The Slavs: past and present

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THE SLAVS: PAST AND PRESENT

LIJDWIK EHRLICH

[Reprint from the UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA CHRONICLE, Vol. XIX, No. 4]

THE SLAVS : PAST AND PRESENT*

LUDWIK EHRLICH

If any one of you had been told some time ago that
there was to be such a thing as a war which would give the
Slavs permanent importance in the world, he would prob-
ably have experienced a rather uncomfortable feeling. I
confess that that would not surprise me at all, because the
general attitude of western Europe and of America to-
ward the Slavs for many generations has been one of little
understanding and much fear. The Slavs usually have
been represented as a group of very low civilization and,
consequently, as a group of nations or tribes which was a
distinct menace to all civilized nations. Sometimes the
western neighbors of the Slavs, the Germans, were trying
to sow discord between Russia, as representing the eastern
Slavs, and Poland, a member of the western Slav group.
More often all Slavs were described by the Germans and
their friends as barbarians against whom the Germans had
to guard the treasures of European science, art, and polit-
ical institutions.

No sooner had the present war broken out than the
famous German professor Von Harnack reminded Ameri-
cans of the Slav menace: "But now before my eyes I see
rising up . . . another culture, a culture of the horde whose
government is patriarchal, a civilization of the mob which

* A lecture delivered at the University of California on October
23, 1917.

380490

is brought together and held together by despots, the By-
zantine— I must extend it further — Mongolian-Muscovite
culture. ... This culture was not able to bear the light
of the eighteenth century, still less that of the nineteenth,
and now, in this twentieth century, it breaks out and
threatens us — this unorganized mob, this mob of Asia ; like
the sands of the desert it would sweep down over our har-
vest fields ; . . . our culture, the chief treasure of mankind,
was in large part, yes, almost wholly, intrusted to three
peoples : to us, to the Americans, and — to the English. . . .
Two still remain."1

I need hardly remind you that this last was a com-
ment on England's having "dared" to ally herself with
Russia.

About the same time two other famous German scholars,
Eucken (professor of philosophy at Jena) and Haeckel
(professor of zoology at Jena), issued two appeals in which
they said : ' ' England fights in behalf of a Slavic, half Asi-
atic power against Germanism2 ; . . . Russia . . . wanted to
raise the Muscovites against the Germans and the Western
Slavs, and to lead Asia into the field against Europe. ":
And in the middle of 1915 a manifesto of numerous Ger-
man professors said again : "... we Germans rose as one
man, from the highest to the meanest, realizing that we
must defend not only our external life but also our inner,
spiritual and moral life — in short, defend German and
European Kultur against barbarian hordes from the
east.

These words may have had a new meaning to you. To
us in the east of Europe German opinions expressed in
such language have been known for centuries. Whenever
there was a question of extending German power eastward
there has always been at hand some one ready to invite the

1 New York Times Current History, I, 199 f .

2 Ibid., 535.

3 Ibid., 536.

4 Ibid., Ill, 163.

Germans to defend their civilization against eastern bar-
barians, and to invite the civilized nations of the world to
help the Germans, or at least not to obstruct them. The
martyrdom of the Poles in Prussian Poland, that of the
Bohemians in their native country under Austrian sway —
these were stages in the victorious progress of Germanism
against Slavic barbarism.5

I suppose most of you look at the paper every morning
to see what is happening in Russia, perhaps with a half
suppressed wish that the Russian people would postpone
their ultra-democracy for a short time at least, until Ger-
many is defeated. But Russia is not the only Slav country.
There are Slav nations besides her, nations which have con-
tributed and will contribute to the progress of the world.
Of many of them you have not heard much. At this moment
the Prussian eagle and his ally, the old, worn out but ra-
pacious Austrian bird, hold their booty as tightly as they
can. Now and again you hear a weak, a very faint cry of
despair, a cry for help — but you hardly pay attention to it.

5 It must be said in fairness to German scholars that such has
not always been their general attitude toward Slavs, and toward
Slav civilization. One of the honorable exceptions will be found
in the following words of Professor Eoepell of Halle, translated
from the foreword to his History of Poland (1840): "It is not easy
for us Germans to comprehend and appreciate impartially the na-
tional spirit of the Slavs; but by purely denying, by absolutely
condemning it, as we find rather often done these days, one
shall certainly not get to the bottom of the thing. Every year that
group of nations seems to increase in political importance for the
history of the world, and at the same time a new intellectual life
has begun to manifest itself at present, and is apparent not less in
Bohemia, Hungary" (the author meant the Slavs under Hungarian
rule), "Galicia, and with the Poles, than in Kussia, which in a
certain way may be considered as the center of all these strivings.
With all those tribes one can observe a lively, active return to the
old language, literature, and history of each people; there appears
a multitude of new periodicals, monuments of songs and chronicles
are being gathered, history is being searched; in a word, they try
to give new life to the consciousness of their nationality, where it
is broken at least to preserve it, and on the other hand to regen-
erate it, to lead it toward a higher development, by a more active
interest in the learning and generally the intellectual life of the
West. ..." That was some five or six decades ago. How much
progress since!

And then the hangman steps in over there — and everything
is quiet — at least so it seems to ill-informed outsiders.

You simply had not been given your opportunity of
learning what those various Slavic nations are. I do not
want to give you an idealized picture of a wonderful group
of nations which I should describe to you as Slavs. I do
not wish to deny that the Slavs have many faults, that they
are often far from the ideal at which they aim; but I do
want to say that they are not as uncivilized, not as un-
worthy of your sympathy, of your cooperation, as some of
you have been led to believe. For this purpose I shall
have to make some reference to their history, and to the
political conditions in which they have lived up to the
present time. The Slavs are human beings ; they have com-
mitted and are committing many mistakes, but they want
to correct them. To err is human. That is true of every
nation.

