THE SLAV NATIONS.
CHAPTER I.
THE SLAV RACE.
Slav Characteristics—Slav Power in the Past—The Decline—The Dawn?
Although the Slav race does not appear as a united state or Union, it certainly forms a family of nations linked by ties of blood, the tradition of centuries, similar language and customs, and especially by ties of mutual love and sympathy. It is the greatest and most powerful of the European races, yet to this day it does not hold the pride of place which is its due and which it once held. Not the precedence of mere strength, which is surely sufficiently represented by Russia, but the place due to a people of recognized culture, who have not yet been justly appreciated in spite of overwhelming proof of their intellectual gifts. Slavs are still popularly supposed to be a mentally undeveloped host of semi-barbarians and troglodytes. Of course the educated public of Europe has long[12] abandoned this attitude; but it has done little to spread a more just and liberal view among the people at large.[1] The German scholars made it their business to lay stress on “Slav barbarism” wherever possible, to obscure the bright and glorious pages in Slav history, and to emphasize everything that can be taken as a proof of savagery and arrested development. Unfortunately, no one has written at such length about the Slav question, or attached so much importance to it, as the German scholars, with the result that other European nations have derived their views from them—so much so that one might almost say that German opinion on the Slavs has become the opinion of Europe. Constant unrest in Russia, and the consequent reprisals of the authorities afforded a welcome pretext for misjudging the Slavs, and the ordinary public of Europe came to know of them only as mediæval inquisitors with Siberia as their great torture-chamber. No one seemed to realize that these revolutionary movements,[13] no less than the insurrections in other Slav countries, merely represented the resistance of a virile people craving enlightenment against autocratic barbarism; and that it is obviously unfair to judge the Slavs by the deeds of their oppressors, who in every case have followed the German methods cultivated by their governments in most Slav countries, and imported into Russia by Peter the Great. On the other hand, if the Slav nations are judged by the soul of the people, and not by their rulers and state-systems, they show a high standard of civilization and a trend towards culture of a kindly, humanitarian type, which promises to be a far better contribution to Western European progress than the much-advertised German “Kultur.”
Certainly the Slavs have not yet attained to their full stature as a race. At present they are passing through a period of strong ferment, but the wine that has so far resulted from this ferment gives excellent ground for the hope that when the Slavs have solved their various national and economic problems they will prove themselves the equals of the other cultured nations of the world.
In the world of politics they must attain the degree of power necessary to safeguard their racial individuality and the freedom of the Slav peoples. This power must stand in due proportion to their capability for intellectual progress, and should in itself be a guarantee for the peace of the world in the future. For the Slav is not naturally domineering, and has no craving for power as a mere means of aggression. He belongs to a kindly race, melancholy, as shown in the national poetry in which his soul finds expression. He has a craving to love and to be loved, and would fain join the other European nations as a friend and brother. His strength will be the strength of love. Russia has neither need nor desire to extend her boundaries further. The Balkan Slavs only wish to accomplish their own destiny quietly within the borders of the Slav Sphere, and the rest of the Slavs desire their freedom—only their freedom. And when this is accomplished, the Slav Colossus will no longer constitute a danger to Europe, but a safeguard. His political power will only threaten those who would tamper with the foundations of peace from mere lust of dominion.
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In the present crisis the Slav race is by no means seeking a return to the past. The past has seen the Slavs masters of a great empire and a real menace to the rest of the world. If one were to take the political map of Europe and indicate upon it the frontiers of the ancient Slav Empire, the Slav race would appear like an irresistible deluge. The huge Muscovite Empire, almost the whole of Austria-Hungary, the whole of the Balkans, two-thirds of the German Empire, part of Italy, and a large part of Scandinavia—all these once formed the Slav Empire. Historical maps show the single triumphant word “Slavs” (“famous” or “glorious” ones) inscribed over all these countries throughout the centuries. Their history and development can be traced back to 400 B.C.