Nordic type predominates on the whole. Denmark's share,
especially in the organizing aspects of the great maritime
movements of post-Roman times, is well known, but Petersson's view
that this occurred during a period of favourable climate and
ice-free coasts in the northern seas helps one to realize the connexion
of that activity with a particular period. The association of
Denmark and Norway in maritime activity was long continued,
and when the latter fell on bad times in the Middle Ages, the
domination of the former became very marked. The political
aspect of the matter is outside our scope, but with the nineteenth
century the weakening of Denmark under German pressure
loosed the bonds, and circumstances gave Norway in the end
a remarkable opportunity. It thus came about that in 1864
Denmark saw the end of her _ancien régime_, and began a new career.
The name of her Bishop Grundtvig stands out in company with
that of Abbé of Jena and a few others in the drab century of
commercial imperialisms. He set out to re-educate the Danish
people in co-operation and simplicity, and, with his high schools
for the development not so much of the technicalities as of the
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amenities of life, he became one of those who builded better than
he knew. The sheer financial success of the new agriculture of
Denmark, thanks to skilled co-operative organization, is an
outstanding phenomenon, however much may be due to the general
increase of prosperity of the stock-raiser in the regions round the
manufacturing centres. Copenhagen has become a centre for
the wholesale marketing of butter, with train ferries and other
communications making links with Esbjerg, with Germany, with
Sweden, and across to the east side of the Baltic. Like Switzerland
and Holland, Denmark contributes in no small measure to the
intellectual life of Europe, partly through the opportunities her
sons find in Berlin and other large centres of the big nations.
Of the first peopling of Norway comparatively little is known,
but the population must have been sparse indeed until man was
fairly well equipped to cope with that region's serious difficulties.
It is a country of ledges along a broken coast, fantastically cut
by fjords which are deep valleys of the edge of a high plateau
modified by ice and then partially submerged under the sea.
The partial submergence has converted outlying hillocks into
a maze of islands, between which and the land there is, for long
distances, a fairly open channel, an old longitudinal valley no
doubt. The men of the fjords are in large measure of the tall,
fair, long-headed Nordic type, but around the seaward ends of
the southern fjords are dark broad-heads, who in this case are
almost beyond doubt settlers from the sea. The physical geography
of Trondhjem Fjord, on land and water, helps to make clear its
special early importance, particularly during a period of good
climate, but the whole of Norway suffered sadly in the fourteenth
century from bad harvests and Hanseatic interference, and from that
time onwards to the nineteenth century Norway's fortunes were low.
As in other lands of ancient poverty (note Finland and Switzerland)
the nineteenth century brought the final merging of the
old aristocracy in the people; the relation with Denmark was
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loosed and a temporary link with Sweden, partly under fear of
Russian Tsarist aggression, did not take deep root in the lives of
the people. Much importance must be attached to the linguistic
and literary revival of which the famous Bjornsen is the central
figure. Meanwhile British Free Trade, and especially the repeal
of the British Navigation Acts (1849), gave the Norse sailor and
shipbuilder a chance, and the country developed a great mercantile
marine, which managed to maintain itself until 1914, in spite of
the advent of the iron ship and steamer. During and since the
war Norway has not managed to keep pace with other mercantile
marines like those of the United States of America and Japan.
Internally, Norway was from far-off times till quite recently
a people of fisher-farmers prizing individual property on the small
cultivable ledges beside the fjords, and leading cattle to summer
pastures on the high grasslands of the great mountain plateau.
The practice of inheritance by the first-born son is traditionally
associated with these little farms so difficult to subdivide, and the
long-continued absences of much of the male part of the population
(fishing) are another feature. The latter fact is said to be
accountable for the unique power of women in Norwegian affairs,
and the women have certainly contributed much to the modern
development of Norway as a pacific, self-reliant democracy. In
the twentieth century there has already been a great growth
of industry based on the hydro-electric power available in such
quantity in the fjords; the chemical industry, including the
preparation of nitrates from atmospheric nitrogen, is a feature.
