THE SLAV NATIONS.

CHAPTER I.
THE SLAV RACE.

Slav Characteristics—Slav Power in the Past—The Decline—The Dawn?

Although the Slav race does not appear as a united state or Union, it certainly forms a family of nations linked by ties of blood, the tradition of centuries, similar language and customs, and especially by ties of mutual love and sympathy. It is the greatest and most powerful of the European races, yet to this day it does not hold the pride of place which is its due and which it once held. Not the precedence of mere strength, which is surely sufficiently represented by Russia, but the place due to a people of recognized culture, who have not yet been justly appreciated in spite of overwhelming proof of their intellectual gifts. Slavs are still popularly supposed to be a mentally undeveloped host of semi-barbarians and troglodytes. Of course the educated public of Europe has long12 abandoned this attitude; but it has done little to spread a more just and liberal view among the people at large.1 The German scholars made it their business to lay stress on “Slav barbarism” wherever possible, to obscure the bright and glorious pages in Slav history, and to emphasize everything that can be taken as a proof of savagery and arrested development. Unfortunately, no one has written at such length about the Slav question, or attached so much importance to it, as the German scholars, with the result that other European nations have derived their views from them—so much so that one might almost say that German opinion on the Slavs has become the opinion of Europe. Constant unrest in Russia, and the consequent reprisals of the authorities afforded a welcome pretext for misjudging the Slavs, and the ordinary public of Europe came to know of them only as mediÆval inquisitors with Siberia as their great torture-chamber. No one seemed to realize that these revolutionary movements,13 no less than the insurrections in other Slav countries, merely represented the resistance of a virile people craving enlightenment against autocratic barbarism; and that it is obviously unfair to judge the Slavs by the deeds of their oppressors, who in every case have followed the German methods cultivated by their governments in most Slav countries, and imported into Russia by Peter the Great. On the other hand, if the Slav nations are judged by the soul of the people, and not by their rulers and state-systems, they show a high standard of civilization and a trend towards culture of a kindly, humanitarian type, which promises to be a far better contribution to Western European progress than the much-advertised German “Kultur.”

Certainly the Slavs have not yet attained to their full stature as a race. At present they are passing through a period of strong ferment, but the wine that has so far resulted from this ferment gives excellent ground for the hope that when the Slavs have solved their various national and economic problems they will prove themselves the equals of the other cultured nations of the world.

In the world of politics they must attain the degree of power necessary to safeguard their racial individuality and the freedom of the Slav peoples. This power must stand in due proportion to their capability for intellectual progress, and should in itself be a guarantee for the peace of the world in the future. For the Slav is not naturally domineering, and has no craving for power as a mere means of aggression. He belongs to a kindly race, melancholy, as shown in the national poetry in which his soul finds expression. He has a craving to love and to be loved, and would fain join the other European nations as a friend and brother. His strength will be the strength of love. Russia has neither need nor desire to extend her boundaries further. The Balkan Slavs only wish to accomplish their own destiny quietly within the borders of the Slav Sphere, and the rest of the Slavs desire their freedom—only their freedom. And when this is accomplished, the Slav Colossus will no longer constitute a danger to Europe, but a safeguard. His political power will only threaten those who would tamper with the foundations of peace from mere lust of dominion.

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In the present crisis the Slav race is by no means seeking a return to the past. The past has seen the Slavs masters of a great empire and a real menace to the rest of the world. If one were to take the political map of Europe and indicate upon it the frontiers of the ancient Slav Empire, the Slav race would appear like an irresistible deluge. The huge Muscovite Empire, almost the whole of Austria-Hungary, the whole of the Balkans, two-thirds of the German Empire, part of Italy, and a large part of Scandinavia—all these once formed the Slav Empire. Historical maps show the single triumphant word “Slavs” (“famous” or “glorious” ones) inscribed over all these countries throughout the centuries. Their history and development can be traced back to 400 B.C.

The Taurians that guarded the Golden Fleece were Slavs, as were the men of the Baltic with whom Phoenicians and Greeks traded for amber. The forest lands of the North, that grey home of magic, wisdom and valour, hang like a dark background full of strange possibilities behind sunny Greece and clear-headed, practical Rome—and this was the Empire of the Slavs in the past, the Gardariki and Iotunheim (Giant-land) of the Norsemen. From one century to another they played a part of increasing importance among the peoples of Central and Eastern Europe and were feared as a strong, homogeneous race. Their power reached its zenith towards the end of the fifth century, before the tidal wave of the Hun invasion swept over Europe. At that time they held the mastery from the Alps to the mouth of the Elbe, and from the Baltic to the Black Sea. They were then one great people divided into several tribes speaking slightly differing dialects; but only a fraction of their number—the inhabitants of the present Dalmatia—was subject to the Emperor Nepos. The invasion of the Avars, who took possession of a large strip of the Slav possessions between the Danube and the Dniester, made the first breach in the unity of the great Slav family. Henceforth they were known as Northern, Eastern, and Southern, Slavs, and began to form separate nationalities. In the age of Charlemagne these nationalities had already crystallized into independent states, whose power and prosperity are recorded in history. The strongest of these was eventually Poland, extending far into the Russia of to-day. The Moravian Empire of Svatopluk, the Empire of Serbia, the kingdom of Croatia, and the Slavicized Bulgars in the South, together with the Grand-Dukedom of Muscovy (and the Wendish kingdom in North Germany), complete the family of Slav States. It would take too long to enter into the historical importance of all these states, but it is a characteristic proof of their power that not only European, but Asiatic, nations courted their favour.

Some of the main trade routes of the world led from Northern Europe through the heart of Russia to Byzantium (the “Mikligard” of the Sagas)—and Asia. Slav, Norwegian, Tatar and Arab traded peacefully together on the banks of the Volga, and sundry passages in the Norse Sagas as well as the journal of an Arab trader give us vivid glimpses of those days. Somehow these searchlight pictures of the Slavs and their country, recorded with positively journalistic freshness and love of detail, do not corroborate the biassed accounts of German historians. But this world-power which Russia alone has developed steadily up to the present day began to wane among the other Slav nations soon after the first Crusade (1097). Already in 1204 (the fourth Crusade) Slavonia, Croatia, Dalmatia and Bosnia were incorporated in the German (Holy Roman) Empire, together with Hungary, Istria, Carniola and Carinthia. Under the Hohenstaufens, Bohemia and Moravia also became vassal states, and in the fourteenth century the victorious Osmanlis robbed the Bulgars and Serbs of their independence. With the exception of Russia, Poland alone maintained her independence, until the first partition in 1772, followed by the second in 1793. The third and last partition in 1795 sealed her fate, and the Poles were parcelled out under Russian, Prussian and Austrian rule.

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The partition of Poland was the beginning of the complete political, and to some extent even the national, decay of the non-Russian Slavs. Just as Russia began to spread her mighty pinions, the Slavs under alien yoke fell deeper and deeper into an apathy of gloom, only broken from time to time by rare flashes of patriotism, or a tempest of revolt. The book of history lay open before them with its pages of gold and black; but to their aching eyes the black ever loomed larger than the gold, and they yielded to a despondency that knew no comfort and saw no escape. And, while they were thus sunk in apathy, their rulers brought strong pressure to bear on them, so that they might eradicate the stamp of their nationality, not only from their faces, but from their souls. Germany and Austria scented the Eastern question, and divined that in its solution the Slavs might renew their strength. So they determined to approach the problem supported by a totally emasculated and denationalized Slav following. To this end they strove above all things to turn the Slavs into docile citizens of a Germanic Empire; for from the days of Charlemagne the German has reiterated the parrot-cry that the Slav is barbarous, obstinate, dangerous and ugly, and that his only chance of salvation lies in merging his identity with that of the German of the Empire. It is a fact that during this period the Slavs did nothing to help themselves. A great weariness weighed upon the people, no less than upon the educated classes, and they were preparing to reconcile themselves to the fate that had already befallen their brothers, the Serbs and Bulgars. But the progress of history did for the Slavs what they failed to do for themselves. Napoleon, the personification of destruction for the whole of Europe, brought salvation to the Western Slavs, for he re-awakened them to a sense of national self-consciousness, and so prepared the way for the long and bitter struggle they have waged since then against their oppressors. As soon as these struggles commenced Russia, who had hitherto regarded the ruin of her brothers with equanimity, began to take an interest in their sufferings, and to afford them strong moral support.

