well-dressed man, whose face was shaven and whose trousers were creased
after the manner of Americans. In good English although with a strong
accent, he called my name and brought back to my memory a journey across
the sea, and a start in life together on this side. “And how are you
getting along, Abromowitz?” “Getting along like pulling teeth.” “What do
you mean?” “I am learning to be a dentist with my father-in-law, who
keeps a fine office.” “Where do you live?” “On Rivington Street, and you
must come to see me.” I followed him into a tenement house of the better
class, and found him rather well situated. The home which consisted of
three rooms contained all the hall marks of American civilization.
Carpets of various hues were upon the floor, coloured supplements of
Sunday newspapers lined the walls, a huge plush album contained
pictures of the friends left behind and the new ones made in America,
and “last but not least” on the wall hung crayon portraits of himself
and his bride in their wedding attire. They also possessed a phonograph
on which they played for my special benefit the latest songs current in
the variety theatres. The young husband told me of his increasing
prosperity, and when I questioned him as to why he did not move into a
better locality, he answered, that he had contemplated doing so, even
having rented a flat out towards Harlem; but when he and his wife viewed
the neighbourhood they found that it was peopled by Russian Jews not of
their own native region, so they preferred to remain on Rivington
Street. To them that street is only a suburb of Minsk; here the news
drifts with every incoming steamer, and although it is almost always sad
news, they thus keep in close touch with the weal and woe of their
kindred and acquaintances.
I have made it an especial task to follow as closely as possible the
career of a hundred Russian Jews with whom I have come in touch during
my journeys and investigations. Although they did not pass into my field
of observation together, and represent various ages and conditions, the
following may be of interest: After five years, about forty per cent.
had learned to speak English very well, and about fifteen per cent.
could write it almost faultlessly, while more than sixty per cent. could
read English newspapers. Of this number seventy-eight per cent. had
become wage-earners and only fifteen per cent. of these had not
materially improved their lot in life. Eighteen were citizens of the
United States, three were Social Democrats of an intense type, five
believed that way, but voted the Republican ticket, and the rest were
divided on national questions about evenly between the two dominant
parties. They voted as they pleased in local affairs, although they were
strongly influenced first by Tammany and later by the Hearst movement
which more and more dominates the east side of New York. Ninety-one per
cent. has ceased to be orthodox in their religious practices, although
in thirty-seven per cent. the “spirit was willing but the flesh was
weak.” All the Social Democrats with the exception of one, had entirely
drifted from their ancient moorings and were avowed atheists. As to
their relation to Christianity I asked one of them, “Do you know
anything about American Christians?” and he replied, “How shall I know
anything about Christians on the East side?” Nearly all of them were
saving some money and one of them had grown rich, at least in the
estimation of his neighbours, and he was in the real estate business.
Among all of them there has been an intellectual awakening. As one of
them said: “They have room to think though they have but little
leisure.”
Modifications and almost marvellous transformations had taken place in
the features of many, and these were the men who had thought themselves
most into our life. Whether there was growth in ethical conception it is
hard to say, for one cannot easily reach beyond the exterior in
sociological observations, and depths do not disclose themselves when
one watches people by the hundred. Their business sense certainly has
not grown less keen, and making money is as much an object in life as it
always was. Perchance even a little more. The scale of things has
changed. I find in most of them that they are more honest in little
things, which comes from the fact that they need not be penurious. The
real estate dealer is an unscrupulous sharper, I know, but in that he
merely shares the unenviable reputation of his guild.
I should say that many of the surface vices born of certain economic
conditions have disappeared, although I do not see that any great
virtues have taken their places or that at the present time any great
ethical movement is apparent. The synagogue is sterile in that
direction, and the average Rabbi among this class is no ethical factor.
The public schools, which of course reach only the children, are much
too crowded and have such a superabundance of raw material to work upon
that it is impossible for them to reach deep enough into the crowded
life of the Ghetto. Great ethical factors are the Jewish Alliance
already mentioned, Cooper Institute, with its many lectures and Sunday
afternoon services, and some of the settlements in which many honest
attempts are made and splendid results achieved.
But “Salvation is still from the Jews,” still from within, and the best
thing which can be done for the Russian Jews of New York, and for all
the Jews in America, is to make them more truly Jewish, and that is a
task at which happily both Jew and Christian may work, and for that task
we all need the larger vision which comes partially, at least, from
knowing one another.