Since the war the value of Norwegian currency has gone down
with the slackness of shipping and the inability of Germany to
trade as she used to do, but the depreciation is not very great,
and may well right itself if the war-clouds clear. Fish and timber
have long been, and are likely to remain, valuable commercial
assets; the need of imported cereals is a permanent difficulty.
At the back of Norway, on the high mountain plateau, are the
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Lapps, whose seasonal wanderings disregard the international
frontier between Norway and Sweden. Fortunately, therefore,
when Sweden and Norway gave up (in 1905) their artificial and
temporary union, it was mutually agreed, as became enlightened
peoples, that the frontier would be entirely demilitarized. The
separation coincided with a great development of Norway's trade,
based upon the application of hydro-electric power to industry.
The Norwegian people centuries ago seemed to be giving up
their language for Danish, but here, as in so many other countries
(Bohemia, Serbia, Finland, Flanders, Catalonia, and Wales), the
nineteenth century brought a resurgence of local speech, and the
work of Bjornsen and Ibsen gave that speech a literary standard,
and made its literature a power in the modern world, fortunately
with comparatively little development of international antagonism,
for by this time there was no language competing locally with
Norwegian; Danish had retired and Swedish was too far off to
matter seriously, though its pressure was at one time threatened.
The Western Scandinavians of late Viking times spread across
the northern seas to Iceland, Greenland, and 'Wineland', which
has been identified with the New England coast of North America.
The connexion with America was lost, and that with Greenland
almost, if not quite, lost as well, probably in the severities of
climate of the fourteenth century, but that with the Faroes and
Iceland persisted. In this way Iceland has become in some sort
a repository of the Scandinavian past, and thence has spread in
modern times a knowledge and appreciation of the ancient sagas
of the Norse rovers, with elements embedded in them that date
back far beyond Viking times. Icelandic and the literature
embodied in it have thus become an important matter for students
of European tradition and literary history, and the influence
thence exerted on modern Germany, notably through Wagner,
has been far-reaching and many-sided.
Sweden's associations are necessarily very different from those
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of Norway. It is true that the high plateau is fairly sharply
marked off from the rest of Sweden, but the steps down are less
precipitous than on the Norwegian side, and though Sweden has
a Lapp-world as her mystery soil for folk-tale, yet contacts between
Swede and Lapp and Finn do take place and influence type.
The recent beautiful atlas of photographs of Swedish types
illustrates this for that country, but shows that the most
characteristic element, as in Norway, is the tall, fair Nordic type.
It is apparently chiefly since the recovery of the north from the
severities of the fourteenth-century climate that Sweden as a unit
people has shown the most marked activity. A factor in this was
undoubtedly the weakening effect of the great religious schism in
Germany with the opportunities this gave to the France of the
Counter-Reformation and the Bourbons.
Sweden even went through a phase of control of nearly the
whole of the Baltic (_c._ 1660), but this could not be maintained,
though the southern peninsula of Scania has never returned to
its old associations, which date back to prehistoric times, with
Denmark. The rise of Russia brought about the withdrawal
of the Swedish influence from the east side of the Baltic, but the
Finlanders of the south-west include several Swedish-speaking
groups, and 96 per cent. in Aland use that language. The episode
of military glory contributed to the maintenance of a local
aristocracy, which has made Sweden very distinct, socially, from
Norway, though democratization has gone a long way even here,
and no new titles of nobility are created. Her more extensive
lowlands, with possibilities of wheat in the southern half, make
farming a richer matter than it can be in either Norway or
Finland, while timber and good iron ore open up industrial and
commercial possibilities, to which the zone of lakes and its canal
system contribute not a little in the way of transport facilities.
Sweden is thus a relatively rich Baltic land, though many features
are shared in common with the peoples of the other (Finnish,
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Lettish, and German) Baltic coasts, and her natural associations
with Baltic Germany should be understood and appreciated.
Sweden has come through the war with her money at a general
European premium, a distinction she shares with Holland and
Switzerland alone among all the peoples of Europe.
