THE BALTIC LANDS.
♦Lands beyond the two Empires.♦
Our survey of the two Empires and of the powers which sprang out of
them has still left out of sight a large part of Europe, including some
lands which formed part of the elder Empire. It is only indirectly that
we have spoken of the extreme north, the extreme east, or the extreme
west, of Europe. ♦_Quasi_-Imperial position of certain powers.♦ In
all these regions powers have risen and fallen which might pass for
shadows of the two Empires of Rome. ♦The British islands.♦ Thus in the
north-west lie two great islands with a following of smaller ones, of
which the elder Empire never held more than part of the greater island
and those of the smaller ones which could not be separated from it.
Britain passed for a world of its own, and the princes who rose to a
_quasi_-Imperial position within that world took, by a kind of analogy,
the titles of Empire.[51] ♦Scandinavia.♦ In the extreme north are a
larger and smaller peninsula, with their attendant islands, which lay
wholly beyond the elder Empire, and of which the later Western Empire
took in only a very small part for a short time. ♦Empire of Cnut.♦
The momentary union of these two insular and peninsular systems, of
Britain and Scandinavia, formed more truly a third Empire of the North,
fully the fellow of those of the East and West.[52] ♦Spain.♦ In the
south-west of Europe again lay another great peninsula, which had
been fully incorporated with the elder Empire, parts of which—at two
opposite ends—had belonged to the Empire of Justinian and to the Empire
of Charles, but whose history, as a whole, stands apart from that of
either the Eastern or the Western Roman power. And in Spain also, as
being, like Britain, in some sort a world of its own, the leading power
asserted an Imperial rank. ♦Castilian Emperors.♦ As Wessex had its
Emperors, so had Castile.
♦History of the lands beyond the Empires.♦
Britain, Scandinavia, and Spain, thus form three marked geographical
wholes, three great divisions of that part of Europe which lay
outside the bounds of either Empire at the time of the separation.
But the geographical position of the three regions has led to marked
differences in their history. Insular Britain is wholly oceanic.
♦Geographical comparison of Scandinavia and Spain.♦ Peninsular Spain
and Scandinavia have each an oceanic side; but each has also a side
towards one of the great inland seas of Europe—Spain towards the
Mediterranean, Scandinavia towards the northern Mediterranean, the
Baltic. But the Baltic side of Scandinavia has been of far greater
relative importance than the Mediterranean side of Spain. ♦Position
of Aragon in the Mediterranean.♦ Of the three chief Spanish kingdoms
Aragon alone has a Mediterranean history; the seaward course of Castile
and Portugal was oceanic. Of the three Scandinavian kingdoms Norway
alone is wholly oceanic. ♦Position of Sweden in the Baltic.♦ Denmark is
more Baltic than oceanic; the whole historic life of Sweden lies on the
Baltic coasts. The Mediterranean position of Aragon enabled her to win
whole kingdoms as her dependencies. But they were not geographically
continuous, and they never could be incorporated. Sweden, on the other
hand, was able to establish a continuous dominion on both sides of the
great northern gulfs, and to make at least a nearer approach to the
incorporation of her conquests than Aragon could ever make. ♦Growth
and decline of Sweden.♦ The history of Sweden mainly consists in the
growth and the loss of her dominion in the Baltic lands out of her
own peninsula. It is only in quite modern times that the union of the
crowns, though not of the kingdoms, of Sweden and Norway has created a
power wholly peninsular and equally Baltic and oceanic.
♦Eastern and western aspects of Scandinavia.♦
This eastern aspect of Scandinavian history needs the more to be
insisted on, because there is another side of it with which we
are naturally more likely to be struck. Scandinavian inroads and
conquests—inroads and conquests, that is, from Denmark and Norway—make
up a large part of the early history of Gaul and Britain. When this
phase of their history ends, the Scandinavian kingdoms are apt to pass
out of our sight, till we are perhaps surprised at the great part which
they suddenly play in Europe in the seventeenth century. But both
Denmark and Sweden had meanwhile been running their course in the lands
north, east, and south of the Baltic. And it is this Baltic side of
their history which is of primary importance in our general European
view.
♦The Baltic lands generally.♦
It follows then that, for the purposes of our present survey, while the
British islands and the Spanish peninsula will each claim a distinct
treatment, we cannot separate the Scandinavian peninsulas from the
general mass of the Baltic lands. ♦The Northern Slavonic lands.♦ We
must look at Scandinavia in close geographical connexion with the
region which stretches from the centre to the extreme east of Europe,
a region which, while by no means wholly Slavonic, is best marked as
containing the seats of the northern branch of the Slavonic race. This
region has a constant connexion with both German and Scandinavian
history. ♦Germanized Slavonic lands.♦ It takes in those wide lands,
once Slavonic, which have at various times been more or less thoroughly
incorporated with Germany, but which did not become German without
vigorous efforts to make large parts of them Scandinavian. In another
part of our survey we have watched them join on to the Teutonic body;
we must now watch them drop off from the Slavonic body. ♦Northern
Slaves under Hungary or Austria.♦ And with them we must take another
glimpse at those among the Northern Slaves who passed under the power
of the Magyar, and of that composite dominion which claims the Magyar
crown among many others. These North-Slavonic lands which have passed
to non-Slavonic rulers form a region stretching from Holstein to
the Austrian kingdom of Galicia and Lodomeria and to the Slovak and
Ruthenian districts of Hungary. But above all, this North-Slavonic
region takes in those two branches of the Slavonic race which have in
turn lorded it over one another, neither of which passed permanently
under the lordship of either Empire, but one of which owed its
unity and national life to settlers from the Scandinavian north.
♦Characteristics of Poland and Russia.♦ That is to say, it is the
land of the Pole and the Russian, the land of the two branches of the
Slavonic race which passed severally under the spiritual dominion of
the elder and the younger Rome without passing under the temporal
dominion of either. ♦The primitive nations.♦ And within the same
region we have to deal with the remnant that is left of those ancient
nations, Aryan and non-Aryan, which so long refused all obedience to
either Church as well as to either Empire. ♦Aryan nations; Prussians
and Lithuanians.♦ The region at which we now look takes in the land of
those elder brethren of the European family whose speech has changed
less than any other European tongue from the Aryan speech once common
to all. Alongside of the Orthodox Russian, of the Catholic Pole, of the
Swede first Catholic and then Lutheran, we have to look on the long
abiding heathendom of the Lithuanian and the Prussian.[53] ♦Non-Aryan
Fins.♦ And at their side we have to look on older races still, on the
præ-Aryan nations on either side of the Bothnian and Finnish gulfs.
The history of the eastern coast of the Baltic is the history of the
struggle for the rule or the destruction of these ancient nations at
the hands of their Teutonic and Slavonic neighbours.
♦Central position of the North-Slavonic lands.♦
The whole North-Slavonic region, north-eastern rather than central
with regard to Europe in general, has still a central character of its
own. It is connected with the history of northern, of western, and
of south-eastern Europe. The falling away of so many Slavonic lands
to Germany is of itself no small part of German history. But besides
this, the strictly Polish and Russian area marches at once on the
Western Empire, on the lands which fringe the Eastern Empire, on the
Scandinavian North, and on the barbarian lands to the north-east. This
last feature is a characteristic both of the North-Slavonic region and
of the Scandinavian peninsula. ♦Barbarian neighbours of Russia and
Scandinavia.♦ Norway, Sweden, Russia, are the only European powers
whose land has always marched on the land of barbarian neighbours,
and have therefore been able to conquer and colonize in barbarian
lands simply by extending their own frontiers. This was done by Norway
and Sweden as far as their geographical position allowed them; but it
has been done on a far greater scale by Russia. ♦Russian conquest and
colonization by land.♦ While other European nations have conquered
and colonized by sea, Russia, the one European state of later times
which has marched upon Asia, has found a boundless field for conquest
and colonization by land. She has had her India, her Canada, and
her Australia, her Mexico, her Brazil, her Java, and her Algeria,
geographically continuous with her European territory. This fact is the
key to much in the later history of Russia.
♦Relation of the Baltic lands to the two Empires.♦
With regard to the two Empires, the lands round the Baltic show us
several relations. ♦Norway always independent.♦ In Scandinavia,
Norway stands alone in never having had anything to do with the Roman
power in any of its forms. ♦Relations of Sweden and Denmark to the
Empire.♦ Sweden itself has always been equally independent; but in
later times Swedish kings have held fiefs within the Western Empire.
The position of Denmark has naturally caused it to have much more to
do with its Roman or German neighbour. In earlier times some Danish
kings became vassals of the Empire for the Danish crown; others made
conquests within the lands of the Empire. In later times Danish kings
have held fiefs within the German kingdom and have been members of the
more modern Confederation. ♦The Empire and the West-Slavonic lands.♦
The western parts of the Slavonic region became formally part of the
Western Empire. But this was after the Empire had put on the character
of a German state; these lands were not drawn to it from its strictly
Imperial side. ♦Poland and the Empire.♦ Poland sometimes passed in
early days for a fief of the German kingdom; in later days it was
divided between the two chief powers which arose out of that kingdom.
♦Relations of Russia to the Eastern Church and Empire.♦ Russia, on the
other hand, the pupil of the Eastern Empire, has never been the subject
or the vassal of either Empire. When Russia had an external overlord,
he was an Asiatic barbarian. ♦Imperial style of Russia.♦ The peculiar
relation between Russia and Constantinople, spiritual submission
combined with temporal independence, has led to the appearance in
Russia of Imperial ideas and titles with a somewhat different meaning
from that with which they were taken in Spain and in Britain. The
Russian prince claims the Imperial style and bearings, not so much as
holding an Imperial position in a world of his own, as because the
most powerful prince of the Eastern Church in some sort inherits the
position of the Eastern Emperor in the general world of Europe.
§ 1. _The Scandinavian Lands after the Separation of the Empires._
At the end of the eighth century the Scandinavian and Slavonic
inhabitants of the Baltic lands as yet hardly touched one another. The
most northern Scandinavians and the most northern Slaves were still
far apart; if the two races anywhere marched on one another, it must
have been at the extreme south-western corner of the Baltic coast. ♦The
Baltic still mainly held by the earlier races.♦ The greater part of
that coast, all its northern and eastern parts, was still held by the
earlier nations, Aryan and non-Aryan. ♦Formation of the Scandinavian
kingdoms.♦ But, within the two Scandinavian peninsulas, the three
Scandinavian nations were fast forming. A number of kindred tribes were
settling down into the kingdoms of Denmark, Norway, and Sweden,[54]
which, sometimes separate, sometimes united, have existed ever since.
Of these three, Denmark, the only one which had a frontier towards the
Empire, was naturally the first to play a part in general European
history. ♦Formation of the Danish kingdom.♦ In the course of the tenth
century, under the half-mythical Gorm and his successors Harold and
Sven, the Danish kingdom itself, as distinguished from other lands held
in after times by its kings, reached nearly its full historical extent
in the two peninsulas and the islands between them. ♦Denmark in the
northern peninsula.♦ _Halland_ and _Skåne_ or _Scania_, it must always
be remembered, are from the beginning at least as Danish as Zealand and
Jutland. ♦Frontier of the Eider. | The Danish March. 934-1027.♦ The
Eider remained the frontier towards the Empire, save during part of the
tenth and eleventh centuries, when the Danish frontier withdrew to the
Dannewerk, and the land between the two boundaries formed the _Danish
March_ of the Empire. Under Cnut the old frontier was restored.
The name of _Northmen_,[55] which the Franks used in a laxer way for
the Scandinavian nations generally, was confined to the people of
_Norway_. ♦Formation of the kingdom of Norway.♦ These were formed into
a single kingdom under Harold Harfagra late in the ninth century. The
Norwegian realm of that day stretched far beyond the bounds of the
later Norway, having an indefinite extension over tributary Finnish
tribes as far as the White Sea. The central part of the eastern side of
the northern peninsula, between Denmark to the south and the Finnish
nations to the north, was held by two Scandinavian settlements which
grew into the Swedish kingdom. ♦The Swedes and _Gauts_.♦ These were
those of the Swedes strictly so called, and of the _Geátas_ or _Gauts_.
This last name has naturally been confounded with that of the Goths,
and has given the title of _King of the Goths_ to the princes of
Sweden. _Gothland_, east and west, lay on each side of Lake Wettern.
_Swithiod_ or _Svealand_, Sweden proper, lay on both sides of the
great arm of the sea whose entrance is guarded by the modern capital.
♦The Swedish kingdom.♦ The union of Svealand and Gothland made up the
kingdom of Sweden. ♦Fluctuations towards Norway and Denmark. 1111.♦
Its early boundaries towards both Denmark and Norway were fluctuating.