These struggles, however, could not bring immediate relief. The Slavs knew full well that the way to freedom is long and has to be won step by step. The problem of the Near East, which advanced one stage with the liberation of Serbia, must first be solved in every phase and detail to clear the way for a solution of the purely Slav problem. Europe cannot take a vital interest in this problem before the Balkan problem is disposed of, and the conditions for the liberation of the Slavs so far fulfilled, that the difficulty can be solved in the ordinary course of the progress of civilization.

The psychological moment seems to have arrived, and the Slav question deserves to be fully put forward. Surely the British public, which has entered into the present crisis with such splendid spirit, will not withhold its interest from the Slav question, more especially as England will have a strong voice in the matter when the final settlement comes to be made.

CHAPTER II.
RUSSIA.

I. Russian Landscape and the National Character—Rurik to Peter the Great—German Influence—The Russian Awakening.

II. Siberia—White Russians—Little Russians—Great Russians—Cossacks—The People of the Sunflower—Made in Germany—The Reaction.

I.

Roughly speaking, there are 172 million Slavs in the world. The Russians alone number about 110 millions, and these millions occupy a vast country reaching from the snows of the far North, to lands where the orange-trees bloom all the year round. The Russian holds that his dear “little mother Russia” is the most beautiful land of all the earth. The mountain fastnesses and precipices of the Urals, the green slopes of the Caucasus, the Siberian wastes, the grey shores of the Baltic and the sunny shores of the Euxine—the Volga and the Don, and even the sacred steppes—to him they are all beautiful, to him they reflect the image of his soul and his feelings. The Western traveller will find some difficulty in understanding this passionate love of the Russian for his country, and will feel21 tempted to draw sharp comparisons between the degrees of beauty in the various districts. But the landscape of Russia is as peculiar as the Russian people. It is as Russian as the Russian himself. There is probably not another country in the world where the climatic and geological conditions have so deeply influenced the inmost character of the people, even to their external features. Where the landscape is beautiful and the climate sunny, the handsome noble Russian type prevails; whereas the cold, inhospitable tracts produce the characteristic wide-faced, flat-nosed type. Yet there is a strange resemblance between the rough type and the handsome type analogous to that which a careful observer cannot fail to notice between the different types of Russian landscape. For though the steppe is grey, and the fields of Caucasia are green, yet both are animated by something that wears the same countenance, breathes the same purely Russian atmosphere, and is suffused with the same wonderful charm. It is the charm of perfectly balanced contrast. The soil of Russia has a soul like the soul of her children, for whom she cares and lives and breathes. This soul appears everywhere the same; it exhales the same perfume from the dry grass of the steppe as from the Crimean groves of syringa.

The Russian soil is fertile, inexhaustively fertile, as if it were conscious of the millions dependent upon it. Metaphorically speaking, this soil produces its gifts out of itself, and offers them lavishly to its children. The Russian never works more than he is obliged to—he need not wrestle with the soil, he need only not forget it. But he tills it with love; he does not force the gifts of Nature, he coaxes them from her, and where these fruits do not appear on the surface, he seeks them in the heart of the earth, and goes down the coal-shafts and lead-mines with the same serene confidence with which he ploughs the sunlit surface. Is he not still with his “little mother”?

The Russian is a farmer by nature. The great industrial developments of the last decades have resulted automatically from the natural wealth of the country, but the true Russian reaps little benefit from this industrial boom. His commercial gifts are not great, and he has been content to leave the business exploitation of the country in the hands of foreigners, so long as he makes his own little profit. Mills and factories are “German monsters” in his eyes, and he prefers to give them a wide berth. But latterly there has been a great agitation in favour of the resuscitation of all home industries. The Russian has grasped the fact that his policy of sentiment in business will have to be modified to suit modern times, and that the welfare of the people must not be dependent on foreign middle-men. The present great conflict with the Germans, who have hitherto so largely monopolised Russian industry, will doubtless do much to further this movement towards industrial emancipation.

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The History of Russia begins practically with Rurik (862) who is supposed to have come from Scandinavia and laid the foundations of a Russian state.2 At the coming of Rurik the Russians were split up into many separate communities under independent chiefs. Rurik introduced a new spirit of united organization, and all efforts towards establishing a Russian Empire date from him. Of course it was inevitable that this founding of an Empire should involve much opposition, revolt, war, and bloodshed. Each district was proud and jealous of its independence, and only yielded after a hard and bitter struggle. During the period of Empire-making Russian history abounds in such bloody episodes. The Grand-Dukedom of Muscovy was the largest of the Russian petty States and in every way the best equipped, so that the task of organization naturally devolved upon it, together with the fruits of victory. Six centuries of ceaseless struggle against foes from without and within bring us from Rurik’s day to the accession of Ivan Vassilievitch III. (1462-1505), who is regarded as the founder of Russian Tsardom. He incorporated the still independent principalities of Twer, Moshnik, and Vologda with the Grand-Dukedom of Muscovy, defeated the powerful Republic of Novgorod, and freed himself completely from the Tatar yoke (1480). In 1472 he married ZoË, a daughter of Thomas Palaeologus, the brother of the last Byzantine Emperor. European customs were first brought into Russia through this princess, and the double-headed eagle of Byzantium introduced in the Russian coat of arms. The celebrated Uspenskij and Blagoveshchenski Cathedrals in Moskva were built in the reign of Ivan Vassilievitch III. He promulgated a decree pronouncing the realm henceforth united and undivisible by law, and was the first Russian ruler to assume the title of “Tsar of all the Russias.” Christianity, introduced by St. Vladimir (980-1054), had by this time fully blossomed forth as the national religion, so that we can date the foundation of “Holy Russia” of to-day in all her greatness from the age of Ivan Vassilievitch III.

During the following ages the power of Tsardom increased and finally reached its zenith with Peter the Great, who may be called the first of the modern Russian Tsars. He applied his own acquired Western knowledge to Russia, and enormously improved the general status of the realm. In his reign Russia began to play her part as a political and military power, for it was he who founded the Russian navy and mercantile marine. He was a ruthless autocrat, and many pages of his reign are traced in blood; yet with him autocracy was not so much a matter of sentiment as of dire necessity. He loved his Russian people passionately, but said that it was a people who had to be made great by force. Confident in the inalienable national character he saw no danger in importing foreigners wholesale to help in the building up of Russian administration. He surrounded himself with German advisers, appointed Germans to responsible offices, and freely admitted the German element into Russia as a means of spreading “culture.” In many ways German thoroughness proved a most useful asset in carrying out the Tsar’s intentions. On the other hand it gave rise to a dynasty and an autocratic aristocracy of foreign stock who failed to understand the Russian people, and whose influence proved disastrous to civilization and intellectual freedom in Russia. Outwardly, Russia became a world-power under Peter the Great, but internally it fell a prey to a system of spiritual slavery, which has been perpetuated even to recent years by the successors of Peter and their councillors, the descendants of German immigrants. Here lies the true cause of the revolutionary movement of more than a century. The last three Tsars of Russia—the two Alexanders and the present Tsar—have taken steps to eliminate the great evil, and if, so far, they have only been partially successful, the fault lies not with them nor with the Russian people, but with the still German mind of their advisers. The abolition of serfdom, repeated constitutional manifestos and the introduction of the Duma system are momentous steps towards a brighter future. But the gate to this future can only be fully opened with the conclusion of the present war.

II.

Although Russia has acquired millions of non-Russian subjects—chiefly through the Crimea, Bessarabia and her Asiatic possessions—she has never lost her purely Russian character. The laws concerning land purchase are so constituted that the territories belonging to the heart of Russia cannot to any great extent pass into non-Russian hands, which accounts for the fact that these parts of the Empire have remained essentially Russian. Siberia holds an exceptional position, and is to-day a great colonial province with a mixed population. Every year the wealth and fertility of Siberia become more and more apparent, and instead of being bleak and uninhabited, this country is now distinctly populous. The horrors of Siberia as a penal colony are becoming a thing of the past, and only the perpetrators of grave crimes are still condemned to labour in the lead-mines and languish in the Katorga (penal servitude). Convicts who are simply exiled to Siberia are able to earn a comfortable livelihood under tolerable conditions—apart from the loss of liberty and vexatious police supervision. Thus it often happens that time-expired convicts prefer to remain in Siberia, and eventually find not only a home but prosperity in the new country.