XII
THE SLAVS AT HOME
Nearly the whole eastern portion of Europe is Slavic territory, and
although here and there broken into by other races, it is the Slav’s own
world which he inhabits. A world which is constantly growing larger in
spite of the fact that his advance in Asia has been checked.
One need not travel longer than a few hours from the German cities of
Berlin, Leipsic, from the Austrian capital, Vienna, or from Venice, in
Italy, to find himself far from German speech, habits and customs.
On the Baltic and on the Adriatic, as well as on the Black Sea, the Slav
holds complete possession, although politically he may not everywhere be
the master. He undoubtedly differs in many ways from his close
neighbours, but just where that difference lies is hard to tell, because
the portrayal of the characteristics of a race seems perilous, the
danger being to ascribe to a nation, as traits, the agreeable or
disagreeable impressions gathered from individuals during visits of
shorter or longer duration. Inherited prejudices play no little part in
such judgments; and, again, we too often hear nations given praise or
blame which is based upon an indigestible dish, a disagreeable day, a
good glass of wine, or joyous _camaraderie_.
To characterize the Slav is doubly difficult, because he has managed in
the last twenty years to start many conflicts, and therefore has made
enemies, who are apt to ascribe to him uncomplimentary characteristics.
The Englishman has disagreeable notions of the Slav in the East, the
German has his Polish problem, the Austrian has the belligerent Czech,
the Italian on the Adriatic has the assertive Illyrian; the Turk doesn’t
think very highly of his Slav neighbours, the Bulgarians and
Montenegrins. It is not only hard not to be prejudiced against the Slav,
but it is hard to be informed about him; first, because he has written
very little about himself, with a few notable exceptions, and, secondly,
because there are so many Slavic tribes which have remained isolated one
from the other, have developed upon different lines, or have been
influenced by the stronger race to which they happened to be neighbours,
so that many characteristics which we ascribe to them are often the
borrowed virtues, or more frequently the sins, of their neighbours.
[Illustration: FROM THE BLACK MOUNTAIN.
There is no more sturdy stock in Europe than the Slav of Montenegro,
none more ready to turn from gun to wood axe, from blood-revenge to
citizenship.]
The Wends, Poles, and Bohemians show in speech and life influences of
their German neighbours; the Slovak in Hungary has a strong Magyar
taint; the Croatian, Servian, Bulgarian, and the Montenegrin come
dangerously near the Turk; the Dalmatian on the Adriatic, in spite of
his resistance against it, shows influences of Venice, not only in the
magnificent architecture of his churches, but also in language and
character; while the Slovene of the Alps has received much good from his
brave Tyrolese neighbours whom of course he in turn has influenced.
The only Slavic people who present an unbroken surface for observation
are the Russians, who, undivided by high mountains or other natural
difficulties, have blended their differences to some extent, and have
become a vast nation, with a common language, a common faith, and
certain characteristics which have become the common possession of all
the people. But to generalize even about the Russian is impossible,
inasmuch as there are at least two well-defined types, divided
geographically, and differing not only in outward appearance, but in
nearly everything about which one is sorely tempted to write in general
terms.
The Great Russian, who occupies the largest part of his native land, is
undoubtedly of mixed blood, the Finnish extraction manifesting itself in
the flattened features and the protruding cheek-bones; while his enemies
say that you need not scratch him long before you strike the Tartar. He
is rather roughly made, his features are anything but delicate, the nose
is heavy and inclined to be pugnacious (this may be taken as the
general tendency of the Slavic nose), his eyes are brown or pale blue,
and friendly, and the face is suffused by a health-betraying glow. The
colour of the hair is seldom or never black, and shades all the way from
a light brown to a definite red, and from that to a rather indefinite
blond.
The other pronounced type is that of the Little Russian, who occupies
nearly all the southern portion of the country, and differs from his
more numerous brothers in physique and habits as the southern people
usually differ from the northern. The Little Russians are, generally
speaking, smaller, the face more delicately chiselled, complexion and
hair darker, their women vivacious and handsome, and they claim to be of
purer Slavic blood, although you do not have to scratch them at all to
find the Tartar.