_Wermeland_, immediately to the north of Lake Wenern, and _Jamteland_
farther to the north, were long a debateable land. At the beginning of
the twelfth century Wermeland passed finally to Sweden, and Jamteland
for several ages to Norway. _Bleking_ again, at the south-east corner
of the peninsula, was a debateable land between Sweden and Denmark
which passed to Denmark. ♦Growth to the north.♦ For a land thus bounded
the natural course of extension by land lay to the north, along the
west coast of the Gulf of Bothnia. In the course of the eleventh
century at the latest, Sweden began to spread itself in that direction
over _Helsingland_.
Sweden had thus a better opportunity than Denmark and Norway for
extension of her own borders by land. ♦Western expeditions of the
Danes and Northmen.♦ Meanwhile Denmark and Norway, looking to the
west, had their great time of Oceanic conquest and colonization
in the ninth and tenth centuries.[56] These two processes must be
distinguished. ♦Conquests.♦ Some lands, like the Northumbrian and
East-Anglian kingdoms in Britain and the duchy of Normandy in Gaul,
received Scandinavian princes and a Scandinavian element in their
population, without the geographical area of Scandinavia being
extended. ♦Colonies.♦ But that area may be looked on as being extended
by colonies like those of _Orkney_, _Shetland_, _Faroe_, the islands
off the western coast of Scotland, _Man_, _Iceland_, _Greenland_. Some
of these were actually discovered and settled for the first time by the
Northmen. ♦Settlements in Ireland.♦ The settlements on the east coast
of Ireland, Dublin, Waterford, Wexford, may also pass as outposts of
Scandinavia on Celtic ground. Of these outlying Scandinavian lands,
some of the islands, specially Iceland, have remained Scandinavian; the
settlements on the mainland of Britain and Ireland, and on the islands
nearest to them, have been merged in the British kingdoms or have
become dependencies of the British crown.
♦Expedition to the east.♦
Against this vast range of Oceanic settlement there is as yet little to
set in the form of Baltic conquest on the part of Norway and Denmark.
Norway indeed hardly could become a Baltic power. ♦Danes in Samland.
950.♦ But there was a Danish occupation of _Samland_ in Prussia in the
tenth century, which caused that land to be reckoned among the kingdoms
which made up the Northern Empire of Cnut.[56] ♦Jomsburg. 935-1043.♦
There is also the famous settlement of the _Jomsburg_ Wikings at the
mouth of the Oder. But the great eastern extension of Danish power came
later. Nor did the lasting Swedish occupation of the lands east of
the gulf of Bothnia begin till the twelfth century. But there is no
doubt that, long before this, there were Swedish inroads and occasional
Swedish conquests in other parts of the Baltic lands. ♦Swedish conquest
of Curland.♦ Thus _Curland_ is said to have been won for a while by
Sweden, and to have been again won back by its own Lettic people.[57]
The ninth century indeed saw a wonderful extension of Scandinavian
dominion far to the east and far to the south. But it was neither
ordinary conquest nor ordinary settlement. No new Scandinavian people
was planted, as in Orkney and Iceland. Nor were Scandinavian outposts
planted, as in Ireland. ♦Scandinavians in Russia.♦ But Scandinavian
princes, who in three generations lost all trace of their Scandinavian
origin, created, under the name of _Russia_, the greatest of Slavonic
powers. The vast results of their establishment have been results on
the history and geography of the Slaves; on Scandinavian geography it
had no direct effect at all. Still it forms a connecting link between
the Scandinavian lands west and north of the Baltic and the Slavonic
region to the east and south of that sea.
§ 2. _The Lands East and South of the Baltic at the Separation of the
Empires._
♦Slaves between Elbe and Dnieper.♦
At the beginning of the ninth century the inland region stretching from
the Elbe a little beyond the Dnieper was continuously held by various
Slavonic nations. Their land marched on the German kingdom at one end,
and on various Finnish and Turkish nations at the other. ♦Their lack
of sea-board.♦ But their sea-board was comparatively small. Wholly cut
off from the Euxine, from the northern Ocean, and from the great gulfs
of the Baltic, their only coast was that which reaches from the modern
haven of Kiel to the mouth of the Vistula. And this Slavonic coast was
gradually brought under German influence and dominion, and has been in
the end fully incorporated with the German state. It follows then that,
in tracing the history of the chief Slavonic powers in this region,
of Bohemia, Poland, and Russia, we are dealing with powers which are
almost wholly inland. At the time of the separation of the Empires,
there was no one great Slavonic power in these parts. One such, with
Bohemia for its centre, had shown itself for a moment in the seventh
century. ♦Bohemian kingdom of Samo. 623.♦ This was the kingdom of
Samo, which, if its founder was really of Frankish birth, forms an
exact parallel to Bulgaria and Russia, also Slavonic powers created by
foreign princes.[58] ♦Great-Moravia. 884.♦ The next considerable power
which arose nearly on the same ground was the Great Moravian kingdom of
Sviatopluk, which passed away before the advance of the Magyars. Before
its fall the Russian power had already begun to form itself far to the
north-east. ♦Four Slavonic groups.♦ Looking at the map just before the
beginning of the momentary Moravian and the lasting Russian power,
the North-Slavonic nations fall into four main historical groups.
♦North-western group; thoroughly Germanized.♦ There are, first, the
tribes to the north-west, whose lands, answering roughly to the modern
Mecklenburg, Pomerania, Brandenburg, and Saxony, have been thoroughly
Germanized. ♦South-western group under German supremacy♦ Secondly,
there are the tribes to the south-west in _Bohemia_, _Moravia_, and
_Lusatia_, which were brought under German dominion or supremacy, but
from which Slavonic nationality has not in the same sort passed away.
_Silesia_, connected in different ways with both these groups, forms
the link between them and the third group. ♦Central group; Polish.♦
This is formed by the central tribes of the whole region, lying between
the Magyar to the south and the Prussian to the north, whose union
made up the original Polish kingdom. ♦Eastern group; Russian.♦ Lastly,
to the east lie the tribes which joined to form the original Russian
state. Looking at these groups in our own time, we may say that from
the first of them all signs of Slavonic nationality have passed away.
The second and third, speaking roughly, keep nationality without
political independence. The fourth group has grown into the one great
modern power whose ruling nationality is Slavonic.
* * * * *
With regard to the first group, we have now to trace from the
Slavonic side the same changes of frontier which we have already
slightly glanced at from the German side. ♦Polabic group.♦ In the
land between the Elbe and the Oder, taking the upper course of those
rivers as represented by their tributaries the Saale and the Bober,
we find that division of the Slaves which their own historian marks
off as _Polabic_.[59] These again fall under three groups. ♦Sorabi.♦
First, to the south, in the modern Saxony, are the _Sorabi_, the
northern Serbs, cut off for ever from their southern brethren by the
Magyar inroad. ♦Leuticii.♦ To the north of them lie the _Leuticii_,
_Weleti_, _Weletabi_, or _Wiltsi_, and other tribes stretching to
the Baltic in modern Mecklenburg and Western Pomerania. ♦Obotrites:♦
In the north-west corner, in Mecklenburg and eastern Holstein, were
the _Obotrites_, _Wagri_, and other tribes. ♦their relations to the
Empire.♦ Through the ninth, tenth, and eleventh centuries the relations
between these lands and the Western Empire was not unlike the relation
of the southern Slaves to the Eastern Empire during the same ages. Only
the Western Emperors never had such a rival on their immediate border
as the Bulgaria of Simeon or Samuel. ♦Fluctuations of tribute and
independence. 921-968.♦ The Slavonic tribes on the north-eastern border
of the Western Empire were tributary or independent, according as the
Empire was strong or weak. Tributary under Charles the Great, tributary
again under the great Saxon kings, they had an intermediate period
of independence. The German dominion, which fell back in the latter
part of the tenth century, was again asserted by the Saxon dukes and
margraves in the eleventh and twelfth. ♦Final conquest.♦ Long before
the end of the twelfth century the work was done. The German dominion,
and with it the Christian religion, had been forced on the Slaves
between Elbe and Oder.
♦Conquest of the Sorabi.♦
The Serbs between Elbe and Saale seem to have been the earliest and the
most thoroughly conquered. They never won back their full independence
after the victories of the first Saxon kings. The Serbs between Elbe
and Bober, sometimes tributary to the Empire, were also sometimes
independent, sometimes under the superiority of kindred powers like
Poland or Bohemia. ♦Meissen.♦ The lands included in the mark of
_Meissen_ were thoroughly Germanized by the twelfth century. ♦Lusatia.♦
But in the lands included in the mark of _Lusatia_ the Slavonic speech
and nationality still keep a firm hold.
♦The Leuticians.♦
The Leutician land to the north was lost and won over and over again.
♦927-1157.♦ _Branibor_, the German _Brandenburg_, was often taken
and retaken during a space of two hundred years. ♦983.♦ Late in the
tenth century the whole land won back its freedom. ♦1030-1101.♦ In the
eleventh it came under the Polish power. ♦1134-1157.♦ At last, the
reign of Albert the Bear finally added to Germany the land which was to
contain the latest German capital, and made Brandenburg a German _mark_.
In the land lying on that narrow part of the Baltic which bore the
special name of the _Slavonic Gulf_, the alternations of revolt and
submission, from the ninth century to the twelfth, were endless. Here
we can trace out native dynasties, one of which has lasted to our own
day. ♦Kingdom of Sclavinia.♦ The mark of the Billungs[60] alternates
with the _kingdom of Sclavinia_, and the kingdom of Sclavinia
alternates between heathen and Christian princes. ♦Przemyslaf.
1161. | House of Mecklenburg.♦ At last, in the twelfth century, the
last heathen King of the Wends became the first Christian Duke, the
founder of the house of Mecklenburg. Part of this region, Western
Pomerania and the island of _Rügen_, became, both in this and in later
times, a special borderland of Germany and Scandinavia. ♦Rügen under
Denmark. 1168-1325.♦ Rügen and the neighbouring coast became a Danish
possession in the twelfth century, and so remained into the fourteenth.
♦1214-1223.♦ The kingdom of Sclavinia itself became Danish for a short
season. A Scandinavian power appeared again in the same region in the
seventeenth century. With these exceptions, the history of these lands
from the twelfth century onward, is that of members of the German
kingdom.
* * * * *
It was otherwise with the second group, with the Slaves who dwelled
within the fence of the Giant Mountains, and with their neighbours
to the north-east, on the upper course of the Oder as well as on the
Wag and the northern Morava. ♦Kingdom of Bohemia.♦ Here a Slavonic
kingdom has lived on to this day, though it early passed under German
supremacy, and though it has been for ages ruled by German kings.
♦928.♦ _Bohemia_, the land of the _Czechs_, tributary to Charles
the Great, part of the kingdom of Sviatopluk, became definitely a
German fief through the wars of the Saxon kings. But this did not
hinder Bohemia from becoming, later in the century, an advancing and
conquering power, the seat of a short-lived dominion, like those of
Samo and Sviatopluk. ♦Moravians and Slovaks.♦ To the east of the Czechs
of Bohemia lie the _Moravians_ and _Slovaks_, that branch of the
Slavonic race which formed the centre of the kingdom of Sviatopluk,
and which bore the main brunt of the Magyar invasion. ♦Magyar conquest
of Moravia. 906-955.♦ A large part of the Slaves of this region fell
permanently under Magyar rule; so did Moravia itself for a season.
Since then Bohemia and Moravia have usually had a common destiny.
♦Advance of Bohemia. 973-999.♦ Later in the century the Czechish
dominion reached to the Oder, and took in the Northern _Chrobatia_ on
the upper Vistula. This dominion passed away with the great growth
of the Polish power. ♦Bohemia and Moravia under Poland. 1003-1004.
| 1003-1029.♦ Bohemia itself for a moment, Moravia for a somewhat longer
time, became Polish dependencies, and the Magyar won a further land
between the Wag and the Olzava. Later events led to another growth of
Bohemia, in more forms than one, but always as a member of the Roman
Empire and the German kingdom.
* * * * *
♦The Polish kingdom.♦
While our second group thus passed under German dominion without
ceasing to be Slavonic, among the third group a great Slavonic power
arose whose adhesion to the Western Church made it part of the general
Western world, but which was never brought under the lasting supremacy
of the Western Empire. ♦Its relations to Germany.♦ Large parts of the
old Polish lands have passed under German rule; some parts have been
largely Germanized. But Poland, as a whole, has never been either
Germanized or brought under lasting German rule. Holding the most
central position of any European state, Poland has had to struggle
against enemies from every quarter, against the Swede from the Baltic
and the Turk from the Danube. ♦Rivalry of Poland and Russia.♦ But the
distinguishing feature of its history has been its abiding rivalry with
the Slavonic land to the east of it. The common history of Poland and
Russia is a history of conquest and partition, wrought by whichever
power was at the time the stronger.
