Under the heading of 'Tardy Truths' _The New Nation_, of May 7th,
republished a compendium of matter some time back given to the world by
M. Emile de Girardin, in his paper _La Presse_, and in pamphlet form.
This matter purports to have been written by a so-called _ex-commandant_
in the late Polish insurrection, a certain M. Fouquet, of Marseilles.
Poland has no reason to fear truth. On the contrary, the difficulty has
been to find means to set it forth, avenues to the public intelligence
and sense of justice, whereby those might be reached who forget the
Latin saying: _Audi et alteram partem_. The Poles are willing to hear
reproaches, if such as may be profited by, or if the self-constituted
judges be conscientious and unprejudiced.
But, may we not ask why it is that many of these _so-called_ truths,
professedly founded upon personal acquaintance with Polish localities,
men, and institutions, spring from sources in many respects similar to
that of the recent publication in _La Presse_, from individuals who
never were in Poland beyond a few hours spent in Warsaw--who have seen
nothing of the country, except as passing in a passenger car from Kracow
to Mohilew, a distance of about seven hundred miles, traversed in about
twenty-four hours--who never understood one word of Polish, of Rossian,
or of any of the cognate tongues--who have never conversed freely with
the inhabitants--who may have been entertained during a few hours by
Government employés or by cautious and distrustful patriots--who were in
a hurry to see St. Petersburg and its _elephant_, and who learned Polish
history in the Kremlin, in the saloons of some former prince from the
Altay or the Caucasus, or, at best, in the work of M. Koydanoff?
_La Presse_, in Paris, undertook the charge of saying things which her
franker sisters, _Le Nord_ and _La Nation_, the avowed organs of Rossian
czarism, did not venture to propound. M. de Girardin, whose paper has,
since a certain period, taken a liberalistic, even socialistic,
infection, is a living example of sundry anomalous eccentricities, such
as Alcibiades, Gracchus, Mirabeau, etc., who speak most liberally, and
act in a contrary manner. He seems to have been adopted by Rossian
diplomatists, and those sanguine of Rossian _destiny_, as a most
convenient defender of czarish ambition--the more so that they found in
him a revealer of things never thought of by the czar; as for instance,
liberality and even democracy in Great Rossia, on the plains of Okka and
Petschora.
We might compare M. Fouquet's account of Poland with Neumann's account
of Kosciusko, or Freneau's of Washington, but will content ourselves
with referring the reader to better European sources of knowledge, as
the _Breslau Zeitung_, _Ost Deutsche Zeitung_, _Czas_, _Wiek_, _La
Pologne_, etc.
Indeed, it would not be worth our while to pay any attention to M.
Fouquet's allegations, had not the Paris letter of April 4th appeared in
the above-mentioned paper, and were it not likely to mislead many
ignorant of the facts.
The writer tells us that he has 'experienced a great temptation to tell
what he has seen,' and to 'expose the result of experience acquired at
his own cost, with all attendant risk and danger.' Probably we do not
understand the fear of the author of 'Tardy Truths,' and wish to give no
extended explanation to his conclusion: 'A rare opportunity occurs at
_present_, and he profits by it.' We have been taught that we must
always have courage to speak the truth. Surely no great amount of that
noble quality is required to make accusations in a paper far from the
scene of action, and pronounce a verdict where there can be no adequate
defence, no judges, only the advantage of the fashion of the day, and
the craving for problematical benefits and friendship, to which we must
apply Moore's comparison:
'Like Dead Sea fruits, that tempt the eye,
But turn to ashes on the lips.'
Let us never be deceived: a free nation in the embrace of absolutism
must, sooner or later, fall a prey to the cajoler's hypocrisy and greed.
The correspondent reports that the Polish Committee in Paris declined to
give him information or furnish means, and even said that they did not
wish volunteers. All this may readily be explained by the consideration
that a man who thereafter proved to be so bitter an enemy was not
sufficiently diplomatic to deceive even the obtuse perceptions of so
undeserving a body as the author describes said committee. On the other
hand, it would have been more prudent for the writer to have said less
on this topic, as such hesitation in accepting his services might induce
the reader to think that the Poles were not so anxious for external aid
as he seemed to fancy. We also know that not only at present in Poland,
but in former ages, and in our own days, in the happiest of countries,
there can be no revolution, no war, which will not attract a host of men
covetous of rank or fortune. Lately, in Poland, by certain judicious
arrangements, this calamity has been prevented, to the great
dissatisfaction of many.
No one can doubt or deny that the interest of various Governments, and
the sense of justice among nations, gave the Poles a right to expect
foreign aid. The assurances of certain politicians and statesmen even
gave _reasonable expectation_ of such a result. Such aid would of course
neither be rejected nor treated with indifference. But the assertion
that the Poles relied _solely_ on such aid is (in the face of the
manifesto of January 22d and July 31st, 1863) either a proof of ill
will, or of entire ignorance of the resources upon which Poland was
bound to rely, and which could not be intrusted to the discretion of
every volunteer or pretended well-wisher to the Polish nation.
