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The Daily Telegraph
War Books
THE SLAV NATIONS
* * * * * *
Cloth Post
1/— The Daily Telegraph free
net WAR BOOKS 1/3
each each
HOW THE WAR BEGAN By W. L. COURTNEY, LL.D., and J. M.
KENNEDY
THE FLEETS AT WAR By ARCHIBALD HURD
THE CAMPAIGN OF SEDAN By GEORGE HOOPER
THE CAMPAIGN ROUND LIEGE By J. M. KENNEDY
IN THE FIRING LINE By A. ST. JOHN ADCOCK
GREAT BATTLES OF THE WORLD By STEPHEN CRANE
BRITISH REGIMENTS AT THE FRONT
THE RED CROSS IN WAR By Miss MARY FRANCES BILLINGTON
FORTY YEARS AFTER The Story of the Franco-German War By
H. C. BAILEY With an Introduction by W. L. COURTNEY, LL.D.
A SCRAP OF PAPER By E. J. DILLON
HOW THE NATIONS WAGED WAR By J. M. KENNEDY
AIR-CRAFT IN WAR By S. ERIC BRUCE
FAMOUS FIGHTS OF INDIAN NATIVE REGIMENTS By REGINALD
HODDER
THE FIGHTING RETREAT TO PARIS By ROGER INGPEN
THE FIRST CAMPAIGN IN RUSSIAN POLAND By P. C. STANDEN
THE BATTLES OF THE RIVERS By EDMUND DANE
FROM HELIGOLAND TO KEELING ISLAND By ARCHIBALD HURD
THE SLAV NATIONS By SRGJAN PL. TUCIC
SUBMARINES, MINES AND TORPEDOES By A. S. DOMVILLE-FIFE
WITH THE R.A.M.C. AT THE FRONT By E. C. VIVIAN
MOTOR TRANSPORTS IN WAR By HORACE WYATT
HACKING THROUGH BELGIUM By EDMUND DANE
_OTHER VOLUMES IN PREPARATION_
PUBLISHED FOR THE DAILY TELEGRAPH
BY HODDER & STOUGHTON, WARWICK SQUARE, LONDON, E.C.
* * * * * *
THE SLAV NATIONS
by
SRGJAN PL. TUCIĆ
English Translation by Fanny S. Copeland
Hodder and Stoughton
London New York Toronto
MCMXV
CONTENTS.
_PART I._—THE NORTHERN SLAVS.
CHAPTER I.
PAGE
THE SLAV RACE 11
Slav Characteristics—Slav Power in the Past—The Decline—The
Dawn?
CHAPTER II.
RUSSIA 20
I. Russian Landscape and the National Character—Rurik
to Peter the Great—German Influence—The Russian
Awakening.
II. Siberia—White Russians—Little Russians—Great
Russians—Cossacks—The People of the Sunflower—Made
in Germany—The Reaction.
CHAPTER III.
RUSSIAN NATIONAL CHARACTERISTICS 37
Russian Slavdom—The Mir—Stress and Famine—The
Duma—Russian Literature—Gogol—Tolstoi—Dostoievski—Realistic
Ideals—The Russian Soul.
CHAPTER IV.
POLAND AND BOHEMIA 50
I. The Contrast—National Character of the Poles—Our
Lady of Csenstochova—Dancing Peasants—Galician
Poles—Selfish Policy—Austria a Slav State.
II. The Poles in Russia—Russia’s Repressive Measures—The
Slav Ideal—A Better Understanding—The Poles in
Prussia—The Iron Heel—Law of Expropriation.
III. Csech Characteristics—Professor Masaryk—Jan Huss—Slav
Puritans—The Hradčin—Modern Politics.
_PART II._—THE SOUTHERN SLAVS.
CHAPTER V.
BULGARIA 77
Country and People—The Building up of the Bulgarian
State—Relations with Russia—German Influence—Alexander
of Battenberg—King Ferdinand—Bulgaria’s Immediate Duty.
CHAPTER VI.
SERBIA 98
I. Serbian Self-reliance—Characteristics of the Serb
People—The power of the Folk song—Race-consciousness.
