Lithuanians

“ Members of the British mission at Kaunas (Kovo) told me that the Lithuanians are very brave soldiers who have so many enemies, yet nevertheless keep their spirit of patriotism so long and so firmly. It stands to reason then, that the Lithuanians, as a nation, are very brave, considering the numbers of Poles and Lithuanians, you could hardly imagine how the Lithuanians could dare oppose the Poles, and yet you see they attempt to oppose many armies. Lithuania has about one-fifth the population of Poland in Europe and about one-third the population of the Poles in America. ”

“ The Livs and Letts were as much the prey of the Lithuanians “as sheep are the prey of wolves.” The German chroniclers describe them as the most terrible of all the barbarians. The Lithuanians first emerge into the light of history at the time of the settlement of the Teutonic Order in the North. ”

“ Behind this natural barrier Lithuanian nationality was born in the middle of the thirteenth century under the leadership of Mindvog, an energetic chieftain who insured his [105] own supremacy by causing the leaders of rival clans to be put to death. With the help of the Poles the Lithuanians eventually checked the easterly expansion of the Teutons.
The region occupied by Lithuanians in former times can be traced today by the distribution of the type of dwelling peculiar to this people. The ancient area exceeds the borders of the present linguistic zone. ”

“ Lithuania, formerly a grand-duchy occupying portions of the valleys of the Dwina, Niemen, Dnieper, and Bug; for centuries connected with Poland; passed to Russia in 1814. The Lithuanians are a distinct race of the Indo-European stock, fair and handsome, with a language of their own, and a literature rich in folk-lore and songs. Of a strong religious temperament, they embraced Christianity late (13th century) , and still retain many pagan superstitions; formerly serfs, they are now a humble peasantry engaged in agriculture, cattle-breeding, and bee-keeping. ”

“ The next morning I was fortunate indeed to say mass for the first time in the church in which I was baptized. That afternoon at a meeting of the Lithuanian Sales Corporation, I lectured on American Lithuanians and Americans in general. Monday I went to Kaunas, or Kovno, to meet the [Pg 10] [A] President of Lithuania, Anthony Smetona, to extend to him the congratulations of the Lithuanian Total Abstinance Organization of America. ”

“ After repulsing the Bolshevik from the Dvinsk, they had a few weeks' rest and then marched to Kaunas.
At the time I was visiting Lithuania she was surrounded by enemies—on the north and east by the Bolsheviks, on the west by Kolchak and the insurgent Germans, and on the south by the Poles. The most stupendous fact is that at present the Poles are the most dangerous foes of the Lithuanians. The Poles, rejoicing in their own liberation from the yoke of oppression, are altogether unmindful that they are striving to place the Lithuanian nation under worse oppression. ”

“ Along the Baltic from the Vistula to the Niemen lived the Prussians, a division of the Lithuanian stock. The Lithuanians are not exactly Slavs, but they are much nearer to the Slavs than to any other people, and are among the most interesting members of the great Aryan race. ”

“ Equally amazing is the indifference of the Government and of Americans generally to the menace involved in the increasing numbers of these inveterate aliens to institutions that are fundamentally American.
The Lithuanians and Magyars are often classed with the Slavs. They hotly resent this inclusion, however, for they are distinct racial strains of ancient lineage. An adverse fate has left the Lithuanian little of his old civilization except his language. Political and economic suppression has made sad havoc of what was once a proud and prosperous people. ”

“ The Lithuanian nation, formed out of the tribes of the Litwini, Prussians and Leti, not very numerous, settled in an inextensive country, not very fertile, long unknown to Europe, was called, about the thirteenth century, by the incursions of its neighbours, to a more active part When the Prussians submitted to the swords of the Teutonic knights, the Lithuanians, issuing from their forests and marshes, annihilated with sword and fire the neighbouring empires, and soon became terrible in the north. ”

“ This was especially the case in the northern section, along the German-Russian frontier.
As we view the armies marshaling along this upper section, along the Baltic shore, southward, including part of East Prussia as well as Baltic Russia, we look upon the ancient abode of the Lithuanians, supposed to be the first of the Slavic tribes to appear in Europe. Hardly any part of Europe has a more forbidding aspect than this region. ”

