Fig. 41—The area of Wend speech. The dotted patch shows that Kottbus is the center of the district in which the majority of the inhabitants (over 50 per cent) speak the Slav language. In the ruled area the percentage of Wends is less than 50.

Surrounded by Germans, the Wendish colony is doomed to disappear in spite of a literary renascence which helps to perpetuate national consciousness in its midst. According to statistics, the number of Wends is steadily declining. The progress of Germanization is particularly apparent in Lower Lusatia, which is part of the Prussian domain. It was estimated in 1885 that this people comprised about 176,000 souls. Later computations place this figure at about 156,000. The absence of an intellectual class among them, compulsory military service in German regiments and the use of the German language in church favor the progress of Teutonism.[127]

The want of linguistic unity among the Wends also tends to weaken their position. Idiomatic differences between the languages of Upper and Lower Lusatia are such as to prevent the natives of the respective districts from rendering themselves intelligible to one another. The literary language of Kottbus differs from that of Bautzen. Diversity of customs and institutions is also noticeable between the two groups. German ideas increase this cultural split, the divergence from Slavic institutions and thought thus becoming accentuated. Unlike the Masurians, and because of their isolation, the Wends cannot look to eventual incorporation with the Polish body. Their political destiny is therefore distinct from that of the Poles.

We have seen in this chapter that although conquered and divided Poland still lives. A compact mass of over 20,000,000 individuals speaking the same language is a force which cannot but make itself felt. This main body of Poles resides within its own linguistic boundaries. Smaller colonies are found outside these limits. The Polish inhabitants of Lithuania and Ukraine muster about 2,000,000. Vilna alone, the capital of Lithuania, has a population of 70,000 Poles out of a total of 170,000 inhabitants.[128] The Polish colonies of Ukraine, of the coal-fields of the Donetz, and of the Caucasus comprise wealthy landholders, manufacturers, bankers and merchants. These men though living outside the ethnographic boundaries of their people nevertheless exercise the weight of their influence on its behalf. Thus the three groups into which conquest has divided the Poles remain today in intimate contact in spite of the political boundaries which separate them. It is mainly in the economic field that binding ties have been established between the three, for the Poles of the three continental empires have made it a point to promote trade relations with one another. This was forging a new link to their pre-existing natural ties of kinship.

The problem of delimiting Polish national boundaries is complicated on the east and west, as has been stated, by the absence of prominent surface features. On both sides the lines of linguistic parting provide the only practicable demarcation. On the north and south, however, the Baltic and the Carpathians may be utilized advantageously as national frontiers. But the fate of the Polish region is strongly outlined by nature, for the entire basin of the Vistula is a regional unit. Any partitioning of this basin would probably be followed by political conflicts.

NOTE ON THE SLAVS

In the ninth century the Slavs occupied the eastern plains of Europe between the valleys of the Elbe and the Dnieper. Southward they spread to the northern foothills of the mountains of central Europe. Although subdivided into tribes bearing different names, there existed no essential differences among them as to language or custom. The pagan divinities worshiped in the drainage area of the Vistula were the gods of the inhabitants of the Dnieper valley. Tribal authority was exercised by a chief designated as Kniaz or Voivod throughout these lowlands. Intercourse between the various groups was constant. A vague political union is even discerned by some historians. The Poles and Ruthenians and, to a lesser extent, the Bohemians, are the best modern representatives of these original Slavs. All the eastern Slavs, however, have mixed more or less with Asiatic peoples.

Some light is thrown on the European origin of the peoples of Aryan speech by the growth of the Slavs. The Slavs of Europe now form by far the most important ethnic group of that continent. They comprise about 160,000,000 individuals out of a total of 400,000,000 inhabitants of Europe. Two-thirds of this Slavic element consists of Russians (66,000,000 Great Russians, 32,000,000 Little Russians, and about 8,000,000 White Russians).[129] Next to the Russians in numerical importance are the Poles (23,000,000). The Serbo-Croatian group can only muster half the Polish array. The Bohemians follow, 8,000,000 strong, while the Bulgarian group does not quite attain 6,000,000. Smaller groups are the 2,000,000 Slovenes, the 2,000,000 Slovaks and the less important enclave communities of German lands like the Wend in Lusatia.

The homeland of the primitive nucleus of this branch of the Indo-European family is restricted in the main to the plains extending from the northwestern corner of the Black Sea to the sandy delta of the Oder. The valleys of the great rivers in this lowland exerted the earliest separative influence which is known to have occurred in the primitive Slav group. Niederle distinguishes three main sub-groups which fit into the frame of eastern European hydrography.[130] A northwesterly branch attained the valleys of the Elbe, Sale and Sumava, and gave birth to the Bohemian and Polish factions. A central group, originally occupying the region of the upper Vistula, the Dniester and middle Danube, rounded the southern slopes of the Carpathians and, traveling up-stream on the Danube, eventually attained the valleys of the Save and Drave. The Slavs of southeastern Europe are descendants of this group. Originally pure Slavs, they are permeated with Asiatic blood owing to repeated invasions from the east. The third group was destined to form the substratum of Slavic Russia. It radiated from the basin of the Dnieper as far north as the Gulf of Finland and eastward to the valleys of the Oka, the Don and the Volga.

TABLE I