Continuing his imputations, the accuser says he only learned afterward
why seven thousand Parisian workmen, registered at M. d'Harcourt's
committee, 'were not sent forth.' The probable purport of this reproach
is: 'They were not sent for fear of the introduction of liberal
elements--and the _proletariat_--into Poland.' As to the latter, we may
at once confidently answer that, were Poland free to-day, the condition
of the laboring class in Western Europe need not be dreaded for a
hundred years to come. As to the liberal element, does the author indeed
think that Poland has had no Liberalists similar to Voltaire, La
Mennais, Victor Hugo, L. Blanc, Mazzini, or Hertzen? Does he fancy that
Modzewski (in the sixteenth century), Skarga (a Catholic preacher in the
seventeenth), Morsztyn, Jezierski, Andrew Zamoyski, Hugo Kollontay,
Loyko (in the eighteenth), Staszye, Lelewel, Mochnacki, Ostrowski,
Czynski, Mieroslawski, and a host of others, contented with the private
good they did, and forced to shun the jealous watchfulness of suspicious
rulers--does he, we say, fancy that all these needed to be inspired by
the liberality of Parisian workmen, or even that all the aforesaid
workmen would apply themselves to the dissemination of liberal opinions?
It is indeed a great disadvantage to Polish Liberalists, philosophers,
and poets, that they speak and write in a tongue unknown to the noble
philanthropists of the West. A greater amount of knowledge would have
saved hasty tourists, _veracious_ lecturers, and all-knowing
diplomatists many errors in statement and conception, and much aversion
toward a noble people, who, if vanquished, will not be crushed, and will
always reserve the _right_ of _protest_.
At all events, this last conclusion of our correspondent leads us to
suspect that he may perchance never have been in Poland--perhaps never
even in Paris--since this _non-sending_ forth of seven thousand
Parisians was better understood by every _gamin du faubourg_ than
apparently by the _sincere_ narrator of 'Tardy Truths.'
The writer says further, that he expected to find in Kracow 'activity
and infinite means.' Now, the author and the confidence of the Poles
must have been quite strangers to one another, or his imagination must
have misled him farther than was becoming in a man of knowledge and
reflection. He does not mention the date of his journey, but we know
about the period referred to. It is true that at that time Kracow had
not yet been declared in a state of siege by M. Pouilly de Mensdorf,
but, as a personal friend of the Czar, he had then held Galicia and
Kracow during the past year under a more uncertain condition than even
the declaration of a state of siege would have produced. Twenty thousand
chosen officers and soldiers, with discretionary and greatly enlarged
powers, and almost as many policemen and spies, with early fed and
increasing covetousness for rewards, promotions, and orders, kept
constant watch over the ancient capital of Poland, the last remnant of
Polish nationality which had been engulfed in the European peace of
1846.
We may then safely assert that our author has given us sketches from his
whims and fancies, rather than the mature results of his judgment, and
that he has also neglected to direct his researches into the history of
the past. It is doubtless true that he was not desired as a volunteer,
and that he found danger only, and not fortune, which, indeed, we think
his own sagacity might have taught him from the first.
We would be forced to doubt that any one understood the policy of the
Polish Committee in Warsaw who should apply the epithet 'mercenary' to
the Polish soldiers. We would not ask our author how much he gave per
diem to those under his own command: we have no wish to rival the wit of
a Russian proclamation which appeared last winter in Warsaw, in which
the Poles in general, including those who fought at Orsza, Wielikie
Luki, Kirchholm, Chocim, Smolensk, Vienna, Zurich, Hohenlinden,
Samocierros, Pultusk, Grochow, Iganie, Zyzyny, Opatow, etc., etc., were
stigmatized as poltroons and cowards!
It is certainly true that the battles of late have not represented a
file of twenty thousand men, but to call them on that account _frontier
demonstrations_, is to add subtle calumny to ungenerous irony; it is a
deviation even from the very 'tardy truths.' It is an assertion not made
in an impartial spirit, but calculated in favor of, and determinately
stated with the intention of sustaining those who are exerting
themselves to prove that Minsk, Grodno, Mohilew, Wolhynia, Podole,
Plock, Augustow, Lithuania, Samogitia, Liefland, etc., were ancient
dependencies of Russia, before she had herself an existence either in
name or fact! If the originator of the term _frontier demonstrations_
would take the trouble to study the map, he would not be able to cherish
the delusion that his intelligent readers could believe that battles
fought near Kowno, Oszmiana, Upita, Poniewiez, Lida, Ihumen, Dubno,
Pinsk, Mscislaw, etc., were really _frontier demonstrations_!
This declaration of the letter from Paris to America would not be of
much service to _The Journal of St. Petersburg_ or _The Invalid_, of
Moscow, or increase their exhilaration over the extermination of the
Polish race, the destruction of Polish principles. There is nothing more
natural than that a rebuke to the _Siècle, Opinion Nationale, Patrie_,
and perhaps even others, should follow such statements--their views
undoubtedly stand in complete opposition to those held by M. de
Girardin, and advocated in _La Presse_.
The assertion that the Polish National Government had no object in view
but to excite and await the intervention of France; that Galicia was the
principal focus of the rebellion, and that the unknown Government had no
actual existence, is, on the one hand, an unskilful attempt to justify
the Governments of Russia and Austria, and, on the other, by the
ignoring of all the reports of the Polish National Government--all its
obvious facts, its printed documents, its acts everywhere known and
seen, its seizures of papers and documents--and to portray it as a
fraud, a myth, a dream of the imagination, a wild hallucination of a
disordered brain, it suggests to us the thought that the _tardy_ and
present truths here given us of Poland may perhaps have the same origin
as that famous description in one of the St. Petersburg papers, of 'the
at last truly discovered leader of the Polish insurrection,' which was
but a portraiture of a certain, not mentioned but easily guessed,
personage in Paris.