♦The Lechs or Poles.♦
Our first glimmerings of light in these parts show us a number of
kindred tribes holding the land between Oder and Vistula, with the
coast between the mouths of those rivers. East of the Vistula they
are cut off from the sea by the Prussians; but in the inland region
they stretch somewhat to the east of that river. To the west the
Oder and Bober may be taken as their boundary. ♦White Chrobatia.♦
But the upper course of these rivers is the home of another kindred
people, the northern branch of the Chrobatians or Croats, whose land
of _White Chrobatia_ stretched on both sides of the Carpathians.
These Slaves of the central and lower Oder and Vistula would seem to
be best distinguished as _Lechs_; _Poland_ is the name of the land
rather than of the people. ♦Polish tribes.♦ _Mazovia_, _Cujavia_,
_Silesia_—the German _Schlesien_—with the sea land, _Pomore_,
_Pommern_, or _Pomerania_, mark different districts held by kindred
tribes. ♦Beginning of the Polish kingdom at Gnesen.♦ In the tenth
century a considerable power arose for the first time in these regions,
having its centre between the Warta and the Vistula, at _Gniezno_ or
_Gnesen_, the abiding metropolitan city of Poland. ♦931-992. Conversion
of Poland.♦ The extent of the new power under the first Christian
prince Mieczïslaf answered nearly to the later Great Poland, Mazovia,
and Silesia. ♦Tributary to the Empire. 963. | 973.♦ But the Polish
duke became a vassal of the Empire for his lands west of Warta, and
suffered some dismemberments to the advantage of Bohemia. ♦Conquests
of Boleslaf. 996-1025.♦ Under his son Boleslaf, Poland rose to the
same kind of momentary greatness as Moravia and Bohemia had already
done. The dominions of Boleslaf took in, for longer or shorter times,
Bohemia, Moravia, Lusatia, Silesia, Pomerania, Prussia, part of
Russia, and part of that middle Slavonic land which became the mark of
Brandenburg, the districts of _Barnim_ and _Custrin_. Of this great
dominion some parts fell away during the life of Boleslaf, and other
parts at his death. ♦Effects of his reign.♦ But he none the less
established Poland as a power, and some of his conquests were abiding.
♦Chrobatia becomes _Little Poland_.♦ Western Pomerania, Silesia, Barnim
and Custrin, were kept for a longer or shorter time; and Chrobatia
north of the Carpathians—the southern part fell to the Magyar at his
death—remained, under the name of _Little Poland_, as long as Poland
lasted at all. It supplied the land with its second capital, _Cracow_.
From this time Poland ranked sometimes as a kingdom, sometimes as a
duchy.[61] ♦Internal divisions.♦ Constant divisions among members of
the ruling house, occasional admissions of the outward supremacy of
the Empire, did not destroy its national unity and independence.
♦The Polish state survives.♦ A Polish state always lived on. And from
the end of the thirteenth century, it took its place as an important
European kingdom, holding a distinctive position as the one Slavonic
power at once attached to the Western Church and independent of the
Western Empire.
* * * * *
♦Relations of Russia to the Eastern Church.♦
To the east of the Lechs and Chrobatians lay that great group of
Slavonic tribes whose distinctive historical character is that they
stood in the same relation to Eastern Christendom in which Poland
stands to Western. Disciples of the Eastern Church, they were never
vassals of the Eastern Empire. ♦Teutonic influence among eastern and
western Slaves.♦ The Western Slaves were brought under Christian
and under Teutonic influences by the same process, a process which
implied submission, or attempted submission, to the Western Empire or
to some of its princes. The Eastern Slaves were also brought under
both Christian and Teutonic influences, but in wholly different
shapes. The Teutonic influence came first. ♦Russia created by the
Scandinavian settlement.♦ It did not take the form of submission to any
existing Teutonic power; it was the creation of a new Slavonic power
under Teutonic rulers. Christianity did not come till those Teutonic
influences had died away, except in their results, and, coming from
the Eastern centre of Christendom, it had the effect of keeping its
disciples aloof from both the Christian and the Teutonic influences of
the West. ♦The name _Russian_.♦ A group of Slavonic tribes, without
losing their Slavonic character, grew up to national unity, and took up
a national name from Scandinavian settlers and rulers, the Warangians
or _Russians_ of the Swedish peninsula.[62]
♦Origin of Russia. 862. | First seat at Novgorod. Russian advance.♦
The Russian power began by the Scandinavian leaders obtaining, in the
latter half of the ninth century, the dominion of the most northern
members of the Slavonic race, the Slaves of _Novgorod_ on the Ilmen.
Thence they pushed their dominion southwards. ♦Extent of the eastern
Slavonic lands.♦ East and north-east of the Lechs and Chrobatians lay
a crowd of Slavonic tribes stretching beyond the Dnieper as far as the
upper course of the Oka. Cut off from the Baltic by the Fins and Letts,
they were cut off from the Euxine by various Turanian races in turn,
first Magyars, then Patzinaks. To the south-east, from the Dnieper
to the Caspian, lay the _Chazar_ dominion, to which the Slaves east
of Dnieper were tributary. To the north-east lay a crowd of Finnish
tribes, among which is only one Finnish power of historic name, the
kingdom of _Great_ or _White Bulgaria_ on the Volga. ♦Union of the
eastern Slaves. 862-912.♦ Within this region, in the space of fifty
years, the various Slavonic tribes joined in different degrees of unity
to form the new power, called _Russian_ from its Scandinavian leaders.
♦Advance against Chazars and Fins.♦ The tribes who were tributary to
the Chazars were set free, and the Russian power was spread over a
certain Finnish area on the Upper Volga and its tributaries, nearly as
far north as Lake Bielo. ♦Second centre at Kief.♦ The centres of the
new power were, first _Novgorod_, and then _Kief_ on the Dnieper.
♦The rulers of Russia become Slavonic. | 957-972.♦
How early the Scandinavian rulers of the new Slavonic power became
themselves practically Slavonic is shown by the name of the prince
Sviatoslaf, of whom we have already heard in the Danubian Bulgaria.
♦Russian enterprise. Euxine.♦ Already had Russian enterprise taken
the direction which it took in far later days. It was needful for
the developement of the new Russian nation to have free access to the
Euxine. From this they were cut off by a strange fate for nine hundred
years. But from the very beginning more than one attempt was made on
Constantinople, though the _Tzargrad_, the Imperial city, could be
reached only by sailing down the Dnieper through an enemy’s country.
♦Conquests on the Caspian. | Vladimir takes Cherson.♦ Sviatoslaf also
appears as a conqueror in the lands by the Caucasus and the Caspian,
and Vladimir, the first Christian prince, won his way to baptism by an
attack on the Imperial city of Cherson.
♦Isolation of Russia.♦
The oldest Russia was thus, like the oldest Poland, emphatically
an inland state; but it was far more isolated than Poland. Its
ecclesiastical position kept it from sharing the history of the Western
Slaves. Its geographical position kept it from sharing the history
of the Servians and Bulgarians. ♦Russian lands west of Dnieper.♦ And
it must not be forgotten that the oldest Russia was formed mainly of
lands which afterwards passed under the rule of Poland and Lithuania.
_Little Russia_, _Black Russia_, _White Russia_, _Red Russia_, all came
under foreign rule. The Dnieper, from which Russia was afterwards cut
off, was the great central river of the elder Russia; of the Don and
the Volga she held only the upper course. The northern frontier barely
passed the great lakes of Ladoga and Onega, and the Gulf of Finland
itself. It seems not to have reached what was to be the Gulf of Riga,
but some of the Russian princes held a certain supremacy over the
Finnish and Lettish tribes of that region.
♦Russian principalities. 1054. | Supremacy of Kief;♦
In the course of the eleventh century, the Russian state, like that of
Poland, was divided among princes of the reigning family, acknowledging
the superiority of the great prince of _Kief_. ♦of the Northern
Vladimir, 1169.♦ In the next century the chief power passed from Kief
to the northern _Vladimir_ on the Kiasma. ♦Susdal Russian.♦ Thus
the former Finnish land of _Susdal_ on the upper tributaries of the
Volga became the cradle of the second Russian power. ♦Commonwealths
at Novgorod and Pskof.♦ _Novgorod the Great_ meanwhile, under
elective princes, claimed, like its neighbour _Pskof_, to rank among
commonwealths. Its dominion was spread far over the Finnish tribes to
the north and east; the White Sea, and, far more precious, the Finnish
Gulf, had now a Russian seaboard. It was out of Vladimir and Novgorod
that the Russia of the future was to grow. ♦The principalities.♦
Meanwhile a crowd of principalities, _Polotsk_, _Smolensk_, the
_Severian Novgorod_, _Tchernigof_, and others, arose on the Duna and
Dnieper. ♦Commonwealth of Viatka. 1174. | Halicz or Galicia. 1186.♦ Far
to the east across the commonwealth of _Viatka_, and on the frontiers
of Poland and Hungary arose the principality of _Halicz_ or _Galicia_,
which afterwards grew for a while into a powerful kingdom.
♦The Cumans. 1114.♦
Meanwhile in the lands on the Euxine the old enemies, Patzinaks and
Chazars, gave way to the _Cumans_,[63] known in Russian history as
_Polovtzi_ and _Parthi_. They spread themselves from the Ural river to
the borders of Servia and Danubian Bulgaria, cutting off Russia from
the Caspian. ♦1223. | Mongol invasion.♦ In the next century Russians
and Cumans—momentary allies—fell before the advance of the _Mongols_,
commonly known in European history as _Tartars_. Known only as ravagers
in the lands more to the west, over Russia they become overlords for
two hundred and fifty years. ♦Russia tributary to the Mongols.♦ All
that escaped absorption by the Lithuanian became tributary to the
Mongol. ♦1240.♦ Still the relation was only a tributary one; Russia was
never incorporated in the Mongol dominion, as Servia and Bulgaria were
incorporated in the Ottoman dominion. ♦Russia represented by Novgorod.♦
But Kief was overthrown; Vladimir became dependent; Novgorod remained
the true representative of free Russia in the Baltic lands.
* * * * *
♦The earlier races on the Baltic.♦
But besides the Slaves of Poland and Russia, our survey takes in also
the ancient races by which both Poland and Russia were so largely
cut off from the Baltic. Down to the middle of the twelfth century,
notwithstanding occasional Polish or Scandinavian occupations, those
races still kept their hold of the whole Baltic north-eastwards from
the mouth of the Vistula. ♦Fins in Livland and Esthland.♦ The non-Aryan
Fins, besides their seats to the north, still kept the coast of
_Esthland_ and _Lifland_, in Latin shape _Esthonia_ and _Livonia_, from
the Finnish Gulf to the Duna and slightly beyond, taking in a small
strip of the opposite peninsula. ♦The Lettic nations.♦ The inland part
of the later Livland was held by the _Letts_, the most northern branch
of the ancient Aryan settlers in this region. ♦Curland. | Samogitia.
| Lithuania.♦ Of this family were the tribes of _Curland_ in their own
peninsula, of _Samigola_ or _Semigallia_, the _Samaites_ of _Samogitia_
to the south, the proper _Lithuanians_ south of them, the _Jatwages_,
_Jatwingi_—in many spellings—forming a Lithuanian wedge between the
Slavonic lands of Mazovia and Black Russia. ♦Prussia.♦ The Lithuanians,
strictly so called, reached the coast just north of the Niemen; from
the mouth of the Niemen to the mouth of the Vistula the coast was
held by the _Prussians_. Of these nations, Aryan and non-Aryan, the
Lithuanians alone founded a national dominion in historic times. The
history of the rest is simply the history of their bondage, sometimes
of their uprooting.
* * * * *
♦Survey in the twelfth century.♦
Taking a general survey of the lands round the Baltic about the middle
of the twelfth century, we see the three Scandinavian kingdoms, the
first fully formed states in these regions, all living and vigorous
powers, but with fluctuating boundaries. Their western colonies are
still Scandinavian. East and south of the Baltic they have not got
beyond isolated and temporary enterprises. The Slavonic nations on the
middle Elbe have fallen under German dominion; to the south Bohemia
and its dependencies keep their Slavonic nationality under German
supremacy. Poland, often divided and no longer conquering, still keeps
its frontier, and its position as the one independent Slavonic power
belonging to the Western Church. Russia, the great Eastern Slavonic
power, has risen to unity and greatness under Scandinavian masters,
and has again broken up into states connected only by a feeble tie.
The submission of Russia to barbarian invaders comes later than our
immediate survey; but the weakening of the Russian power both by
division and by submission is an essential element in the state of
things which now begins. ♦Teutonic advance, German and Scandinavian.♦
This is the spread in different ways of Teutonic dominion, German and
Scandinavian, over the southern and eastern coasts of the Baltic,
largely at the expense of the Slaves, still more largely at the expense
of the primitive nations, Aryan and non-Aryan.