The Slav has moved from the Dnieper as far east as the Ural, and has
moved beyond it as fast as steam could carry him. He has entered the
heart of Europe, is at the doors of the German capital, and has almost
supplanted the native Austrian in Vienna. In the Alps, on its southern
slopes, he has built his huts within nature’s citadels, and faces Italy
on the Adriatic. In the Balkans he has asserted himself, has shaken off
the yoke of Islam, and is destined to be the master of the Bosphorus;
while the Karpathians, which, like a crescent, wind about Hungary, are
the stronghold of the ever-increasing Slav.
In a larger measure the other Slavic tribes on non-Russian soil differ
one from another; thus, the Dalmatian is the giant among them, and he of
the Boche de Cattaro is a veritable Slavic Apollo, measuring, on an
average, six feet three inches. He is dark-skinned, and graceful in his
movements. But size and beauty decrease as one travels northward through
Bulgaria and Servia into Hungary, Bohemia, and Poland.
One despairs of designating as a race, or even as a nation, a people
which differs more widely than one can tell within the limits of a
chapter; people who have neither a history nor a literature in common,
and whose language, although philologically one, varies so that if they
undertook to build a tower or an empire, the confusion of the Biblical
Babel would find a parallel in modern history.
And yet these differing tribes or nationalities have some things in
common, especially in the social life and organism. There is, first of
all, a temper which is among all of them impassive, seldom aroused even
under the influence of drink. This explains the ease with which they
have been conquered by other races, seldom coming to independence, only
the nature of their country having compelled the Russians to make a
Russia, which they were a long time in making. This also explains the
despotism of the Czar, the patience with which it has been borne, and
the long stretches of years without revolution or reformation. But now
his wrath is kindled and the oppression of years has aroused his fury.
The Slav is not a builder of empires, because he is not a citizen but a
subject--a severe master or a submissive servant. As a rule, he bears
oppression patiently, shrinks from overcoming obstacles, is seldom
inquisitive enough to climb over the mountains which lock in his native
village to see what is beyond them, never cares much for the sea and its
perils, the Russian’s desire for harbours being a political necessity
rather than a natural want. Even a democratic institution, such as the
“mir” in Russia, which borders strongly upon communism, and is by some
scholars urged as an indication of the Slavs’ independent spirit, is to
me a proof of their lack of that spirit. Any one who has been at a
meeting of the “mir” knows that the one or the few never dissent; things
go just as they come, and the strong rascal (and there are such among
the Slavs) rules “mir” or “bratstvo” at his own pleasure, and no one
says, “Why do ye so?”
The family bears among the Slavs strong archaic forms, especially among
those of the south, where the bratstvo (brotherhood) is still the unit.
A bratstvo occupies, according to its size, one or more villages; and
church, cemetery, meadows, and mills are held in common. Besides these
peaceful possessions, they have every quarrel in common, and every
member of the bratstvo is most ready to avenge the honour of his people.
These are characteristics visible in their colonies in America. In
Montenegro, the Herzegovina, and also in some parts of Dalmatia, blood
vengeance is still practiced, and it not seldom happens that, to avenge
one life, war is waged until there is not one male member left who can
carry a gun; then the quarrels are continued by the next generation. The
bratstvo is ruled by an elder, elected by all its male members. He is
their justice of the peace, the presiding officer at all meetings, and
in case of war is the captain of his company. The members of a bratstvo
consider themselves blood relatives, intermarriages were formerly
prohibited, and even now are not common. The aristocratic spirit shows
itself in the fact that mechanics, especially blacksmiths, are expelled
from it and share none of its privileges or responsibilities. The elder
of the bratstvo, or household, is an embryo Czar, and the honours shown
to him by all its members express the reverence which the Slav always
shows to those in authority. He can withhold permission for smoking,
dancing, or playing; no one touches the food until he has tasted it, no
one is seated in his presence until he has permitted it; he is the one
member of the household who has an individual spoon, which may not be
used in the cooking; and yet from experience I know that he may
sometimes play the Czar too much, and that there is temper enough left
in the household, if not in the men at least in the women, to make it
decidedly uncomfortable for him, and to remind him of his plebeian
origin and his democratic relatives.
The further north one travels, the more the bratstvo decreases, although
the large communal households do not entirely disappear even in Russia.
