Slavophiles

“ Morn till nightfall along
Life's deserted main.
Scarce felt my nape at length
Youthful power and strength,
Yoke of steel was firmly
Bound about my neck:
Taught to bow my head low,
Kisses did I bestow
On the lash that smote me:
Brow beat earth at heck.
I, a weakly slave, grew
'Mongst my brother serfs true;
Chains for jewels clinked just
At each sister's side;
And where'er my gaze dwelt
Anger, shame, pain I felt,
As with heads bowed to dust
Slaves dwelt nation wide. ”

“ Having regard to the true wellfare of Slav nations, we declare it to be our desire and our firm will that the freedom of Slav nations, once attained, shall not be marred by external or internal oppression, either of the nation or of the individual. We want to labor not merely for external, but also for internal liberation. We want the Slavs to be what best answers to their true nature, namely democratic nations. ”

“ 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 intellectual14 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. ”

“ The Slavs in America believe that their cause has the overwhelming support of their fellow-citizens, they have no fear of what the outcome will be, nor yet that their interests, so bound up with and inseparable from the peace of the world, shall be neglected. ”

“ The people, from whom the term Slave was originally derived—the Slavonian or Slavonic race—is still the one, and the only remaining one in Europe, among whom exists the condition of slavery. The number of people there held in bondage is indeed immense and startling to hear. In Russia (including Poland) there are upwards of forty millions of Slaves,—more than ten times the number of those in the United States of America. It is common, indeed, to call these people serfs ”

“ The neighbours of the Slavs are both great and small; some indeed are the greatest nations of the world—e.g., the Germans, the Chinese, and the Japanese—nations which represent every gradation of European and Asiatic civilisation, differing in religion and in race.
The position of the Slavs in the world—in Europe and Asia—can be taken as central: on the West are the Germans, the Magyars and the Italians; on the East the Japanese and the Chinese; on the South the Turks, the Persians, &c. Thus, by the force of circumstances, Slav politics must be world politics. ”

“ In the matter of their belief in and dealings with those Beings with which they have peopled the spiritual world, the Slavs are probably the most superstitious of all the European families, or at least they have clung with more pertinacity than any of their neighbours to the old-world traditions and beliefs which were the common property, centuries ago, of all. ”

“ Labouring in a period when all national effort was suppressed in every possible way, when Slav sympathies were accounted high treason, he rose to a position of unassailable eminence, which enabled him to set the mark of his powerful personality like a leitmotive on the whole nineteenth-century history of the Southern Slavs. ”

“ A stranger roams your plains, and not your brother,
Your lions, mighty once, now weakly totter,
And weakness lurks where freemen should be strong.
To Vltava speed forth each grief-born tear,
Like rains and lightning crashing from the skies,
Carry these words for the sons of Slavs to hear:
“Cease bickerings that brought your downfall near,
List to your people, not to some jackal’s cries,
The names of both St. John and Hus hold dear.”
7.
Hear me Slavs, men of a discordant soul,
Living constantly in bitter enmity,
Get together and in unity
Learn a lesson from the burning coal. ”

“ The Slavs lack collective wisdom. Where there are three thinking Slavs, there are always three quarrels. People who wish to rule must learn to act wisely together; yet in the history{122} of the Slavs this collective wisdom, this inability of one group to acknowledge the equality of the other, has been their greatest lack.
“The Russian revolution failed, even as the Polish revolution failed, and as the Czechs’ will fail, because they lack collective wisdom. ”

“ He who forges irons to enslave others, is himself a slave.
Be it that he fetters the language or the hands of others,
It is the same, he proves himself unable to respect the rights of others."
And once more:
"Slavia, Slavia! Thou name of sweet sound but of bitter memory; hundred times divided and destroyed, but yet more honored than ever.
"Much hast thou suffered, but ever hast thou survived the evil deeds of thy enemies, the evil ingratitude also of thy sons. [8]
"While others have built on soft ground, thou hast established thy throne on the ruins of many centuries." ”

“ But just as Geta, the Goth, stood for a bondsman in classical literature, so when the Slav became the captive of the German, his 434once glorious epithet became the generic term of the thrall, bought and sold, while the derivatives of the Latin servus were reserved for the free hired domestic. Glory had literally turned to slavery, perhaps the more readily because it is the Slav who, of all the Indo-European race, most readily bows beneath the yoke, so that to this day, his forms of courtesy are the most servile, his respectful address the most extravagant, used in Europe. ”

“ But there is still another race, the Slavs, inhabiting Bohemia and many other parts of the empire, who have not hitherto had much influence in administration, but who are gradually awakening to a consciousness of their political importance. There are millions of Slavs under Russia, and the Slavs of Turkey are shaking off the Musalman yoke; so that it is easy to foresee, the Slavs will yet be a great power in Europe. ”

“ The Slav, by virtue of being among the most numerous of our new citizens, has a right to demand that the rest of us should know him; for by knowing him, we shall learn to respect him, appreciate the good qualities of his race and help him to overcome tendencies which hinder his full development. ”

“ I set off to study the ex-slave because the civilized world is threatened by what may be called a vast slaves’ war. In Russia the grandchildren of the serfs have overthrown those who were once their masters, and have taken possession of the land and the state; in Germany Spartacus has arisen to overthrow the military slavery of Prussianism; and the wage slaves are rising in every land. There is a vast resentment of lower orders against upper orders, of the proletarians, who have nothing and are nothing, against those who through inheritance or achievement have reached the ruling class. ”

“ The several Slav nations have not wandered so far as have other peoples from the cradle of their race, where at one time they formed groups which were identical and united, or at least with very few distinguishing marks. Moreover, the slower development of their civilisation, and their economic life, which is not so rich as that of other nations, have also tended to preserve the uniformity and the unity of their character. ”

