With but few exceptions, the Slav is an oppressed man; oppressed by alien rulers, who, by force, are trying to wipe out of his consciousness his national memories, and steal from his lips his mother tongue.
Where it is not the German or the Magyar who puts him under the yoke, it is some close Slav relative who is practicing on him the Golden Rule in its perverted form. When these conditions do not exist, the Slav bears the yoke of his own making, in the form of Autocracy.
It is the distinction of the Slavs that they are the only Europeans who, although not unanimously, believe that Autocracy is the form
of government best suited to their national character.
This is certainly true of many Russians, who see in the Czar a divinely appointed autocrat; while many other Slavs of different nationalities dream of the day when they shall bear this same yoke. The Russians also rule, and most severely, their close kinsmen, the Poles, and are not noticeably liberal to the Malo Russ, the Little Russians of the South.
Every cruel, political expedient has been used by Russia to subjugate or assimilate these people, who are flesh of her flesh and bone of her bone.