Siberia, the Crimea and Bessarabia are all three interesting as countries and as Russian territories, but in a sketch of the Russian people they are unimportant. The true Russian stock falls into three great bodies, the “Bielorussi” (White Russians), the “Velikorussi” (Great Russians) and the “Malorussi” (Little Russians). They represent the North, the Centre and the South of Russia. Ethnologically, economically, and intellectually the White Russians represent the lowest type. They inhabit the Northern tracts from the borders of Poland, ancient Lithuania, and Novgorod. The governments of Minsk, Litav, and Smaljensk are their central provinces. Theirs is a poverty-stricken and, one might add, a slothful Russia. Agricultural facilities are limited, the soil is not very fertile, and the White Russian is not sufficiently industrious or persevering to improve it by rational farming. The people are more apathetic than elsewhere in Russia, and less inclined to adopt modern ideas with enthusiasm. These people become nervous and excitable only when menaced by a dearth of food; then their attitude is often much more dangerous than the tide of social revolution. At least the White Russian has kept his type fairly pure and in spite of alien neighbours he shows little trace of racial admixture.

The Little Russians, who inhabit the entire South of Russia, and from whose stock the famous Cossacks are sprung, differ most radically from their northern brothers. They are the excitable, hot-blooded, dare-devil Russians. In type the men are fine-looking and handsome almost without exception, and the women often exceedingly beautiful. Their language differs from other Russian speech by the extreme softness of the dialect (which is not unlike Serbo-Croatian), and their music and poetry are the finest in the Slav race. In the past the Little Russians were divided into many small and independent clans who outvied each other in reckless warlike enterprises. Of course the wonderful Cossacks always took the lead. They still occupy their original home on the Don and in Caucasia, and furnish the Élite of the Russian Army, even as they once were the flower of the Little Russian tribes. Moreover, they preserved to the very last their freedom and their privileges in Russia. To-day one is accustomed to look upon the Cossacks as merely a body of men especially devoted to the Tsar, but, as a matter of fact, the Cossack people have had a most chequered and interesting past. Once they formed an independent warrior-nation, feared and courted by their neighbours; and so secure in their strength did they feel, that they even dared to answer the Turkish Sultan’s demand for submission with a letter of taunting derision (the well-known Cossack Ultimatum). They played a great part in the history of Russia, and each Russian ruler in turn endeavoured to assure himself of their support. After their final subjection to Russia (1851) the Cossacks gradually exchanged their political importance for their present military value. Tolstoi wrote about them as follows—though his remarks really apply to the whole of the Little Russian people: “Many years ago the ancestors of the Cossacks, who were ‘Old Believers,’ fled from Russia and settled on the banks of the Terek (Caucasus). They are a handsome, prosperous and warlike Russian population, who still retain the faith of their fathers. Dwelling among the Chechentzes, the Cossacks intermarried with them and acquired the usages, customs and mode of living of these mountaineers. But their Russian tongue and their ancient faith they preserved in all their pristine purity.... To this day the kinship between certain Cossack families and the Chechentzes is clearly recognizable and a love of freedom and idleness, a delight in raiding and warfare are their chief characteristics. Their love of display in dress is an imitation of the Circassians. The Cossack procures his admirable weapons from his mountaineer neighbours, and also buys or ‘lifts’ his best horses from them. All Cossacks are fond of boasting of their knowledge of the Tatar tongue. At the same time this small Christian people considers itself highly developed, and the Cossack only as a full human being. They despise all other nationalities.... Every Cossack has his own vineyard, and presses his own wine, and his immoderate drinking is not so much due to inclination as to sacred custom, to neglect which would be regarded as a kind of apostasy.... Women he looks upon as a means for promoting his prosperity. Only the young girls are allowed by him to enjoy any leisure: from a married woman he demands a life of drudgery from early youth to old age, and he is quite Oriental in expecting deference and hard work from his wife.... The Cossack who considers it unbefitting in the presence of strangers to exchange a kind or affectionate word with his wife involuntarily feels her superiority as soon as he is alone with her. For the whole of his house and farm are acquired through her and maintained by her labour and care....”

Between these extremes of Northern and Southern Russia, the Great Russian stands out like a beacon or an indestructible landmark. He represents the purest type of the Russian people, the children of “matyushfia Moskva.” Whatever Russia has produced in the way of true greatness in every sense of the words, has its cradle in Great Russia, and has been nursed at the breast of Mother Moskva. This truly Russian people inhabits the huge central tracts of Russia, and the governments of Moskva and Novgorod are their particular home. The Russian faith owes its beauty, the Russian ideal its purity to this people, and to the race they have given the All-Slav Ideal. And they are the only Russian people whose soul has two faces, an outer and an inner one. The Russian sculptor Tsukoff has symbolized them in a figure resembling a sunflower. It is as well to know that the Great Russian cannot live without sunflower-seeds. He calls them “podsolnushki.” Everything is smothered in “podsolnushki” shells—streets, floors of rooms and railway carriages, even the corners in the churches. Every Great Russian munches “podsolnushki,” and by temperament he himself is a “podsolnushki.” He has an outer shell and a kernel. In Russia the sunflower is queen of the flowers, and as the sunflower is among the flowers so is the Great Russian among the Russian peoples. He is the true “tsarkiya Rus.” The Tsar is the sun, the heart of the realm, and the Muscovite people are the “podsolnushki.” Each individual is only one among many, a particle, a seed for the propagation and glorification of his own race. Probably, the Great Russian has no equal in the world as regards idyllic simplicity. Not because he munches “podsolnushki,” crosses himself in tram-cars when passing a church, goes about in big boots in the heat of summer, and drinks vodka, wine and beer without regard to time or season, but because he is a true yeoman soul. He is quite indifferent to all that does not interest him personally. The surface of his soul is as hard and impervious as the shell of the sunflower seed. His face wears an imperturbable, changeless expression. To reach the kernel of his human soul one has to discard every formality, thrust aside every obstacle, and bite into it as if it were a sunflower seed. If you abuse him roundly and “have it out” with him, he suddenly shows himself in his true colours, the best and kindliest of souls; but if you handle him with kid gloves you will never get a glimpse of his inner nature. As an acquaintance the charm of the Great Russian consists chiefly in his sudden transition from sharp resistance to an unexpected exhibition of gentle, unaffected loveableness. The Great Russian has a strong natural talent for philosophy, but, metaphorically speaking, his philosophy is as vegetarian as his cooking has largely remained to this day. There is a scent of dried herbs, new-mown hay, and southern-wood about it; it recalls dark forests where the sunlight, piercing the rifts between the tree-tops, shines with golden-blue, unearthly splendour—a ray of the light Divine. His philosophy is innocent of blood like the saints of the old ikons.

This Great Russian people is the flower of Russia, the Sunflower, whose golden petals point the way for the future of the whole Russian nation.

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The problem of Russian culture has its roots in the Russian people, and not in the educated classes. The desire for culture has emanated from the people themselves, and the spirit they evinced has pointed the way for the educated classes in the great struggle for national culture within recent years. The educated man is the interpreter of the popular demand for culture, and of the intellectual wealth dwelling in the soul and mind of the Russian people. Almost the whole of Russian art and literature is derived from this source, and it has never shown the world so much the genius of the poet, painter, or the sculptor in question, as the genius of the Russian people that produced him; and the best that is revealed in Russian art is the face of the Russian soul with its manifold aspects of thinker, philosopher, and purely human being. Dostoievski, Tolstoi, Gogol, Gontsharoff, Tshekhoff, Gorki and Andreeff in poetry; Repin, Vasnetsoff, Tsukoff, Troubetzkoy and many others in the pictorial arts;—all have learnt what they had to tell from the soul of the people and the wisdom of this soul; and the Great Russian musicians have used the voice of the people throughout for the expression of their art. They are all of them merely interpreters of the rich fund of culture, the latent culture of the Russian people. This latent culture, in conjunction with the holy Russian faith, has advanced towards the highest development of human dignity and nobility, towards peace founded not upon blood, but upon love. The abuse the Germans have heaped upon Russian barbarism is merely the outcome of envious rage on the part of an inferior, who sees his artificial pseudo-culture endangered by another culture which blossoms from the depths of the human heart.