We have no reply to make to this reproach (we can only wonder that under
the circumstances they should ever have been made) that the Polish
volunteers were badly armed and illy managed--possibly they might have
been better even in a partisan war. But as to the want of skill in the
officers, including such as Skarzynski, Bosak, Padlewski, we wonder that
the writer or his friend F. could not succeed in making their talents
known and valued, and become at least leaders among the blind. Of course
he had to contend with cross-eyed jealousy. Yet if, as a foreigner, and
a learned one too, he was, as he himself informs us, intimately admitted
into various chateaux, it seems almost impossible he should have had no
opportunity to become major, colonel, or even general, since it is well
known, and every foreigner will bear witness to the fact, that in these
_chateaux_ there has always been too much attention and too great
preference shown to foreigners--a preference, however, in which the
lower classes do not participate.
As to the easy chateau life led in Galicia, as in Russia, we have a
remark to offer. In a country exposed during five or six centuries to
incessant struggle against Asiatic craving for European allurements, or,
to speak more definitely, after ninety-four Mongolian incursions, in
which twenty millions of Polish people were carried off, and thousands
of towns, bourgs, and villages were destroyed; after numberless wars,
plunders, and devastations by Jazygs, Turks, Muscovites, Crusaders,
Wallachians, Transylvanians, Swedes, Brandenburgians, etc., etc.; after
a hundred years of the so-called _paternal_ spoliation of Russia,
Prussia, and Austria--there could have been no opportunity, even under
Graff Pouilly de Mensdorf, to build _comfortable_ chateaux on the
mouldering ruins, or for the accumulation of means for an easy life
under the oppressions of an Austrian tariff, which exacted that goods
manufactured in Lemberg should be sent for inspection to the Vienna
custom house before being exposed to sale. There are, however, a few
very splendid chateaux, like oases in the Desert of Sahara; they can be
counted readily on one's fingers; among them few patriots; no
conspirator, much less an insurgent or crippled invalid, ever called to
ask hospitality.
The calumny so often repeated, so urgently insisted upon, that the aim
of the Polish insurrection was inconsistent, foolish, and wicked, might
not perhaps astonish the reader more than the report of the want of zeal
and faith in the convictions of the Poles, a fact first revealed to the
world in 'Tardy Truths.' This warning with regard to the true character
of the struggle on the shores of the Vistula might prove of service in
aiding the discrimination of the American people, and be useful in
confusing the judgment of the liberal men and newspapers, which, whether
in Germany, Belgium, France, or England, are not too much inclined to
favor the cause of Polish independence; nay, it would spare France the
useless demonstration in the Chambers, made in consequence of the speech
of November 5th. The late efforts of the Poles are also shown to have
been inspired and incited by, and carried on for the benefit of, the
Catholic clergy, stimulated by fanaticism against the liberal,
civilizing, enlightened, Rosso-Greek Church, a view which might and has
proved very useful to modern lecturers and letter writers. The warning
therein given might also serve to degrade the Polish revolution to the
level of some of the slave-holders' rebellion. Let us reflect but for
one single moment on the parallel attempted to be drawn, particularly in
the New York papers, after the unfortunate Mexican imbroglio and
subsequent visit of the Russian fleet, between things so utterly unlike.
The Poles fought for everything most dear to the heart of man, for every
right which he can justly claim, for independence, national existence,
the right to use his own language, for the integrity of his
country;--the States of the South had all these in full possession, nay,
even the right to pass the law binding the North. These things might be
shown to be essentially dissimilar in _every_ respect, but this short
statement is deemed sufficient to show the futility of the comparison.
Let us now proceed to say a few words with regard to the plausible
arguments so generally set forth for the glorification of the Czar, in
respect to the emancipation of the Polish serfs. The Czar gave in 1864
what had already been given by the Poles themselves in 1863; less the
soil, which indeed never belonged to him, but for which he exacts
payment. Besides, he has confiscated, without regulations or laws, the
income from forests, rents, fields, and fisheries, belonging to old men,
women, and children, whose only crime was that they had been born Poles,
or whom it pleased the hungry throng of unscrupulous, greedy, and
fanatical officials, unbounded in their zeal as in their power, to
denounce, accuse, or dislike. We could fully prove the fact that the
greater part of the peasants are now forced by bayonets to work for the
exacted pay, and most of them venture to doubt entirely the propriety of
the pretended Russian gift. This one circumstance makes this gift in the
greater part of Poland and even, of Russia more burdensome than the old
state of regulated labor; for how is a peasant to procure money in
provinces distant from markets, rivers, and towns? Under what conditions
would it be possible to obtain it? And even in cases where the peasant
may be able to make a sale, the value received for eight bushels of
potatoes will not be sufficient to buy him a common axe. How many
calves, cows, sheep, horses, and hogs are brought back from market from
the impossibility of finding purchasers, even at the lowest prices? Now,
by the decree of January 22d, the Polish National Government gave
freedom, and land relieved from all claims, thus executing what was in
accordance with the spirit and wishes of the Poles, without losing sight
of the difficulties to be encountered. It was their imperative duty to
satisfy and adjust the exigencies of the national political economy.