7
_The Peoples on the Eastern Border of
Europe-of-the-Sea_
We have now surveyed the linguistic groups of Romance, Celtic,
and Teutonic speech, and may note that among those of Celtic
speech we find the most marked survivals of antiquity in social
features. Among the Romance- and Teutonic-speaking peoples we find
that there has long been a tendency towards closer accord between
linguistic and political groupings, and that now, with some exceptions
it is true, the political units are also linguistic ones. The
regions of Romance and Teutonic speech are the great regions of
organization of the State; they have a stable scheme of administration
and revenue, a settled legal order, an approach to representative
government based upon a franchise; in short, they are
the regions of the patriotic nation-state. The exceptions have
been noted here and there in the above sketch. Alsace is
Alemannic in speech but French in attachment in many respects.
Switzerland is a unique combination of units belonging to three
language groups. Flanders, or the area of Flemish speech, is
partly in France and partly in Belgium. Flanders and Alsace are
two of the most serious of European problems, and even if they
be mitigated by political foresight, the dangers from them are
not likely to diminish definitively unless the 'nation-state' can
be made to occupy less of the political horizon.
When we turn our attention eastwards from the lands of
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Romance and Teutonic to those of Slavonic and Baltic languages,
we find that, until recently at all events, there was no accord
between the political and the linguistic units, and that, even now,
the accord is fragmentary enough. We find also that in place of
the principle of 'one region, one language', which applies broadly
in the west, there is nearly always a minority language alongside
the majority one. The 1914-18 crisis has shown how very unstable
were the political units of the last fifty years, and the
'nation-state', that is a settled administration worthy of the name of
'state' combined with a social unit based upon tradition, has
only just begun its career in Eastern Europe. Furthermore, in
this eastern part of Europe we find languages of non-European
character in Finland, Esthonia, Hungary, and Turkey, and to
some extent in Bulgaria. This is then the zone of Euro-Asiatic
contacts and interpenetrations, and these contacts have determined
a great deal of the characteristics of the social order in
this part of the Continent.
While the above statement is broadly true, it must, nevertheless,
be stated that history records considerable and persistent, if
partially unsuccessful, efforts to develop the nation-state in those
western Slavonic lands which felt the influence of Rome either
through the Empire or through the Church, while the contagion
of nineteenth-century nationalism has spread far and wide.
During the period of close settlement and fixation of language
and of growth of administration in the west there were periods
of pressure Europewards from Asia, illustrated by the coming
of Szeklers and Magyars, and the formation of the Magyar kingdom
of Hungary, by the advance of the Bulgars, since practically
Slavonized, by the pressure of the Mongols on Russia, and by the
spread of the Turks. The spread of Finn or Finno-Ugrian peoples
westward along the north is probably older, and has been more
gradual and less organized.
Apart from this northern Finn-route and subordinate
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Finn-ways (Perm, Kazan, Samara) to the Volga, the westward roads
have been along the loess, either that of the Polish platform or
that of Wallachia and the Hungarian plain, and the defence of
the west against pressure along these ways gathered chiefly around
Vienna and around Poland (Cracow in earlier times and Warsaw
later on). Austria, as we now know it, was once the Ostmark,
the eastern march or frontier domain of the German-speaking
peoples, and the Austro-Hungarian Empire which has just
collapsed after a long process of decay was the fruition of the
organization that defended Western Europe from Asiatic pressure
on the south-east. It was obviously not a nation-state, for besides
its German and Magyar elements it included under its control
the many Slavonic and partially Slavonic people of the hill frame
around the middle Danube. Its day of greatness coincided with
the holding up and the beginning of retreat of the Turkish
pressure; its subsequent history is one of clever diplomacy aiming
at maintaining a power created for a purpose that was now no
more. The improbability of any renewal of effective pressure
from Asia on the now so highly armed west of Europe did away
with the _raison d'être_ of Vienna as a city of camp and court, and
it will require a higher development of European unity to make
Vienna take its definitive place as the nerve centre of the
Continent's land-communications. For the present, therefore, the
size and magnificence of Vienna seem to lack justification, and
there is manifest distress. A far smaller city would do admirably
for the capital of the small area henceforward to be called Austria,
and the past traditions of Vienna expressed in palaces and luxuries
are hardly what would naturally grow up around a modern railway
centre. When, however, we realize the need for increased
unity of Europe we cannot but feel how valuable the University
Museums and Libraries of Vienna might be were they internationally
developed so as to give Europe a natural culture-centre
second only to Paris. The suggestion to make Vienna the
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capital of the League of Nations revealed an over-emphasis on the
military and diplomatic tradition of Vienna, an aspect of that
city's life which it might be perilous to redevelop.
