Even if theoretically the balance of power seems more rational in the Hungarian sphere, in the Austrian it is plainly absurdly disproportionate. And here the Poles were the straw in the balance which decided in favour of German hegemony. If the Poles had recognized their duty to their own race the Slav question would long ago have been on a better footing. A just understanding with the Ruthenes and a joint national struggle with the Csechs would certainly have broken German supremacy, or forced it to accord more tolerable conditions to all the Slavs. But the Galician Poles have never done anything for the Slav cause in the Monarchy, but rather sought to curry favour with the Government in Vienna, and, by repudiating their kinship, to obtain concessions for their own negative national ideals, and for their intellectual and economic development. Austria had no objection to this platonic nationalism so long as the Poles by their pro-German policy supported her in oppressing the other Slavs.
The Csechs and Ruthenes have been specially handicapped in their national struggle by the attitude of the Poles. And the result was an implacable enmity between the Poles and the Ruthenes, which was, if anything, encouraged by the Government. In this struggle the Ruthenes undoubtedly fared the worse. They are in a national minority in Galicia, and unmercifully oppressed by the Poles, who hate them all the more for being the descendants of the hated Russians (Little Russians) and because they refused to conceal their sympathy with Russia. The Ruthenes fought hard for the right to speak their own tongue and have their own school system. But the Poles were ruthlessly opposed to these demands, which were in consequence also denied by the Government. The struggle finally degenerated into wholesale denunciations of the Ruthenes by the Poles, who accused their enemies of high treason and conspiracy with Russia.
It must, however, be admitted that even among the Poles there were many who deeply deplored this fratricidal struggle, and did their utmost to induce the Northern Slavs of the Monarchy to combine in the common cause. Time and again the Csech patriots urged the desirability of a union, and, as similar appeals came from other Slav countries also, the realization of a true Pan-Slav and democratic ideal often seemed imminent. The spectre of Pan-Germanism, waiting like some ravenous monster to devour the Slav nations limb by limb, appeared even to the Poles, but unscrupulous politicians, bureaucratic upstarts, and slippery diplomats from Vienna conjured up the bogey of Russification to alarm them, and all patriotic efforts were in vain.
Still it is psychologically interesting that a Slav race through fear of Russification should have thrown itself into the arms of—Germanism.
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II.
The favoured position of the Poles in Austria contrasts sharply with that of their brothers in Russia and Germany. They were oppressed in every way;—Russian official policy towards the Poles bears all the stamp of autocratic tyranny. Their political rights are restricted to a minimum, and as regards civil rights they are nearly as badly off as the Russian Jews. Still it is characteristic that the reason for this oppression lay, not in the national, but in the religious element. Roman Catholicism, which was an advantage to the Austrian, proved a misfortune to the Russian Poles. For the Russian looks upon Catholicism as the very antithesis to his conception of the Slav ideal. Pravo-Slav Russia, with her ancient, wondrously pure Slavo-religious traditions, and all the warmth of her faith, could not take kindly to the haughty, frigidly cold Catholic Poles. The great political power of the Holy Synod, the supreme (unfortunately too clerical) representative body of this faith, exercised an influence adverse to the Polish people, and the Russian Government, which only too often has been the mere executive of the will of the Holy Synod, established an autocratic régime with far-reaching national and personal restrictions. The first result of this policy was unmitigated hatred on the part of the Poles, and a craving for vengeance and freedom. The Russian Poles intrigued with their Austrian brothers, and envied them their favoured position. But the only support the Austrian Poles vouchsafed their brothers was that they applied the Russian methods of oppression to the Ruthenes.
Whoever knows anything of Russia’s repressive measures, will realize that the Poles were in a hard case. Owing to the passive character of the Poles their struggles were never sufficiently organized to assume the proportions of a well organized revolution. But oppression has strengthened their national self-reliance, their ideals have burned more brightly, and a longing for freedom has entirely dominated them. Still, even now, they are far more inclined to wait for the miracle than to bestir themselves on their own behalf; and if in recent years their position has somewhat improved, it is not so much due to their own efforts as to the wave of modern thought among the Russians themselves.
The Russian Governmental policy made no distinction between the Poles and her Russian subjects who were thirsting for social regeneration. So the Russians discovered for themselves that they had to seek the friendship and collaboration of the Poles. The wide horizon of the modern Russian movement will not permit the exclusion of a single capable member of the Tsar’s great realm from the benefits of the future. Not only the Russian people, but the whole of Russia had to be won over to the cause of the great ideal. The regeneration of Russia was to herald the regeneration of the whole of the Slav race, and the Poles as Slavs had a right to help in this work. The Russians have always said that they are very fond of the Poles, but that they are not sufficiently Slav—they ought to be Slavicized. The Russian Government sought to accomplish this by violence, whereas the Russian people, represented by the Russian revolutionaries, chose the better path of mutual understanding and respect. Of course, the official policy of the Holy Synod is still in force, and although the constitutional manifesto and the Duma have brought about certain changes, these are at present quite unimportant. The Poles, however, are winning an increasing number of friends and advocates among the Russians, who are pleading for equal rights and a constitution for Poland. Moreover, the times have changed, and when Russia was confronted by the present great European crisis the Poles displayed a marvellous loyalty, which has, perhaps, unintentionally brought them nearer the realization of their dreams than they have ever been before. The Manifesto of the Grand Duke Nikolai Nikolaievitch is the greatest event in Polish history since the partition.
The hardest lot of all has befallen those Poles who have been most loyal to their race. I mean those who came under Prussian rule. For whereas Polish Slavdom is tolerated in Austria, and actually encouraged in Russia, in Prussia it is remorselessly ground down under the iron heel of Germanism. Germanization is carried out by Prussian rule, aggressively, in a strictly military sense. It is not a question of political tactics—no opinion at home or abroad is considered; there is nothing but frank coercion. Germany’s ambitions are only too well known—they have been advertised loudly enough, and they have been expounded again quite recently in General von Bernhardi’s notorious book, “Germany and the Next War”—a book written with all the brusque insolence of which only a German is capable. If Germany’s future programme includes the Germanizing of the whole of Europe, it is surely superfluous to relate in detail how she strove to Germanize a people under her own rule—it is one of the blackest chapters in the histories of oppression.