§ 3. _The German Dominion on the Baltic._
♦Time of Teutonic conquest.♦
In the first half of the twelfth century, no Teutonic power, German or
Scandinavian, had any lasting hold on any part of the eastern coast of
the Baltic or its gulfs, nor had any such power made any great advances
on the southern coast. Early in the fourteenth century the whole of
these coasts had been brought into different degrees of submission to
several Teutonic powers, German and Scandinavian. ♦German influence
stronger than Scandinavian.♦ Of the two influences the German has been
the more abiding. Scandinavian dominion has now wholly passed away from
these coasts, and it is only in the lands north of the Finnish Gulf
that it can be said to have ever been really lasting. ♦Extent of German
dominion.♦ But German influence has destroyed, assimilated, or brought
to submission, the whole of the earlier inhabitants, from Wagria to
Esthland. In our own day the whole coast, from the isle of Rügen to the
head of the gulf of Bothnia, is in the possession of two powers, one
German, one Slavonic. ♦German influence abiding.♦ But German influence
abides beyond the bounds of German rule. Not only have Pomerania
and Prussia become German in every sense, but Curland, Livland, and
Esthland, under the dominion of Russia, are still spoken of as German
provinces.
This great change was brought about by a singular union of mercantile,
missionary, and military enterprise. ♦Beginning of Swedish conquest in
Finland. 1155.♦ The beginning came from Scandinavia, when the Swedish
King Saint Eric undertook the conquest and conversion of the proper
Finland, east of the Gulf of Bothnia. Here, in the space of about a
century, a great province was added to the Swedish kingdom, a province
whose eastern boundary greatly shifted, but the greater part of which
remained Swedish down to the present century. To the south of the Gulf
of Finland the changes of possession have been endless. The settled
dominion of Sweden in those lands comes later; Danish occupation,
though longer, was only temporary. ♦German conquest in Livland.♦ Soon
after the beginning of Swedish conquest in Finland began the work of
German mercantile enterprise, followed fifty years later by German
conquest and conversion, in Livland and the neighbouring lands. This
hindered the growth of any native power on those coasts. ♦Its effect on
Lithuania and Russia.♦ Even Lithuania in the days of its greatness was
cut off from the sea. Whatever tendencies towards Russian supremacy had
arisen in those parts were hindered from growing into Russian dominion.
♦The Military Orders.♦ The Knights of the Sword in Livland were
followed by the Teutonic Knights in Prussia, and the two orders became
one. ♦Danish advance.♦ Further west, the latter part of the twelfth
and the beginning of the thirteenth century saw a great, but mostly
short-lived, extension of Danish power over both German and Slavonic
lands. ♦The Scandinavian kingdoms.♦ While the coasts are thus changing
hands, the relations of Scandinavian kingdoms to one another are ever
shifting. ♦Polish gains and losses.♦ Poland is ever losing territory
to the west, and, still more after the beginning of its connexion with
Lithuania, ever gaining it to the east. ♦The _Hansa_.♦ And, alongside
of princes and sovereign orders, this time is marked by the appearance
of the first germs of the great German commercial league, which,
without becoming a strictly territorial power, exercised the greatest
influence on the disposal of power among all its neighbours.
* * * * *
♦Scania Swedish. 1332-1360.♦
In Scandinavia itself the chief strictly geographical change was a
temporary transfer to Sweden in the fourteenth century of the Danish
lands within the northern peninsula. ♦Union of Calmar. 1396.♦ At
the end of that century came the union of Calmar, the principle of
which was that the three kingdoms, remaining separate states, should
be joined under a common sovereign. But this union was never firmly
established, and the arrangements of the three crowns were shifting
throughout the fifteenth century; a lasting state of things came only
with the final breach of the union in the sixteenth century. ♦Sweden
separated, Denmark and Norway united. 1520.♦ From that time, Sweden,
under the house of Vasa, forms one power; Denmark and Norway, under the
house of Oldenburg, form another.
♦Loss of oceanic colonies.♦
With regard to the more distant relations of the three kingdoms, this
period is marked by the gradual withdrawal of Scandinavian power from
the oceanic lands. ♦Iceland and Greenland united to Norway. 1261-1262.♦
The union of Iceland and Greenland with Norway was the union of one
Scandinavian land with another. But Greenland, the most distant
Scandinavian land, vanishes from history about the time of the Calmar
union. The Scandinavian settlements in and about the British Islands
all passed away. ♦Ireland.♦ The Ostmen of Ireland were lost in the mass
of the Teutonic settlers who passed from England into Ireland. ♦The
Western Isles. Man. 1264.♦ The Western Isles were sold to Scotland; Man
passed under Scottish and English supremacy. ♦Orkney pledged. 1468.♦
Orkney and Shetland were pledged to the Scottish crown; and, though
never formally ceded, they have become incorporated with the British
kingdom.
♦Swedish advance in Finland. | 1248-1293.♦
East of the Gulf of Bothnia Swedish rule advanced. Attempts at conquest
both in Russia and in Esthland failed, but _Finland_ and _Carelia_ were
fully subdued, and the Swedish power reached to Lake Ladoga. ♦Esthland
Danish. 1238-1346.♦ Denmark made a more lasting, but still short-lived,
settlement in Esthland. ♦Short-lived greatness of Denmark.♦ The growth
of Denmark at the other end of the Baltic lands began earlier and was
checked sooner. But at the beginning of the thirteenth century things
looked as if Denmark was about to become the chief power on all the
Baltic coasts.
♦Holstein.♦
South of the boundary stream of the Eider the lands which make up
the modern Holstein formed three settlements, two Teutonic and one
Slavonic. ♦Ditmarschen.♦ To the west lay the free Frisian land of
_Ditmarschen_. ♦Holstein.♦ In the middle were the lands of the Saxons
beyond the Elbe—the _Holtsætan_—with _Stormarn_ immediately on the
Elbe. ♦Wagria.♦ On the Baltic side lay the Slavonic land of _Wagria_,
which at the beginning of the twelfth century formed part of the
kingdom of _Sclavinia_, a kingdom stretching from the haven of Kiel to
the islands at the mouth of the Oder. ♦Danish conquest of Sclavinia.
1168-1189.♦ In these lands began the eastern advance of Denmark in the
latter half of the twelfth century. All Sclavinia was won, with at
least a supremacy over the Pomeranian land as far as the Riddow. Thus
far the Danish conquests, won mainly over Slaves, continue the chain
of occasional Scandinavian occupation on those coasts, from the tenth
century to the nineteenth. In another point of view, the Christian
advance, the overthrow of the chief centre of Slavonic heathendom in
Rügen, carries on the work of the Saxon Dukes. ♦Danish advance in
Germany.♦ But in the first years of the next century began a Danish
occupation of German ground. Holstein, and Lübeck itself, were won;
a claim was set up to the free land of Ditmarschen; and all these
conquests were confirmed by an Imperial grant.[64] ♦1214.♦ The Danish
kings now took the title of _Kings of the Slaves_, afterwards of the
_Vandals_ or _Wends_. ♦Fall of the Danish power. 1223-1227.♦ But
this dominion was soon broken up by the captivity of the Danish king
Waldemar. The Eider became again the boundary. ♦Denmark keeps Rügen,
till ceded 1325, 1438.♦ Of her Slavonic dominion Denmark kept only an
outlying fragment, the isle of Rügen and the neighbouring coast. This
remained Danish for a hundred years longer, nominally for a hundred
years longer still.
The next changes tended to draw the lands immediately on each side
of the Eider into close connexion with one another. ♦Duchy of South
Jutland. 1232.♦ The southern part of the Danish peninsula, from the
Eider to the Aa, became a distinct fief of the Danish crown, held by a
Danish prince under the name of the duchy of _South-Jutland_—_Jutia_
or _Sunder-Jutia_. ♦United with Holstein. 1325.♦ In the next century
this duchy and the county of Holstein are found in the hands of
the same prince, and it is held that his grant of the Danish duchy
contained a promise that it should never be united with the Danish
crown. ♦Duchy of Sleswick.♦ Henceforth South-Jutland begins to be
spoken of as the _duchy of Sleswick_. But of the lands held together,
Sleswick remained a fief of Denmark, while Holstein remained a fief
of the Empire. ♦Fluctuations of Sleswick and Holstein.♦ The duchy was
several times united to the crown and again granted out. ♦1424.♦ At
one moment of union the Roman King Sigismund expressly confirmed the
union, and acknowledged Sleswick as a Danish land. ♦1448.♦ At the
next grant of the duchy, its perpetual separation from the crown is
alleged to have been again confirmed by Christian the First. ♦1460.♦
Yet Christian himself, already king of the three kingdoms, was
afterwards elected Duke of Sleswick and Count of Holstein. The election
was accompanied by a declaration that the two principalities, though
the one was held of the Empire and the other of the Danish crown,
should never be separated. ♦Duchy of Holstein. 1474.♦ In the same
reign an Imperial grant raised the counties of Holstein and Stormarn
with the land of Ditmarsh to the rank of a duchy. But the dominions
of its duke were not a continuous territory stretching from sea to
sea. ♦Freedom in Ditmarschen. | Bishopric of Lübeck.♦ To the west,
_Ditmarschen_—notwithstanding a renewed Imperial grant—remained free;
to the east, some districts of the old Wagria formed the _bishopric of
Lübeck_. ♦Denmark, Sleswick, and Holstein under Christian.♦ But now for
the first time the same prince reigned in the threefold character of
King of Denmark, Duke of the Danish fief of Sleswick, and Duke of the
Imperial fief of Holstein. Endless shiftings, divisions, and reunions
of various parts of the two duchies followed. ♦Royal and Ducal lines.
1580.♦ In the partitions between the _royal_ and _ducal_ lines of the
house of Oldenburg, the several portions of the Kings of Denmark and
of the Dukes of Gottorp paid no regard to the boundary of the Eider,
but each was made up of detached parts of both duchies. ♦Conquest of
Ditmarschen. 1559.♦ Meanwhile the freedom of Ditmarschen came to an
end, and the old Frisian land became part of the royal share of the
duchy of Holstein. ♦Acquisition of Dago and Oesel.♦ And, as we began
our story of Danish advance with the settlement in Esthland, we have to
end it for the present with the acquisition of the islands of _Dago_
and _Oesel_ off the same coasts.
* * * * *
♦Effect of the Danish advance on the Slavonic lands.♦
After the loss of Rügen, Denmark had little to do with the Slavonic
lands, except so far as the possession of Holstein carried with it
the possession of the old Slavonic land of Wagria. Still the advance
of Denmark at the end of the twelfth century had a lasting effect on
the Slavonic lands by altogether shaking the Polish dominion on the
Baltic. But it shook it to the advantage, not of Scandinavia, but of
Germany. Between the twelfth century and the fourteenth Poland lost all
its western dominions. _Pomore_, _Pommern_, _Pomerania_, the seaboard
of the Lechish Slaves, is strictly the land between the mouth of the
Vistula and the mouth of the Oder; but the name had already spread
further to the West. ♦Pomerania falls away from Poland.♦ After the
fall of the Danish power on this coast, Pomerania west of the Riddow
altogether fell away from Poland. ♦Duchy of Slavia.♦ As the duchy of
_Slavia_, it became, like Mecklenburg, a land of the Empire, though
ruled by Slavonic princes. ♦1298-1305. Loss of western territory by
Poland.♦ But the eastern part of Pomerania, _Cassubia_ and the mark
of _Gdansk_ or _Danzig_, remained under Polish superiority till the
beginning of the fourteenth century. Then the greater part fell away,
partly for ever, to the Pomeranian duchy of _Wolgast_, partly, for
a season only, to the Teutonic Knights. ♦1220-1260.♦ To the south
_Barnim_ and _Custrin_ passed, after some shiftings, to the mark of
Brandenburg. ♦Silesia. 1289-1327.♦ Further to the south, Silesia,
divided among princes of the house of Piast, gradually fell under
Bohemian supremacy. Thus the whole western part of the Polish kingdom
passed into the hands of princes of the Empire, and was included within
the bounds of the German realm.
* * * * *
The fate of Silesia brings us again to the history of the inland
Slavonic land of the Czechs. _Bohemia_ went on, as duchy and
kingdom,[65] ruled by native princes as vassals of the Empire. Moravia
was a fief of Bohemia. In the end Bohemia passed to German kings, but
not till it had become again the centre of a dominion which recalls
the fleeting powers of Samo and Sviatopluk. ♦Bohemia and Ottocar.
1269-1278.♦ Ottocar the Second united the long-severed branches of the
Slavonic race by annexing the German lands which lay between them. ♦His
German dominion.♦ Lord of Bohemia, Moravia, Austria, Styria, Carinthia,
and Carniola, the Czech king reigned on the upper Oder and the middle
Danube as far as the Hadriatic. The same lands were in after times to
be again united, but from the opposite side.
♦Luxemburg kings of Bohemia. 1308.♦
The successors of Ottocar reigned only over Bohemia and Moravia.