“ Two-thirds of the grand duchy consisted of old Russian lands inhabited by men who spoke the Ruthenian language and professed the Orthodox Greek religion, While in the north were the Lithuanians proper, semi-savage and semi-catholic, justly proud of their heroic forefathers of the house of Gedymin, and very sensitive of the pretensions of Poland to the provinces of Volhynia and Podolia, the fruits of Lithuanian valour. A Lithuanian himself, Casimir strenuously resisted the attempts of Poland to wrest these provinces from the grand duchy. ”

“ Distrust had already secretly begun, and mutual recriminations; the Lithuanians dreaded the vengeance of Russia, not being certain of having permanently got rid of her government; robbery was scandalously common; the weather was bad, and many soldiers were ill. Everywhere throughout the province, corn, cattle, and forage were requisitioned for the army, and a dearth threatened Lithuania as soon as the French entered upon their soil. Half of the carriages, a third of the horse, and a fourth of those in charge of the transports, had already perished on the roads from the Elbe to Wilna. ”

“ But the name of Lithuanian provinces was usually given only to the governments of Vilna and Kovno, and, though Nicholas I. prohibited the use of this name, it is still used, even in official documents. In Russia, all the White-Russian population of the former Polish Lithuania are usually considered as Lithuanians, the name of Zhmud being restricted to Lithuanians proper. ”

“ With the exception of the Lithuanians, who erected a considerable kingdom in the Middle Ages, only to share the unhappy fate of Poland, the Baltic peoples have played little part in history. In a backwater of civilization, retaining in extraordinary measure the primitive forms of their tribal organization, their mode of life, their religion, and their language,5 they were no match for those who sought to subdue them, though they fared less hardly at the hands of the Slavs than at those of the Germans. ”

“ LITHUANIANS and LETTS, two kindred peoples of Indo-European origin, which inhabit several western provinces of Russia and the north-eastern parts of Poland and Prussia, on the shores of the Baltic Sea, and in the basins of the Niemen and of the Duna. Large colonies of Lithuanian and Lettic emigrants have been established in the United States. ”

“ That the old Lithuanians and Prussians loved and cultivated poetry is proved by the enormous number of ancient songs, still remaining among the common people, and by the testimony of chroniclers. We read that during a grand festival on the occasion of the election of the Grand-Master Winrych von Kniprode, a German Minnesinger, being honoured with applause and a gold cup, a Prussian named Rizelus, was so encouraged by this good reception of a poet, that he entreated for permission to sing in his native Lithuanian tongue, and celebrated the deeds of the first king of the Litwini, Wajdewut. ”

“ The name given by the Letts to the Russians is of great interest and historical importance. In Lettish all Russians are to this day known as Kreewis, and this is nothing but a perpetuation and generalization of the name of one of the original Slavonic tribes, the Kriviči, whom history discovered settled in the basin of the western Dvina. There is nothing correspondingly interesting in the Lithuanian name for Russian, which is simply Rùssas, but the names given by the Lithuanians to their Western German and their Southern Polish neighbours are curious. ”

“ In Esth-speaking country there is but little forest that is not pine, and only 10 per cent. of the soil can be made arable, it is said. Though the Lett country is better, it can grow neither beech nor oak to any extent; it is interested in dairying, and in this matter naturally has commercial links with Denmark. The Lithuanians are a grave European problem; they escaped the Germanizing efforts of the Teutonic Knights, and felt instead the Polonizing of their aristocracy, the abler scions of which have long found opportunities at Warsaw. ”

“ I hurriedly began to read to escape it.
"THE THREE SONS OF BOUDRYS.
"In the courtyard of his castle old Boudrys called together his three sons—three genuine Lithuanians like himself.
"'My children,' he said to them, 'feed your war horses, and get ready your saddles; sharpen your swords and your javelins. It is said that at Wilno war has broken out between the three quarters of the globe. Olgerd will march against Russia; Skirghello against our neighbours, the Poles; Keystut will fall upon the Teutons. [4] You are young, strong and bold; go and fight; and may the gods of Lithuania protect you! ”