The non-Russian Slavs stood for a long time under the influence of German culture. With their characteristic aggressiveness the Germans represented their culture as the high-water mark of civilization and inculcated it everywhere with the same violence which at present distinguishes the advance of their invading hordes. Even nations possessing a peerless millennial culture, like the French and Italians, have found it difficult to escape their influence. But a sham must inevitably die of its own exposure. Every people, every nation has its own peculiar susceptibility, a kind of instinctive taste, which refuses to tolerate anything that does not appeal to its soul, and could act destructively upon it. The peoples of the West have for some time past boycotted the “Williamitic” culture, and only sundry isolated Slav peoples have admitted it—principally those who were practically dependent on Germany, and whose native culture was forcibly suppressed. The result was that a few years ago a non-Russian Slav knew his sentimental Schiller better than his Dante, Lenau better than his Pushkin, Kleist better than Shakespeare, and Gottfried Keller better than Dostoievski. In the Slav schools in Austria-Hungary the German language is obligatory as the official language (the other languages are to this day not permitted in the schools), German history is taught as the standard of national greatness and civilization and German literature and art as practically unique and unequalled. All that bore the hallmark “Made in Germany” was inculcated as ideal. Thus it was not at all strange that German culture has for a long time predominated among these Slavs. But the Slav instinct always hated this culture, though at first unconsciously, and sensed it as a false and treacherous enemy. Then Russia began her intellectual campaign among the Slavs. At first it was an uphill struggle, for the Government authorities placed every possible obstacle in the way of this propaganda. But when the Slav peoples realized that the Russian influence could only reach them as forbidden fruit, they began greatly to desire it. To the power of the State they opposed the power of their will and their instincts. This struggle is still in progress, but it has been uniformly successful in favour of the Russian influence. During the ’eighties the results of this influence began to show fruit, and since that time Slav intellectual and educational development has safely entered the fairway of Russian intellectualism. Art and literature have followed the lines laid down by Russia, and become more definitely Slavonic. The latent mental wealth and resources of the Slav nations have come to the surface and appear pure and unaffected and entirely free from German “angularity,” while their social problems betray a distinct kinship with the Russian social movement. In recent years this process of emancipation and affiliation has so far developed that it has entered the field of politics and materialized in the Russian protectorate over all the Slavs. This, however, required no propaganda—it arose out of itself, as will appear in the chapters dealing with the other Slav nations.

CHAPTER III.
RUSSIAN NATIONAL CHARACTERISTICS.

Russian Slavdom—The Mir—Stress and Famine—The Duma—Russian Literature—Gogol, Tolstoi, Dostoievski—Realistic Ideals—The Russian Soul.

The eminent Russian publicist Menschikoff, in one of his works on Russian nationalism, writes the following: “In a world-wide sense only we Russians are Slavs and—unfortunately—so far no one else. The other Slav nationalities are so dismembered, so stupidly and artificially kept apart and hostile among themselves, that they scarcely count either politically or otherwise. The majority of the Outer Slav nations are still under the German, Hungarian or Turkish yoke, and at present they are quite unable to shake off this yoke. There are many reasons for the decline of the Western Slavs, but the principal one is the negative type of their character and the consequent tendency to dissensions and mutual jealousies.... Even as regards national culture, Russia—in spite of all her internal miseries—takes the lead among the Slav nations. In every respect she has the right to say: ‘I am Slavdom.38’”

The somewhat bitter tone adopted towards the other Slav nations in this dictum might easily be modified by an appeal to evidence, but, for all that, Menschikoff’s remarks are correct in essentials. The truth of his assertion as to the world-wide importance of the Russians and the relative unimportance of the other Slavs to-day must be freely admitted. And that is why a special interest attaches to the question of the Russian people. It is too early in the day to judge of the full significance of the Russians as a factor in the world’s development, for they have scarcely yet come into their own. The birth of the Russian people has been in progress for the last century. First the head appeared—Russian literature, and then slowly, deliberately, the giant body—the Russian people, who are gradually attaining to political and national self-consciousness.

Till 1861 the Russian people led an embryonic existence within the womb of Holy Mother Russia. A nobility of mixed Mongolian, German, British, French and even Negroid (Pushkin) stock ate, breathed and thought for the people. Most foreigners imagine that the Russian people were “emancipated” in 1861. But this emancipation was only partial, and more apparent than real; for though serfdom had been abolished, there still remained the heavier yoke of the “Mir”—a conservative, iron-bound institution, which has greatly hindered the development of the Russian people by restricting the liberty of the individual. Strictly speaking, the “Mir” was the village or parish, but in an economic sense it was the association of several families under one head. The Slavophil writers, Homiakoff and the brothers Kirieyevaki, with their followers down to Pobyedonszeff saw in the “Mir” a guarantee, not only for the welfare of Russia, but for all the world. They believed the “Mir” to be that economic communism and moral brotherhood which Western Social Democracy is vainly trying to discover in other ways. They held that the “Mir” was destined to assure the future of the Russian people and to afford it the means of solving all the social problems of the world in accordance with the laws of justice and of love. Russian literature is full of poems, treatises, and religious contemplations in praise of it. Even the greatest Russian minds, such as Dostoievski himself, were smitten with this idea. No “Western” doctrine was potent to disabuse the Russians of their fallacy. Nature herself had to come to the rescue, destroy the chimera and lead Russia back to the high road of common sense and progress.

It happened very simply. The periodic famine arose in Russia, and the vast Empire, the “granary of the world,” had no bread for millions of her honest, hard-working children. They could not understand how there could be a famine in a fertile, sparsely populated country, whilst the teeming populations of the Western countries had enough to eat. The starving Russian people argued that the famine was caused by an insufficiency of land, and that they had been cozened in 1861 when the land was divided up between the nobles and the peasants. The result was a growing ill-feeling against the ruling classes, to whom the peasantry still had to pay “redemption-dues” either in money or in kind. In accordance with ancient custom the “Mir” periodically divided the land among its members. Obviously, in many communities there was not enough land for each member. Result—Famine. The “Mir” was self-governing, and had the same powers over its members as formerly the lord of the soil. It exercised a paternal jurisdiction, punished with blows, or with banishment to Siberia, divided the land, collected taxes, issued travellers’ passes, and often made itself arbitrarily unpleasant. During the ’nineties it became increasingly evident that the “Mir” constituted a moral and material danger to the people. Poor harvests followed by famine were the bane of the people from 1871 till 1907 and even as lately as 1911.

Space forbids me to enter into the agrarian crises—questions of reform, experiments and reactions, which loom so large in the pages of modern Russian history. Suffice it to say that all this led up to the revolution in 1905, and that in consequence of this revolution the Government decided upon a step it might equally well have taken in 1861. In 1906 the Government decided partially to dissolve the “Mirs,” and by establishing freehold farm properties owned by individuals it created the yeoman farmer class with full civic rights. This reform which was only fully carried through in 1911, marks the beginning of a new political era for the Russian man of the people. It is still too soon to feel the consequences of this truly great reform to their full extent. The Russian peasant has scarcely got used to his new position of individual freedom, and has not yet learnt to give effect to his political and social will. There can be no question of a constitution so long as the “Muzhik” has not attained to the full stature of a citizen and agriculturist. In Russia we speak of a “first Duma,” a “second Duma,” a “third Duma,” whereas no one in the rest of Europe would speak of a “first,” “second,” or “third” Parliament, but simply of “the Parliament.” These “first,” “second,” “third” and now “fourth” Dumas are simply so many editions of one and the same Duma, with each edition more rigorously pruned by the Government, till the merest shadow is all that remains. At this moment the entire social structure of Russia is analogous to this Duma-system. The Russian world of intellect is no more entitled to represent the Russian people, than the fourth Duma is to represent the first. The Russian intellectuals may speak in the name of the people, but their word is really no better than a third-hand account. Even when there is no attempt at falsification, they always stand at a certain distance from the people. Whatever the great Russian realists have written concerning their own people is merely intuitive conjecture from a distance. A poet projects his own world into the people. The psychology of the great Russian writers of fiction is a tendency, an illusion based not on exact, but on intuitive knowledge of the people. Russian realism borders on the visionary, and on mysticism. Europe has hitherto failed to discern the actual foundations of this poetry in its relation to Russian life, and has simply allowed herself to be fascinated by the “keen psychology” of the writers. The result has been a false impression. The facts are really different—instead of real truthfulness we find in the Russian writer a realistic tendency, a real ethical resentment; thence the increased “keenness” of his psychology, the critical touch in his imagination, which gives such a striking effect of verisimilitude. European critics have never detected the seam in the fabric of the Russian novel; they have accepted the masterpiece as the outcome of a single creative inspiration. Even though Russian realism comes nearer to life than that of any other literature, still it is more art than life.

