On the Trail of the Immigrant

by Edward Alfred Steiner

The Wends, Poles, and Bohemians show in speech and life influences of their German neighbours; the Slovak in Hungary has a strong Magyar taint; the Croatian, Servian, Bulgarian, and the Montenegrin come dangerously near the Turk; the Dalmatian on the Adriatic, in spite of his resistance against it, shows influences of Venice, not only in the magnificent architecture of his churches, but also in language and character; while the Slovene of the Alps has received much good from his brave Tyrolese neighbours whom of course he in turn has influenced.

The only Slavic people who present an unbroken surface for observation are the Russians, who, undivided by high mountains or other natural difficulties, have blended their differences to some extent, and have become a vast nation, with a common language, a common faith, and certain characteristics which have become the common possession of all the people. But to generalize even about the Russian is impossible, inasmuch as there are at least two well-defined types, divided geographically, and differing not only in outward appearance, but in nearly everything about which one is sorely tempted to write in general terms.

The Great Russian, who occupies the largest part of his native land, is undoubtedly of mixed blood, the Finnish extraction manifesting itself in the flattened features and the protruding cheek-bones; while his enemies say that you need not scratch him long before you strike the Tartar. He is rather roughly made, his features are anything but delicate, the nose is heavy and inclined to be pugnacious (this may be taken as the general tendency of the Slavic nose), his eyes are brown or pale blue, and friendly, and the face is suffused by a health-betraying glow. The colour of the hair is seldom or never black, and shades all the way from a light brown to a definite red, and from that to a rather indefinite blond.

The other pronounced type is that of the Little Russian, who occupies nearly all the southern portion of the country, and differs from his more numerous brothers in physique and habits as the southern people usually differ from the northern. The Little Russians are, generally speaking, smaller, the face more delicately chiselled, complexion and hair darker, their women vivacious and handsome, and they claim to be of purer Slavic blood, although you do not have to scratch them at all to find the Tartar.

The Slav has moved from the Dnieper as far east as the Ural, and has moved beyond it as fast as steam could carry him. He has entered the heart of Europe, is at the doors of the German capital, and has almost supplanted the native Austrian in Vienna. In the Alps, on its southern slopes, he has built his huts within nature’s citadels, and faces Italy on the Adriatic. In the Balkans he has asserted himself, has shaken off the yoke of Islam, and is destined to be the master of the Bosphorus; while the Karpathians, which, like a crescent, wind about Hungary, are the stronghold of the ever-increasing Slav.

In a larger measure the other Slavic tribes on non-Russian soil differ one from another; thus, the Dalmatian is the giant among them, and he of the Boche de Cattaro is a veritable Slavic Apollo, measuring, on an average, six feet three inches. He is dark-skinned, and graceful in his movements. But size and beauty decrease as one travels northward through Bulgaria and Servia into Hungary, Bohemia, and Poland.

One despairs of designating as a race, or even as a nation, a people which differs more widely than one can tell within the limits of a chapter; people who have neither a history nor a literature in common, and whose language, although philologically one, varies so that if they undertook to build a tower or an empire, the confusion of the Biblical Babel would find a parallel in modern history.

And yet these differing tribes or nationalities have some things in common, especially in the social life and organism. There is, first of all, a temper which is among all of them impassive, seldom aroused even under the influence of drink. This explains the ease with which they have been conquered by other races, seldom coming to independence, only the nature of their country having compelled the Russians to make a Russia, which they were a long time in making. This also explains the despotism of the Czar, the patience with which it has been borne, and the long stretches of years without revolution or reformation. But now his wrath is kindled and the oppression of years has aroused his fury. The Slav is not a builder of empires, because he is not a citizen but a subject—a severe master or a submissive servant. As a rule, he bears oppression patiently, shrinks from overcoming obstacles, is seldom inquisitive enough to climb over the mountains which lock in his native village to see what is beyond them, never cares much for the sea and its perils, the Russian’s desire for harbours being a political necessity rather than a natural want. Even a democratic institution, such as the “mir” in Russia, which borders strongly upon communism, and is by some scholars urged as an indication of the Slavs’ independent spirit, is to me a proof of their lack of that spirit. Any one who has been at a meeting of the “mir” knows that the one or the few never dissent; things go just as they come, and the strong rascal (and there are such among the Slavs) rules “mir” or “bratstvo” at his own pleasure, and no one says, “Why do ye so?”

The family bears among the Slavs strong archaic forms, especially among those of the south, where the bratstvo (brotherhood) is still the unit. A bratstvo occupies, according to its size, one or more villages; and church, cemetery, meadows, and mills are held in common. Besides these peaceful possessions, they have every quarrel in common, and every member of the bratstvo is most ready to avenge the honour of his people. These are characteristics visible in their colonies in America. In Montenegro, the Herzegovina, and also in some parts of Dalmatia, blood vengeance is still practiced, and it not seldom happens that, to avenge one life, war is waged until there is not one male member left who can carry a gun; then the quarrels are continued by the next generation. The bratstvo is ruled by an elder, elected by all its male members. He is their justice of the peace, the presiding officer at all meetings, and in case of war is the captain of his company. The members of a bratstvo consider themselves blood relatives, intermarriages were formerly prohibited, and even now are not common. The aristocratic spirit shows itself in the fact that mechanics, especially blacksmiths, are expelled from it and share none of its privileges or responsibilities. The elder of the bratstvo, or household, is an embryo Czar, and the honours shown to him by all its members express the reverence which the Slav always shows to those in authority. He can withhold permission for smoking, dancing, or playing; no one touches the food until he has tasted it, no one is seated in his presence until he has permitted it; he is the one member of the household who has an individual spoon, which may not be used in the cooking; and yet from experience I know that he may sometimes play the Czar too much, and that there is temper enough left in the household, if not in the men at least in the women, to make it decidedly uncomfortable for him, and to remind him of his plebeian origin and his democratic relatives.