Early in the next century the Bohemian crown passed to the house of
Luxemburg. Under them Bohemia became a powerful state, but a state
becoming more and more German, less and less Slavonic. ♦Silesia, 1355.♦
The gradual extension of Bohemian superiority over Silesia led to
its formal incorporation. ♦Lusatia. 1320-1370.♦ In the same century
_Lusatia_, High and Low, was won from Brandenburg. ♦Brandenburg.
1373-1417.♦ The mark of Brandenburg itself became for a while a
Bohemian possession, before it passed to the burgraves of Nürnberg.
♦1353.♦ The Bohemian possession of the Upper Palatinate lies out of our
Slavonic range. Among the revolutions of the fifteenth century, we find
the Bohemian crown at one time held conjointly with that of Hungary,
at another time held by a Polish prince. ♦Conquests of Matthias
Corvinus, 1478-1490.♦ Later in the century the victories of Matthias
Corvinus took away Moravia, Silesia, and Lusatia, from the Bohemian
crown. ♦Bohemia and Austria. | Its losses. 1635. | 1740.♦ But it was
the fourfold dominion of Bohemia, Moravia, Silesia, and Lusatia, which
finally passed to the House of Austria, to be shorn of its northern and
eastern lands to the profit, first of Saxony, and then of Brandenburg
or Prussia.
* * * * *
Thus far the Teutonic advance, both on the actual Baltic coast and
on the inland Slavonic region, had been made to the profit, partly
of the Scandinavian kingdoms, partly of the princes of the Empire.
♦German corporations.♦ But there were two other forms of Teutonic
influence and dominion, which fell to the share, not of princes, but
of corporate bodies, mercantile and military or religious. ♦The
Hansa.♦ The Hanseatic League was indeed a power in these regions,
but it hardly has a place on the map. ♦Second foundation of Lübeck.
1158.♦ Even before the second foundation of Lübeck by Henry the Lion,
German mercantile settlements had begun at Novgorod, in Gotland, and
in London. ♦Extent of the League.♦ Gradually, in the course of the
thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, the League into which the union
of the merchant towns of Germany grew spread itself over the Baltic,
the Westfalian, and the Netherlandish lands. A specially close tie
bound together the five _Wendish_ towns, _Lübeck_, _Rostock_, _Wismar_,
_Stralsund_, and _Greifswald_. ♦Nature of the union.♦ But the union
of a town with the Hansa did not necessarily affect its political
position. It might, at least in the later stages of the League, be
a free city of the Empire, a town subject to some prince of the
Empire, or a town subject to a prince beyond its bounds. Not only the
Pomeranian and Prussian cities under the rule of the Knights, but Revel
in Esthland under Danish rule formed part of the League. ♦The Hansa
not a territorial power.♦ The League waged wars, made peace, overthrew
and set up kings, as suited its interests; but territorial dominion,
strictly so called, was not its object. Still in some cases privileges
grew into something like dominion; in others military occupation might
pass for temporary dominion. ♦The Hansa in Gotland and Scania. | 1361.
| 1368-1385.♦ Thus in the isle of _Gotland_ the Hansa had an ascendency
which was overthrown by the conquest of the island by the Danish king
Waldemar, a conquest avenged by a temporary Hanseatic occupation of
Scania. In fact the nature of the League, the relations of the cities
to one another, geographical as well as political, hindered the Hansa
from ever becoming a territorial power like Switzerland and the United
Provinces. In the history of the Baltic lands it takes for some ages a
position at least equal to that of any kingdom. But it is only casually
and occasionally that its triumphs can be marked on the map.
* * * * *
The other great German corporation was not commercial, but military and
religious. ♦The Swordbearers and the Teutonic Order.♦ The conquests of
the Order of Christ and of the Order of Saint Mary—better known as the
_Sword-brothers_ and the _Teutonic Order_—were essentially territorial.
These orders became masters of a great part of the Baltic coast, and
wherever they spread their dominion, Christianity and German national
life were, by whatever means, established. ♦Their connexion with the
Empire.♦ As both the chiefs of the Order and the Livonian prelates
ranked as princes of the Empire, the conquests of the Knights were in
some sort an extension of the bounds of the Empire. Yet we can hardly
look on Livonia and Prussia as coming geographically within the Empire
in the same sense as Pomerania and Silesia. ♦Effects of their rule.♦
But whether strictly an extension of the Western Empire or not, the
conquests of the Knights were an extension of the Western Church, the
Western world, and the German nation, as against both heathendom and
Eastern Christianity, as against all the other Baltic nationalities,
non-Aryan and Aryan.
♦The Swordbearers in Livland. 1201.♦
The first settlement began in _Livland_. In the beginning of the
thirteenth century, the Knights of the Order of Christ were called in
as temporal helpers by Bishop Albert of Riga, and they gradually won
the dominion of the lands on the gulf called from his city. ♦The Danes
in Esthland.♦ For a while they had a partner in the Danish crown, which
held part of _Esthland_. ♦Extent of their dominion. | Dago and Oesel.♦
But the rest of Esthland, Livland in the narrower sense, Curland,
Semigola, the special Lettish land, and the Russian territory on the
Duna, made up this Livonian dominion, which was afterwards enlarged
by the isles of Dago and Oesel and by the Danish portion of Esthland.
♦Esthland. 1346.♦ _Riga_ and _Revel_ became great commercial cities,
and Riga became an ecclesiastical metropolis under a prince-archbishop.
The natives were reduced to bondage, and the Russian powers of Novgorod
and Polotsk were effectually kept away from the gulf.
♦The Teutonic Order in Prussia. 1226.♦
The dominion of the Knights of Saint Mary, the Teutonic Order, in
Prussia and in a small part of Lithuania, began a little later
than that of the Sword-brothers in Livland. Invited by a Polish
prince, Conrad of Mazovia, they received from him their first Polish
possession, the palatinate of _Culm_. ♦Union of the Orders. 1237.♦
Eleven years later the Prussian and Livonian orders were united. Their
dominion grew. ♦Purchase of Pomerelia. 1311.♦ The acquisition of
_Pomerelia_, the eastern part of the old _Pomore_, immediately west of
the lower Vistula, cut off Poland from the sea. ♦Conquest of Samogitia.
1384.♦ Later in the century, Lithuania was equally cut off by the
cession of _Samogitia_. ♦Occupation of Gotland. 1398-1408. | The New
Mark pledged to the Order. 1402.♦ The isle of _Gotland_ was held for
a while; the _New Mark_ of Brandenburg was pledged by King Sigismund.
♦Their coast line.♦ The whole coast from Narva on the Finnish gulf
to the point where the Pomeranian coast trends south-west formed the
unbroken sea-board of the Order.
♦Losses of the Prussian Knights.♦
Of the two seats of the Order the northern one proved the stronger and
more lasting. Livland remained untouched long after Poland had won
back her lost ground from the Prussian Knights. ♦Samogitia restored
to Lithuania. 1410.♦ The battle of Tannenberg won back Samogitia for
Lithuania, and again parted the Livonian and Prussian lands of the
Order. ♦Peace of Thorn. 1646.♦ By the peace of Thorn its Prussian
dominion was altogether cut short. ♦Cessions of the Order to Poland.♦
_Culm_ and _Pomerelia_, with the cities of _Danzig_ and _Thorn_, went
back to Poland. And a large part of Prussia itself, the bishopric of
_Ermeland_, a district running deep into the land still left to the
knights, was added to Poland. ♦Vassalage of the Order.♦ The rest of
Prussia was left to the Order as a Polish fief.
* * * * *
The thirteenth century was the special time when Teutonic dominion
spread itself over the Baltic lands. ♦Advance of Christianity.♦ It was
also the time when heathendom gave way to Christianity at nearly every
point of those lands where it still held out. But, while the old creeds
and the old races were giving way, a single one among them stood forth
for a while as an independent and conquering state, the last heathen
power in Europe. ♦Lithuania the last heathen power.♦ While all their
kinsfolk and neighbours were passing under the yoke, the _Lithuanians_,
strictly so called, showed themselves the mightiest of conquerors in
all lands from the Baltic to the Euxine. ♦Advance of Lithuania. c.
1220.♦ From their own land on the Niemen they began, under their prince
Mendog, to advance at the expense of the Russian lands to the south.
♦Mendog king. 1252.♦ Mendog embraced Christianity, and was crowned
King of Lithuania, a realm which now stretched from the Duna to beyond
the Priepetz. But heathendom again won the upper hand, and the next
century saw the great advance of the Lithuanian power, the momentary
rule of old Aryan heathendom alike over Christendom and over Islam.
♦Conquests from Russia. 1315-1340. 1345-1377.♦ Under two conquering
princes, Gedymin and Olgierd, further conquests were made from the
surrounding Russian lands. ♦1315-1360.♦ The Lithuanian dominion was
extended at the expense of Novgorod and Smolensk; the Lithuanian
frontier stretched far beyond both the Duna and the Dnieper; Kief was
a Lithuanian possession. ♦Volhynia and Podolia.♦ The kingdom of Galicia
lost _Volhynia_ and _Podolia_, which became a land disputed between
Lithuania and Poland. These last conquests carried the Lithuanian
frontier to the Dniester, and opened a wholly new set of relations
among the powers on the Euxine. ♦Perekop. 1363.♦ By the conquest of
the Tartar dominion of _Perekop_, Lithuania, cut off from the Baltic,
reached to the Euxine.
♦Consolidation of Poland. 1295-1320.♦
Meanwhile Poland, from a collection of duchies under a nominal head,
had again grown into a consolidated and powerful kingdom. The western
frontier had been cut short by various German powers, and the Teutonic
Order shut off the kingdom from the sea. Mazovia and Cujavia remained
separate duchies; but Great and Little Poland remained firmly united,
and were ready to enlarge their borders to the eastward. ♦Conquests of
Casimir the Great. 1333-1370. | Red Russia. 1340.♦ Casimir the Great
added _Podlachia_, the land of the _Jatvingi_, and in the break-up of
the Galician kingdom, he incorporated _Red Russia_ as being a former
possession of Poland. ♦Annexed to Hungary. 1377.♦ But, as it had also
been a former possession of Hungary,[66] Lewis the Great, the common
sovereign of Hungary and Poland, annexed it to his southern kingdom.
♦Union of Poland and Lithuania.♦
The two powers which had thus grown up were now to be gradually fused
into one. ♦1386.♦ The heathen Lithuanian prince Jagiello became, by
marriage and conversion, a Christian King of Poland. ♦Volhynia and
Podolia added to Poland.♦ He enlarged the kingdom at the expense of
the duchy, by incorporating _Podolia_ and _Volhynia_ with Poland,
making Poland as well as Lithuania the possessor of a large extent
of Russian soil. ♦Recovery of Red Russia. 1392. | Moldavia. | Pledge
of Zips. 1412.♦ The older Russian territory of Poland, Red Russia,
was won back from Hungary; _Moldavia_ began to transfer its fleeting
allegiance from Hungary to Poland; within Hungary itself part of the
county of _Zips_ was pledged to the Polish crown. ♦Recovery of the
Polish duchies. 1401.♦ The Polish duchies now began to fall back to the
kingdom. ♦1463-1476.♦ _Cujavia_ came in early in the fifteenth century,
and parts of _Mazovia_ in its course. Of the relation of the kingdom
to the Teutonic order we have already spoken. Lithuania meanwhile,
as part of Western Christendom, remained, under its separate grand
dukes of the now royal house, the rival both of Islam and of Eastern
Christendom. ♦Conquests of Witold. 1392-1430.♦ Under Witold the advance
on Russian ground was greater than ever. _Smolensk_ and all _Severia_
became Lithuanian; Kief was in the heart of the grand duchy; Moscow
did not seem far from its borders. ♦Loss of Perekop, 1474.♦ Lithuania
was presently cut short further to the south by the loss of its
Euxine dominion. ♦Closer union of Poland and Lithuania. 1501.♦ At the
beginning of the sixteenth century Poland and Lithuania were united as
distinct states under a common sovereign. But by that time a new state
of things had begun in the lands on the Duna and the Dnieper.