“ On the approach of winter he returned, to obtain more liberal supplies for the ensuing campaign. Nothing can more strongly exhibit the different characters of the Poles and Lithuanians than the reception he met from each. At Wilna his splendid successes procured him the most enthusiastic welcome; at Warsaw they caused him to be received with sullen discontent. The Polish nobles were less alive to the glory of their country than to the preservation of their monstrous privileges, which, they apprehended, might be endangered under so vigilant and able a ruler. ”

“ In the Baltic languages the sun is feminine (Lithuanian sáule, Lettish sa'ule) , and the moon is masculine (Lithuanian měnů, Lettish menes) . The feminine Morning Star and Evening Star of the Lithuanians (Aušrìne, Vakarìnė) , however, appear among the Letts as masculine, the "sons of God" (Deewa dehli) , who, we shall see, woo the "Daughter of the Sun," whose Lithuanian suitor, as in the dainà just given, is the moon; 20yet, with the frequent inconsistency of myth, these feminine stars have masculine doublets in Lithuanian itself in the Dė̃vo sunélei, or "Sons of God." ”

“ Many of them were venerated as divinities by the pagans of Lithuania, in whose religion tree and serpent worship formed a prominent feature. Oracles were supposed to be given from a peculiar species of oak, called Baublis, ever green both summer and winter. In the trunk of one of these, cut down about the year 1845, there were counted 1417 rings.]
[pg 98] (12) “Do burn the German knights in sacrifice.”
The Lithuanians used to burn prisoners of war, especially Germans, as offerings to the gods. ”

“ A colony of Finns in Canada has been very successful in wheat raising on the shores of Great Slave Lake, a latitude once considered scarcely habitable for white men.
The Lithuanians are also agricultural or pastoral in occupation, but in this country are largely employed as laborers in the mines of Pennsylvania and other mining states. Their rugged physique fits them for this rough work, and so long as the industrial demand for unskilled labor keeps up so long will the Lithuanian be valuable as the best type of this class of immigrants. ”

“ The Letts of Courland, with the exception of about 50,000 who belong to the Greek Church, are Lutherans. Nearly all can read. Those of the government of Vitebsk, who were under Polish dominion, are Roman Catholics, as well as the Lithuanians proper, a part of whom, however, have returned to the Greek Church, in which they were before the union with Poland. The Samogitians are Roman Catholics; they more than other Lithuanians have conserved their national features. But all Lithuanians have maintained much of their heathen practices and creed ”

“ The statistical information respecting the Russian-Polish provinces is very imperfect, and contains the most striking contradictions. Benken gives the number of inhabitants at four millions; Wichmann in 1813, at 6,380,000; Arsenjef at seven millions. According to Brömsen's Russland und das rüssische Reich, Berl. 1819, there are not more than 850,000 Poles among them, nearly all noblemen; the lower classes are Russniaks and Lithuanians. ”

“ The Jagellons, and their more powerful vassals, became Poles; many Lithuanian princes adopted the Russian religion, language, and nationality. By these means the Grand Duchy of Lithuania ceased to be Lithuanian; the nation proper found itself within its former boundaries, its speech ceased to be the language of the court and nobility, and was only preserved among the common people. Litwa presents the singular spectacle of a people which disappeared in the immensity of its conquests, as a brook sinks after an excessive overflow, and flows in a narrower bed than before. ”

“ Accordingly the vocabulary of Lithuanian betrays Polish, that of Lettish, German influence. Lettish has also been influenced by the proximity of its neighbours of Finnish race, whom the Letts gradually propelled northwards into the extreme northern corner of the promontory of Kurland, where a portion of them still remains, and into Livonia proper. Lithuanian has also been much influenced by White Russian, the dialect current in those provinces which in the Middle Ages formed the lands of the Lithuanian crown, and later with Lithuania became part of Poland. ”

“ There are above half a million of inhabitants in Lithuania; there are more towns than there ever were, more flocks than formerly, more wealth and more productiveness than in any other part of Germany. ”