The war has given you an opportunity of learning about
the Slavs. We read every day about Russia. The Presi-
dent of this country many months ago stated, in words which
make every true Polish heart beat faster, that there must
be a "united, independent, and autonomous Poland." You
have all heard of the martyrdom of the Serbians. And
more and more urgently do the Bohemians appeal to the
world te help them against Hapsburg oppression. The
opportunity to learn becomes a duty to learn, for no free
people can watch leisurely the enslavement of other nations
without becoming liable to lose its own freedom. And so
the statesmen of this great nation have assented to the
postulate of the European Allies that there shall be re-
construction on the basis of nationality. This must mean,
among other things, the liberation of the Slavs who are
now under the German yoke. So the question you have to
ask yourself is, Is it good to help the Slavs, or is it bad ?

According to a common theory, very many centuries
ago the ancestors of those nations which we now call Slavs
lived in the country now described as Galicia (Austrian

Poland). Some of them, starting from that original seat,
went south and occupied what is now Hungary and thence
went far into the Balkan peninsula. Others went west, far
beyond the territory in which stands Berlin — no Germans
were there at that time. Still others -went north and
east. The original Slavs were, of course, not a civilized
group of tribes. They were barbarians, just as their west-
ern neighbors, the Germans, were. The Germans occupied
the Roman Empire, destroyed it, took over some rudiments
of what they allowed to survive of Roman civilization, and
at the same time began to press the Slavs back. They sub-
dued the outlying Slav countries and turned the population
mostly into slaves. Then a German Roman Empire was
created, and on its eastern outskirts were formed marches
with the special object of fighting the Slavs. On the other
hand, from Scandinavia the Vikings were making their
way into Russia, while from the east Mongolic invaders,
Bulgars and Magyars (the modern Hungarians) were at-
tacking the southern Slavs, the Magyars conquering Hun-
gary while the Bulgars subdued some of the Balkan Slavs
(seventh century A.D.). The Magyars extirpated some of
the Slavs they conquered and turned others into a subject
population (ninth and tenth centuries A..D.). While those
unfortunate victims have kept their Slavic tongue, the Mag-
yars have stuck to their own language, which they still
speak today. The Bulgars accepted the language of the
conquered tribes and both groups came finally to form one
nation partly of Mongolic, partly of Slavic, descent, but
speaking a Slav tongue. Similar was the history of the
Vikings in Russia. They organized the country into what
we might call a political unit (ninth century). The organ-
ization was Norse, the bulk of the people Slavic, the lan-
guage of the whole was Slavic — Russian.

The organization of Polish and Bohemian tribes pro-
ceeded on different lines. Both nations were united by the
leaders of aboriginal tribes, who had proved the most effi-
cient organizers in the defense against the Germans, but

8

had thereby also acquired enough power to conquer their
own brethren. Serbian unity was likewise the result of
what is called "union from wit-bin/' that is, union by native
organizers, and not by foreigners.

There is hardly a possibility of exaggerating the im-
portance of geographical position in the history of those
early Slavic organizations. If you can picture a map of
the central and eastern part of Europe, with the Slavs
occupying all the country from the west of Berlin to the
east of Moscow, you will perceive that the western group of
the Slavs was close to Italy, the heart of the Roman Empire,
while the eastern Slavs were close to Constantinople, the
capital city of the Eastern Roman Empire. Poles (966
A.D.), Bohemians, and the western group of the southern
Slavs (now known as Slovenes and Croats) accepted Chris-
tianity from Rome, accepted the Roman-Latin alphabet, and
became western in their civilization. Russia (988 A.D.)
and the rest of the southern Slavs accepted ultimately, after
some hesitation, the eastern Christian religion, the Orthodox
faith as represented by Constantinople; they accepted the
eastern script (specially adapted to Slavic sounds) and,
generally speaking, accepted the eastern civilization as it
existed in the Eastern Empire.

This was the way in which the group of Slavs, homo-
geneous at first perhaps, was organized into separate polit-
ical units, generally divided by differences of religion and
of civilization, heirs to the quarrel between Rome and Con-
stantinople. The story of their misfortunes was not at an
end. It has been their history up to the present moment.

First of all, in the first half of the thirteenth century
Poland and Russia were visited by a great calamity in the
shape of a new wave of Mongolic invaders from the east —
the Tartars. If I wanted to be very cruel to the memory
of the Tartars, I should be justified in saying that -they
behaved about as the Germans have now behaved in Bel-
gium, Poland, and Northern France. You can not imagine
the measure of destruction they wrought. They destroyed

the cities across which they came, they carried off men,
women, and children, and at first it seemed as though there
were no power on earth strong enough to resist them.
They had a very efficient military organization and the
wildness of their attack made all resistance impossible, just
as if they had unexpectedly let loose clouds of poisonous
gases. Finally Poland, whom they attacked after having
converted Russia practically into a desert, collected as many
forces as she could and after desperate efforts succeeded,
not in beating the Tartars, but in stopping them. The
Tartars turned back and went east. But they kept Russia
in subjection for two centuries, and continued to attack
Poland even later, one may say down to the eighteenth
century. It was mainly in order to get rid of their yoke
that the princes of Moscow, who were their vassals, organ-
ized despotic rule within their country, and acquired con-
trol over the other Russian principalities. Finally the
Tartars ceased to be Russia's overlords, but, once it was
acquired, the princes of Moscow did not give up their great
political power. The organization of the country, originally
very democratic, had been changed into a despotism, under
the influence of Tartar example, to defeat the Tartars with
their own weapon — that of a strong war machine. I must
add that the theory of despotism was supplied to the princes
of Russia, who soon began to style themselves Tsars (from
Caesar), by Byzantine writers, subservient to the Eastern
Emperors.

To make good the losses caused by the Tartars, Poland
allowed German colonists to come in. Germany had not
been affected by the Tartar invasions, and she never ex-
perienced any afterwards. Poland, in addition to suffering
awful devastation at the hands of the Tartars, had to learn
later on that the German settlers had "taught her civil-
ization"— for that is what the Germans have never ceased
to claim ! Such was the gratitude of the German colonists.
In fact, the country had been flourishing before the Tartar
invasions — but what was she to do when hardly a stone
remained in its place ?