II. History of the Southern Slavs.
III. The Birth of a Nation—Prince Miloš—“The Great
Sower”—Alexander Karagjorgjević—Michael Obrenović—King
Milan—Fall of the Obrenović Dynasty—King Peter—The
Restoration of Serbia’s Prestige.
IV. Serbia and Austria—A Campaign of Calumny—Annexation
of Bosnia-Hercegovina—The Balkan Wars—Serbia
Rehabilitated—The Tragedy of Sarajevo.
CHAPTER VII.
MONTENEGRO 129
The Country of the Black Mountain—Women Warriors—King,
Poet and Farmer—Historical Sketch of Montenegro—Petar
I., Petrović—Petar II.—Pro-Russian Policy—A Royal
Poet—Nikola I.
CHAPTER VIII.
THE SOUTHERN SLAVS OF THE DUAL MONARCHY 138
I. A Homogeneous People—A Militant Past—The
Bogumili—National Bondage—Napoleon—Illyrism—Agreement
with Hungary—Count Khuen-Hedervary.
II. The Greatest Representative of the Southern
Slavs—Strossmayer’s Generosity and courage—Fall of
Count Khuen-Hedervary—Death of Strossmayer.
III. False Dawn—Conference of Fiume—Ban Paul Rauch—Monster
Trial in Zagreb—The Friedjung Case—Cuvaj—Frano
Supilo.
IV. Dalmatia, Istria, Carniola—The Italian
Element—Bosnia—Hercegovina—Conclusion.
EPILOGUE.
“BURIED TREASURES” _by Dimitrii Mitrinović_ 178
PREFACE.
The task of writing a book on the subject of the Slav nations has
afforded me very great pleasure, and I hope my work will succeed in its
object and arouse the sympathies of the British public for my race. In
preference to giving long disquisitions, I have purposely adopted a
simple narrative tone in sketching some of the most interesting points
in the national life of the Slav peoples. I have only touched upon
historical events in so far as this was necessary for the context, and
owing to lack of space I have been unable to do more than allude to
Slav art and literature. On the other hand, a good deal of valuable
information on this subject will be found in the epilogue “Buried
Treasures,” which the eminent Serbo-Croat essayist, Mr. Dimitrij
Mitrinović has kindly placed at my disposal.
As I am at present completely cut off from my sorely-stricken country,
I have been unable to apply for permission to quote from certain books
that I have consulted, but I feel sure that my literary colleagues, Dr.
Dragutin Prohaska, Niko Županić and Dr. Gjuro Šurmin, will not object
to my having had recourse to their works in the interests of our race.
I am also indebted to Mr. Frano Supilo, the leader to the Croatian
people, as well as to my above-mentioned friend, Mr. Dimitrij
Mitrinovič; of the Serbian Legation in London, for several valuable
hints.
My special thanks are due to my translator, Mme. Fanny S. Copeland, and
Miss Ella C. Seyfang, who have given me invaluable assistance in my
work.
LONDON, THE AUTHOR.
_November_, 1914.
_PART I._
THE NORTHERN SLAVS.
THE SLAV NATIONS.
CHAPTER I.
THE SLAV RACE.
Slav Characteristics—Slav Power in the Past—The
Decline—The Dawn?
Although the Slav race does not appear as a united state or Union,
it certainly forms a family of nations linked by ties of blood, the
tradition of centuries, similar language and customs, and especially by
ties of mutual love and sympathy. It is the greatest and most powerful
of the European races, yet to this day it does not hold the pride of
place which is its due and which it once held. Not the precedence of
mere strength, which is surely sufficiently represented by Russia, but
the place due to a people of recognized culture, who have not yet been
justly appreciated in spite of overwhelming proof of their intellectual
gifts. Slavs are still popularly supposed to be a mentally undeveloped
host of semi-barbarians and troglodytes. Of course the educated public
of Europe has long abandoned this attitude; but it has done little
to spread a more just and liberal view among the people at large.[1]
The German scholars made it their business to lay stress on “Slav
barbarism” wherever possible, to obscure the bright and glorious pages
in Slav history, and to emphasize everything that can be taken as a
proof of savagery and arrested development. Unfortunately, no one has
written at such length about the Slav question, or attached so much
importance to it, as the German scholars, with the result that other
European nations have derived their views from them—so much so that
one might almost say that _German_ opinion on the Slavs has become
the opinion of Europe. Constant unrest in Russia, and the consequent
reprisals of the authorities afforded a welcome pretext for misjudging
the Slavs, and the ordinary public of Europe came to know of them only
as mediæval inquisitors with Siberia as their great torture-chamber.