Fortunately, it was found possible to harmonize the requirements of the
country with the personal interests of the proprietors. The amount of
land held by them was in general so large, that even after endowing the
peasant with the allotted portion, considerable would still remain in
their hands. Diminished in extent and value during the transitional
phase, the remaining land would necessarily rise rapidly in value,
because the emancipated peasant _would_ now _have_ the right to own and
buy land. The calculation might be sustained that it would quintuple in
value in the course of fifty years. Small farms from their possessions
would soon be in the market, farms within the range of small purses and
limited means, and the proprietors did not fail to see the advantage
which would accrue to them in the almost unlimited increase of
purchasers which would soon be found among the enfranchised laborers.
The peasants gained freedom, land, and many advantages, nor were the
proprietors ruined in their advancement. Hence the National Government
effected what the Rossian never intended to do or ever will achieve:
gain and loss were equalized in the national duty of sustaining the
country in its progressive course, stimulating all to labor
simultaneously to support its public burdens, to aid in the general
advancement. The real freedom thus gained, in accordance with the
far-sighted policy of the Polish National Government, opened wide the
door to liberty, trade, commerce, and exchange; a policy which czarism,
even in its most liberal mood, can never admit, because it would condemn
itself, and give the death blow to its own existence. There is another
specialty peculiar to the Rossian Government, never forgotten by those
who live under its rule, viz.: the late emancipation was begun about
three years ago by an ukase of no very decided purport, which was
followed by many others of like uncertain character, according with the
varying views of those by whom they were dictated, by the partisans of
emancipation or by those standing in opposition to it. These ukases are
ranged in their appropriate numerical titles, and there are at least
five hundred thousand of them--whether imperial or senatorial, all
legally binding. What memory could stand such a burden, or what might
legal cavil not find therein?
It is an easy thing to 'speak for Buncombe,' as we say in America; it is
an easy thing to proclaim measures when we take no thought of how they
may be carried out; it is easy to excite the enthusiasm of the popular
lecturer, always in search of novelty with which to feed his hearers; it
may be pleasant to furnish venom to wounded self-esteem or disappointed
and petty ambition--but it will be found an exceedingly difficult task
to reconcile absolutism with freedom, czarism with liberalism, the
division of men into appointed castes and classes with the existence of
liberty and political equality. We are assured, not only by the writer
of the letter in question, but by the sages of New York, that the Polish
peasants were not willing to fight for Poland, that they called their
countrymen now in arms against Rossia 'dogs of nobles,' and 'that it was
really their duty to rise against and denounce their former _masters_ to
Rossia and Austria!'
If these assertions are true, who then filled the ranks of the Polish
insurgents? Who furnished food to those who lived for months in the
depths of forests, the haunts of mountain gorges? How was it possible
that without the connivance of the peasants the insurgents should pass
to and fro, or lie hidden in woods and fields? It was stated
authoritatively that the insurgents, were composed principally of
Hungarian refugees, about ten Frenchmen, a few strangers from other
nations, but of the number of the lesser nobility, men, in short, in
search of shelter and fortune. A strange fortune, a marvellous shelter
indeed to reward the greed of the ambitious--exile, death, and torture!
Were the testimony of such witnesses to be relied upon, we might well
exclaim: 'Truth is indeed stranger than fiction.' Yet how is it that we
find among the seven hundred patriots who were hung so many Poles, less
than a half of whom were Catholics, many of whom were Jews, Protestants,
and even Rosso-Greeks of various classes? Among the forty thousand known
deported, torn ruthlessly away from their native homes for centuries, we
find nearly five thousand Israelites, ten thousand peasants (known), and
from four to six thousand of Greek and other creeds. The two villages
near Lida, two in the government of Grodno, the hundreds of villages and
thousands of huts near Dwina, Rzezyca, Mohilew, Witebsk, burned, razed
to the ground by an excited and hired rabble of Muscovite Muziks, who
had sought and found hospitality in Poland for hundreds of
years--certainly all these villages and huts were not inhabited even by
the 'lesser nobility.' And it is also certain that the dwellers were not
so cruelly punished for denouncing the 'dogs of nobles'--an expression,
if we are not mistaken, taken from the vocabulary of the corporal or
subaltern officials, and which has never reached the fourteenth
class--from which the Rossian begins to reckon humanity.
The allegation of the existence of unrooted feudalism in Poland, because
such a system was known to the whole of Middle Europe, must be accounted
for by the evident ignorance of Polish history; and we assure both
teachers and readers, notwithstanding the evident wish to find it in
Poland, that it was unknown to her, nor could it subsist in the presence
of Polish institutions, habits, customs, and geography.
We can scarcely suppose it possible that our author means to insinuate
that thousands of noble families bought and transported arms for the
purpose of speculation. Notwithstanding the evidence he had of one such
bad business transaction for the purpose of sustaining and upholding the
insurrection, his frequent intimations of the incorrigible and unruly
character of the few Poles left, would almost authorize us in believing
that such was the intention of the writer when speaking of the aforesaid
arms.