10

Then, in the fourteenth century, the Slavs were faced
by another danger — the Turks. The Turks conquered Ser-
bia and Bulgaria in the course of the fourteenth and fif-
teenth centuries. Europe was afraid and Poland accepted
invitations from the west to help. A Polish king, elected
king of Hungary, went, fought, and perished. The Poles
continued to fight against the Turks until the Turks, who
at first had not attacked Poland, turned against her. They
were deadly enemies indeed. Their invasions lasted
throughout the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. One
would have to be a very good orator or a very brilliant
novelist to do justice to all the romantic deeds which cov-
ered the arms of Poland with glory. You know only of a
few incidents (such as the rescue of Vienna by King So-
bieski in 1683), but the story was a continuous one. When
Poland herself was in danger she could not count on any
help from the west. When you are told that the southern
Slavs have not a very high civilization nowadays, and when
you hear people talk with contempt of the political insti-
tutions of Poland — why not remember that Serbia was for
four or five centuries a conquered province in the hands of
the Turk, and that Poland was for four or five centuries a
camp of defenders not only of that unfortunate country
but of western civilization as a whole ? In sowing their land
the Polish farmers were never sure that after a month,
perhaps after a fortnight, the house would still stand un-
burned, that a single soul would remain alive. A short
war produces far-reaching results in the life of a country —
how much more so a war which lasts for centuries !

And the Tartars, the Turks, were not the only enemies.
The Germans from the west were pressing harder and
harder. At first themselves nothing but barbarous hordes,
they had extirpated the -Slavs who were living on the Elbe
(the so-called Polab Slavs), and attacked those who lived
farther east. The countries now known as the Mecklen-
burgs, Pomerania, and Saxony were among the early victims.
In the meantime the Germans had come to regard themselves

11

as a civilized group, as defenders of Christianity, and their
wars on the Slavs were then waged in the name of Chris-
tianity and civilization. Bohemia became Christian (ninth
century) ; Poland, probably through the influence of Bo-
hemia, became Christian (966 A.D.) ; but the fighting went
on. At first it was done by the emperors themselves or by
some margraves whom they had authorized. Later on, the
Teutonic Knights, an order of fighting monks whom a Pol-
ish prince had allowed to settle (first half of the thirteenth
century) in the northern part of Poland, now known as
East Prussia, took over the "mission". They waged wars
with a cruelty which could hardly be surpassed. By a
supreme effort Poland, united with Lithuania, defeated
them in the memorable battle of Grunwald and Tannenberg
(1410). Afterward they still continued their gruesome
expeditions, but finally had to become (as a secularized
duchy) a vassal state of Poland (1525). They threw off
allegiance to Poland in the seventeenth century, and in the
eighteenth century the "King of Prussia" (a new title
assumed in 1701 by the Duke of Prussia, whose predecessor
had been the last Grand Master of the Knights and had
secularized the order) was one of the chief participants in
the partitions of Poland.

1526 the Bohemian diet elected a German, a Haps-
burg ruler of Austria, to the Bohemian throne. Very soon
the new rulers started out to curtail the privileges of the
country, the political life of which was very active. The
throne remained elective, but in 1620, when the Bohem-
ians tried to shake off the yoke, the battle of the White
Mountain put an end to Bohemian freedom for over two
centuries. Most of the nobility perished either in battle or
on the scaffold, a ruthless reaction set in, and it was not
until the political troubles of the Hapsburgs in the nine-
teenth century that Bohemia was allowed to breathe a little
more freely, though she is still pining for real liberty in
the civilized sense of the word.

Since the time of Peter the Great (the beginning of the

eighteenth century) the influence of Germans in Russia
had been growing. The German element was gaining pre-
dominance in the bureaucracy, marriages with German
princes and princesses were contracted by members of the
dynasty; in the eighteenth century the male line of the
house of Romanov (which had been on the throne since
1613) died out, and by the marriage of a Romanov heiress
with a member of the Oldenburg dynasty the house of
Holstein-Gottorp, a new dynasty, a German one, came to
the throne in 1762. Thus the last Tsar of Russia, Nicolas
II, was in the male line not a Romanov, but a Holstein-
Gottorp. It will be unnecessary to remind you, moreover,
that Catharine II was a German woman, who had married
a Holstein-Gottorp Tsar.

The German Catharine II, the German Frederick II,
and the German Maria Theresa of Austria were the three
potentates who in 1772 began the partitions of Poland.
Only eighty-nine years had elapsed since Sobieski, king
of Poland, had saved Vienna from the Turks ! Prussia and
Austria united with the ruler of Russia — that country
with the " culture of the horde," with the "civilization
of the mob which is brought together and held together by
despots, ' ' as Professor von Harnack tried to explain to you
in the beginning of this war. Prussia and Austria did not
shrink from an alliance with Russia, and intended to put
an end to the political existence of Poland, a country of
western Slavs with an entirely western civilization. It was
not until 1914 that German professors discovered that one
should not "raise the Muscovites against . . . the western
Slavs, and . . . lead Asia into the field against Europe."
The explanation is simple. For the purpose of the parti-
tions of Poland it was in the interest of Prussia to ally
herself with Russia ; so an alliance with Russia was right.
In 1914rftlussia wanted to get American condemnation of
England ; so an alliance with Russia was wrong.

It is sometimes claimed that the partitions of Poland
were necessary because of Polish "anarchy." Can any one

13

imagine a worse anarchy than that which existed for cen-
turies in the territory called the Holy Roman Empire of the
German nation? The partitions of Poland were a matter
of brute force and nothing else.6.

And the partitions of Poland were not the last instance
of a German appeal for Russian help. Prussia and Austria
were not ashamed to fight side by, side with Russia against
Napoleon. Prussia was not ashamed to help Russia
against the Poles in their revolutions of 1830-1 and
1863. 7 And the Hapsburgs were not ashamed to accept
the help of Russia against the Hungarian insurgents of
1848-9. At that time it was to the Russian commander
and not to the Austrians that the Hungarians had to sur-
render. And that "friendship" for Russia, or, in other
words, that habit of helping the Tsar and his government
and receiving help from them whenever there threatened
some democratic movement for emancipation, for instance,
some strenuous Polish efforts, continued until the very be-
ginning of the present war. How else can you explain the
following passage in a telegram which the German Em-
peror sent to the late Tsar, Nicolas II, on July 31, 1914:
"The friendship for you and your country, bequeathed to
me by my grandfather on his deathbed, has always been
sacred to me, and I have stood faithfully by Russia while
it was in serious affliction, especially during its last war?"