But as we are concerned with the peoples of Europe rather than
with the states, this slight mention of Vienna must suffice, and
we may proceed to deal with the linguistic groups of Europe east
of the Teutonic and Romance areas in the way in which we have
touched upon those of the west.
The Baltic or Letto-Lithuanian languages have already been
mentioned, and little more need be said save that they have long felt
the double pressure of Teutonic and Slavonic influences and have
absorbed words from both. Apart from them, the languages spoken
are largely of the Slavonic family, and it is frequently said that
the Slavonic languages are less distinct from one another than are
the languages of the Romance and the Teutonic families. They
have been less influenced by written forms than have the latter;
oral tradition has counted for more, and differences have
consequently not become so fixed as farther west. There is a certain
amount of dispute as to the primary home of Slavonic speech,
but it seems increasingly likely that it arose as an adaptation of
older forms of Indo-European languages by the people of the
Carpathian arc and the Polish platform on its north-eastern
flank, and that it spread thence especially in the post-Roman
centuries. Schlüter has found reason to believe in a considerable
movement from the hills to the valleys and plains in those centuries,
and with this we may connect progress of forest clearings and
spread of Slav languages, especially towards Muscovy. Most of
the regions of Slav speech came into touch with Christianity first
of all through Constantinople, but in the case of the more westerly
ones the influence of the Roman Church outweighed that of its
eastern sister before many centuries had passed, and the Roman
principles spread eastward as far as the bounds of what has been
called above 'Europe-of-the-Sea'.
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8
_The Slav-speaking Peoples and the Borders
of the East_
Of the western Slavonic-speaking peoples the Czechs, inhabiting
the hill-girt country of Bohemia, are among the most important.
They were first Christianized by the Eastern Church, but became
Roman Catholic, the early religious centre being at Taus
(Domazlice), at the Bohemian exit of a pass from Bavaria. Later on,
Prague was founded and became the capital, and it should be
noticed that in it, as in many other cities of Slavonic language,
the cathedral is within the castle, typifying association between
religious and political leadership, both being frequently more
western (German) than the rest of the population. It was natural
both that the small, compact, and distinct mass of Czechs should
early attain a sort of national self-consciousness, and that their
country, in spite of its physical separateness, should receive German
immigrants, especially up the Elbe gap. The distinctive personality
of Bohemia is illustrated by the fact that the University
of Prague, founded on the Paris model, was the first University
established beyond the Rhine; it is illustrated also by the fact
that Bohemia at so early a date, under John Huss (_c._ A.D. 1398),
revolted against Papal abuses, and would undoubtedly have become
schismatic had military force not been exerted strongly from
without. Nevertheless Bohemia has not been able to maintain
political independence in the past. After a short period of power
it subsided under Hapsburg influence as Vienna began to gather
Europe around her to defend Christianity. And later on (1620)
the Czechs were subjugated, and the Counter-Reformation and
the Jesuits with their universalist and anti-nationalist ideas
repressed the Slavonic tradition until it broke loose once more
in the revival of Romantic literature and Nationalist feeling
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which was such a feature of the nineteenth century. In that
century the rise of industry brought many more Germans into
North and North-west Bohemia, making that region a sort of
'Ulster', distinct in feeling from the rest of Bohemia, which is
far more agricultural. But the rise of Czech feeling spread
afresh the use of that language in spite of two centuries of
severe repression, and Prague had to develop Czech and German
Universities side by side. The relation of Bohemia to Vienna
politically was also reflected financially; Vienna was until 1918
to a large extent the money centre for Bohemia, while that country
supplied the rest of the Austro-Hungarian Empire with a large
proportion of its needs in manufactured goods. As a result of
the defeat of Germany and Austria-Hungary, Bohemia has risen
to power again, and has many advantages for the immediate
future in spite of dire need of fertilizers, machinery, and credit.
