JOHN JACKOL
"Russia is the rock against which the sigh for freedom breaks," said Kossuth, the great statesman and patriot of Hungary. Although fifty years have passed, and sigh after sigh has broken against it, the rock still stands like a colossal monument of bygone ages. It is pointing toward the northern star, as if to remind one of the all-enduring fixity. Other stars may go round as they will; there is one fixed in its place, and under that star the shadow of despotism hopes to endure forever.
While yet in Finland I used to fancy Russia as a giant devil-fish, whose arms extended from the Baltic to the Pacific, from the Black Sea to the Arctic Ocean. Then I would think of my native land as a beautiful mermaid, about whom the giant's cold, chilly arms were slowly creeping, and I feared that some day those arms would crush her. That day has come. The helpless mermaid lies prostrate in the clutch of the octopus. Not that the constitution of Finland has been annulled, as has been so often erroneously stated, and quite generally believed. The Russian Government has made only a few inroads upon it. The great grievance of the Finns is not with what has been absolutely done in opposition to their ancient rights and privileges, nor in the number of their rights which have in reality been curtailed, but with the fact that they have henceforth no security. The real grievance of the Finns is that the welfare of their country no longer rests upon an inviolable constitution, but upon the caprice of the ministers.
In 1898 the reactionists succeeded in getting one of their tools appointed as Governor-General. No sooner had General Bobrikoff taken his high office than he declared that the Finnish right to separate political existence was an illusion; that there was no substantial foundation for it in any of the acts or words of Alexander I. The people were amazed, appalled. But this was not all. Pobiedonostseff, the Procurator of the Holy Synod, and other men as reactionary as he, discovered the fact, or gave birth to the idea, that the fundamental rights of Finland could be interfered with if these fundamental rights interfered with the welfare of the Russian Empire. In other words, they discovered a loophole which they termed legal, on the principle that the parts should suffer for the whole, and that this principle was an integral part of the plan of Russian government.
The abrogation of maintenance of Finland's ancient rights would seem by this decision to rest on the arbitrary interpretation on the part of Russia as to whether or not they interfered with the welfare of the empire. It is possible that, according to the individual opinions of Russian autocrats, they might all interfere with the standard of welfare which certain individuals have arbitrarily established to fit the occasion.
In justice to the Russian Government it should be stated, however, that the joy of persecution was not the motive which led to the arbitrary acts. During the time that Finland was under Swedish control, the Finns had learned to dislike everything Russian. These anti-Russian tendencies were accentuated, after Finland became an appanage of the Russian crown, by the restrictive and often reactionary policy of the Imperial Government. Such a form of government was repugnant to the Finns, who had learned to be governed by good laws well administered, and by an enlightened public opinion. At the same time, owing to their larger liberties, their higher culture, and their susceptibility to western ideals, the Finns exerted an attractive influence over the peoples of the Baltic provinces, and even of Russia proper. A Finn would very seldom become Russianized, while many Russians became Finnicized. Unlike his Russian brother, the Finn enjoyed the privileges of free conscience, free speech, and free press.
To the average Russian such a life was enchanting, and many were so fascinated that they became citizens of Finland. In order to do so, however, they were obliged to go through the formality of changing their nationality and becoming subjects of the Grand Duchy. Doubtless this was distasteful to the Russians, but so many and so great were the advantages accruing from such a change that not a few renounced their nationality.
Such a state of affairs seemed unnatural and antagonistic to the propaganda of the Panslavistic party. Instead of Russian ideals pervading the province, provincial ideals, manners, and customs were gradually spreading into the empire. But there seemed to be no honorable way of checking the progress of the rapidly growing Finnish nationality. The Finns maintained that their rights and privileges and their laws rested upon an inviolable constitution, which could be changed only by a vote of the four estates of the Landtag. That body would never yield.
It was at this juncture that the Procurator of the Holy Synod conceived the idea that the fundamental rights of the Finns can be curtailed in so far as they interfere with those of the empire. Acting according to this new idea the Imperial Government in 1899 took for its pretext the army service of the Finns. Heretofore, according to a hereditary privilege, the Finns had not been called upon to serve in the Russian Army, and their army service had been only three years to the Russian's five. The officers of the Finnish Army were to be Finns, and this army could not be called upon to serve outside of the Grand Duchy. This was the first fundamental right of the Finns to be attacked by the Russian Government. In some mysterious way the very insignificant army of Finland "interfered with the general welfare of the Russian Empire."