6 See the speech by C. J. Fox on February 18, 1793, Hansard's
Parliamentary History, XXX, 428 ff. The speech is illuminating
if one wants to understand Prussian behavior during and before
the present war.

7 See, e.g., Die PolitiscJien Eeden des Fiirsten von BismarcJc, II,
114 ff., lllff.

s "German White Book," Introduction. Cf. ibid., exhibit 20. It
is worth while to note that late in March, 1917, the German Imperial
Chancellor is said to have "referred to Germany's attitude toward
recent events in Russia and recalled the honored friendship between the
two countries in former times. He said, however, that this friendship
ended with the death of Alexander II" (New York Times, March 30,
1917, p. 1, col. 8). Now, Alexander II died in 1881, and William II 's
grandfather lay on his deathbed in 1888. How could he bequeath
to his grandson a friendship which, the Chancellor now claims, had
terminated seven years before? And how could the present Em-
peror regard that long extinct friendship as sacred?

14

This refers to the affliction of the dynasty during the
Kusso- Japanese war; the German Emperor obviously had
not given military assistance against the Japanese, for he
was neutral ! We in eastern Europe, however, have known
all the time that German helped Kussia in putting down the
revolution. Moreover, is it not interesting to read those
professions of long-standing friendship, made two weeks
before the German professors started their thundering exe-
crations of a "civilization of the mob which is brought
together and held together by despots, the . . . Mongolian-
Muscovite culture, ' ' etc. ?

Ethnographically9 the Slavs at present can be divided
into four big groups. The eastern or Russian group is
composed of three elements: the Great Russian (north and
center), the "White Russian (west), and the Little Russian
(also called Ruthene, a name appearing in Latin in the
fourteenth century) or Ukrainian (the Ukraine, or "Bor-
derland," is a southern part of modern" Russia). It is not
easy to determine with the help of the statistics available
how many millions of the Russian population are Little Rus-
sian rather than Great Russian. The former, however, can
be estimated broadly at some twenty-five to thirty million.
For a long time there has been a violent dispute, mostly
literary but in places political, whether the Little Russians
form a separate nation (as some of them claim) or whether
their language is only a dialect of the Russian language and

o The following figures are intended to show approximately the
present distribution of Slavic nations among political units and
their proportion to the German and Magyar element in Austria-
Hungary. It is impossible to obtain absolutely reliable statistics.

1. Serbia, about 5,000,000.

2. Montenegro, about 500,000 (almost all Serbs).

3. Bulgaria, about 5,000,000.

4. Eussian Empire, about 180,000,000: Great Eussians, 80,000,-
000; White Eussians, 8,000,000; Euthjenes (Little Eussians), 25,000,-
000; Poles, 12,000,000.

5. Poles: Austria, 5,000,000; Hungary, 100,000; Germany, 4,000,-
000. Czechs and Slovaks: Austria, 6,500,000; Hungary, 2,050,000;
Germany, 130,000. Serbs, Croats, and Slovenes: Austria, 2,036,000;
Hungary, 2,939,000; Bosnia, 1,800,000. Euthenes: Austria, 3,600,000;
Hungary, 475,000. Germans: Austria, 10,000,000; Hungary, 2,050,000.
Magyars: Austria, 11,000; Hungary, 10,050,000.

15

their national customs only those of one part of the great
Russian nation. Without expressing any opinion on the
main question, I wish to say that the leaders of the Ukraine

q R El A T

L I T T L E.

" RUSSIANS
V-'v-,"-, "SLOVAKS N LITTLE. ^RUSSIANS

Map 1 — The Slavs and their neighbors.

The map shows those parts of central and eastern Europe in which the
Slavs form at least the majority of the population. In the adjoining districts
Slavs form more or less strong minorities.

movement (not the Little Russian people), especially in
Galicia, have often taken an anti-Russian and pro-German
point of view.. That was true even long before the war.
Their language differs from Great Russian in many details
(the accent is sometimes different ; the script is modified and
spelling is phonetic, whereas in great Russian it is etymolog-

16

ical; there are differences in pronunciation; for instance,
Great Russian has almost always a g where Little Russian
has an h ; the accent is often differently placed ; many Great
Russian words are replaced by others of Polish origin).
The Russians .are mostly Orthodox, but some millions of
Little and White Russians are Catholic, either with the pure
Latin rite or with a peculiar rite in which Church-Slavic
is used ; in the latter case their hierarchy has certain special
privileges recognized by Rome; for example, there is a
possibility of conferring the order of priesthood on married
persons. The Provisional Government of Russia has lately
recognized the claim of Little Russians to autonomy, and
has granted autonomy to the "governments" (administra-
tive provinces) of Kiev, Volhynia, Podolia, Tshernikhov,
and to all other provinces in which the zemstvos demand it.

The Poles are mostly Roman Catholics, though there are
Protestants and Jews. The Poles, whose civilization is
entirely western, use the Latin alphabet, and the language
contains both h and g ; the accent in all words with more
than one syllable falls on the last but one. The Germans
have been trying to distinguish between Poles proper and
the Mazurs and Kaszubs, in order to lessen in their
statistics the number of Poles in the Polish provinces of
the empire. The distinction is similar to one that might
be made between the language of the United States and
that of the Kentucky mountains.

The Bohemian group includes not only the Bohemians
and the Moravians (another name for the Bohemian, or
Czech, inhabitants of Moravia) but also the Slovaks of
northern Hungary. Some of the most important Bohemian
leaders, such as the famous gafarik, were Slovaks. The Bo-
hemians are almost exclusively Roman Catholic. They use
the western alphabet ; the accent in their words always falls
on the first syllable and an h is always found where in
Russian there is a g.