Oh, in the name of common sense, for the sake of the men whose country
has been torn from them, who may not speak their mothers' tongue in the
land of their fathers, who are forbidden to worship in accordance with
the dictates of their conscience, whose sacred homes are desecrated by
the presence of privileged spies, who cannot sit down in peace in the
holy quiet of evening, because they know that the morrow may see them
dragged off to unknown and inaccessible dungeons, or summoned before
brutal judges without defenders, where they will find accusers, but will
be allowed to cite no witnesses; subjected to witness the horrible
anxiety endured every spring and fall by Polish fathers and mothers lest
the sons of their love should be unexpectedly seized in the night and
hurried off over the Caucasus, the Ural, or to the mouth of the Amour,
to serve in the army of the oppressor for life, or longer than home
memories in such young bosoms could be expected to last, with no
prospect of reward save such as may be reckoned in the number of
_palkis_ and _pletnis_ (whips and lashes); sons, whether rich or poor,
to be exposed to cavil, cunning, and vindictiveness, to the practices of
gambling judges and a profligate soldiery, to a venal police, to
fraudulent employés, themselves badly paid for service, but whose
extortions and abuses always meet with approval, a single complaint
against whom would expose the complainant to be sent through that
hopeless gate always open on the route to Siberia;--oh, for the sake of
common humanity, say not that men placed in such situations have, in
spite of their glorious history, no rights, no claims on human sympathy,
no cause to sacrifice life even when it has become a haunting horror!
Believe not that such complaints are inventions: the facts are known to
everybody who will look upon them. They are no slanderous stories, but
occurrences renewed with every morning, taking place under all
circumstances and with every transaction patent to the world. They were
appreciated and described in Prussia, and even in Austria verified, not
long before the last campaign. Under such circumstances, what must be
thought of the discoveries and conclusions of writers who assert that
'the Polish nation is a mere chimera'? As no individual, mighty as he
may be, can by a blasphemous word suppress the existence of the Eternal
Father, so neither passion nor love, favor nor animosity, interest nor
purpose of the most talented or ambitious, can erase at pleasure a
nationality which has a history of over a thousand years of existence, a
nationality proved by the last hundred years of incessant struggle for
independence with three giants. This nation has marked its boundaries
with graveyards toward the Dniester, Dnieper, Niemen, and Dwina, where
rest the beaten hordes of Batu or Nogays. Can the record be erased of
the power that broke the sword of the Osmanlis, and was it a _chimera_
that preserved Western Europe from such sights as Polowce and
Pietschiniegs, etc.? You may perhaps to-day designate as a _chimera_ the
Vienna saved in 1683, that very Vienna which in 1815 first conceived the
idea of sowing the seeds of distrust between Galicians and
Lodomerians--an idea soon after adopted, perfected, and publicly
propagated by Rossians, who applied the practice to Lithuanians,
Volhynians, Podolans, Polans, Radymicians, etc.--an idea now held in the
fierce grasp of Muraview, Anienkow, and probably at no very distant
period to be recalled to the mind of the originator.
The gentleman's knowledge of Russians (the true name is Rossians, the
other being assumed to effect a certain purpose in Western Europe),
Prussians, and Austrians, to the exclusion of Poles, proves only that
his geographic and ethnographic researches in Poland went no farther
than those of the 'reliable gentleman' who described the Bunker Hill
monument under President Lafayette.
In addition to the above, let us consult simply the sound of the names
of places, and we can form some idea of the extent of races and
nationalities. Nowgorod, Kaluga, Pskow--are _Rossian_; Telsze, Szawle,
Rosienie--_Lithuanian_; Winszpilis, Gielgawa, Libosie--_Courland_;
Lublin, Ostrolenka, Plock--_Polish_; Wlodrimirz, Zytomirz,
Berdyczev--_Volhynian_. In Austria, are the inhabitants of Venice,
Prague, and Buda, Austrian? The name of Prussia is an old one of
Slavonians living at the mouth of the Vistula, and has no etymology in
the Teutonic language. Those of Galicia and Lodomeria are unskilfully
disfigured from Halitsh (Halicz) and Wlodzimir. The name of Prussia was
assumed by Frederic II., margrave of Brandenburg, when he took the title
of king, at the same time giving solemn oaths never to pretend to the
sovereignty of Dantzick (Gdansk), Thorn (Torun), etc.
The present empire of Alexander is not of _Russia_, but of _Rossia_, and
the name of Russia is imposed on Polans near Kiow, on Radymicians near
Nowogrodek, on Drewlans south of the river Pripec, etc.; and we must
remember that Catharine II., in 1764, had solemnly declared by her
ambassadors, Kayserling and Repnin, that she had no right to Russias or
Ruthenias in Poland: 'Declaramus suam Imperatoriam Majestatem Dominam
nostram clementissimam ex usu _tituli totius Rossiæ_, nec sibi, nec
successoribus suis neque Imperio suo _jus ullum_ in ditiones et terræ
quæ _sub nomine Russiæ_ a Regno Poloniæ magnoque ducatu Lithuaniæ
possiduntur,' etc.
The prediction of the reëstablishment of serfdom as a result aimed at in
the present Polish struggle, is not only rash but preposterous, and has
no foundation except in a fixed purpose to direct all sympathy toward
Rossia.