Proof of this is to be found in Gogol’s private correspondence. He frequently complained that nobody would send him “copy” from Russian life. He begs in vain for hints, anecdotes and descriptions; he has to “invent” his stories, and is ashamed of having to “deceive” his reader. In his immortal comedy, “The Revising Inspector,” Gogol satirizes his own “untruthfulness,” and in Hlestakoff, the great adventurer, who is mistaken by every one for the real revising inspector, he ridicules himself. For the sake of the people Gogol consents to play the “revising inspector!” But Gogol’s “untruthfulness” is simply creative genius. An eminent Tolstoi student, Osvianiko-Kulikovsky, has plainly asserted that even Tolstoi was not of the soul of the people but of the soul of the gentry. Tolstoi is a “barin” (landlord) and he thinks and feels only as a barin. Turgenyeff was blamed even during his lifetime for writing about Russia without knowing it; for he practically never lived in Russia.

The inmost soul of the Russian people has, however, found an excellent representative in Dostoievski. “Do not judge the Russian people”—pleads Dostoievski—“by the atrocious deeds of which they have often been guilty, but by those great and holy matters to which they aspire in their depravity. And not all the people are depraved. There are saints among them, who shed their light upon all, to show them the way.”

Dostoievski himself was such a light and such a saint. His works reflect the character of the Russian clearly and faithfully as it is:

“In the Russian man of the people one must discriminate between his innate beauty and the product of barbarism. Owing to the events of the whole history of Russia, the Russian has been at the mercy of every depraving influence, he has been so abused and tortured that it is a miracle that he has preserved the human countenance, let alone his beauty. But he has actually retained his beauty ... and in all the Russian people there is not one swindler or scoundrel who does not know that he is mean and vile.”

Dostoievski further adds: “No! The Russian people must not be judged by what they are, but by what they aspire to be. The strong and sacred ideals, which have been their salvation from the age of suffering, are deeply rooted in the Russian soul from the very beginning, and these ideals have endowed this soul for all time with simplicity and honesty, with sincerity, and a broad, receptive good sense,—all in perfect harmony.”

Concerning the part the Russian people are destined to play in the world, Dostoievski wrote the following:

“The Russian people is a strange phenomenon in the history of mankind. Their character is so different from that of the other peoples of Europe that to this day Europeans have failed to understand it, and misconstrue it at every turn. All Europeans move towards the same goal. But they differ in their fundamental interests, which involve them in collisions and antagonisms, whereby they are driven to go different ways. The ideal of a universal humanity is steadily fading from among them. The Russian people possess a notable advantage over the other European nations,—a remarkable peculiarity. The Russians possess the synthetic faculty in a high degree—the gift of feeling at one with the universe and a universal humanity. The Russian has none of the European angularity, he possesses the gift of discernment and of generosity of soul. He can adapt himself to anything and he can understand. He has a feeling for all that is human, regardless of race, nationality or fundamental ideas. He finds and readily admits reasonableness in all that contains even a vestige of true human instinct. By this instinct he can trace the human element in other nationalities even in exceptional cases. He accepts them at once, seeks to approximate them to his own ideas, ‘places’ them in his own mind, and often succeeds in finding a starting-point for reconciling the conflicting ideas of two different European nations.”4

This characteristic is so general and so true, that all other opinions on the character of a great people must take second place. It finds room for the Cossack with his nagaika and for Tolstoi with his gospel. It embraces every aspect of the human soul. Dostoievski himself possessed the synthetic faculty, the wonderful gift of universal understanding. He could make it clear that a crime may be a holy deed, and holiness mere prostitution, even as he succeeded in fusing Russian Christianity with the Tatar “Karat”5 in one soul. Whence came all these paradoxes in the one man? On one occasion he wrote: “I am struggling with my petty creditors as Laokoon wrestled with the serpents. I urgently require fifteen roubles. Only fifteen. These fifteen roubles will give me relief, and I shall be better able to work.” Here lies the secret of the Russian synthesis in Dostoievski. Mental work is restricted by hard external circumstances. The inherent tendency to despond when in trouble is one of the greatest dangers to the Russian. He would fain lead the contemplative life, and hesitates “to take up arms against a sea of troubles.” To combat this he has had to lash himself into a state of hard practical efficiency. The Russian must grow strong against himself before he can again take up his ideal of an aggressive inner life. It is once more a case of Laokoon and the serpents. For this very reason Tolstoi’s teaching did not appeal to Dostoievski. When he had read a few sentences of this doctrine he clutched his head and cried: “No, not that, anything but that!” A few days later he was dead, and the world will never know what was gathering in his mind against the great heretic. But Dostoievski’s works are really in themselves a most vehement refutation of the Nazarene doctrine—it is as if he had prophetically discerned Tolstoi. Dostoievski solves the contrast between European culture and Christianity in accordance with both the Church and culture. He bows before the miracle, the mystery, and authority, and thus creates the union between material culture and Christian culture. He accepts the world as a whole, even as the Russian people take it.

Tolstoi denies the divinity of Christ and the entire synthesis of Russian philosophy. But even Tolstoi could only have been born in Russia. Personally he liked being accepted by the Russian peasants as one of themselves. The figure of the “Muzhik” is inseparable from Tolstoi’s doctrine, because Tolstoi’s doctrine is inseparable from the Russian people. It lives in the Great Submerged, who are as far removed from Western culture in fact as Tolstoi himself is in theory. Russian law courts have to deal every day with people who refuse to pay taxes, to serve in the army, or to acknowledge the “pravoslav” clerical authority. The Church calls these people “Shkoptzi,” “Molokami,” or “Hlisti.” There are about twenty million of them. They style themselves “White doves,” “The New Israel,” “Doukhobortzi.” In principle they are “pure Christians” like Tolstoi. Both have the same “tone” of soul. Dostoievski says of Tolstoi that he was one of those who fix their eyes on one point, and cannot see what happens to the right or to the left of that; and if they do wish to see it they have to turn with their whole body, as they invariably move their whole soul also in one direction only. This correctly observed obstinacy is the very opposite to the synthetic gift and generosity of soul mentioned before, and this peculiarity of the Russian mind has often been called “Maximalism,” to denote the rigid criterion, which loves no happy mean, but always goes to the utter extreme.

Many Western writers, among them the British author Bering, have asserted that the Slavs have no strength of will. This view is erroneous and harmonizes neither with Tolstoi’s tendency to extremes, nor with Dostoievski’s universal charity. It applies only to such phenomena in Slav life as are accessible to the European tourist, as, for instance, technical undertakings and colonial enterprise; for in this matter the Slav is naturally not so well qualified as the Englishman.

The Russian soul, and consequently the character of the Russian people, is many-sided and paradoxical in its obstinacy and its generosity. It is the historical outcome of such extremes as are represented by yellow positivist Mongolism, and gentle altruistic Christianity. But the soul of the Russian people has not yet clearly found itself, like the souls of the Western nations; first, because the head has not yet acquired control over the body; secondly, because the work of enlightenment and emancipation is only being completed by the present war. Hitherto it has laboured in its birth-throes. It has been a Laokoon wrestling with serpents.

CHAPTER IV.
POLAND AND BOHEMIA.

I. The Contrast—National Character of the Poles—Our Lady of Csenstochova—Dancing Peasants—Galician Poles—Selfish Policy—Austria a Slav State.

II. The Poles in Russia—Russia’s Repressive Measures—The Slav Ideal—A Better Understanding—The Poles in Prussia—The Iron Heel—Law of Expropriation.

III. Csech Characteristics—Professor Masaryk—Jan Huss—Slav Puritans—The Hradcin—Modern Politics.

I.

Roughly speaking the Group of the Northern Slavs includes twenty million Poles and eight million Csechs. Numerically, therefore, they are the greatest of the unliberated Slav peoples. Bohemia and her sister-country Moravia are under Austrian rule, while Poland has been dismembered and partitioned between Russia, Germany and Austria. At one time both countries were great and flourishing, and played a prominent part in history. In 1526 the Csechs51 acknowledged the Hapsburgs as their ruler,6 and Bohemia’s political decay and gradual loss of independence date both from this point. The first partition of Poland in 1772 deprived the Republic of liberty. Her dismemberment was finally completed and sealed by the third partition in 1795, and henceforth the Poles were even deprived of the possibility of co-operating as a nation.

