As far as may be seen, the Czar's manifesto made very little impression on the intellectual in Russian Poland, who, of course, received it with much suspicion. The masses in Russian, as in Austrian, Poland have for some time stood passionately against each other, hurling accusations of treason to the holy cause of their native country, until a new party has now been formed which is politically most unripe, but for that very reason has an enormous extension. Its password is this: "We do not want to hear of Russia or of Austria; we only want one thing: the Polish State without guardianship from any side." In other words, we want the quite impossible. Political oppression for almost one and one-half centuries brings its own punishment to a people. In such a people political skill too easily becomes local patriotism, or it remains in the state of innocence.
Of what use is it to begin singing: Polonia farà de sè? That Poland cannot become free by itself is evident to anybody who has any political idea.
Still I am inclined to say, never mind the forms which the Polish independence and thirst of liberty are taking: they seem to pass like a purifying storm through all Polish minds. Many times before this has a glorious future risen before the Poles—1812, when Napoleon began the second Polish campaign; 1830, when the Poles were buoyed up by the sympathy of Europe; 1848 and 1863. But hardly has a change of established conditions appeared so possible and painful barriers so near the point of falling, as in this great and dreadful crisis.
He who for a generation has been busy with Polish and Russian affairs can therefore, without much difficulty, imagine how many young Polish hearts are now beating and burning with hope, expectation and the most noble aspirations.
Nevertheless, the state of affairs in Russian Poland is at present more desperate than it has ever been before, during war and revolt; and this is not due to the pressure of the conditions or the horror of the situation, but is due to the Poles themselves, to the overstimulation of the national feeling which sends forth its breath of madness all over Europe and now whirls round in Polish brains to drive out magnanimity and humanity, not to speak of reason, which, on the whole, has no jubilee in Europe in the year 1914.
I dare truthfully say that for no other people have I felt the enthusiasm that I have felt for the Poles. I have revealed this feeling at a time when they were not the order of the day, and only very few shared my sentiments. I pronounced this feeling long ago, but it had slight effect in drawing the attention of the Poles to my writings about them or in winning their thanks. The Poles did not discover my book about them till ten years after it had appeared, and when it had been by chance translated into German. To write in Danish is as a rule to write in water.
It would be very ungrateful of me, on this occasion, when I am obliged to use sharp words to the Poles, not to remember the indescribable affection and kindness they have shown me in Russian Poland as well as in Austrian Poland. Among them I have found quite incomparable friends.
For a long time I have therefore refused to say an unkind, not to mention an offensive word. As far back as in 1898 I refused so absolutely to make myself the advocate of the Ruthenians against them that the Ruthenian leaders became my bitter enemies, who never tired of attacking me, and I was mute as a fish when Björnstjerne Björnson, not long before his death, upon application of the Ruthenians, attacked the Poles, fortunately for them with such unreasonable exaggerations that the attacks did no harm. (Björnson maintained that the Pole as such was the devil himself as the Middle Ages had imagined him.) I knew better than Björnson what might be said against electioneering and pressure on electors in Galicia, but I remained silent because I considered it unworthy to attack a people which was in such a difficult position and which was able to defend many minor injustices committed by it as self-defense. I considered it especially impossible for me to attack the Poles to whom I was bound by honor and toward whom I bore the warmest, most sincere sympathy.
It is therefore with no light heart that I write these lines.
Denial of the rights of man to Jewish subjects belongs to the nature of Russia. Now and then Europe has been startled when an uncommon massacre of innocent Jews has taken place, as in Kishineff, but all have known and know that Russia stows her Jewish population together in the Polish outskirts of the realm, stows them together so tightly that they can neither live nor die, denies them the liberty of moving, the liberty of studying, even the right of school—and university—education beyond a certain (too small) percentage. Only such Jews who hold a university degree are allowed to live in the capitals of the Empire. No young Jewish woman is allowed to take up her abode near the universities in Petrograd or Moscow, unless she has been enrolled as a prostitute, and it has happened that the police have made their appearance and accused her of forgery, complaining that she did not carry on her profession, but was reading scientific books instead. If a man is, for instance, a doctor of medicine, he may take up his abode in Moscow; in case he is married his wife may live there with him. But if the couple has a two-year-old child, the mother is not allowed to take it with her into the railway carriage and let it live with her in the capital. For the child has no right to live there. If this right is wanted a detailed petition must be sent in to the Governor General, in whose power it is to grant or refuse it.