The true bondage that tied man in Poland to the soil, began with the
introduction of police, passports, censors or _skaski_, recruiting,
conscription, and taxation, introduced by Prussia, Austria, and Rossia,
as so-called _improvements_. Poland had more free peasants, called
Ziemianin, Kmiec, Kozak, than there were in France during the _régime_
of the Gabeles or Leibeigenschaft in Germany. That they entirely
disappeared after the fall of Poland was surely not her fault. The
peasants on the estates attached to the clergy of all denominations, to
public schools, to the crown, and to the nation, were in a much better
condition, materially and morally, than are at present those in some
parts of Hainault and Thuringen. Individual abuses by an unconscientious
lord were to be seen as well in Connaught as near Debretschyn, near the
Saone as on the Necker. Times--contemporary with independent Poland, and
hence not very far back--beheld these sins against humanity committed on
a larger scale, and in lands in otherwise happier conditions. The phrase
_bonded labor_ is known under the best institutions. But this excuses no
one. Poland, without any compulsive cause, in 1764 and 1768, took these
questions into consideration; in 1791, was even more explicit; and in
1792, Kosciuszko distinctly settled the condition of the Polish peasant,
and that without opposition from the Polish nobility--a measure
immediately overruled and suppressed by Prussia and Rossia, both
accusing Poland of being a _dangerous_ nest of Jacobinism. In 1807, in
the grand duchy of Warsaw, after it was retaken from Prussia, the
condition of the peasantry was far more clear and protected than even
now promised by the Czar Alexander II., and was probably better
preserved than it can be under the crowd of employés and magistrates,
nominally elected by the peasants, but in fact imported from Saratow,
Kazan, Penza, etc., for the purpose of teaching liberty and Siberian
civilization in Warsaw and Wilna.
Common sense and the ordinary rules of logic force upon us the
conviction that writings of the above stamp are gotten up to produce
certain effects. Can any be found simple enough to believe that a whole
people would be aroused, armed, and taught to what end and how to use
the given arms, as was done by the manifesto of the Polish National
Government, January 22d, 1863, only to be deceived and in the end
deprived of that for which they had fought? By what right can bad faith
be imputed to land owners whom experience, a sense of justice, and even
interest, had already impelled to get rid of a useless and burdensome
relation? These land owners, even under the Rossian Government (in
1818), had solemnly begged the uncle of the present czar, Alexander I.,
to allow them to be freed from the onerous responsibilities caused by
serfdom under Rossian surveillance and severity.
The letter from Paris further states, on what authority we know not,
that the condition of the peasant or serf in Poland was dreadful until
the seventeenth century. This is going very far back, and probably at
that period, if facts could be found to sustain the writer's allegation,
the condition of bondmen--_vilains regardants_--boors, _Lebeigenschaft_,
_manans_, etc., was not better elsewhere. But here again we must differ
in opinion, and beg leave to state, not only to the author of the
letter, but to all other self-constituted authorities, whose knowledge
of Poland is derived from _The London Times_, _Chambers's Magazine_, M.
Hilperding, Kattow, or M. Morny, etc., that, with all due respect to
their social positions, we must deny them the title of well-informed
historians and profound judges of Poland and the Slavonic races. Up to
the seventeenth century, the peasantry (Kmiec, Ziemiamin) had its
_representatives in the diet_, and could find entrance into the ranks of
the nobility, which had no divisions into classes or titular
distinctions. Said nobility had the right to serve their country during
war, and a peasant providing himself with a horse and suitable arms, was
not excluded from that class. They could also take orders among the
clergy, and hence rise to high dignities in the church. Public schools
in Poland were never shut to the peasants, nor were any distinctions
therein authorized in favor of one or other class of pupils. In schools
then they enjoyed all privileges in common, and these were great--a
separate jurisdiction, and the facilities of reaching higher ranks.
Kromer, Janicki, Poniatowski, great names in Polish history, can show no
other origin than one nearer to the Ziemianin than to any other class.
If the current of fashion did not warp all judgments in favor of Rossia,
the writers of 'Tardy Truths' from Paris and elsewhere would have
reflected a little longer, and would soon have discovered that the
ignorance and poverty of the Polish peasantry were not due solely to the
Poles themselves. Polish schools were formerly all completely free, and
each school even had funds for the poor, called _purses_, foundations,
etc. Rossia, in the last fifty years, charged as high as $625 for
inscription alone in the higher classes, and about $25 for elementary
beginners. How could a poor family rise in prosperity if this school was
often the first cause of losing the favorite son; if they did send the
child to school they might lose him as a recruit for the army or navy,
as designated by the whim of the treacherous teacher and recruiting
officer; and this did not exempt from public burdens, as they were still
obliged to pay taxes for him during ten years, and contribute to all
public services, as stations (stoyki), wagons and teams (rozgony),
repairing and making public and private roads, extra post service,
besides innumerable services imposed for his own personal benefit by a
spravnik, straptschy, zasiedatel, sotnik, etc. Add to this the thwarting
of intercourse and commerce by every imaginable means under the system
of the famous M. Kankrin.
Could the peasant or the master become wealthy when a measure called _a
ton_, weighing about eight hundred and forty pounds, of wheat brought
the enormous sum of $4.25? a load of hay, drawn by one horse,
seventy-five cents when well paid, and _nothing_ when wanted by ulans or
hussars garrisoned in the neighborhood? A hen, with a dozen and a half
well-grown chickens, hardly brought enough to pay the value of the
commonest apron.