The Csechs and Poles have both passed through a national tragedy, but of the two the Polish tragedy makes a stronger appeal to the imagination, because of the contrast between their former greatness and their present position, the high level of their culture, and the lofty principles at stake in the Great Polish Revolution. The Poles fell victims to the foreign yoke just as their civilization, their culture, and their esprit were on the fairway to rival the intellectual splendours of France under Louis XIV. They were a brilliant people—mentally and intellectually refined, but physically decadent, and quite incapable of surviving their political freedom. They yielded to listless sentimentality and bewailed their lost greatness instead of fighting to retrieve it. You may love the Poles with your heart but never with your reason! In this they are the very antithesis to the Csechs whom you cannot love except with your reason. You may admire them for the culture they have so laboriously won, but you cannot love them for it.

To the German and Austrian the Csech presents a comic type. But no one looks upon the Pole as comic; you hate him or you love him, but you cannot ridicule him—there is something great and tragic about him. The Russians who hate him for political reasons are fired by religious fanaticism. They hate the Jesuitical principles of the Pole. The Germans hate the Polish want of management, and “Polnische Wirtschaft” (“Polish management”) is a German idiom. But no one would insult Polish idealism and the innate nobility of the Pole. He compares with the Csech as Don Quixote with Sancho Panza. He is a dreamer and visionary who prostrates himself before an invisible shrine and awaits the miracle of salvation and liberation. This life of dreams has endowed the modern Pole with hyper-sensitive nerves, dogmatic onesidedness, and extreme passivity. Lost in the contemplation of their royal past, the Polish people wait in breathless silence for the first bird-note to herald the dawn of freedom that shall dispel the night of tribulation.

But, while the conscience of the nation languishes, crucified in the bitter suffering of a Messianic ideal, the Masses—the common people—are sane and sturdy; they live and multiply far removed from the griefs of the Classes. Their hard life has made them dull and unfeeling; caught in a world of factories, mines, and social democracy, they are only interested in their own immediate concerns and personal pleasures. Anything beyond that they expect from the mediation of “Bogarodjitza” (Mother of God).

Wijspianski, a fine Polish dramatist, has strikingly sketched the national character in one single scene in his play “Wesele” (The Wedding). The people are dancing their Polonaise and Mazurka, with gay cockades and ribands on their shoulders. The pretty bride leads off with her herculean bridegroom. Suddenly Yasiek rushes in upon the dancers and cries, “To arms! rise and rebel, for Poland!” But the couples—as if bewitched—continue to dance the national measure. Yasiek, bitterly disappointed, sees his hopes blighted and, choked with despair, he sinks to the ground. But the couples go on dancing, and he is trampled to death by the feet of those whom he came to lead to freedom. This scene epitomises the position of affairs in modern Poland—the despair of the great lord with his pedigree, broad acres, and capital, who has absolutely no hold over the plain people because they have turned away from him. They have lost their rights, their land and their traditions; the only link between the two is the Catholic ideal, the ideal of Polish Catholicism, which is hallowed in the image of Our Lady of Csenstochova, whose brow is encircled with the crown of the ancient Queens of Poland.

The younger generation in Poland has realized that this link between the Classes and Masses must rest on a surer foundation.

Between the aristocracy and the masses has arisen the class of the educated poor. These people are mainly of Russian descent, but the sons of Polish Jews form an important proportion and have acquired considerable influence, chiefly in the journalistic world. This young Poland saw itself confronted by a great vanished Polish age of romanticists and poets, with pronounced aristocratic and Catholic sentiments. The whole intellectual struggle of the modern democratic generation consists in an attempt to find contact with this past. Science also is endeavouring to reconcile the spirit of the present with the spirit of the past, and hopes to prepare the future development of an individualistic Polish culture on this foundation.

The contrast between German and Polish culture is the contrast between the culture of the masses and the culture of the individual. The principal social feature in mediÆval Germany was feudalism. Germany was ruled by a number of feudal princes, Poland by a number of aristocratic families. But this rÉgime proved disastrous to Poland. A state where individuals rule by mutual consent is bound to develop differently from one where families rule without any mutual consent. In the expansive Western monarchies the power of the State increased, while the aristocratic republic of Poland steadily declined. The main reason for this difference probably lies in the geographical position of Poland. It lay too far from the West—too far from Rome and its culture.

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The province of Galicia, which fell to Austria’s share by the partition of Poland, undoubtedly fared better than the rest of the country. It is inhabited by 4,252,483 Poles and 3,381,570 Ruthenes (including Bukovina). As geographical and racial neighbours of the Csechs, who were already displaying the greatest determination in their national struggle, the great population bade fair to become a danger to Austrian policy. Vienna was quick to realize this, and arranged her tactics towards the Poles accordingly. As soon as the Russian and German Poles began to be down-trodden, it was an easy matter to dispose of any separatist tendency among the Austrian Poles by reminding them of the position of their brothers. At home the Government began by fomenting the national discord between the Poles and the Ruthenes. It neglected the latter in favour of the Poles, and absolutely disregarded their reasonable claims. The Poles were not only granted great national and political concessions; they became the Slav favourite of the Viennese ministry. Not only were they represented by their own “Landmannsminister” (“the Secretary for Galicia,” so to say), but one other important portfolio (usually that of Finance) was always entrusted to a Pole.

The Poles were quite content with this position and supported Austrian policy accordingly. As this policy is above all things anti-Slav, this meant that the most chivalrous of all the Slav nations became a tool in the hands of Slavdom’s chief oppressor. This was partly due to the fact that this staunchly Catholic people is surrounded by non-Catholic enemies—by Protestant Germans on the one hand and Orthodox Russians on the other. Moreover, they look upon Catholicism as the one safe harbor—hence their attachment to Roman Catholic Austria. Here also lies the clue to Polish views, their sympathies and antipathies. But there is no justification for this position. Catholicism is not a Slav national religion, and can never become part of the soul of a Slav people. Strictly speaking, it is responsible for the decline of part of the Slav race. All Catholic Slav countries up to date have been in captivity, whereas all such Slavs as have retained their national orthodox religion are free. It is quite natural that the Poles should cling to Catholicism as an acquired religion which appeals to them, but they should not have used it as a national and traditional basis for their attitude towards the rest of the Slavs. It is a mistake which has done little good to their own national aspirations, and incalculable harm to the Slav cause.

In many Slav circles there is a tendency to ascribe this attitude of the Poles, not to their Messianic ideal, but to a purely individual egotism. This view is at least partially true, were it only because Polish politics are not the politics of the nation, but of the ruling class. The Polish aristocracy, who were unable to forget their past glories, saw in the feudal and aristocratic principles of the Austrian Government a possibility of retaining their position in the Dual Monarchy. They made full use of their opportunities even while (in theory) they were careful to guard Polish national interests. This aristocracy had no feeling for the common Slav cause, and whenever they had a chance of authority (Goluchowski, Bilinski) they have proved themselves a positive danger to the cause. That this aristocracy has cast its spell over the greater part of the educated classes and formed political parties as it chose is due to the inherent moral dependence of the Pole upon his aristocracy;—snobbery is as much a disease with him as Roman Catholicism. Not however among the common people are they always the heedless dancers of Wijspianski’s drama. They allow everything to pass over them, and only trample upon that which happens to lie beneath their feet. Moreover, their inmost soul is rich in the true Slav qualities; but this wealth is hidden as in a fast-locked casket, and there it will lie until the radiant smile of the “Mother of God” of Csenstochova shall miraculously reveal it.

For a long time Polish politics have disturbed the Slav balance in the Dual Monarchy. The Austro-Hungarian monarchy is properly a Slav State in the fullest sense of the word. According to official statistics 22,821,864 out of 51,351,531 souls are Slavs. The ruling races, Germans and Hungarians, number 21,259,644 between them, and the remainder are accounted for by Roumanians, Italians and other nationalities. It must be pointed out that Slavs living in Hungary (especially in Baczka and in the Banat) are—much against their will—simply entered in the census as Hungarians, and that in like manner hundreds of thousands of Slavs in Bohemia, Carinthia, Styria and Carniola are put down as Germans. Protests against these proceedings pass unheeded, and Slav National Census Unions were formed to check the Governmental statistics; according to these more than 50 per cent. of the entire population are Slavs. This percentage is proportionately increased if we further include the Slav emigrants in Australia and America. These number about five million, and would doubtless return to their homes if more tolerable conditions could be procured.

And yet this Monarchy aspires to be anything but a Slav State. German and Magyar rule has sought to swamp the Slav element in every possible way. Following Metternich’s principle “divide et impera” the Slavs were divided into two “spheres.” The Northern Slavs were handed over to Austrian autocracy, and the Southern Slavs to Magyar plutocracy. Thus it came to pass that 9 million Germans rule 15 million Slavs, and 10 million Magyars, Jews, or spurious Magyars rule 7-1/2 million Slavs.

