Bernard Pares, Robert W. Seton-Watson, and the Making of Regional Studies in Britain, 1905–22

The aim of this paper is to account for the emergence of the Slavonic world as an object of study in Great Britain, by focusing on the trajectory of two individuals, Bernard Pares and Robert W. Seton-Watson from the aftermath of the 1905 liberal revolution in Russia to the immediate aftermath of the Great War. Both individuals have been thought of as the founders of the study of things Slavonic in early twentieth century Britain. Bernard Pares is credited with the advancement of Russian studies in the University of Liverpool in the wake of the 1905 revolution in Russia. Robert W. Seton-Watson played an instrumental role in the foundation of the School of Slavonic Studies in wartime London, of which Bernard Pares became the first director shortly after the end of the Great War. The paper aims to recount the history of the advancement of ‘regional studies’ on Central and Eastern Europe by focusing on their transnational foundations and impact in Edwardian politics in the context of an early twentieth century liberal internationalism which was much more akin to the principle of nationality than it has been hitherto asserted. Moreover, it seeks to add to the intellectual history of the British academic world by revisiting the institutional histories of the University of Liverpool and the University of London and linking them to parallel developments in the world of American scholarship.