The peoples of Europe

by H. J. Fleure

The social study of the people of Central Russia is probably one of the best clues to the understanding of that stage of our own past, in Western Europe, when settlement in forest-clearings was the most marked feature of development of social organization. The Tsar's Government had in recent years persisted in a policy of modernization of rural arrangements, but, in the words of a supporter of that policy, the villagers fell back upon their old communist schemes as soon as the war crisis made them rely on themselves; it was the one scheme they understood.

How far this is really true, or how far some at least of the villagers tried to develop individual proprietorship, must remain doubtful, but there can be no doubt that localism and the Soviet idea have become marked features in Russia, with the paralysing of the more modern schemes of life which were previously trying to spread in the country with the growth of industry and commerce. That the more modern schemes seemed to permit a larger population seems clear, but that they were faced with difficulties due both to climate and to history is not always appreciated. The west in the nineteenth century was too apt to think its individualism applicable to all conditions and peoples the world over; it had not sufficiently understood its individualism as a historic growth under western conditions which masked the conflict, for example, between it and the Christianity the west supposed itself to accept. Of the life of the Russian village we shall have more to say later on, but it is well to have its attitude in mind so that we may contrast this with the characteristics of the Baltic fringe. Here, since the war, new states have been created and recognized (1921) by the League of Nations under the names of Esthonia, Latvia, and Lithuania.

The two first have a Baltic-German element which has in the past been a land-holding class, and has its historic links both with the Teutonic Knights and with the Hanse—for Riga is an old Hanse city of special importance.

The Finnish element is strong enough in Esthonia to impose its language on the people, but farther south tongues of ancient Baltic lineage are dominant, and the new states are largely on a basis of peasant language, the German elements being disregarded, and to a considerable extent dispossessed. Having passed through a stage of feudal subjection, the peasants are bent on individual proprietorship, as they were in the eighteenth century in France; and the war has brought a social revolution along this border zone between the domains of the two churches, with some marked resemblances to that of 1789-93 in France. 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. Set in the Lithuanian country is Vilna, the station on the one reasonably dry entry from the west into Central Russia, and therefore a trading town with large German, Jewish, and Polish elements illustrating more tragically than any other town the difficulty of creation of states in this eastern boundary zone of Western Europe. The forests of Lithuania are very important for the country's economic future.

Thus south, as north, of the Petrograd-Vologda line, we have contrasted conditions in the west, the centre, the east, but on the south the Finn element is much less marked, and the central European one much more so. Moving south again beyond the Pripet marshes we find corresponding contrasts.

On the west the Polish platform grades south-eastward into the Ukraine or Border Land, with its great stretches of loess, but also its patches of forest, especially near the waterways. The forest thins out towards the open steppe of South Russia, which in turn grades into desert patches near the Caspian. The open steppe of South Russia is but the continuation of the great steppes of Asia.

To understand the peoples of this belt let us remember first that the ancient graves contain many long-headed skulls, and that this element in the people probably persists to a greater extent than average figures show, in spite of the pressure of central European, of late at least Slavonic-speaking, immigrants from the west via Kief, and of Tatar immigrants from the east. Byzantine elements from the south need also to be allowed for in the people as well as in their civilization, in which matter Kief has become as markedly the Byzantine sacred city of Russia as Canterbury is the Romano-Gallic sacred city of England.

In the Ukraine Poles have done a good deal of organizing work, and put themselves in the position of landowners and leaders over a Ruthenian peasantry. The landlords were attached to the Roman Catholic faith, but the peasants to the Uniate Church until the latter was crushed by Russia. The border of the Ukraine towards the steppe is a very doubtful matter. Here is the zone of unrest, with Tatar pressure at times and European pressure at others; it is the limit of the settled life, and the cultivated patches have needed specially watchful defence. Under these conditions the Cossack people have grown up with a military order of society and landholding for service. The people seem to include an element of the old long-headed population (see [pp. 11], [14], and [77]), together with both Slav and Tatar contributions, Jews and Germans in the towns which are mostly of recent creation, and a motley gathering of escaped serfs and landless men from all around.

The Don Cossacks are fairly distinct from the Orenburg and Siberian Cossacks who live east of the desert patches that lie north-west of the Caspian Sea. In what is broadly Cossack country lies the very different Kuban country, with an almost Mediterranean climate and possibilities of fruit cultivation; it is said to have had an autonomous organization of its own for some time during the recent years of unrest. Its people are doubtless related to various elements among the Cossacks, but one gathers that the descendants of old traders are more marked than elsewhere. The Tatar (Turki) groups are so obviously an intrusion from Asia that we need not say much about them as such; we may more profitably think of them as pressing upon Europe at one time and being pressed upon by Europe at another.

Their tribal organization on a kinship basis and their mobility have given them a power and a cohesion for offensive purposes from time to time, and as Huns, Magyars, Bulgars, Szeklers, and Tatars, they have been formidable hindrances to the settlement of East and South-east Europe on western lines. We may note first that Huns, Magyars, Szeklers, and Bulgars, penetrating far from the South Russian steppe either past the Iron Gates, or through the Carpathians or over the Danube into the Balkan Mountains, have become settled folk.