* * * * *
♦Revival of Russia.♦
While the military orders had thus established themselves on the Baltic
coast, and had already largely given way to the combined Polish and
Lithuanian power behind them, a new _Russia_ was growing up behind
them all. ♦Power of Moscow.♦ Cut off from all dealings with Western
Europe, save with its immediate western neighbours, cut off from its
own ecclesiastical centre by the advance of Mussulman dominion, the
new power of _Moscow_ was schooling itself to take in course of time a
greater place than had ever been held by the elder power of Kief. The
Mongol conquest had placed the Russian principalities in much the same
position as that through which most of the south-eastern lands passed
before they were finally swallowed up by the Ottoman. ♦The Russian
princes dependent on the Golden Horde.♦ The princes of Russia were
dependent on the Tartar dominion of _Kiptchak_, which stretched from
the Dniester north-eastwards over boundless barbarian lands as far as
the lower course of the Jenisei. Its capital, the centre of the _Golden
Horde_, was at _Sarai_ on the lower course of the Volga. ♦Homage of
Novgorod. 1252-1263.♦ Even Novgorod, under its great prince Alexander
Nevsky, did homage to the Khan. But this dependent relation did not,
like the Lithuanian conquests to the west, affect the geographical
frontiers of Russia. The Russian centre at the time of the Mongol
conquest was the northern Vladimir. ♦Moscow the new centre, c. 1328.♦
Towards the end of the thirteenth century, _Moskva_, on the river of
that name, grew into importance, and early in the next century it
became the centre of Russian life. ♦Name of _Muscovy_.♦ From _Moskva_
or _Moscow_ comes the old name of _Muscovy_, a name which historically
describes the growth of the second Russian power. Muscovy was to Russia
what France in the older sense was to the whole land which came to bear
that name. Moscow was to Russia all, and more than all, that Paris was
to France. It was to Moscow as the centre that the separate Russian
principalities fell in; it was from Moscow as the centre that the lost
Russian lands were won back. ♦Other Russian states.♦ Besides Novgorod,
there still were the separate states of _Viatka_, _Pskof_, _Tver_, and
_Riazan_. Disunion and dependence lasted till late in the fifteenth
century. ♦Decline of the Mongol power.♦ But the Tartar power had
already begun to grow weaker before the end of the fourteenth, and the
invasion of Timour, while making Russia for a moment more completely
subject, led to the dissolution of the dominion of the older Khans.
♦Break-up of the Mongol power.♦
In the course of the fifteenth century the great power of the Golden
Horde broke up into a number of smaller khanats. ♦Khanat of Crim;♦
The khanat of _Crim_—the old Tauric Chersonêsos—stretched from its
peninsula inwards along the greater part of the course of the Don.
♦of Kazan, 1438;♦ The khanat of _Kazan_ on the Volga supplanted the
old kingdom of White Bulgaria. ♦of Siberia;♦ Far to the east, on the
lower course of the Obi, was the khanat of _Siberia_. ♦of Astrakhan.♦
The Golden Horde itself was represented by the khanat of _Astrakhan_
on the lower Volga, with its capital at the mouth of that river. Of
these Crim and Kasan were immediate neighbours of the Muscovite state.
♦Deliverance of Russia. 1480.♦ The yoke was at last broken by Ivan the
Great. ♦1487.♦ Seven years later he placed a tributary prince on the
throne of Kazan, and himself took the title of _Prince of Bulgaria_.
♦Crim dependent on the Ottoman.♦ By this time the khans of Crim had
become dependents of the Ottoman Sultans, the beginning of the long
strife between Russia and the Turk in Europe.
♦Advance of Moscow in Russia.♦
But before Muscovy thus became an independent power, it had taken the
greatest of steps towards growing into Russia. ♦Annexation of Novgorod.
1470;♦ Novgorod the Great, the only Russian rival of Moscow, first lost
its northern territory, and then itself became part of the Muscovite
dominion. ♦of Viatka, 1478; | of Tver, 1493.♦ The commonwealth of
_Viatka_, the principality of _Tver_, and some small appanages of the
house of Moscow followed. ♦Reign of Basil Ivanovitch, 1505-1533.
| Annexation of Pskof and Riazan.♦ The annexation of what remained,
as _Pskof_ and _Riazan_, was only a question of time, and it came in
the next reign. Of the three works which were needful for the full
growth of the new Russia, two were accomplished. ♦Russia united and
independent.♦ The Russian state was one, and it was independent. And
the third work, that of winning back the lost Russian lands, had
already begun.
♦Survey at the end of the fifteenth century.♦
Thus, at the end of the fifteenth century, five powers held the Baltic
coast. Sweden held the west coast from the Danish frontier northward,
with both sides of the gulf of Bothnia and both sides of the gulf
of Finland. Denmark held the extreme western coast and the isle of
Gotland. Poland and Lithuania had a small seaboard indeed compared to
their inland extent. Poland had only the Pomeranian and Prussian coast
which she had just won from the Knights. Lithuania barely touched
the sea between Prussia and Curland. To the west of the Polish coast
lay the now Germanized lands of Pomerania and Mecklenburg. To the
north-west lay the coast of the German military Order, under Polish
vassalage in Prussia, independent in its northern possessions. Thus
almost the whole Baltic coast was held by Teutonic powers; the Slavonic
powers still lie mainly inland. The Polish frontier towards the Empire
has been cut down to the limit which it kept till the end. Pomerania,
Silesia, a great part of the mark of Brandenburg, have fallen away from
the Polish realm. On the other hand, that realm and its confederate
Lithuania have grown wonderfully to the east at the cost of divided and
dependent Russia, and have begun to fall back again before Russia one
and independent. Bohemia, enlarged by Silesia and Lusatia, has entered
so thoroughly into the German world as almost to pass out of our sight.
§ 4. _The Growth of Russia and Sweden._
♦Changes of the last four centuries.♦
The work of the last four centuries on the Baltic coast has been to
drive back the Scandinavian power, after a vast momentary advance,
wholly to the west of the Baltic—to give nearly the whole eastern
coast to Russia—to make the whole southern coast German. These changes
involve the wiping out, first of the German military Order, and then of
Poland and Lithuania. ♦Growth of Russia and creation of Prussia.♦ This
last change involves the growth of Russia, and the creation of Prussia
in the modern sense, a sense so strangely different from its earlier
meaning. These two have been the powers by which Sweden and Denmark
have been cut short, by which Poland and Lithuania have been swallowed
up. In this last work they indeed had a third confederate. Still the
share of Austria in the overthrow of Poland was in a manner incidental.
But the existence of such a Polish and Lithuanian state as stood at
the end of the fifteenth, or even of the seventeenth, century was
inconsistent with the existence of either Russia or Prussia as great
European powers.
The period with which we have now to deal takes in only the former
stage of this process. Russia advances; Prussia in the modern sense
comes into being. ♦Greatness of Sweden.♦ But Sweden is still the most
advancing power of all; and, if Denmark falls back, it is before the
power of Sweden. The Hansa too and the Knights pass away; Sweden is the
ruling power of the Baltic.
* * * * *
The sixteenth century saw the fall of both branches of the Teutonic
Order. Out of the fall of one of them came the beginnings of modern
_Prussia_. ♦Separation of the Prussian and Livonian knights. 1515.♦
The two branches of the Order were separated; the Livonian lands had
an independent Master. ♦Beginning of the Duchy of Prussia. 1525.♦
Before long the Prussian Grand Master, Albert of Brandenburg, changed
from the head of a Catholic religious order into a Lutheran temporal
prince, holding the hereditary _duchy of Prussia_ as a Polish fief.
♦Geographical position of Prussia.♦ That duchy had so strange a
frontier towards the kingdom that it could not fail sooner or later
either to be swallowed up by the kingdom which hemmed it in, or else
to make its way out of its geographical bonds. ♦Union of Prussia and
Brandenburg. 1611.♦ When the Prussian duchy and the mark of Brandenburg
came into the hands of one prince, when the dominions of that prince
were enlarged by the union of Brandenburg and Pomerania, the second of
these solutions became only a question of time. ♦Prussia independent of
Poland. 1647.♦ The first formal step towards it was the release of the
duchy from all dependence on Poland. Prussia became a distinct state,
one now essentially German, but lying beyond the bounds of the Empire.
As the rights of the Empire had been formally cut short when Prussia
passed under Polish vassalage, they were also formally cut short by
the dissolution of the northern branch of the Teutonic order. ♦Fall
of the Livonian Order. 1558-1561.♦ The rule of the Livonian Knights
survived the secularization of the Prussian duchy by forty years; their
dominion then fell asunder. ♦Duchy of Curland.♦ As in the case of
Prussia, part of their territory, _Curland_ and _Semigallia_, was kept
by the Livonian Master Godhard Kettler, as an hereditary duchy under
Polish vassalage. The rest of the lands of the order were parted out
among the chief powers of the Baltic. ♦Momentary kingdom of Livonia.♦ A
Livonian kingdom under the Danish prince Magnus was but for a moment.
♦Denmark takes Dago and Oesel.♦ Denmark in the end received the islands
of _Dago_ and _Oesel_, her last conquests east of the Baltic. ♦Sweden
takes Esthland.♦ Sweden advanced south of the Finnish gulf, taking
the greater part of Esthland. ♦Livland goes to Poland and Russia.♦
Northern Livland fell to Russia, the southern part to Poland. ♦All
Livland Polish. 1582.♦ Twenty years later all Livland became a Polish
possession.
♦Greatest Baltic extent of Poland and Lithuania.♦
This acquisition of Livland and of the superiority over Prussia and
Curland raised the united power of Poland and Lithuania to its greatest
extent on the Baltic coast. ♦Union of Lublin, 1569.♦ Meanwhile the
union of _Lublin_ joined the kingdom and the grand duchy yet more
closely together. But, long before this time, the eastern frontier
of Lithuania had begun to fall back. ♦Russian advance.♦ The central
advance of Russia to the west had begun. ♦Its causes.♦ A revived
state, such as Russia was at the end of the fifteenth century, must
advance, unless it be artificially hindered; and the new Russian state
was driven to advance if it was to exist at all. It had no sea-board,
except on the White Sea; it did not hold the mouth of any one of its
great rivers, except the Northern Dvina, a stream thoroughly cut off
from European life. The dominions of Sweden, Lithuania, and the Knights
cut Russia off from the Baltic and from central Europe. To the south
and east she was cut off from the Euxine and the Caspian, from the
mouths of the Don and the Volga, by the powers which represented her
old barbarian masters. Russia was thus not only driven to advance,
but driven to advance in various directions. She had to win back her
lost lands; she had, if she was really to become an European power,
to win her way to the Baltic and to the Euxine. ♦Advance to the
north-east.♦ Her position made it almost equally needful to win her
way to the Caspian, and made it unavoidable that she should spread her
power over the barbarian lands to the north-east. Of these several
fields of advance the path to the Euxine was the longest barred.
♦Order of Russian advances.♦ First, at the end of the fifteenth
century, began the recovery of the lost lands, a work spread over
the sixteenth, seventeenth, and eighteenth centuries. Then, in the
sixteenth, came the eastern extension at the cost of the now weakened
Mongol enemy. Strictly Baltic extension was in the sixteenth century
merely momentary; it did not become lasting till the beginning of the
eighteenth. ♦The Euxine reached last.♦ But Russia had been established
on the Caspian for more than two centuries, she had become a Baltic
power for more than two generations, before she made her way to the
oldest scene of her seafaring enterprise.
♦Recovery of the lands conquered by Lithuania.♦
The recovery of the lands which had been lost to Lithuania began before
the end of the fifteenth century. Ivan the Great won back _Severia_,
with _Tchernigof_ and the Severian _Novgorod_ and part of the territory
of _Smolensk_. ♦1514. | 1563.♦ Under Basil Smolensk itself followed;
under Ivan the Terrible Polotsk again became Russian. Then the tide
turned for a season. Russia first lost her newly-won territory in
Livland. ♦Recovery of Smolensk by Poland. 1582. | Polish conquest of
Russia, 1606.♦ The recovery of Smolensk by Poland was followed by the
momentary Polish conquest of independent Russia, and the occupation of
the throne of Moscow by a Polish prince. ♦Second revival of Russia, and
second advance.♦ The Muscovite state came again to life; but it was
shorn of a large part of the national territory, which had to be won
again by a second advance. ♦Cessions to Poland.♦ Smolensk, Tchernigof,
and the greater part of the Lithuanian conquests beyond the Dnieper,
were again surrendered to the united Polish and Lithuanian state. In
the middle of the century came the renewed Russian advance. ♦Lands
recovered by the Peace of Andraszovo, 1667.♦ The Treaty of Andraszovo
gave back to Russia most of the lands which had been surrendered fifty
years before. ♦Recovery of Kief. 1686.♦ By the last advance in the
seventeenth century Russia won back a small territory west of the
Dnieper, including her ancient capital of Kief. ♦Superiority over the
Ukraine Cossacks.♦ At the same time Poland finally gave up to Russia
the superiority over the Cossacks of Ukraine, between the Bug and the
Lower Dnieper. ♦Russian lands still kept by Poland.♦ But, with this
exception, Poland and Lithuania still kept all the Russian lands south
of Duna and west of Dnieper, with some districts beyond those rivers.
Nor was Russia the only power to which Poland had to give way on her
south-eastern frontier. ♦Podolia lost to the Turk.♦ In this quarter the
Ottoman for the last time won a new province from a Christian state by
the acquisition of _Kamienetz_ and all _Podolia_.[67]
* * * * *
But Poland had during this period to give way at other points also.