Even if theoretically the balance of power seems more rational in the Hungarian sphere, in the Austrian it is plainly absurdly disproportionate. And here the Poles were the straw in the balance which decided in favour of German hegemony. If the Poles had recognized their duty to their own race the Slav question would long ago have been on a better footing. A just understanding with the Ruthenes and a joint national struggle with the Csechs would certainly have broken German supremacy, or forced it to accord more tolerable conditions to all the Slavs. But the Galician Poles have never done anything for the Slav cause in the Monarchy, but rather sought to curry favour with the Government in Vienna, and, by repudiating their kinship, to obtain concessions for their own negative national ideals, and for their intellectual and economic development. Austria had no objection to this platonic nationalism so long as the Poles by their pro-German policy supported her in oppressing the other Slavs.

The Csechs and Ruthenes have been specially handicapped in their national struggle by the attitude of the Poles. And the result was an implacable enmity between the Poles and the Ruthenes, which was, if anything, encouraged by the Government. In this struggle the Ruthenes undoubtedly fared the worse. They are in a national minority in Galicia, and unmercifully oppressed by the Poles, who hate them all the more for being the descendants of the hated Russians (Little Russians) and because they refused to conceal their sympathy with Russia. The Ruthenes fought hard for the right to speak their own tongue and have their own school system. But the Poles were ruthlessly opposed to these demands, which were in consequence also denied by the Government. The struggle finally degenerated into wholesale denunciations of the Ruthenes by the Poles, who accused their enemies of high treason and conspiracy with Russia.

It must, however, be admitted that even among the Poles there were many who deeply deplored this fratricidal struggle, and did their utmost to induce the Northern Slavs of the Monarchy to combine in the common cause. Time and again the Csech patriots urged the desirability of a union, and, as similar appeals came from other Slav countries also, the realization of a true Pan-Slav and democratic ideal often seemed imminent. The spectre of Pan-Germanism, waiting like some ravenous monster to devour the Slav nations limb by limb, appeared even to the Poles, but unscrupulous politicians, bureaucratic upstarts, and slippery diplomats from Vienna conjured up the bogey of Russification to alarm them, and all patriotic efforts were in vain.

Still it is psychologically interesting that a Slav race through fear of Russification should have thrown itself into the arms of—Germanism.

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II.

The favoured position of the Poles in Austria contrasts sharply with that of their brothers in Russia and Germany. They were oppressed in every way;—Russian official policy towards the Poles bears all the stamp of autocratic tyranny. Their political rights are restricted to a minimum, and as regards civil rights they are nearly as badly off as the Russian Jews. Still it is characteristic that the reason for this oppression lay, not in the national, but in the religious element. Roman Catholicism, which was an advantage to the Austrian, proved a misfortune to the Russian Poles. For the Russian looks upon Catholicism as the very antithesis to his conception of the Slav ideal. Pravo-Slav Russia, with her ancient, wondrously pure Slavo-religious traditions, and all the warmth of her faith, could not take kindly to the haughty, frigidly cold Catholic Poles. The great political power of the Holy Synod, the supreme (unfortunately too clerical) representative body of this faith, exercised an influence adverse to the Polish people, and the Russian Government, which only too often has been the mere executive of the will of the Holy Synod, established an autocratic rÉgime with far-reaching national and personal restrictions. The first result of this policy was unmitigated hatred on the part of the Poles, and a craving for vengeance and freedom. The Russian Poles intrigued with their Austrian brothers, and envied them their favoured position. But the only support the Austrian Poles vouchsafed their brothers was that they applied the Russian methods of oppression to the Ruthenes.

Whoever knows anything of Russia’s repressive measures, will realize that the Poles were in a hard case. Owing to the passive character of the Poles their struggles were never sufficiently organized to assume the proportions of a well organized revolution. But oppression has strengthened their national self-reliance, their ideals have burned more brightly, and a longing for freedom has entirely dominated them. Still, even now, they are far more inclined to wait for the miracle than to bestir themselves on their own behalf; and if in recent years their position has somewhat improved, it is not so much due to their own efforts as to the wave of modern thought among the Russians themselves.

The Russian Governmental policy made no distinction between the Poles and her Russian subjects who were thirsting for social regeneration. So the Russians discovered for themselves that they had to seek the friendship and collaboration of the Poles. The wide horizon of the modern Russian movement will not permit the exclusion of a single capable member of the Tsar’s great realm from the benefits of the future. Not only the Russian people, but the whole of Russia had to be won over to the cause of the great ideal. The regeneration of Russia was to herald the regeneration of the whole of the Slav race, and the Poles as Slavs had a right to help in this work. The Russians have always said that they are very fond of the Poles, but that they are not sufficiently Slav—they ought to be Slavicized. The Russian Government sought to accomplish this by violence, whereas the Russian people, represented by the Russian revolutionaries, chose the better path of mutual understanding and respect. Of course, the official policy of the Holy Synod is still in force, and although the constitutional manifesto and the Duma have brought about certain changes, these are at present quite unimportant. The Poles, however, are winning an increasing number of friends and advocates among the Russians, who are pleading for equal rights and a constitution for Poland. Moreover, the times have changed, and when Russia was confronted by the present great European crisis the Poles displayed a marvellous loyalty, which has, perhaps, unintentionally brought them nearer the realization of their dreams than they have ever been before. The Manifesto of the Grand Duke Nikolai Nikolaievitch is the greatest event in Polish history since the partition.

The hardest lot of all has befallen those Poles who have been most loyal to their race. I mean those who came under Prussian rule. For whereas Polish Slavdom is tolerated in Austria, and actually encouraged in Russia, in Prussia it is remorselessly ground down under the iron heel of Germanism. Germanization is carried out by Prussian rule, aggressively, in a strictly military sense. It is not a question of political tactics—no opinion at home or abroad is considered; there is nothing but frank coercion. Germany’s ambitions are only too well known—they have been advertised loudly enough, and they have been expounded again quite recently in General von Bernhardi’s notorious book, “Germany and the Next War”—a book written with all the brusque insolence of which only a German is capable. If Germany’s future programme includes the Germanizing of the whole of Europe, it is surely superfluous to relate in detail how she strove to Germanize a people under her own rule—it is one of the blackest chapters in the histories of oppression.

By the constitution of Germany the Prussian Poles cannot forfeit their rights as citizens of the realm. This circumstance afforded them a chance of laying their grievances before the legislative assemblies. But in spite of their gallant courage, the struggle brought them no particular advantage except the moral satisfaction of knowing that their pleading could reach the ear of Europe. But whenever their voice grew too loud, the mailed fist fell on their lips and struck them dumb. When the German Reichstag passed the Polish Expropriation Law (1886)7 all Europe was scandalized; but from the point of view of Germanization it was highly successful. Germany disregarded foreign opinion and the law was put in force.

It is to be hoped that the conclusion of the present European war will also put an end to the sufferings of these martyrs, and that the whole Polish nation will be granted an opportunity of applying its many admirable qualities for its own welfare and for the union of the Slav race.

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III.

The Csechs have always been a strong, tenacious, energetic people, and no sooner did they begin to feel the iron fist of their oppressors than they opened a determined campaign against them and pitted their strength against their tyrants. They have won their present civilization inch by inch from their oppressors.

The eminent Csech political economist, Professor Masaryk, admirably forecasts the future of his people. He says—“The humanistic ideal, the ideal of regeneration, bears a deep national and historical significance for us Csechs. A full and sincere grasp of the human ideal will bridge over the spiritual and ethical dreams of centuries, and enable us to advance with the vanguard of human progress. The Csech humanitarian ideal is no romantic fallacy. Without work and effort the humanitarian ideal is but dead; it demands that we shall everywhere and systematically oppose ourselves to all that is bad, to all social unhumanity—both at home and abroad—with all its clerical, political and national organs. The humanitarian ideal is not sentimentality—it means work, work, and yet again work!”

Now all this is by no means a characteristic of the Csech people, but only a forecast of what they shall be. Political tactics must always correspond to the principles of decency and humanity. Masaryk further says—“Our fame, our wars, and our intervention in the past have borne a religious, not a national stamp. Our national ideal is of more recent birth—it only belongs to the last, and more especially to the present century. The history of Bohemia must not be judged from this standpoint.”