Everywhere the bond of relationship is very strong, and to become the
godfather of a child unites one to its family for weal or woe. There is
one relationship common among the southern Slavs which exceeds that of
the closest tie of blood; it is that of _probratimtsvo_, or
_prosestrimtstvo_, a brotherhood or sisterhood, or close friendship,
between two men or two women, or even between a man and a woman, which
among orthodox Slavs is still solemnized with the sacraments of the
church. Of course this solemn service is followed by a feast, and the
following toast shows the spirit of that occasion:
With whom drink I to-day?
With thee, honoured brother, with thee drink I to-day
In God’s name.
The Virgin bless thine earthly store;
Increase thine honour more and more;
Be near thy friend with helpful deed,
But never thou his help to need.
God grant thee much of earthly bliss,
And may the saints thy forehead kiss.
May wine for friends abundant flow,
And children in thy household grow.
May God unite our house and land,
As we thus grasp each other’s hand.
Admirable as is the family tie which binds the Slav, abhorrent even to
the strongest “Slavophile” is the position occupied by woman in the
family and in the social life among Southern and Eastern Slavs. To
escape the charge of prejudice, I shall quote a few proverbs current
among the Southern Slavs--a few out of many hundreds:
The man is the head, the woman is grass.
One man is worth more than ten women.
A man of straw is worth more than a woman of gold.
Let the dog bark, but let the woman keep silent.
He who does not beat his wife is no man.
“What shall I get when I marry?” asks a boy of his father. “For
your wife a stick, for your children a switch.”
Twice in his life is a man happy: once when he marries, and once
when he buries his wife.
And the woman sings in the Russian folk-song, which I have freely
translated,
Love me true, and love me quick,
Pull my hair, and use the stick.
Although there are love-songs of another kind, in which woman is
praised for her charms, she becomes virtually a slave as soon as she
marries, and the little poetry of the folk-song does not accompany her
even to the marriage altar. She is valued only for the work she can do
in a household and for the children she can bear; and should this latter
blessing be denied her, her lot becomes doubly pitiable, and she
sometimes seeks release by suicide, after which the proverb says of her,
“It is better thus; a barren woman is of no use in the world.” In
Montenegro the proverb says, “My wife is my mule,” and she is treated
accordingly; and to see her bent double beneath her load of wood, flour,
or oil, while her liege lord walks erect by her side, with his arsenal
of weapons in his girdle, is to see the proverb in action. Yet here,
where woman’s lot is the worst, woman’s virtue is regarded most highly,
the penalty for adultery being swift death, and the social vice almost
unknown.
It would, of course, be unjust to charge every Slav with beating his
wife, but, unfortunately, it is the rule rather than the exception among
the peasants; and the lot of the Slavic woman grows better only as the
Slav is further from Eastern barbarism and nearer to Western
civilization. Yet she is wooed with the same ardour as is her more
favoured sister, and perhaps she is loved just as much by her husband,
only he has a strange way of showing his affection. That the Slavic
woman possesses the qualities to make of herself a “new woman” can be
plainly seen among the women of the higher class in Russia, where there
is a second paradise for women; America, by common consent, being the
first.
Among all the Slavs music is much loved, and the fields in the busiest
harvest-time are melodious from song. The Czech’s love for music has
become proverbial, although the proverb is not complimentary to him and
was invented by his enemies. It is said that when a Czech boy is born,
the nurse holds up to him a penny and a violin; if he seizes the penny,
he will be a thief; if the violin, he will be a musician. It is true
that every Czech village has its band, which often wanders all over
Europe, making melody as it goes; and, in nine cases out of ten, the
“Leetle Sherman pand” upon which the American bestows his pennies and
his jokes does not come from Germany at all, but from some village in
Bohemia. Mechanical musical instruments have played havoc with the
native genius of these people. Slavic music has a melancholy strain, and
this is especially true of the music of the Southern Slav, whose simple
musical instruments, the “swirala” and the “gusla,” are not capable of
giving one joyous note, even at a wedding. They may be truly called
Jeremiac instruments. With love of music goes the love of dancing, and
the Czechs and Poles invent new dances for every occasion, while the
Southern Slavs cling to their monotonous national “kolo,” which is a
reckless sort of kicking exercise, accompanied by the aforesaid
instruments, while some old minstrel sings of the heroic deeds of the
past.