Immediately following the Czar's startling proposal for a disarmament conference in 1899 came his call for a special session of the Finnish Landtag to extend the laws of conscription and the time of regular service from three to five years. Furthermore, the new law provided that instead of serving in their own country, the Finnish soldiers were to be scattered among the various troops of the empire. By this means it was hoped to Russianize them.
The representatives of the people had no time to consider the measure before the Czar's decree was issued, February 17, 1899, declaring that thenceforth the laws governing the Grand Duchy be made in the same manner as those of the empire.
It is not necessary to dwell upon the deep feeling of indignation and grief that pervaded the country. It has found a freer expression outside of the Grand Duchy than within its boundaries. Wherever the human heart is beating in sympathetic harmony with universal progress, the oppressed Finnish people have found moral support. In spite of this, one by one the Finns have been deprived of their hereditary rights and privileges. To the Finns this new order of things seems appalling. It is like the drawing of the veil of the dark ages over their beloved country. They have lost everything that is dear to the human heart: their language, their religion, and their independence. They can do nothing but mourn in silence and mortification, for a strict Russian censorship prevents the expression of their just indignation and grief.
The present condition of Finland is apathetic. Last fall the loss of crops was almost complete, and pestilence and famine are devastating the country, which has been drained of its vitality by an excessive migration and military conscription. The young men of Finland are forced to serve five years in the Russian Army, and the country is suffering from a lack of men to till the soil. The credit of the country has been mined, and panic is spreading rapidly. Wholesale migration of the more thrifty has made the already difficult problem of readjustment more complicated. Those who remain behind are literally suffering from physical, intellectual, and moral starvation. There is left nothing to refresh, fertilize, and energize the nation's vitality. The Finns are utterly helpless. In this sad extremity of their people the best men of Finland are exerting their utmost in the endeavor to alleviate suffering and infuse hope and inspiration among the masses. The young Finnish party has become exasperated by the humiliation that has been heaped upon the long-suffering people of their native land, and its leaders have advised active resistance. The old Finnish party has adopted the policy of passive resistance and protest. But the inroads upon the constitution of Finland, in the form of imperial decrees, rules, and regulations by the Governor-General and his subordinates, have been so many and so sweeping in their character that even the most conservative are beginning to lose patience. As long as the unconstitutional acts affected only the political life of the people, many were able to bear it, but when the new rules attacked the time-honored social institutions and customs, indignation could no longer be suppressed. For instance, the order to open private mail caused a general protest. The postal director and his secretary refused to sign the order and resigned. No less obnoxious was the order forbidding public meetings and directing the governors of the different provinces of Finland to appoint only such men to fill municipal rural offices as will be subservient to the Governor-General. The governor of the province of Ulrasborg resigned, while several other provinces were already governed by pliant tools of General Bobrikoff.
The long-suppressed anxiety of the people has changed into a heartrending sigh of anguish. These words of a national poet express the general sentiment, "Better far than servitude a death upon the gallows." A vicious circle has been established. The high-handed measures cause indignation, and the Governor-General is determined to suppress its expression. There is no safety in Finland for honest and patriotic men. The judiciary has been made subservient to General Bobrikoff. Latest advices are ominous. April 24, 1903, was a black day in the history of Finland. It witnessed the inauguration of a reign of terror which, by the ordinance of April 2d and the rescript of April 9th, General Bobrikoff had been authorized to establish.
Bobrikoff returned to Finland with authority, if necessary, to close hotels, stores, and factories, to forbid general meetings, to dissolve clubs and societies, and to banish without legal process any one whose presence in the country he considered objectionable.
For 700 years Finns have been free men; now they have become Russian serfs, and it is well to make closer connections between the Finnish railway system and the trans-Siberian road. Finns are long-suffering and patient, but who could endure all this?
While the expression of indignation is suppressed in Finland, outside of the Grand Duchy, especially in Sweden, Norway, and Denmark, Russia's relentless tyranny has made the highest officers of state as resentful as the man in the street. Indeed entire Scandinavia is aflame with indignation and apprehension. The leading journals are warning Scandinavians "that the fate of Finland implies other tragedies of similar character, unless Pan-Scandinavia becomes something more than a political dream."