The southern Slavs have long been divided in religion
and in the use of alphabet. The Serbs and Croats speak

the same language ; but while some of them are Moham-
medan, the rest of the Serbs are. mainly Orthodox and use
the eastern script; the Croats are Catholic and use the
western script. The latter they share with the Slovenes,
whose language is a dialect of the Serbo-Croat language
and whose religion is Catholic. The differences of religion
have long been the favorite means by which the Hapsburgs
have been trying to separate the three representatives of
the southern Slav family. Recently the representatives of
those three groups met on the island of Corfu and adopted
a programme of political union and freedom, for which they
crave the endorsement of the civilized world. Their position
in politics and law is now deplorable as is that of all the
other Slavs.

It is only the eastern group of Slavs that has for some
time formed a political unit, the Russian Empire, even so
under the rule of a German and pro-German dynasty and
bureaucracy. Suffice it to say that in Russian Poland,
Germans enjoyed much more influence with the government
than the Poles ! Of the whole eastern group, only some
four million Ruthenes live partly under Austrian, partly
under Hungarian, domination.

The Poles are, on the other hand, in a most unfortu-
nate position. A proud nation which once was among the
most powerful in Europe is now divided into three parts —
one under Russian, the other under Austrian, the third
under Prussian domination. In the Austrian "share" of
Poland is included not only Galicia but also part of Silesia.
That part of Poland under German rule comprises not
only the Prussian province of "Posen," but also Prussian
Silesia (the eastern part of which is overwhelmingly Polish ;
the coal mines situated there are the chief reason why Ger-
many dreads its loss) ; West Prussia; with the city of
Gdansk (Dantzick), which at the time of the partitions
violently opposed Prussian occupation10 and for a long
time previously had favored the nationalist element in

10 See, e.g., Lord, The Second Partition of Poland, 394.

18

Poland (for instance, at the elections of Polish kings) ; and
parts of the province of East Prussia.

Almost the whole territory of which the Bohemians are
natives is now under the rule of Austria and (Slovaks) of
Hungary.

(Great, White, Little)
Russians.

Poles. WW-fflfa Bohemians

S^"^ ,. KWfm and Slovaks.

r- t Southern Slavs (Slovenes,

^="-=1 Serbs, Croats) llllllllHillil Bulgarians.

Territories with Slavic majority.

Map 2 — Slavic territories in European states (1914).
— •• — •• — •• — .. — borders between states.

border between Austria, Hungary, and Bosnia-Herz-
egovina.

borders between nationalities within the same state
(not between states).

19

The southern Slavs in the broader sense of the word
include the semi-Slavic Bulgarians, who in the nineteenth
and twentieth centuries were emancipated from the Turkish
yoke; and the southern Slavs proper, of whose number
only those Serbs living in the country known as Monte-
negro have practically always been independent of Turkey.
The kingdom of Serbia was emancipated in the course of
the nineteenth century; Bosnia and Herzegovina passed
from the Turkish under the Austro-Hungarian yoke ("oc-
cupation" 1878, "annexation" 1908) ; part of Serbian ter-
ritory forms the kingdom of Croatia and Slavonia (under
Hungarian domination) ; another part is incorporated in
the kingdom of Hungary itself; still other Serbo-Croat
lands, as well as those of the Slovenes, are organized as
provinces of what is popularly called Austria, or the Aus-
trian part of the Hapsburg monarchy. In most cases the
Slovenes are inhabitants of provinces of which another part
is German or Italian, so that the Hapsburgs can foster
national differences and prevent an understanding between
the subject races, or can rely on the German as against the
Slavic element.

In all those countries where the Slavs are not left
to themselves there has been boundless oppression. How
could I within a few seconds describe to you all the un-
speakable horrors of the Austrian regime in Bohemia, in
Galicia, among the southern Slavs before the Hapsburg
organization went to pieces in the wars with Italy, France,
and Prussia, and a "constitutional regime" had to be in-
augurated (in the sixties of the nineteenth century) ? How
am I to mention to you in a short time all the breaches of
solemn promises, of statutes, of constitutional documents
which have repeatedly been committed since then? Can
you picture the tragedy of the present war, in which (un-
like the English rule in Ireland, where there is no com-
pulsory military service) Austria has drawn the main body
of her armies from the Slavic conscripts and Germany has
compelled her (conscripted) Polish regiments to fight

20

against those from whom Poland expects her liberty ? Oh.
there can indeed be no greater grief! Nessun maggior
dolore. . . .

But I have been speaking of the Slavs in a way which
might lead you to ask whether there is a common Slav group
consciousness. From the time of the national separation
of the different groups such a common consciousness be-
tween all groups has hardly existed. Difficulties of com-
munication, differences of religion, of civilization, of polit-
ical interests, separated the Slav groups. In the eighteenth
and nineteenth centuries two tendencies became apparent,
both of them called "Pan-Slavic." You should be careful
to distinguish between them.

One was the purely political dream of Orthodox Tsar-
dom and its supporters. It was the dream of uniting all
Slavs under .Russia's leadership, probably with Orthodoxy
as their religion. The other tendency was one which has
received more or less qualified assent in all Slavic groups.
It is based on the consciousness of a common origin, of
common roots in the different Slavic languages, of a need
of common defense against common enemies, whether Turks
or Germans; it aims at securing for the Slavs recognition
as fully privileged members of the community of nations.
Why should the English, German, French, and Italian lan-
guages be the only ones admissible in international con-
gresses, to the exclusion of Russian and Polish? Why
should the Slavs remain unknown, detested, slandered,
barely tolerated whenever the history of civilization is dis-
cussed ? Why should the civilized world endorse or silently
overlook their martyrdom at the hands of Germany and
Austria-Hungary? These and similar questions have led
to the formation of different Slav societies of mutual help,
to the organization of Slav congresses, and so forth. Would
that there should result from this war a permanent feder-
ation of the Slavs, and their federation with the other
civilized nations into a federation of the world!

The other civilized nations ? But are the Slavs civilized ?
What have they done for civilization ?