No one seemed to realize that these revolutionary movements, no less
than the insurrections in other Slav countries, merely represented the
resistance of a virile people craving enlightenment against autocratic
barbarism; and that it is obviously unfair to judge the Slavs by the
deeds of their _oppressors_, who in every case have followed the German
methods cultivated by their governments in most Slav countries, and
imported into Russia by Peter the Great. On the other hand, if the
Slav nations are judged by the _soul of the people_, and not by their
rulers and state-systems, they show a high standard of civilization and
a trend towards culture of a kindly, humanitarian type, which promises
to be a far better contribution to Western European progress than the
much-advertised German “Kultur.”
Certainly the Slavs have not yet attained to their full stature as a
race. At present they are passing through a period of strong ferment,
but the wine that has so far resulted from this ferment gives excellent
ground for the hope that when the Slavs have solved their various
national and economic problems they will prove themselves the equals of
the other cultured nations of the world.
In the world of politics they must attain the degree of power necessary
to safeguard their racial individuality and the freedom of the Slav
peoples. This power must stand in due proportion to their capability
for intellectual progress, and should in itself be a guarantee for
the peace of the world in the future. For the Slav is not naturally
domineering, and has no craving for power as a mere means of
aggression. He belongs to a kindly race, melancholy, as shown in the
national poetry in which his soul finds expression. He has a craving to
love and to be loved, and would fain join the other European nations as
a friend and brother. His strength will be the strength of love. Russia
has neither need nor desire to extend her boundaries further. The
Balkan Slavs only wish to accomplish their own destiny quietly within
the borders of the _Slav Sphere_, and the rest of the Slavs desire
their freedom—_only their freedom_. And when this is accomplished,
the Slav Colossus will no longer constitute a danger to Europe, but
a safeguard. His political power will only threaten those who would
tamper with the foundations of peace from mere lust of dominion.
* * * * *
In the present crisis the Slav race is by no means seeking a return to
the past. The past has seen the Slavs masters of a great empire and a
real menace to the rest of the world. If one were to take the political
map of Europe and indicate upon it the frontiers of the ancient Slav
Empire, the Slav race would appear like an irresistible deluge. The
huge Muscovite Empire, almost the whole of Austria-Hungary, the whole
of the Balkans, two-thirds of the German Empire, part of Italy, and
a large part of Scandinavia—all these once formed the Slav Empire.
Historical maps show the single triumphant word “Slavs” (“famous” or
“glorious” ones) inscribed over all these countries throughout the
centuries. Their history and development can be traced back to 400 B.C.
The Taurians that guarded the Golden Fleece were Slavs, as were the men
of the Baltic with whom Phœnicians and Greeks traded for amber. The
forest lands of the North, that grey home of magic, wisdom and valour,
hang like a dark background full of strange possibilities behind
sunny Greece and clear-headed, practical Rome—and this was the Empire
of the Slavs in the past, the Gardariki and Iotunheim (Giant-land)
of the Norsemen. From one century to another they played a part of
increasing importance among the peoples of Central and Eastern Europe
and were feared as a strong, homogeneous race. Their power reached its
zenith towards the end of the fifth century, before the tidal wave
of the Hun invasion swept over Europe. At that time they held the
mastery from the Alps to the mouth of the Elbe, and from the Baltic to
the Black Sea. They were then one great people divided into several
tribes speaking slightly differing dialects; but only a fraction of
their number—the inhabitants of the present Dalmatia—was subject to
the Emperor Nepos. The invasion of the Avars, who took possession
of a large strip of the Slav possessions between the Danube and the
Dniester, made the first breach in the unity of the great Slav family.