Perhaps this programme will prove too historical and too unpractical for the present day. The small commercial and industrial Csech nation is too far removed from the age of Jan Huss, and the Csech reformation has lost its significance for them. But deep down in the soul of the Csech people there still dwells a spark of the Hussite spirit. Of course, the battle-cry is nationalist, the phrasing that of the twentieth century, but the underlying spirit differs in no way from the righteous indignation of Huss, when he preached against high-handed oppression and violence. The physical inferior is never anxious to see his affairs settled by physical force. For this reason it is not a matter of indifference to the Csechs, whether they fight for a higher principle or merely for material advantage. At present they are principally fighting for their language, for the right to speak their own tongue—they are fighting against Germanization. Their strongest weapon in this fight is their striving for economic prosperity—a physical power through which they may hope to obtain a spiritual victory.

The principal trait in the Csech character is initiative. The very name points to this, for “Csech” is derived from the old-Slav word “Chenti,” meaning “to will” or “to begin.”

History finds the Csechs in the vanguard of all the Slav tribes in their wanderings westward. Their legendary leader was Csech, one of three brothers, and his tribe penetrated the farthest. In the Middle Ages the Csechs were the first to challenge the power of Rome, and to this day they send numbers of enterprising emigrants to all parts of the world. But the Csechs have one great fault—they are fickle. Their enthusiasm flashes up quickly and then as quickly dies down. This is the reason of the failure of the Hussite Reformation. The Germans finished what the Csechs began—Luther was the successor of Huss and completed his work.

The Csechs are not by nature a commercial and industrial people. Their business capacity is born of necessity—it is a weapon, not a means of gain. It is kept going by an unwearied agitation on the part of the national leaders, and if the Csech national ideal should suffer shipwreck, then Csech finance, ambition, and industry will likewise perish.

Sundry Slavophil thinkers would exclude the Csechs from the group of Slav peoples, just because of their initiative and business capacity. The Russian ethnologist Danilevski calls the Csech people a monstrosity, a German people with a Slav tongue. But these men have overlooked the fact that the foundation of modern Csech prosperity was laid by the religion of the Csech Brethren. During the Catholic reaction the Csech Protestants were driven from their possessions and treated as aliens in their own country. Being thus compelled to evolve a new means of gaining a livelihood, they turned to industry. Trade and the towns were closed to them, and the Csech Brethren had to seek refuge in the Bohemian and Moravian hills, and the Orlic mountains. They became weavers, wood-carvers and miners, and laid the foundation of the great modern Bohemian textile, glass and earthenware industries. Religious considerations and nothing else have made the Csechs into a mercantile nation. England’s wealth also springs from a religious movement—the rise of Puritanism. Thrift and industry led to the accumulation of capital. Only a religious man understands work and thrift, and he alone knows how to utilise capital as a moral lever. For this reason it would be wrong to adopt the views of the Russian ethnologist. The Csech people as they are have a right to their future and to freedom.

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In the centre of Prague, on the summit of the Hradcin, stands the old Csech Royal Castle, a splendid monument of past greatness. Proud and lofty, visible from afar, it speaks to the Csech people of the days when it sheltered—not the foreign invader, but flesh of their flesh, Csech kings and princes of their own blood. And even as it is a monument of the past, it is also a beacon for the present and the future. When the setting sun sheds his crimson glory upon Castle and Hradcin, it seems as though the very stones were aglow with the reflection of all the Csech blood that has been shed in the defence of right and liberty. But—the royal splendour vanishes with the sun, and the shadow of night descends on Castle and height like a symbol of the present age of gloom. Day by day, with burning eyes, the Csech reads the wordless message. Yet he does not give way to dreams, or sink into deep melancholy, nor does he wait for a miracle. He clenches his fist and smiles the grim smile of the tireless warrior. His fickleness at the time of the Reformation weighs like a sin on his conscience, but its ideals have set their mark upon him and quickened the seed of political reformation in his soul. In this matter the Csechs take the lead among all the Slavs in Austria-Hungary.

I have already mentioned that in certain Slav circles the Csechs are looked upon as Germans with a Slav tongue. But, if their industrial and mercantile prosperity and certain individual characteristics lend some colour to this view, it is quite refuted by the Csech activity in the Slav national and political cause. In their sturdy and progressive struggle against Germanization the Csechs have set the other Austrian Slavs a tactical and practical example as to how the struggle should be fought—tactically on constitutional lines, and, practically, with indomitable courage and perseverance.

In spite of their long subjection to an absolute autocracy, the Csechs developed into so strong a political factor, that even Vienna began to fear the weight of their hand. They achieved this not only from a sense of self-preservation or separatist selfishness like the Poles, but the Slav ideal runs like a gold thread through all they have done; it is their motto, task and goal. They were beset from three sides, by the Austrian Germans in all their power, by Polish opposition, and by Magyar agitations and hostile influences in Vienna. The Southern Slav deputies in the Reichstag were their only helpers in the unequal struggle. But they never relaxed their energy and they never yielded a position they had won.

The national struggle in Bohemia took on its present form in the first half of the nineteenth century, and it first centred round “cultural” interests as in other Slav countries. The love of the people for their own language had to be established and even rekindled to a pitch of fiery enthusiasm, and national education had also to be fostered by the foundation of Csech national schools. The State was by no means anxious to enlighten the people, and the number of schools maintained in the country was quite inadequate. The fiscal schools were all German and served to spread the German propaganda. But the Csech educated classes founded schools at their own expense, as well as the “Matica Školska” (School Union), which undertook the organization of these schools. This was an effective counter-stroke to Germanization as well as a good foundation for further success. Palacky, Kollar and Havlicek were leaders of the National movement of the time.

Palacky was the source from whom the others drew their inspiration. He was a great thinker, a brilliant author, and a cautious, liberal-minded politician who may be considered the founder of modern Csech national life. And through him radiated the light that pointed the way which these people must take. Kollar, the poet and publicist, and Havlicek, as politician and political economist, shared the Csech leadership with Palacky, and paved the way for a great national intellectual movement which kept pace with the national political movement. They founded a strong nationalist party in Bohemia (The Old Csechs) in opposition to the Viennese Government. With their majority in the Landtag, and their appearance in the Viennese Parliament, the Csech people became a factor with whom the Government had to reckon for good or for evil—a people who refused to be ousted. Bohemia, which official Austria loves to consider a German country, had to be divided into “spheres.” The State had to pay for the upkeep of Csech schools and the administration became bi-lingual! Of course, in accordance with the usual Government policy, many Csech localities were included in German spheres and promptly became bones of contention. The “Matica Školska” founded more schools in these spheres to prevent the Germanization of Csech children, whilst the German schools pursued their system of an unofficial propaganda with the tacit support of the Government. This state of affairs led to constant disturbances, which frequently degenerated into riot and bloodshed. With the rise of the “Young Csechs” the struggle assumed a more drastic and determined character, for this party aimed at nothing less than a purely Csech government for Bohemia, and a proportionate share in the management of Imperial affairs. They repeatedly succeeded in wrecking the Austrian Government, and under Prince Hohenlohe they were so strongly represented in the Cabinet that they succeeded in making their power felt. The “Young Csechs” have greatly helped the national cause in Bohemia, and also furthered the Slav cause by their enthusiastic championship of the All-Slav Ideal.

One of their leaders, Dr. Kramarz, who was very friendly with Russia, has been specially active in this cause. Though the “Young Csechs” are still the leading party, recent years have seen the rise of parties even more radical in their demands. The Social-Nationals and the Csech Radicals desire to see Bohemia an absolutely autonomous State, whereas the followers of Professor Masaryk aim at the regeneration of the Csech race on a different basis (see opening of this article).

Events have moved rapidly in Bohemia since the last Balkan war, which made a profound impression on all the Austrian Slavs. Owing to the uncompromising attitude taken up by the various parties, the Government dissolved the Bohemian Landtag, suspended the constitution and placed the administration in the hands of a Commission appointed by the Government and responsible to none. The Csechs retorted by a violent obstruction in the Viennese Parliament and so paralyzed the House, that it had to be prorogued indefinitely. The Csechs demanded the immediate convocation of the Landtag. “No Landtag, no Austrian Parliament,” was their watchword, and they stood firm. When the crisis with Serbia and the outbreak of the war occurred, the Parliament was unable to adopt any attitude towards these events, and the only constitutional body in the Monarchy able to deal with them was the Hungarian Parliament.