Such things as these were never known in ancient Poland, now so
unanimously accused and condemned by fashionable philanthropy. Even
eighty years ago such abuses would have been vainly looked for. We
remember, in our younger days, when conversing with an old sowietnik
(counsellor), to have heard him relate his bewildered astonishment at
the comfort and well-being in Poland when sent under an escort of
Cossacks to introduce Rossian _improvements_. 'What has become of them?'
we asked innocently. 'Ha!' was his naïve reply; 'St. Petersburg has
since then grown into a splendid city!'
Let us call the attention of Russo-maniacs to the fact that eighty years
ago, soon after the second partition of Poland, flax in Riga brought
eight hundred and seventy florins, while in 1845 it hardly brought two
hundred and forty florins; and the famous wheat of Sandomir sold, at the
first-named period, at sixty, while in 1856 it brought barely
thirty-five. Yet money now is cheaper than before 1800.
Did the Polish nobleman, selfish and wicked as now seems the fashion to
describe him, force the peasant of Samogitia to servile work, when the
latter had an opportunity of drawing a good profit from the results of
his labor in the neighboring marts of Memel, Liban, Riga, Mittau,
Venden, etc.? No, must we answer to our readers. _There_ might have been
seen a boor's wife dressed in sky blue lined with fox fur, and drawn to
church in a comfortable kolaska, by two excellent, plump, Samogitian
ponies; and neither did the father of the family exhaust his strength in
night watches or day labor, as he had twenty teams to dispose of, and
could offer to an unexpected visitor a broiled chicken with milk sauce,
and a couple of bottles of brown stout from Barclay, Perkins & Co., of
London. Such prosperity, although then declining, was still to be found
in 1830. Why does it not exist to-day? Let this question be answered by
civilizers and democrats from Tambow, Saratow, or Penza, and their
jealous apologists.
Our writer seems to think he has made a wonderful discovery when he
exultingly exclaims: 'How surprised these pretended _liberals_ would be
to see that their efforts only tend toward reconstituting a monarchical
Poland (was Poland really monarchical?--we may doubt) under the
protection of a _feudal_ and Catholic Church!' Such charges were also
made in the eighteenth century, and were suggested by similar motives. I
do not feel called upon to defend the Catholics of Poland. I would
simply retort upon the authors of such suggestions, by referring to
certain distinguished rabbis, as Heilprin, Meintzel, Jastrow, etc.; to
Protestants, as Konarski, Potworowski, Kasaius, Krolikowski, Czynski,
and hosts of others; and also to Mohammedans, as Baranowski, Mucha,
Bielak, etc. I cannot condemn a man because he is a Catholic, because I
have everywhere, and in every religious community, found both patriots
and traitors to their country, to their origin, to principle, and to
their religion. But this I must say, that of whatever denomination or
sect be the minister or priest, he has a right to be a faithful son to
his fatherland and race. It happened that in Poland the Catholic priest
stood opposed to the Rossian pope. If the latter can be a Rossian
patriot, why should a like sentiment render guilty a Polish priest? This
animosity in certain circles proceeds from a partiality to the
Rosso-Greek Church, which, some years ago, during the visit of the
emperor Nicholas to England, certain ignorant or du. By way of
parenthesis, we may add that the Rosso-Greek Church separated long ago
from the Eastern Greek Church, preserving, however, all its outward
forms. Peter I. abolished the patriarchate, introduced his own classes
and reforms, and made himself head of the church. He gave the name of
synod to a permanent council, nominated, appointed, dismissed,
controlled, rewarded, and punished by himself, according to his own
judgment, passion, or will. The Græco-Rossian Church is kept under the
same discipline as the army, and an offending pope is sent, with the
rank of private, to some remote regiment.
The author of the letter from Paris somewhat contradictorily asserts
that the women, being superior in Poland, govern the men, but are
themselves governed entirely by the priests. This scarcely tallies with
strict logic; but, for the sake of truth and of a just respect for our
mothers, who taught us to love our country and freedom, who gave us
strength in exile, and faith through persecution, and who instructed us
how to think, and inspired us with those noble sentiments, seemingly
denied to the mothers of the 'fashionable civilization' (of St.
Petersburg), among whom there is not one lady writer--we will thank this
writer for the refutation offered by him to an impudent slander,
emanating from a contributor to _Chambers' Magazine_, of January last.
We repeat that we thank him for his just tribute to Polish women,
however inimical he may be to the Polish cause, and however much he may
depreciate our sex. Yet it seems strange that, while accusing Polish
women of being entirely under the control of the priests, and hence to
have been chiefly instrumental in fomenting the last insurrection, the
author did not notice, or is purposely silent regarding, a fact which,
as he appears to have been longer in a Galician chateau than elsewhere,
must have fallen under his notice, namely, that in Galicia, the Polish
priest was the _most decided opponent_ to any insurrection. How, then,
could the active Polish women-patriots be instruments of the action
condemned by the apologists of the absolute government of Rossia?
The admonition to France, on the ground that, after the revolution of
1789, she is committing a contradictory error by showing sympathy toward
a revolution gotten up by priests, is but a consequence of the first
judgment, and we may leave to France and her sense of her own interests
to do what she may think right and profitable. We will simply mention
that, for French glory, and for this error, as the author calls it, two
hundred thousand Poles were slain in Egypt, Italy, San Domingo, Spain,
Germany, Holland, and on the plains of Mozajsk, Kraslaw, Boryssow,
Eylau, Friedland, etc. The monument seen from the balcony of the
Tuileries has the names upon it, which we scarcely can suppose to have
been inscribed for the sole purpose of filling space.