I should like to remind you again of the difficulties of
development. Here was Russia, for more than two cen-
turies under the overlordship of the Tartars. That was a
circumstance certainly not intended to help promote civil-
ization. The consequences of the Tartar period naturally
lived much longer than Tartar domination itself. There
was Serbia, under Turkish rule until the nineteenth cen-
tury. The Germans seem to object to Great Britain 's action
in introducing Hindu troops into the war. And yet I claim
that if a power could do anything to destroy its own claims
to civilization, that would be an alliance with the Turks,
the old enemies of European civilization, the old assailants
of Christendom. It is not many centuries since Austria
had to be defended by the Poles against Turkey — now
Austria, Germany, and Turkey (with another semi-Mongolic
group, the Bulgars) are happily united in an alliance
against the civilized world. Perhaps one should not wonder
at that, seeing what the record of the Hapsburgs them-
selves has been. For there, again, was Bohemia, with her
old liberties trampled under foot, with her best children
literally mowed down, for two and a half centuries — a
helpless victim in the hands of her Hapsburg rulers.

And to remind you of still further difficulties, there
was Poland, constantly struggling, now with the Tartars,
now with the Turks. The downfall of the Polish cities,
especially in the east, was due very largely to the establish-
ment of Turkish rule in Constantinople (1453) and on the
shores of the Black Sea, but Poland's fight against the
Turks, the expedition of the Polish (and Hungarian) king
in 1444 which resulted in his death, and the rescue of
Vienna by Sobieski, were only episodes in a long series of
struggles undertaken at first, and very often later on, out
of pure idealism, out of a desire to rid civilization of the
Turkish menace. Nevertheless, Poland had at the same time
to defend herself against the Germans on her western

22

border : at first it was the newly created Empire, then the
Teutonic Knights, also called Knights of the Cross (their
sign, the Black Cross which they wore on their white gowns,
is still a symbol of German militarism, and appears, for
instance, on the German airplanes). And then for the
Knights of the Crosyvas substituted (a change in name,
but not in spirit) the*Russian state, which was instrumental
in bringing about the partitions of Poland in the end of the
eighteenth century. Since those days there has been op-
pression by the three partitioning powers, at first by Austria
and Prussia more than by Russia, then especially by Austria,
then by Austria and Russia more than by Prussia, and then
by Prussia more than by any other. Prussia has not only
oppressed the Poles in the parts of Poland which she occu-
pies. She has also backed Aip Russia, down to the outbreak
of the present war. And this "friendship" for the Tsar's
government has been another difficulty in the way of Slav
development.

Despite all these difficulties* the Slavs have helped civil-
ization. They have helped it, first of all, by defending it,
as well as defending their own homesteads, against Tartars
and Turks. That was true especially of Russia and Poland ;
Serbia was a great, heroic victim of the Turkish onslaught
in the fourteenth century, as she has become one of the
victims of the Teutonic onslaught in the twentieth century.
But the Slavs have also helped to develop European civil-
ization positively.

It is not claimed by any sensible person that the Slavs
are not indebted to other nations and groups of nations.
The Slavs have taken over western and eastern civilization,
that of Rome and that. of Byzantium, just as Rome was
indebted to Greece, and France and England to Italy. Nor
do the Slavs claim that they have not learned from the
Germans. They have.

But this is no reason why the Germans should claim
that they are entitled to dominate the Slavs. Because the
Slavs have been received later into the circle of European

nations, it does not follow that they must submit to German
domination, that they have no right to a free development.
Did not the Germans, as a group of barbarous tribes, at-
tack, molest, destroy the old Roman Empire? Did they
not take over the fruits of the development of civilization
in ancient Rome and in medieval Italy? Are they not
most heavily indebted to the civilization of France and of
England ? Why do they not submit to Italy, or to France,
or to England ? Because you are some one 's teacher, this
does not make you his master, it does not turn him into
a slave of yours. To promote civilization is every nation's
duty, but it does not give rights of overlordship ; that is
what the Germans have never been able to understand.11

11 Just twenty years ago the famous German historian, Theodor
Mommsen, issued an appeal to the Germans in Austria, inciting
them to a fight against the (western) Slavs (which meant especially.
Bohemians, Slovenes, and Poles). He drew forth a spirited reply
from one of the most glorious scholars in modern Slavdom, my be-
loved teacher Oswald Balzer, professor of Polish legal history in
the University of Lwow. From that reply, to which all friends
of Slavdom can refer for inspiration, I should like to quote a few
sentences, which seem in point at this time and can as well be
applied to the relations between Germany and the western nations:
". . . To a great part of the German peoples the interests of cul-
ture have always been associated with the State interest, i.e., the
State interest has been in the first place. They carried civilization
to the Slavic East to gain for themselves political advantages, and
they did not hesitate to give up the cause of culture whenever their
own egotistic political interests required some sacrifice. Politi-
cians and Germanizers, in a higher degree than civilizers, they
have perpetually identified the idea of culture with the idea of
their own State and their own nationality; they believed and wished
to persuade the world — they even wanted the world to believe them —
that the way to civilization leads only through Germany, and that
there can be no better fortune for other peoples than to attain by
that way to greater perfection. They proclaimed themselves chosen
guardians of all who began to engage in the pursuits of culture
later than themselves, without asking whether those others desired
such guardianship, without reflecting that they could work for
culture independently, having been endowed by God with the same
abilities as Germans. . . . The Germans offered culture to the Slavs
usually at the price of their giving up the greatest treasure, their
own nationality; where the Slavs would not pay that price, the
Germans simply obstructed their independent development and did
not allow them to carry on the work of civilization. . . . German
culture is neither the first, nor the last, nor the only culture which
leads to perfection. ..." To many persons unacquainted with

It is claimed against the Slavs that they are nothing
but barbarians. Sometimes the Germans do not go as far
as all that. But then they and their foreign friends (e.g.,
Professor Burgess) claim that the Slavs are unfit for polit-
ical development. I should like to point out that of all
European nations, Germany has the least right to reproach
others with lack of political ability. Can anybody imagine
a greater anarchy than that which existed in Germany in
the later Middle Ages and well into the nineteenth century ?
Poland's and Russia's disorganization was due largely to
foreign invasions. Germany's princes often combined
among themselves or with foreign princes against their own
emperor. It was not until 1870-1 that Germany, under
the new leadership of Prussia, began to show real political
unity — and whether the Prussian domination of Germany
has been a success is just now a somewhat debatable ques-
tion. Nor is there any need to brag about the German
descent of the Romanovs (as is done, e.g., by Professor
Burgess). Whether Russia would not have been much
happier without them is again a question to be determined
by impartial men.