This was the time of the great growth of the Swedish power. ♦Growth of
Sweden and Russia compared.♦ The contrast between the growth of Sweden
and the contemporary growth of Russia is instructive. The revived power
of Moscow was partly winning back its own lost lands, partly advancing
in directions which were needful for national growth, almost for
national being. The growth of Sweden in so many directions was almost
wholly a growth beyond her own borders. ♦Russian advance lasting.
| Swedish advance temporary.♦ Hence doubtless it came that the advance
of Russia has been lasting, while the advance of Sweden was only for a
season. Sweden has lost by far the greater part of her conquests; she
has kept only those parts of them which went to complete her position
in her own peninsula.
On the Swedish conquest of Esthland followed a series of shiftings
of the frontiers of Sweden and Russia which lasted into the present
century. ♦Advance under and after Gustavus Adolphus. 1611-1660.♦ During
the reign of Gustavus Adolphus, and the period which we might almost
call the continuation of his reign after his death, Sweden advanced
both in her own peninsula and east of the Baltic, while she also
gained a wholly new footing on German ground, both on the Baltic and
on the Ocean. ♦Wars between Sweden and Russia. 1576-1617. | Peace of
Stalbova.♦ A long period of alternate war and peace, a time in which
Novgorod the Great passed for a moment into Swedish hands, was ended,
as far as Sweden and Russia were concerned, by the peace of Stalbova.
♦Sweden gains Ingermanland.♦ The Swedish frontier thus fixed took in
all _Carelia_ and _Ingermanland_, and wholly cut off Russia from the
Baltic and its gulfs. Such an advance could not fail to lead to further
advance, though at the expense of another enemy. ♦Wars between Sweden
and Poland. 1619-1660. | Swedish conquest of Livland, 1621-1625;♦ The
long war between Sweden and Poland gave to Sweden Riga and the greater
part of Livland. ♦of Dago and Oesel, 1645.♦ Her conquests in this
region were completed by winning the islands of Dago and Oesel from
Denmark.
♦Advance of Sweden against Denmark and Norway.♦
This last acquisition, geographically connected with the Swedish
conquests from Russia and Poland, was politically part of an equally
great advance which Sweden was making at the cost of the rival
Scandinavian power, the united realms of Denmark and Norway. ♦Conquest
of Gotland and Bornholm. 1645. | Of Jämteland.♦ Along with the two
eastern islands, Denmark lost the isle of _Gotland_ for ever and that
of _Bornholm_ for a moment,[68] and the Norwegian provinces east of the
mountains, _Jämteland_ and _Hertjedalen_. The treaty of Roskild yet
further enlarged Sweden at the expense of Norway. ♦Of Trondhjemlän.
1658.♦ By the cession of _Trondhjemlän_ the Norwegian kingdom was
split asunder; the ancient metropolis was lost, and Sweden reached to
the Ocean. ♦Of Bohuslän, and Scania, &c.♦ With Trondhjem Sweden also
received _Bohuslän_, the southern province of Norway, and, more than
all, the ancient possessions of Denmark in the northern peninsula,
with her old metropolis of _Lund_. Here comes in the application of
the rule. ♦Trondhjem restored to Norway. 1660.♦ In annexing Trondhjem
Sweden had overshot her mark; it was restored within two years. It was
otherwise with Bohuslän, Scania, and her other conquests within what
might seem to be her natural borders; they have remained Swedish to
this day.
♦Lands held by Sweden in Germany, Pomerania and Rügen, Bremen and
Verden. 1648.♦
The Swedish acquisition of the eastern lands of Denmark was made more
necessary by the position which Sweden had now taken on the central
mainland. The peace of Westfalia had confirmed her in the possession of
_Rügen_ and _Western Pomerania_ on the Baltic, and of the bishoprics
of _Bremen_ and _Verden_ which made her a power on the Ocean. These
lands were not strictly an addition to the Swedish realm; they were
fiefs of the Empire held by the Swedish king. Here again comes in the
geographical law. The Swedish possession of the German lands on the
Ocean was short; part of the German lands on the Baltic was kept into
the present century.
* * * * *
The peace of Roskild, which cut short the kingdoms of Denmark
and Norway in the northern peninsula, also marks an epoch in the
controverted history of the duchies of Sleswick and Holstein. ♦Denmark
gives up the sovereignty of the Gottorp lands. 1658.♦ The Danish king
gave up the _sovereignty_ of the Gottorp districts of the duchies. Even
if that cession implied the surrender of his own feudal superiority
over the Gottorp districts of Sleswick, he could not alienate any part
of the Imperial rights over Holstein. ♦Fluctuations in the duchies.
1675-1700.♦ This sovereignty, in whatever it consisted, was lost
and won several times between king and Duke before the end of the
century. ♦Danish possession of Oldenburg. 1678.♦ Meanwhile the Danish
crown became possessed of the outlying duchies of _Oldenburg_ and
_Delmenhorst_, which in some sort balanced the Swedish possession of
Bremen and Verden.
♦Sweden after the peace of Oliva.♦
The wars and treaties which were ended by the peace of Oliva fixed the
boundaries of the Baltic lands for a season. They fixed the home extent
of Sweden down to the present century. They cut off Denmark, save its
one outpost of _Bornholm_, from the Baltic itself, as distinguished
from the narrow seas which lead to it. They fixed the extent of Poland
down to the partitions. What they failed to do for any length of time
was to cut off Russia from the Baltic, and to establish Sweden on
the Ocean. But for the present we leave Sweden ruling over the whole
western and the greater part of the eastern coast of the Northern
Mediterranean, and holding smaller possessions both on its southern
coast and on the Ocean. The rest of the eastern and southern coast of
the Baltic is divided between the Polish fief of Curland, the dominions
of the common ruler of Pomerania and Prussia,—now an independent prince
in his eastern duchy,—and the small piece of Polish coast placed
invitingly between the two parts of his dominions. In her own peninsula
Sweden has reached her natural frontier, and has given back what she
won for a moment beyond it. While Sweden has this vast extent of coast
with comparatively little extent inland, the vast inland region of
Poland and Lithuania has hardly any seaboard, and the still vaster
inland region of Russia has none at all in Europe, except on the White
Sea. Thus the most striking feature of this period is the advance of
Sweden; but we have seen that it was also a time of great advance on
the part of Russia. It was a time of yet greater advance on that side
of her dominion where Russia had no European rivals.
♦Eastern advance of Russia.♦
In the case of Russia, the only European power which could conquer
and colonize by land in barbarian regions,[69] her earlier barbarian
conquests were absolutely necessary to her existence. No hard line can
be drawn between her earliest and her latest conquests, between the
first advance of Novgorod and the last conquests in Turkestan. But the
advance which immediately followed the deliverance from the Tartar yoke
marks a great epoch. The smaller khanats into which the dominion of
the Golden Horde had been broken up still kept Russia from the Euxine
and the Caspian. ♦Conquest of Kazan and Astrakhan. 1552-1554.♦ The two
khanats on the Volga, _Kazan_ and _Astrakhan_, were subdued by Ivan
the Terrible. The coast of the Caspian was now reached. But the khans
of _Crim_ remained, unsubdued and dangerous enemies, still cutting off
Russia from the Euxine. ♦Superiority over the Don Cossacks. 1577.♦ Yet,
even in this direction an advance was made when the Russian supremacy
was acknowledged by the Cossacks of the Don. ♦Beginning of Siberian
conquest. 1581. | 1592-1706.♦ The conquest of the Siberian khanat, with
its capital _Tobolsk_, next followed, and thence, in the course of the
next century, the boundless extent of northern Asia was added to the
Russian dominion.
§ 5. _The Decline of Sweden and Poland._
In the last section we traced out the greatest advance of Sweden and
a large advance of Russia, both made at the cost of Poland, that of
Sweden also at the cost of Denmark. We saw also the beginnings of
a power which we still called _Brandenburg_ rather than _Prussia_.
♦Growth of Prussia.♦ In the present section, describing the work of the
eighteenth century, we have to trace the growth of this last power,
which now definitely takes the Prussian name, and which we have to
look at in its Prussian character. ♦Decline of Sweden. | Extinction of
Poland.♦ The period is marked by the decline of Sweden and the utter
wiping out of Poland and Lithuania, Russia and Prussia in different
degrees being chief actors in both cases. ♦Kingdom of Prussia. 1701.♦
At the beginning of the period Prussia becomes a kingdom—a sign of
advance, though not accompanied by any immediate increase of territory.
♦Empire of Russia. 1721.♦ A little later the ruler of Russia, already
Imperial in his own tongue,[70] more definitely takes the Imperial
style as _Emperor of all the Russias_. This might pass as a challenge
of the Russian lands, Black, White, and Red, which were still held by
Poland.
♦Russia on the Baltic.♦
But more pressing than the recovery of these lands was the breaking
down of the barrier by which Sweden kept Russia away from the Baltic.
To a very slight extent this was a recovery of old Russian territory;
but the position now won by Russia was wholly new. ♦Wars of Charles and
Peter. 1700-1721. | Foundation of Saint Petersburg. 1703.♦ The war with
Charles the Twelfth made Russia a great Baltic power, and Peter the
Great, early in the struggle, set up the great trophy of his victory
in the foundation of his new capital of Saint Petersburg on ground
won from Sweden. ♦Cession of Livland, &c., by Sweden.♦ The peace of
Nystad confirmed Russia in the possession of Swedish Livland, Esthland,
Ingermanland, part of Carelia, and a small part of Finland itself.
♦Further advance of Russia. 1741-1743.♦ Another war, ended by the Peace
of Åbo, gave Russia another small extension in Finland.
At the same time Sweden was cut short in her other outlying
possessions. ♦Sweden loses Bremen, Verden, and part of Pomerania.♦
Of her German fiefs, the duchies of Bremen and Verden passed, first
to Denmark, then to Hannover. But her Baltic possessions were only
partly lost, to the profit of Brandenburg. The frontier of Swedish
Pomerania fell back to the north-west, losing Stettin, but keeping
Stralsund, Wolgast, and Rügen. Denmark meanwhile advanced in the
debateable land on her southern frontier. ♦Danish conquest of the
Gottorp lands. 1713-1715.♦ The Danish occupation of Bremen and Verden
was only momentary; but the Gottorp share of Sleswick and Holstein was
conquered, and the possession of all Sleswick was guaranteed to Denmark
by England and France. ♦The Gottorp lands in Holstein restored.♦ But
the Gottorp share of Holstein, as an Imperial fief, was given back to
its Duke. ♦They pass to Denmark in exchange for Oldenburg. 1767-1773.♦
Lastly, when the house of Gottorp had mounted the throne of Russia,
the Gottorp portion of Holstein was ceded to Denmark in exchange for
Oldenburg and Delmenhorst, which were at once given to another branch
of the family.
* * * * *
♦First partition of Poland. 1772.♦
In the latter part of the eighteenth century the three partitions
of Poland brought about the all but complete recovery of the lands
which the Lithuanian dukes had won from Russia. ♦Russian share.♦ The
first partition gave Russia Polish Livland, and all the lands which
Poland still kept beyond Duna and Dnieper. The greater part of _White
Russia_ was thus won back. ♦Prussian share. | Brandenburg and Prussia
geographically united.♦ At the same time the house of Hohenzollern
gained its great territorial need, the geographical union of the
kingdom of Prussia with the lands of Brandenburg and Pomerania, now
increased by nearly all Silesia. This union was made by Poland giving
up _West Prussia_—Danzig remaining an outlying city of Poland—and part
of _Great Poland_ and _Cujavia_, known as the _Netz District_.[71]
♦Austrian share. | Kingdom of Galicia and Lodomeria.♦ The Austrian
share, the new kingdom of _Galicia and Lodomeria_, was a kind of
commemoration of the conquests of Lewis the Great:[72] but, while it
did not take in all _Red Russia_, it took in part of _Podolia_ and of
_Little Poland_ south of the Vistula, making Cracow a frontier city.
♦Russian territory held by Austria.♦ Austria thus became possessed of
a part of the old Russian territory, most of which she has kept ever
since.
♦Second partition. 1793.♦
The Polish state was thus maimed on all sides; but it still kept a
considerable territorial extent. The second partition, the work of
Russia and Prussia only, could only be a preparation for the final
death-blow. ♦Russian share.♦ It gave to Russia the rest of _Podolia_
and _Ukraine_, and part of _Volhynia_ and _Podlasia_. _Little Russia_
and _White Russia_ were thus wholly won back, and the Russian frontier
was advanced within the old Lithuanian duchy. ♦Prussian share.♦ Prussia
took nearly all that was left of the oldest Polish state, the rest of
_Great Poland_ and _Cujavia_, and part of _Mazovia_, forming the _South
Prussia_ of the new nomenclature. Gnesen, the oldest Polish capital,
the metropolis of the Polish Church, now passed away from Poland.
The remnant that was left to Poland took in the greater part of _Little
Poland_, part of _Mazovia_, the greater part of the old _Lithuania_
with the fragment still left of its Russian territory, _Samogitia_ and
the fief of _Curland_. ♦Third partition. 1795.♦ The final division
was delayed only two years. This time all three partners joined.
