because Latvia is situated on the most direct trade routes between Russia and Western Europe but also because of her excellent harbors—Riga, Liepaja (Libau), and Ventspils (Windau). Three of Russia's principal railroad lines converged on these ports. In 1912 the port of St. Petersburg handled 2,500,000 tons of shipping.