It is claimed that the Slavs are unable to develop a
healthy economic organization. Anybody who has studied
Bohemian economic life under Hapsburg rule, or the Polish
economic development, will have formed a different opinion.
The Germans themselves know the truth about the matter.
In a number of publications they exhort one another to
arm themselves against the danger of an economic conquest
by the Slavs.12 The Polish cooperative societies, especially

European affairs these words would have meant nothing until the
present war taught everybody what German methods are. The
words of Professor Balzer, written in 1897, could equally well have
been formulated by an observer of German behavior during the
present war. There is method in it.

12 Professor Ludwig Bernhard, who did some spying among
Polish economic organizations in Prussian Poland for the benefit
of the Prussian government, and was rewarded with a chair at
the University of Berlin, devotes a large book to ''the Polish com-
munity in the Prussian State" (Das polnisclie Gemeinwesen im
preussischen Staate} ; Mr. Georg Cleinow in his book on ' ' The

25

among farmers, can well serve as an example for many
western countries — and you must remember that they have
been developed in the teeth of government opposition.

The Slavs have made positive contributions to the civil-
ization of the world. Until the Turkish conquest, Serbia
was developing in a most promising way. In the field of
literature she can claim that her ballads (some of them
translated recently by my friends, Professor George R.
Noyes and Mr. Leonard Bacon) deserve a high place among
monuments of European popular poetry. In the fourteenth
century her political development was higher than that of
many a European nation, for instance, the code of Tsar
Dushan deserves an honorable place among early Euro-
pean codifications. And look at Bohemia ! In 1347-8 there
was founded in Prague, the capital, by a king who was not
a German, a university, which was the first in central
Europe. Germany had no university at that time. The
second university in central Europe was that of Cracow
(Poland, 1364), and only the third was the German uni-
versity of Vienna (1365). Then were founded other uni-
versities in Germany. The University of Prague soon be-
came the center of Bohemian national progress, its rector
early in the fifteenth century was the celebrated reformer
and Bohemian patriot, Jan Huss; is not his name known
to every civilized man and woman ? Does it not prove that,
while she was left independent, Bohemia was able to pro-
duce great men? And then, in the seventeenth century,
came the great Bohemian reformer of education, known all
over Europe, Komensky (Comenius). There had been
many great men in the meantime, but I can only mention

Future of Poland" (Die Zukunft Polens} studies the conditions in
Eussian Poland; there are numerous other books on the subject.
The German chancellor, Prince von Billow, said in 1908: "The Polish
element has, under the protection of our statutes, especially in the
field of economics developed an organization which is astonishing
because of its consistent elaboration and concentrated leadership
(deren konsequente Durchfiilirunfj und einheitliclie Leitung erstaunHch
isf), and of which the great power serves always and everywhere
the purposes of the political struggle against the German element
..." (Hb'trsch, Filrst ron Billow's Eeden, III, 62).

26

the greatest of the great. And then Austrian despotism
put an end, for a time, to Bohemian progress. Yet pro-
gress there appeared again in the end of the eighteenth
century, in spite of all obstacles. It has never abated since.
You may have heard of Bohemian music — the Bohemians
are supposed to be musically the ablest among the subjects
of the Hapsburgs. You do not know of many first-class
scholars whom Bohemia has produced, such as Safarik,
Palacky, Kadlec, and others. They have been there, how-
ever.

And Russia ? Have you read novels by Turgeniev, and
Dostoyevsky, and Tolstoy? Have you heard the names of
Gorki and Tchekhov? Do you know the music of Tshai-
kovsky, and Rakhmaninov, and many others? Do you
know a scientist who needs not remember what the world
owes to Mendeleev and Metchnikov? And these are only
a few names which I take to be most widely known. There
are scores upon scores of others.

Take Poland. In the thirteenth century a Pole (Vi-
tellio) wrote the first modern treatise on optics. The fif-
teenth century produced a great development of the Uni-
versity of Cracow, and one of its professors (Brudzewski)
was the first academic teacher of astronomy to the great
Copernicus (Kopernik), who was himself a Pole and whose
father was a citizen of Cracow. The development of polit-
ical thought, of letters and science, in sixteenth-century
Poland entitled her to a place among the most enlightened
nations in Europe; one of her political writers (Andrzej
Frycz Modrzewski, called Modrevius) was the author of a
great treatise on the Reform of the Republic, the German
translation of which was the first exhaustive treatise on
political science in that language ! Does not all that prove
that the Poles, too, have helped develop European civil-
ization ?

And without mentioning the hundreds of names which,
though great in themselves, are unknown in England and
America, let us think of the modern Polish novelist Sien-

27

kiewicz, of the pianist Paderewski, of the composers
Chopin and Wieniawski, of the chemist Mme. Curie-
Sklodowska. Much work done by Polish scholars, many
works of art and literature, produced by Polish artists and
writers, remain unknown to the west, partly because of
language difficulties, partly because the Germans have
taught the English and the Americans that there is no
civilization among the Slavs.