Henceforth they were known as Northern, Eastern, and Southern, Slavs,
and began to form separate nationalities. In the age of Charlemagne
these nationalities had already crystallized into independent states,
whose power and prosperity are recorded in history. The strongest
of these was eventually Poland, extending far into the Russia of
to-day. The Moravian Empire of Svatopluk, the Empire of Serbia, the
kingdom of Croatia, and the Slavicized Bulgars in the South, together
with the Grand-Dukedom of Muscovy (and the Wendish kingdom in North
Germany), complete the family of Slav States. It would take too long
to enter into the historical importance of all these states, but it
is a characteristic proof of their power that not only European, but
Asiatic, nations courted their favour.
Some of the main trade routes of the world led from Northern Europe
through the heart of Russia to Byzantium (the “Mikligard” of the
Sagas)—and Asia. Slav, Norwegian, Tatar and Arab traded peacefully
together on the banks of the Volga, and sundry passages in the
Norse Sagas as well as the journal of an Arab trader give us vivid
glimpses of those days. Somehow these searchlight pictures of the
Slavs and their country, recorded with positively journalistic
freshness and love of detail, do not corroborate the biassed accounts
of German historians. But this world-power which Russia alone has
developed steadily up to the present day began to wane among the
other Slav nations soon after the first Crusade (1097). Already in
1204 (the fourth Crusade) Slavonia, Croatia, Dalmatia and Bosnia were
incorporated in the German (Holy Roman) Empire, together with Hungary,
Istria, Carniola and Carinthia. Under the Hohenstaufens, Bohemia and
Moravia also became vassal states, and in the fourteenth century the
victorious Osmanlis robbed the Bulgars and Serbs of their independence.
With the exception of Russia, Poland alone maintained her independence,
until the first partition in 1772, followed by the second in 1793. The
third and last partition in 1795 sealed her fate, and the Poles were
parcelled out under Russian, Prussian and Austrian rule.
* * * * *
The partition of Poland was the beginning of the complete political,
and to some extent even the national, decay of the non-Russian Slavs.
Just as Russia began to spread her mighty pinions, the Slavs under
alien yoke fell deeper and deeper into an apathy of gloom, only broken
from time to time by rare flashes of patriotism, or a tempest of
revolt. The book of history lay open before them with its pages of
gold and black; but to their aching eyes the black ever loomed larger
than the gold, and they yielded to a despondency that knew no comfort
and saw no escape. And, while they were thus sunk in apathy, their
rulers brought strong pressure to bear on them, so that they might
eradicate the stamp of their nationality, not only from their faces,
but from their souls. Germany and Austria scented the Eastern question,
and divined that in its solution the Slavs might renew their strength.
So they determined to approach the problem supported by a totally
emasculated and denationalized Slav following. To this end they strove
above all things to turn the Slavs into docile citizens of a Germanic
Empire; for from the days of Charlemagne the German has reiterated the
parrot-cry that the Slav is barbarous, obstinate, dangerous and ugly,
and that his only chance of salvation lies in merging his identity with
that of the German of the Empire. It is a fact that during this period
the Slavs did nothing to help themselves. A great weariness weighed
upon the people, no less than upon the educated classes, and they were
preparing to reconcile themselves to the fate that had already befallen
their brothers, the Serbs and Bulgars. But the progress of history
did for the Slavs what they failed to do for themselves. Napoleon,
the personification of destruction for the whole of Europe, brought
salvation to the Western Slavs, for he re-awakened them to a sense of
national self-consciousness, and so prepared the way for the long and
bitter struggle they have waged since then against their oppressors.
As soon as these struggles commenced Russia, who had hitherto regarded
the ruin of her brothers with equanimity, began to take an interest in
their sufferings, and to afford them strong moral support.
These struggles, however, could not bring immediate relief. The Slavs
knew full well that the way to freedom is long and has to be won step
by step. The problem of the Near East, which advanced one stage with
the liberation of Serbia, must first be solved in every phase and
detail to clear the way for a solution of the purely Slav problem.
Europe cannot take a vital interest in this problem before the Balkan
problem is disposed of, and the conditions for the liberation of the
Slavs so far fulfilled, that the difficulty can be solved in the
ordinary course of the progress of civilization.
The psychological moment seems to have arrived, and the Slav question
deserves to be fully put forward. Surely the British public, which
has entered into the present crisis with such splendid spirit, will
not withhold its interest from the Slav question, more especially
as England will have a strong voice in the matter when the final
settlement comes to be made.