Her new government is promising well, and stands out in favourable
contrast to those of some of the other countries which have
risen suddenly after the war. Its problems will be that of
arranging for German co-operation and that of devising substitutes for
the old financial links with Vienna.
Between Bohemia and the Carpathians, or more strictly the
Tatra, is a physiographical trough such as so often occurs between
fold-mountains (e.g. Tatra) and old blocks (e.g. Bohemia). It
is occupied by the March (or Morava) river, is called Moravia,
and is known as the Moravian gate, for through it Vienna
communicates north-eastward not only with the Oder basin via
Breslau, but also with the Vistula basin via Cracow. Somewhat
more German than Bohemia the Moravian gate is still mainly
Slavonic, with dialects grading eastwards towards Polish. There
has been some difficulty in settling the limits of Moravia and
Poland, the former having properly been allocated to the Czech,
or better, Czechoslovak, state in the recent treaties. The dispute
centred chiefly upon Děčin
(formerly called Teschen), and was
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solved by the cession to Czechoslovakia of the greater part of
the coalfield and the railway which lies in Czechoslovakia, both
before it enters and after it leaves
Děčin territory. The town
of Děčin itself goes to Poland.
Not only does Czechoslovakia
include Moravia, but it also stretches along the south flank of
the Carpathians through a region of Slovak speech and rural
life right on to the small district where Ruthenian just emerges
west of the Carpathians. Thanks to their different language
these Ruthenians are to have local autonomy under Czechoslovakia.
The new state is thus of considerable size, and includes several
dialects of Slav; it is both agricultural and industrial; it is
keenly patriotic, and disposed, one hears, to split off from the
Roman Church, just as it was so disposed in the Middle Ages.
This state is contrasted to some extent with the majority of the
Slavonic regions, in that, in spite of a large German element,
there is more homogeneity and strength of cultural tradition
throughout the Czech country than there is among many other
Slav-speaking peoples.
Farther east the pressure from the Asiatic grasslands and
plateaux hindered the development of social settled life in the
Middle Ages, when it was progressing farther west, and as a
consequence the population of the towns is often different in tradition
from that of the country. In the rural districts, again, the
culture connexions of the ruling classes have often been different
from those of the simple village folk. The result is that in many
parts there have long been three social strata, often differing in
language, religion, and political association. Upper Silesia has,
in parts, German towns set in Polish country, and though some
of the German element is of fairly recent introduction (and
connected with industrial development), it nevertheless illustrates
the social and political problem.
In the Middle Ages the Jews previously inhabiting the Rhine
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lands found it difficult to fit into western schemes, as we know
from English history, and some moved eastwards (Ashkenazim)
into the Slav lands to form an important element of the
population of the towns, especially in Poland, where their numbers
were increased by Tsarist restrictions on their settlement in
Russia itself. Their language, Yiddish, is generally described as
a modified German dialect written in Hebrew characters and
owing some debt to Hebrew tradition in other respects. As they
have a linguistic and religious entity of their own, and as
inter-marriage with Gentiles has been restricted, it follows that they
form a very distinct block, most difficult to work into any State
organization of a western type. It must therefore be very open
to question whether the recent treaties endeavouring to spread
western state-theory eastwards are the best ways to provide for
the life of the people concerned. A modern state needs towns
and industry; the Jewish element in the towns of East-Central
Europe is enormously important, and cannot be dispensed with
save at great cost, as well as with the greatest injustice, and
yet assimilation of Jew to Gentile in East-Central Europe is
almost out of the question. The development of a nation-state is
necessarily held back when there are such diverse elements, and
League of Nations schemes for protection of minorities offer
a valuable line of progress if they can be realized.