On seeing such a multitude of punishments, it is not unnatural for the reader to inquire, what are the crimes and the offences of which they are the reward? In the government publications, and in the sentences of the sufferers, he who runs may read, that they were awarded for prayers, hymns, processions, for doubtful gestures made when perusing official handbills, and for wearing national emblems and black clothes. Only (and this is perfectly true) they were so inflicted because under songs, prayers, and mournful apparel, there lay the soul of a people, of a whole nation, which has been saddened by excess of tyranny, which has been terribly tried, but which, even now, is not disheartened.
At this period of agitation in Europe, when new problems complicate her political life, the true importance of the events of the last year must be seen to lie in their suddenness, and in the fact that Poland is not discouraged. Judge of the last twelve months as we may, we cannot but allow that they have shown us a people which, though often stricken, is again on foot (though how this is so we cannot tell); that this nation has found within itself the secret of an indestructible life; and that, so far from being dead, she lives with a new and more abundant vitality.
The drama which has been enacted before us, coloured, though it may be, by the tender and excited imagination of her sons, and, at times, seeming more like a legend than a page of history, cannot be mistaken for the convulsions of a nationality that is dying, and which, in expiring, utters one last and piercing cry. It is the expression of a force which, during thirty years, has been purified, tempered, and trained afresh, and which now appears to prove itself at once passionate and calm.
What are the signs by which any true nationality is to be recognised? Must a nationality have genius, intelligence, and true imagination? Then Poland, during the last hundred years, has had a legion of poets, all singularly gifted and inspired, and she still possesses a flourishing and varied literature; for her language has remained, although she has not had the freedom of her schools. Is the love of the past and its traditions required? Then that feeling has been both evident and rampant for the last year. Must there be originality of life and manners? Polish manners have preserved all the savour of their nationality, and, most assuredly, have not been influenced by Russia. Is it by unity among all classes, and by social peace, that a nationality approves its integrity and its strength? The present movement has demonstrated precisely that there is a unity, a fusion of all classes, and that this fusion is sealed by the abolition of the last traces of serfdom, by the definitive acquisition of property by the peasants—a measure which the landlords themselves favoured in a practical and liberal manner; for if, in this agitation, we have seen only its moving and dramatic externals, we must not forget that under all this passion lies a spirit of political sagacity, which is patent, and which has been enlightened by all the faults, and by all the history of the past. Lastly, is religion one of the signs of a truly deeply-living nationality? In this Polish awakening, religion has been prominent, showing itself in the hymns of a people which assembles and takes refuge in churches. I have no doubt but that, by some great democrats, Poland is suspected on account of her religious fidelity. Men of this stamp do not see that there is something in suffering which opens the sources of religious feeling, till they rise to passionate mysticism. Moreover, in a country like Poland, the Church is the only organised power—the only body which has its own laws and independence. Catholicism is truly one of the shapes of Polish nationality; only, into her Catholicism a great sense of toleration is now admitted; and we have seen priests, bishops, rabbis and Protestant pastors, all joined in the same manifestations, and suffering under the same measures of repression. Thus, Polish Catholicism realises the phenomenon, unhappily so rare, of a profound and intimate alliance between religion and all the instincts of liberty and nationality. Thus, also, this union renders Polish agitation something very different from any of those ephemeral fevers of revolution which give way before sharp measures of suppression.
For the same reason, the Polish problem remains a threatening one to Russia; for it engages Russia in a conflict as ungrateful as it is impotent. It compromises her in the eyes of Europe; it occupies her politicians, and it lies a weight upon her own internal developement. I do not know what is to happen; no one, indeed, can tell. She may again be stern, or again she may relent in her rule; but the problem is the same, and, without any compensation to set it off, it becomes more and more serious in the empire of Tzars. Doubtless, when, a hundred years ago, Russia, realising the dream of Peter the Great, marched upon Poland, rent it, and carried off its spoils, she then violated all the principles of justice; but she had a reason for it. She wished to draw towards the West, and, through her western possessions, to enter among European affairs. But everything has changed since then. Does Russia now require Poland to give her a place in the world, and among European powers? Russia now approaches the western world, less by her presence at Warsaw, than by that multiplicity of communications, that mixture of interests and ideas, and by those iron lines which, bringing all countries together, have made distances disappear. And what happens now?
This: that in order to maintain a supremacy, which is always precarious, and always contested (because lawful wishes have not been responded to), Russia is obliged to compromise her whole policy. At every turn, in each combination or alliance, she is tied and bound, because evermore between her and those who might be her allies, there rises the phantom of Poland. But not only is her external policy hampered and entangled, but her internal rule is affected by the necessity for incessant tyranny. The great Lord Chatham once said, ‘If the English government subjects America to a despotic rule, so surely will England herself be obliged to submit to it.’ And herein exactly lies the bond which connects Polish agitation with those liberal aspirations which at the present time appear in Russia. It is no longer a secret that throughout all classes of Russian society sentiments of sympathy with Poland are being rapidly propagated, and that Russians begin to foresee, without disturbing themselves, that a separation of the two countries is really possible. A newspaper, which is published secretly in St. Petersburg, the Welicorus, expressed this very distinctly not long ago. ‘In order to maintain our rule in Poland, we are obliged to keep there a supplementary force of 200,000 men, and annually to disburse 40,000,000 of our money over and above those revenues which we draw from Poland. Now, our finances will never be better as long as we squander our resources in this way.... We must let Poland go, in order to save ourselves from destruction.... We can no longer conquer Poland, as in the time of Paskievitch, because there are now no internal discords in Poland; and in spite of the efforts of our government to sow division between the two classes, her patriots have consented to deprive themselves of a part of their own estates, and have settled them on the peasants.... For us Russians, it is a question whether we are to wait till we are ignominiously expelled from Poland, which, self-emancipated, will be our enemy, or whether we will be wise enough voluntarily to renounce a ruinous ascendency, and thus make the Poles faithful friends of Russia.’ Such is in very truth the question now in agitation; and Europe looks on attentively.
And as regards Europe herself, we must say, that this question of the relations of Russia with Poland, after the terrible drama of last year, is by no means an indifferent matter. The western world is at present passing through one of those crises, during which everything is experienced, where everything is renewed, and everything alters in appearance. That which forty years ago was called the order of Europe no longer exists; nor have the peoples alone violated it. The governments themselves have so far lent a hand to the work, that, piece by piece, the fabric has fallen away.
The public order of 1815 is on the eve of disappearing, and what may be the new order which shall be brought forth by the labours of to-day assuredly no one can tell; but simply because we live at a time in which everything is recast, and re-elaborated, it is our first and best interest to watch the elements of this vast and universal movement, and carefully to consider every serious manifestation of the conscience of the nations. We must notice what dies and what lives. Russia, it has been said, ‘has a certain fear of the opinions of Europe.’ This opinion, most surely, has nothing in it hostile to Russia. On the contrary, Europe cannot but feel an interest in such labours as the emancipation of the serfs, of which the initiative was taken by the Emperor Alexander II., as also in that liberal work which is at present, day by day, evidently pursued in the heart of the Russian nation; but not the less, at the same time, is the eye of Europe upon that black spot at Warsaw. She sees and weighs both faults and misfortunes, and she says to herself, that, if faults have consequences, which follow them inevitably, there is not the less a fixed limit to a people’s misfortunes, and to a nation’s pangs.
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