ABSTRACT
In 1848, the nationalist ferment which had gathered in a number of European states reached a peak. For the Russian state, the ensuing ‘springtime of nations’ was no surprise, but rather a further confirmation of the sorry state of contemporary ‘false’ Europe. In foreign affairs, the Russian state reacted by rallying to the side of the Habsburg ruler in his hour of need, and staged a military intervention into Transleithania to crush the Magyar nationalist uprising against him. At home, the state limited political discourse to a minimum. The period of the 1840s, when public political life had been dominated by the conversation of the Westernisers and the Slavophiles, was decidedly over.