Consider the history of Polish political institutions.
How much blame has been heaped on the Poles on that
score ! Undoubtedly many things might have been better
than they were. But the same is true of other nations.
Hardly any European nation, except England, can boast
of a glorious continuity of political progress. The external
conditions were unfavorable to Polish progress in the sev-
enteenth century and in the first part of the eighteenth,
and yet there were many attempts at reform, attempts
mostly frustrated by foreign intrigue, sometimes by foreign
force. The world knows now that where there is a free
government, agents of foreign despots can make use of
political liberty to create mischief. That was true of Prus-
sian and Russian agents in Poland. Yet even the old Polish
institutions had some good sides. In 1772, just a short
time before the first partition, Jean Jacques Rousseau, in
response to a Polish request for suggestions as to a change
of the Polish constitution, wrote his Considerations on the
Government of Poland, which he prefaced with the follow-
ing warning : " . . . Brave Poles, be careful ; be careful
lest, wishing to be too well, you make your position worse.
Thinking of that which you want to acquire, do not forget
that which you can lose. Correct, if that can be, the bad
sides of your constitution ; but do not look down upon that
which has made you what you are. ... It is in the bosom
of that anarchy which is hateful to you that were formed
those patriotic minds that have kept from you the yoke. . . .
I do not say that things should be left as they are ; but I
do say that they must not be touched save with extreme

28

circumspection. At this moment one is struck by abuses
more than by advantages. The time will come, I am afraid,
when one will have a better sense of these advantages, and
unfortunately that will be when they will have been lost."13
The Poles realized that their constitution had to be
changed radically. As soon as the political situation made
it possible, a new constitution was proclaimed on May 3,
1791. It was the time of the French Revolution. Enlight-
ened men in the west like Burke,14 Horace "Walpole and
others were enthusiastic about the new constitution, which
naturally displeased the King of Prussia and his German
ally on the Russian throne. They procured the annihilation
of the reform work, and carried out the second, and then
the third partition of Poland. But the Poles have ever
since been looking back to the tradition of the Third of
May, with the firm conviction that the fall of Poland was
due to brute force, and not to lack of political genius in
the Polish nation. It took a long time before western schol-
ars, under the influence of Germans and of charlatans like
Thomas Carlyle,15 acquiesced in the opinion that Poland

13 Gouvernent de Pologne, chap. 1. That the old Polish consti-
tution, even as it was, presented more than the aspect of a hopeless
maze of political stupidities was understood, for instance, by an
impartial German investigator of the old school, Hiippe (Verfassung
der Bepublik Polen, 1867, p. viii) : ". . . The constitution of Poland
did not show political development at its height . . . yet the federal
framework . . . has proved an institution of lasting value (hat sich
bewiihrt). And because the Polish state was not cut into parts by
feudalism, it shows unexpectedly more than one modern quality. . . ."

i* Edmund Burke wrote in 1791 about the constitutional reform
in Poland: ". . . In contemplating that change, humanity has
everything to rejoice and to glory in, — nothing to be ashamed of,
nothing to suffer. So far as it has gone, it probably is the most
pure and defecated public good which ever has been conferred on
mankind. ... To add to this happy wonder, this unheard of con-
junction of wisdom and fortune, not one drop of blood was spilled
. . . the whole was effected with a policy, a discretion, an unanimity
and secrecy, such as have never been before known on any occasion ,
but such wonderful conduct was reserved for this glorious conspiracy
in favor of the true and genuine rights and interests of men. . . ."
(Works, IV, 190 f., 1869).

is Carlyle 's invectives against Poland and Bohemia were based
on complete lack of knowledge, though they pretended to be the
result of historical research.

was unable to govern herself. There certainly had been a
time when Poland's political development was considered
an inspiration for mankind.10

I think I am justified in claiming that despite all diffi-
culties the Slavs have always been aiming at progress in
civilization. You are told, and truly told, that there are,
for instance, in Russia many persons unable to read and
write. Do not despise the Slavs for that. Ask whether
the Slavs have not everywhere (in Russia under the old
bureaucracy, in Austria, in Hungary, in Prussia) striven
to educate the poor, to organize schools and reading rooms ;
whether that work has not been carried on often in the
face of severe threats on the part of the government. In
Prussia there have been until the present day innumerable
prosecutions of Poles for "unauthorized instruction";
Russia under the old regime followed the example of the
Prussian cousin. The glorious development of the "So-
ciety of the Popular School" in Austrian Poland (T. S. L.)
will at all times remain the boast of Polish patriots just
because of the great popularity of the institution, its ability
to gather enthusiastic workers among rich and poor alike,
and the efficiency of its work. The work of Bohemian and
Serbian organizations will similarly be remembered with
gratitude in days to come.

In days to come, when the Slavs will be free! There
is a danger against wrhich I want to warn you. Germany
and Austria-Hungary are now raising the cry for "no an-
nexations," "no disintegration of Germany," "no parti-
tion of Austria-Hungary." They are taking advantage of
your lack of knowledge of European affairs to make you
believe that England or France wants to conquer and
oppress parts of Germany. That is absolutely untrue.
What the Allies want is to take away from Germany and
from the Hapsburgs those territories which the two reac:
tionary powers have held in bondage by pure force, and
which are alien to the Teutonic nationality. So far as the

16 See, e.g., Letters of Horace Walpole, XIV, 446; XV, 45, 142.

Slavs are concerned, Germany must give up her Polish
provinces, that is, the provinces of Poznan (Posen), Silesia,
West Prussia with the city of Gdansk, parts of East Prussia.
Austria must give up Galicia. Prussian and Austrian
Poland will thus be united with Russian Poland and form
that " united, independent, and autonomous Poland" prom-
ised by President Wilson. Bohemia, including Moravia,
and other parts of Austria or Hungary inhabited by Bo-
hemians (and Slovaks), must be made independent. Bosnia
and Herzegovina, Crotia and Slavonia, and the other south-
ern Slav parts of Austria or Hungary must be set free to
form part of the great southern Slav state. The Slavs do
not want to form great conquering empires. They want
to be allowed complete freedom in developing their own
national life, together with other civilized nations. The
days of autocracies, the days of governments formed and
maintained by dynasties and in the interest of dynasties,
are over.

I should like to appeal to you to get acquainted with
the problems of Slav life. You will find a great field for
help which will be very gratefully received. You will find
probably many things that will require change, but I feel
that you will also find a great many things worth ap-
preciating.

Let me conclude by quoting the words of my great
teacher, Professor Vinogradoff, a Russian who is today the
greatest living authority on English legal history. He is
one of those men who have proved to the world that the
Slavs can help promote civilization. "The Slavs must
have their chance in the history of the world, and the date
of their coming of age will mark a new departure in the
growth of civilization."

I

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