The friends of Poland believe that they serve the cause of progress by
aiding in the reëstablishment of the Polish nation. We presume there are
plenty of men in France who know that during the last thirty years
Rossia has spread her dominion in Asia over twice the area of Germany
and France together, that she is only eighty miles from Peking, and as
far from India as Vienna is from the Black Sea. Moreover, Asiatic
people, always dreaming of plunder in Europe, once armed with European
Minié rifles and rifled cannon, may repeat anew the incursions of
Attila, Tamerlane, Battu, etc. The end to be gained and the booty will
create the temptation, and offer superior inducements.
The effort to palliate Rossian cruelty, skilful as it is, by the alleged
necessities of war, by denials, or by asserting it to be mere revenge
for similar atrocities committed by Poles, must be appreciated according
to the sources whence it emanates. What the letter writer or similar
twelve-hour visitors saw in Poland, particularly in Kracow, of people
sharpening knives or preparing deadly poisons, need here be merely
referred to by saying that in times of general confusion we have no
means to foresee or to control personal revenge, and also that we will
not here cite the reports of Polish papers or accounts of Germans. We
will take our data from the Moscow _Invalid_, the czar's _Universal
Journal_ at Warsaw, and the _Journal de Petersbourg_. From these we find
it stated that the number of men hanged in three hundred and sixty-five
days of insurrection was eight hundred and fifty, besides many others
whose names were not given because it was simpler and more profitable to
ignore their origin, class, and religion.
From Kiow alone Anienkow sent away fourteen thousand men, chiefly of
Greek or other non-Roman-Catholic religion, over whom the Catholic
priest had neither control or influence. From Warsaw, every Saturday
during fifty-two weeks, an average of four hundred men, women, and
children were deported, all separated from their natural guides and
protectors. From Liefland, north of the Dwina, were sent off, in one
month, thirty-five hundred of the better educated and comfortable class
of people. A Government paper rejoices that Polish and Catholic
principles, growing there during five centuries, were in a fair way of
extinction, since, as it itself admits, forty-five thousand men had been
transferred to the governments of Samara, Orenburg, Kazan, and similar
localities. To burn the villages of Ibanie, Szarki, Hrodki, Smoloy,
Zabolocie, etc., to destroy the furniture, horses, cattle, and all other
property, to send the inhabitants on foot, only allowing for the aged
and young children a few small wagons, far away into a cold, strange,
savage country, without tools, means, etc.--was all this done merely as
a military necessity, and was it excusable, or, at most, merely
_blamable_?
Now, certain correspondents and lecturers, with other gentlemen, deny
the use of the lash or whip on the backs of women and ladies, because
the American people cannot countenance such barbarism. To say the least
of such a denial--it is gratuitous. Austria daily publishes similar
judgments as the result of police court trials. In Rossia, they are not
published, because the administration of lash, whip, and scourge is left
to the _paternal_ discretion of every sergeant, lieutenant, police
commissary, and district constable, and is enjoyed by them to their
hearts' content. It is the method employed for ages by Rossia, and
considered as an indispensable appendage to patriarchal czarism and its
lieutenants. We cannot wonder at such denials, for their authors have
ordinarily been brought up under a better state of things, and never
learned in their youth the possibility of resort to such practices: the
less also can we wonder when we know that they met only similar denials
in the higher Rossian society, and when we consider that such denials
came from a source one is naturally inclined to respect, when the man
denying seems respectable. How can we fancy a lie told by a gentleman in
golden uniform, or a lady in a lace dress? But if the defenders of the
civilization of Rossia and of the noble manners of its aristocracy knew
all the cruel judgments of Rossian masters, the lewdness, recklessness,
indecency, and shallowness often concealed beneath their artificial good
breeding and apparent courtesy, they would learn that laces may cover
coarse tissues, and gold hide corroded brass. The gaudy dress and
uniform serve but to permit more daring deeds; the more they glitter,
the more impunity they confer. Under every Government, and more
especially under a despotism, subaltern officers may be sure of impunity
to abuse, provided it is done under the guise of zeal and devotion.
During the past year we have heard and read in lectures, newspapers,
correspondences, etc., many flattering statements of the beauty of the
Rossian Government, and the czar's liberality--and as many accusations
and imputations detrimental to the Polish cause. Why the same views were
not held and advocated during the Crimean war we will not ask, but
merely hint at. These statements come from organs whose purpose is
readily divined. If we turn to the paper that has opened its columns to
the Paris letter, we find close at hand the advertisement and
recommendation of a programme for our own great country, and the
pointing out of a new Garibaldi for the American Union. Now, neither
said platform nor Garibaldi would be consistent with the condemnation,
irony, and ridicule flung upon the champions for one thousand years of
the growing progress, prosperity, and Christianity of Western Europe.
We of this generation are grown fixedly into our ancient habits of
thought, and now can make no change; but our successors, perchance, may
possibly be reduced to undersign the manifesto of Rossian Liberalism,
published about a year ago in Moscow, and, in return for false promises
and deceptions, consent to make common cause against Germany and the
whole of Western Europe. What _American_ liberties would gain by such an
eventuality, is not for us, nor for to-day, to say.