[CHAPTER VI]
THE AREA OF POLISH SPEECH
South of the Baltic shores the unbroken expanse now peopled by Germans merges insensibly into the western part of the great Russian plain. This extensive lowland is featureless and provides no natural barriers between the two empires it connects. The area of Polish speech alone intervenes as a buffer product of the basin of the middle Vistula. The region is a silt-covered lowland, the bed of a former glacial lake. It has been peopled by Slavs for over a thousand years. Upon its open stretches there was no lack of food and no reason therefore for migration. The development of Poland rests primarily on this physical foundation. Added advantages of good land and water communication with the rest of the continent contributed powerfully to the spread of Polish power, which at one time extended from Baltic shores to the Black sea.
In the ninth century the Slavic tribes of the Polish and western Russian regions differed but slightly in language and customs. Dialects spoken in the upper Vistula basin and in the upper Dnieper valley presented a degree of affinity which has disappeared from the Russian and Polish languages as spoken in our time. Differences between the two groups increased as they came respectively under eastern and western influences. Intercourse between the western group and the Slavs settled in the upper Elbe region produced a Polish contingent, while contact of the eastern body with Tatars created the main Russian group. Religious differences helped to widen the breach between these two branches of the Slavic family. The western body was naturally inclined to follow the counsels emanating from the Vatican. The eastern looked to Byzantium for spiritual guidance. These were strictly geographical relations. Eventual divergence into separate nationalities originated in the conflicts of religious views and material interests among the leading members in each group.
Fig. 38—Sketch map of eastern Europe showing the areal classification of Russians into Little Russians (dotted area), Great Russians (diagonally ruled) and White Russians (cross-ruled area). The black dots indicate Masurian localities. The dotted circles show Hungarian cities peopled by Ruthenians.
The Polish language is spoken at present within a quadrilateral the angles of which are found at the Jablunka pass in the Carpathians,[97] Wissek north of the Netze near the Posen boundary, Suwalki in the eastern Masurian region and Sanok on the San. A northern extension is appended to this linguistic region in the form of a narrow band which detaches itself from the main mass above Bromberg and reaches the Baltic coast west of Danzig. In sum, the valley of the Vistula, from the Carpathians to the Baltic, constitutes the field of Polish humanity and institutions. In spite of the remoteness of the period when they first occupied the land, these children of the plains never attempted to scale mountainous slopes. The solid wall of the western Carpathians, between Jablunka and Sanok, with its abrupt slopes facing the north, forms the southern boundary of the country.
This region, in the midst of the diversity of surface of the European continent, has produced a distinct language in the varied stock of European vernaculars. Nevertheless there is no similarity of physical type among individuals speaking Polish. Marked anthropological differences are found between the Poles of Russian Poland and of Galicia.[98] They correspond to the classification of northern Slavs into two main groups, the northernmost of which comprises the Poles of Russian Poland, together with White and Great Russians. Traces of Finnish intermixture can still be detected among them, in spite of the process of Slavicization which they have undergone. The Poles of Galicia, on the other hand, like the Ruthenians and Little Russians, reveal mingling of the autochthonous populations with Asiatic and Mongoloid invaders of Europe.[99]