“ These movements ceased in the seventh century, the close of which saw the Slavs firmly established in European Russia, Illyria, and Bulgaria. They were employed in agriculture and stock-raising, and their characteristics appear to have been much the same as those observed at the present day in the rural populations of Eastern Europe. Ancient writers agree in depicting them as being hospitable and cheerful, firmly attached to ancient customs, courageous, and fighting only in self-defence. ”

“ It comes from the word Slav. The Slavs are the race of people to which the Russians, Poles, and many other nations in the East of Europe belong. The Great War has [155] been partly fought for the freedom of the small Slav nations, of which Serbia is one. The Slavs have a long history of oppression and tyranny behind them. They have been subject to stronger nations, such as the Turks, and, in Hungary, the Magyars. The first "slaves" in mediæval Europe belonged to this race, and the word "slave" is only another form of Slav. ”

“ Modern historians seem to adopt their attitude to the process according to their view of the Slavs; German writers, in their contempt for the Slavs, mostly deny the possibility of their having forced German tribes to leave their homes, and assume that the riches of southern Europe attracted the latter so that they willingly gave up their barren northern plains; most Slavonic authors have taken the same view in accordance with the idealistic picture of the peaceful, kindly, democratic Slavs who contrast so favourably with the savage Germans and their war-lords ”

“ The Slav peoples are so jealous of their individuality that, though living under the constant menace of the Germans, they always have had, and still do have, grave differences between themselves, not only in their political disputes—e.g., the Poles with the Russians, and the Serbians with the Bulgarians— but also contests on the subject of their dialects and their nationalities ”

“ The Slavs and the Latins are governed rather by the collective wisdom of the community, by tradition, usage, prejudice, fashion; or, if they break through these, they are like slaves in revolt, without any real living apprehension of the law inherent in things—the true law, which is neither written, nor arbitrary, nor imposed. ”

“ The upper classes, charmed and dazzled by the glare and glitter of Western science, threw themselves impulsively on the newly found treasures, and thereby condemned themselves to moral slavery and intellectual sterility. Fortunately—and herein lay one of the fundamental principles of the Slavophil doctrine—the imported civilisation had not at all infected the common people. ”

“ Nowhere custodian with whip, nor sleek the slaveholder now;
Nowhere glistens the savage soldier's lance and spear, nor appear
The white folds of the Brahman's robe hypocritically near;
Nowhere is writ in colors diverse the mark of caste,
'Tis the happy native land of brothers equal and free at last.
Peacefully in those throngs are mingled diverse speech and color,
The beggar does not wind in rags, nor wastes his wealth the idler ”

“ This method, and especially its results, appealed strongly to Charles's successor, who continued to hack the way of Christianity through Slavonic tribes until eventually the latter were completely subjugated in all the German-speaking countries of to-day. It took a long time to do this, for there is a deal of resilience in the Slav, and his soul remains his own even under much persecution. The Slavs were heavily handicapped too; they were broken up into numerous little tribes and clans, and seldom became united under the leadership of a strong man of their own race. ”

“ They are fighting because they are convinced that they have the Might and the Right and the Duty of crushing the French and the Russians, because through French veins courses the tainted blood of the Gauls of Cæsar, and because through the veins of the Slavs courses the white fluid of the slave and the yellow fluid of the Tatar. ”

“ Herein lies the curse of slavery, that there exists a hierarchy of slaves, from the tsar at the top to the last village pasha at the bottom, a hierarchy of men who will not and cannot work because they are privileged to use their fellow men as instruments. ”

“ In citing these various types I have not tried to make out the Slavs as better than they are. I have, to repeat my opening statement, merely tried to show that these generally unknown people are above all human beings,—that they have not alone vices and undesirable qualities, but virtues,—that though crude, they have their possibilities. ”

“ Such are the principal representatives of the smaller Slav nations. It is clear that not one of them is a partisan of the Panslavism that scares our enemies. All put the idea of humanity in the forefront, and they deduce from it the idea of nationality as an essential part of the natural patrimony of mankind. All understand nationality in its democratic form, and all are fervent pioneers of civilisation. ”

“ VITALITY
"The Slavs," remarks a physician, "are immune to certain kinds of dirt. They can stand what would kill a white man." The women do not have puerperal fever, as our women would under their conditions. The men violate every sanitary law, yet survive. The Slavs come from a part of the world in which never more than a third of the children have grown up. In every generation, dirt, ignorance, superstition, and lack of medical attention have winnowed out all but the sturdiest. ”

“ Kropotkin, in his Memoirs of a Revolutionist, has recently given a detailed description of the moral effect of serfdom upon the Russian aristocracy. We have indeed to remember that slavery invariably exercises an influence upon slave-owner as well as upon slave. Every variety of slavery is always and universally twofold: as the master is, so is the slave; as the slave is, so is the master. ”

“ Thus, at an epoch when perpetual war raged all over the world, when from time immemorial prisoners of war everywhere formed the bulk of the slaves for domestic labor and for traffic, the Slavi alone were humane toward their captives. ”

“ The effect of that has been to develop the individuality of the various Slav nations. Great differences may indeed be noted in the character of their civilisation. They have also been influenced racially by the neighbouring races; pure-blooded Slavs are rarely found. From this point of view we cannot boast of being better situated than other peoples. ”

“ It is much to be regretted that the slavocrats look at but one side of the question. Of all the fanatics in the country, they have, of late, become the most unreasonable and ridiculous. Let them deliberately view the subject of slavery in all its aspects and bearings, and if they are possessed of honest hearts and convincible minds, they [Pg 110] will readily perceive the grossness of their past errors, renounce their allegiance to a cause so unjust and disgraceful, and at once enroll themselves among the hosts of Freedom and the friends of universal Liberty. ”