Cities among the Slavs are rare; the people usually live in villages,
nearly all of which have common characteristics. It seemed strange to
find that I could walk through a Russian village near Moscow, and yet
could easily think myself among the Slovaks, thousands of miles away, or
even among the more picturesque Dalmatians on the Adriatic. The villages
all look alike. There is always one street, and just one, in the
village; one wood or mud house leans against the other, one thatched
roof overlaps the other, and there is never more than one fire at a time
in a village like this; for generally the whole business burns down at
once. The barns, called “stodoly,” are generally built together, a short
distance from the village. The church occupies the centre of the
village, and near by is a mud-puddle, where geese, pigs, and babies take
their daily swim. Put into some convenient place a pump, tie some
ox-teams to it, place in the foreground clouds of dust or a sea of mud,
and you have a fair picture of Slavic villages.
Of course they differ in degrees of ugliness, the Russian village taking
the first prize for unadulterated homeliness, as there is no sign of
beauty, not even a primitive attempt at decoration, anywhere. Among the
Slovaks in Hungary, and among the neighbouring tribes, there is an
attempt at art. Crudely painted houses are the rule, and somewhere about
them there will be an indication of decoration, but it requires a vivid
imagination to find out just what it is, the art spirit being strong but
undeveloped.
Little flower-gardens near or around the houses are seldom or never seen
in Russia, but are common among the Czechs and other Western Slavs. The
interior of the houses differs among them as to size and arrangement.
The Russian house has two rooms, separated by the main entrance. One is
called the cold room and the other the hot room. The hot, or winter room
has as its chief possession a brick bake, cook, and heating stove or
oven, the top of which is the bedstead in the winter-time; and a very
comfortable place it is. The cleanliness in these Slavic homes is also
of varied degrees, and is often conspicuous by its absence. Dirt, I am
sorry to say, is often in evidence, and certain insects which would
annoy us dreadfully exist in these rooms in uncountable numbers, but are
treated with silent contempt, which does not tend to their diminution.
The Slavic tribes differ in their costumes, but nearly all of them have
retained the sheepskin coat, which they wear summer and winter. The
wool is turned inside. The skin is often coloured red, and the legs of
the sheep hang over the shoulders. Both men and women wear this coat;
but, of course, the woman’s coat is decorated in fantastic ways and
costs a great deal of money. The rest of the man’s attire consists of
linen trousers and shirt, home-made from the tough fibre to the coarse
stitching. A cap is also worn, and in Russia is generally of fur. There
are numberless varieties of this dress, but in each village all dress
alike, differing only in the fineness of the material used.
“How do the women dress?” Can a man ever describe a woman’s dress? And
can any mortal describe the Slavic woman’s dress, when in nearly every
village they have a peculiar style? And, oh! what styles! Colour in
everything; red, yellow, silver, and gold, laces and embroideries and
what-not, costing sometimes nearly two hundred dollars. But, of course
they do not get a new dress every year, just one in a lifetime, or, if
they are really good, maybe two. The costliness of the woman’s dress is
the cause of much suffering, for, although the styles do not change,
vanity is a shrewd mistress, and will put a half-inch broader lace upon
a woman’s cap, thus setting all the feminine hearts on fire from envy;
and the next market day the broader lace will be shading every woman’s
eyes, although perhaps a feather-bed had to be pawned, or next winter’s
pig had to wander to the butcher’s ere its time had come.
Among the Slovaks, with whom woman’s garb is most costly and most
picturesque, there is a great desire to lay it aside and adopt the more
fashionable dress of society; for the peasant’s costume compels one to
be addressed as an inferior--_ti_ (thou)--and putting on the modern garb
puts one, at least in the eyes of strangers, upon a higher social level,
and _onyi_ (you) is the pronoun used.
The Slavic peasant lives simply enough at home. His food consists
largely of a vegetable diet, and meat on the table is the sign of a
holiday, a wedding, or of a fortunate excursion into a neighbour’s
chicken-coop or pig-sty. Among one large tribe they have only one meal a
day, usually at noon. It is cooked in the morning and kept warm under
the ashes or under the feather-bed until it is time to eat it.
The main staples of diet among all are, potatoes, black, sour rye bread,
cabbage for soups and cakes; _kascha_, or gruel; and, finally
_barshtsh_, a concoction made of beets, and not half so bad as it looks.