♦Russian share.♦ Russia took all _Lithuania_ east of the Niemen, with
its capital _Vilna_, also _Curland_ and _Samogitia_ to the north, and
the old Russian remnant to the south. ♦Austrian share.♦ Austria took
_Cracow_, with nearly all the rest of _Little Poland_, as also part
of _Mazovia_, by the name of _New Galicia_. ♦Prussian share.♦ Prussia
took _Danzig_ and _Thorn_, as also a small piece of _Little Poland_ to
improve the frontiers of South Prussia and Silesia, perhaps without
thinking that this last process was an advance of the Roman Terminus.
The capital _Warsaw_, with the remnant of _Mazovia_ and the strip of
_Lithuania_ west of the Niemen, also fell to Prussia. The names of
Poland and Lithuania now passed away from the map.
♦No original Polish territory gained by Russia in the partitions.♦
It is important to remember that the three partitions gave no part
of the original Polish realm to Russia. Russia took back the Russian
territory which had been long before won by Lithuania, and added the
greater part of Lithuania itself, with the lands immediately to the
north. ♦The old Poland divided between Prussia and Austria.♦ The
ancient kingdom of Poland was divided between Prussia and Austria, and
the oldest Poland of all fell to the lot of Prussia. ♦Poland passes to
Prussia,♦ Great Poland, Silesia, Pomerania, the Polish lands which had
passed to the mark of Brandenburg, once united under Polish rule, were
again united under the power to which they had gradually fallen away.
♦Chrobatia to Austria.♦ Austria or Hungary meanwhile took the rest of
the northern Chrobatia, seven hundred years after the acquisition of
the former part, and also the Russian land which had been twice before
added to the Magyar kingdom.
* * * * *
♦Advance to the Euxine.♦
Meanwhile Russia made advances in other quarters of nearly equal
extent. As the remnant of the Saracen at Granada cut off the Castilian
from his southern coast or the Mediterranean, for more than two hundred
years, so did the remnant of the Tartar in _Crim_ cut off the Russian
for as long a time from his southern coast on the Euxine. ♦Occupation
of Azof. 1696-1711.♦ Peter the Great first made his way, if not to
the Euxine, at least to its inland gulf, by the taking of _Azof_.
But the new conquest was only temporary. After seventy years more
the work was done. ♦Independence of Crim 1774. | Annexation of Crim.
1783.♦ First came the nominal independence of the Crimean khanat,
then its incorporation with Russia. The work at which Megarian and
Genoese colonists had laboured was now done; the northern coast of the
Euxine was won for Europe.[73] The road through which so many Turanian
invaders had pressed into the Aryan continent was blocked for ever.
♦Conquest of Jedisan. 1791.♦ The next advance, the limit of Russian
advance made strictly at the expense of the barbarian as distinguished
from his Christian vassals, carried the Russian frontier from the Bug
to the Dniester.
♦Russian conquests from Persia. 1727-1734.♦
The chief Asiatic acquisition of Russia in the eighteenth century took
a strange form. It was conquest beyond the sea, though only beyond the
inland Caspian. Turk and Russian joined to dismember Persia, and for
some years Russia held the south coast of that great lake, the lands
of _Daghestan_, _Ghilan_, and _Mazanderan_. ♦Superiority over Georgia.
1783.♦ Later in the century the ancient Christian kingdom of _Georgia_
passed under Russian superiority, the earnest of much Russian conquest
on both sides of Caucasus. ♦Superiority over the Kirghis. 1773.♦ And
nearly at the same time as the first steps towards the acquisition of
Crim, the Russian dominion was spread over the _Kirghis_ hordes west
of the river Ural, winning a coast on the eastern Caspian, the sea of
Aral, and the Baltash lake.
♦Survey at the end of the eighteenth century.♦
Thus, by the end of the eighteenth century, the Swedish power has
fallen back. Its territory east of the Baltic is less than it was at
the beginning of the sixteenth century. Denmark, on the other hand, has
grown by an advance in the debateable southern duchies. All Sleswick
is added to the Danish crown; all Holstein is held by the Danish king.
Poland has vanished. The anomalous power on the middle Danube, whose
princes, it must be remembered, still wore the crown of the Empire, has
thrust itself into the very heart of the old Polish land. But the power
which has gained most by the extinction of Poland has been the new
kingdom of Prussia. If part of her annexations lasted only a few years,
she made her Baltic coast continuous for ever. But Prussia and Austria
alike, by joining to wipe out the central state of the whole region,
have given themselves a mighty neighbour. Russia has wholly cast aside
her character as a mere inland power, intermediate between Europe and
Asia. She has won her way, after so many ages, to her old position and
much more. She has a Baltic and an Euxine seaboard. Her recovery of her
old lands on the Duna and the Dnieper, her conquest of new lands on the
Niemen, have brought her into the heart of Europe. And she has opened
the path which was also to lead her into the heart of Asia, and to
establish her in the intermediate mountain land between the Euxine and
the Caspian.
§ 6. _The Modern Geography of the Baltic Lands._
♦The French revolutionary wars.♦
The territorial arrangements of Northern and Eastern Europe were not
affected by the French revolutionary wars till after the fall of the
Western Empire. At that moment the frontier of Germany and Denmark
was still what it had been under Charles the Great; “Eidora Romani
terminus Imperii.” Only now the Danish king ruled to the south of the
boundary stream in the character of a prince of the Empire. ♦Holstein
incorporated with Denmark, and Swedish Pomerania with Sweden. 1806.♦
The fall of the Empire put an end to this relation, and the duchy of
Holstein was incorporated with the Danish realm. In the like sort,
the Swedish kingdom was extended to the central mainland of Europe,
by the incorporation of the Pomeranian dominions of the Swedish king.
♦Russian conquest of Finland, 1809.♦ Before long, the last war between
Sweden and Russia was ended by the peace of Friderikshamn, when Sweden
gave up all her territory east of the gulf as far as the river Tornea,
together with the isles of _Aland_. ♦Grand Duchy of Finland.♦ These
lands passed to the Russian Emperor as a separate and privileged
dominion, the _Grand Duchy of Finland_. Thus Sweden withdrew to her own
side of the Baltic, while Russia at last became mistress of the whole
eastern coast from the Prussian border northward. ♦Union of Sweden and
Norway. 1814-1815.♦ The general peace left this arrangement untouched,
but decreed the separation of Norway from Denmark and its union with
Sweden. This was carried out so far as to effect the union of Sweden
and Norway as independent kingdoms under a single king. ♦Swedish
Pomerania passes to Denmark.♦ Denmark got in compensation, as diplomacy
calls it, a scrap of its old Slavonic realm, Rügen and Swedish
Pomerania. ♦Exchanged with Prussia for Lauenburg.♦ These detached lands
were presently exchanged with Prussia for a land adjoining Holstein,
the duchy of _Lauenburg_, the representative of ancient Saxony.[74]
♦Heligoland passes to England.♦ Denmark kept Iceland, but the Frisian
island of _Heligoland_ off the coast of Sleswick passed to England.
Thus the common king of Sweden and Norway reigns over the whole of the
northern peninsula and over nothing out of it. No such great change had
affected the Scandinavian kingdoms since the union of Calmar.
♦Holstein and Lauenburg join the German Confederation.♦
Meanwhile the king of Denmark, remaining the independent sovereign
of Denmark, Iceland, and Sleswick, entered the German Confederation
for his duchies of Holstein and Lauenburg. ♦Disputes and wars in the
Duchies.♦ Disputes and wars made no geographical change till the war
which followed the accession of the present king. The changes which
then followed have been told elsewhere.[75] ♦Transfer of Sleswick
and Holstein, with Lauenburg to Prussia. 1864-1866.♦ They amount to
the transfer to Prussia of Lauenburg, Holstein, and Sleswick, with a
slight change of frontier and a redistribution of the smaller islands.
A conditional engagement for the restoration of northern Sleswick to
Denmark was not fulfilled, and has been formally annulled.
* * * * *
♦Losses of Prussia. 1806.♦
In the lands which had been Poland and Lithuania, the immediate result
of the French wars was the creation of a new Polish state; their
final result was a great extension of the dominion of Russia. Prussia
had to surrender its whole Polish territory, save West Prussia.[76]
♦Bialystok added to Russia. | Danzig a commonwealth.♦ A small
Lithuanian territory, the district of _Bialystok_, was given to Russia;
_Danzig_ became a separate commonwealth. ♦Duchy of Warsaw♦ The rest of
the Prussian share of Poland formed the new _Duchy of Warsaw_. This
state was really no bad representative of the oldest Poland of all.
Silesia was gone; but the new duchy took in Great Poland and Cujavia,
with parts of Little Poland, Mazovia, and Lithuania. It took in the
oldest capital at Gnesen and the newest at Warsaw. ♦Enlarged by part
of Austrian Poland. 1810.♦ The new state was presently enlarged by
the addition of the territory added to Austria by the last partition.
Cracow, with the greater part of Little Poland, was again joined to
Great Poland. ♦Extent of the Duchy.♦ Speaking roughly, the duchy took
in nearly the whole of the old Polish kingdom, without Silesia, but
with some small Lithuanian and Russian territory added.
♦Arrangements of 1815.♦
It was the Poland thus formed, a state which answered much more
nearly to the Poland of the fourteenth than to the Poland of the
eighteenth century, which, by the arrangements of the Vienna Congress,
first received a Russian sovereign. ♦Danzig and Posen restored to
Prussia.♦ Prussia now again rounded off her _West-Prussian_ province
by the recovery of Danzig and Thorn, and she rounded off her southern
frontier by the recovery of Posen and Gnesen, which had been part
of her _South-Prussian_ province. The _Grand Duchy of Posen_ became
again part of the Prussian state. ♦Cracow a commonwealth. | Annexed by
Austria. 1846.♦ _Cracow_ became a republic, to be annexed by Austria
thirty years later. ♦Kingdom of Poland united to Russia. 1831-1863.♦
The remainder of the Duchy of Warsaw, under the style of the _Kingdom
of Poland_, became a separate kingdom, but with the Russian Emperor
as its king. ♦Russia takes old Polish territory for the first time.♦
Later events have destroyed, first its constitution, then its separate
being; and now all ancient Poland, except the part of Great Poland kept
by Prussia and the part of Little Poland kept by Austria, is merged in
the Russian Empire. Thus the Russian acquisition of strictly Polish,
as distinguished from old-Russian and Lithuanian territory, dates, not
from the partitions, but from the Congress of Vienna. It was to the
behoof of Prussia and Austria, not of Russia, that the old kingdom of
the Piasts was broken in pieces.
The changes of the nineteenth century with regard to the lands on
the European coasts of the Euxine have been told elsewhere.[77]
♦Fluctuation of the Russian frontier towards Moldavia. | 1812-1878.♦
They amount, as far as the geographical boundaries of Russia are
concerned, to her advance to the Pruth and the Danube, her partial
withdrawal, her second partial advance. ♦Advance in the Caucasus.♦
Meanwhile the Russian advance in the nineteenth century on the Asiatic
shores of the Euxine and in the lands on and beyond the Caspian has
been far greater than her advance during the eighteenth. It is in our
own century that Russia has taken up her commanding position between
the Euxine and the Caspian seas, one which in some sort amounts to an
enlargement of Europe at the expense of Asia. The old frontier on the
Caspian, which had hardly changed since the conquest of Astrakhan,
reached to the _Terek_. The annexation of Crim made the _Kuban_ the
boundary on the side of the Euxine. ♦Incorporation of Georgia. 1800.♦
The incorporation of the _Georgian_ kingdom gave Russia an outlying
territory south of the Caucasus on the upper course of the _Kur_.
♦Advance on the Caspian. 1802.♦ Next came the acquisition of the
Caspian coast from the mouth of the Terek to the mouth of the Kur, the
land of _Daghestan_ and _Shirwan_, including part of the territory
which had been held for a few years in the eighteenth century.
♦Advance in Armenia and Circassia. 1829.♦ The Persian and Turkish wars
gave Russia the Armenian land of _Erivan_ as far as the _Araxes_,
_Mingrelia_ and _Immeretia_, and the nominal cession of the Euxine
coast between them and the older frontier. ♦1859.♦ But it was thirty
years before the mountain region of _Circassia_ was fully subdued.
♦1878.♦ The last changes have extended the Trans-Caucasian frontier of
Russia to the south by the addition of _Batoum_ and _Kars_.
♦Advance in Turkestan. 1853-1868.♦
In the lands east of the Caspian the new province of Turkestan
gradually grew up in the lands on the Jaxartes, reaching southward
to Samarkand. ♦1875.♦ _Khokand_ to the south-east followed, while
_Khiva_ and _Bokhara_, the lands on the Oxus, have passed under Russian
influence. The Turcoman tribes immediately east of the Caspian have
also been annexed. The Caspian has thus nearly become a Russian lake.
Hardly anything remains to Persia except the extreme southern coast
which was once for a moment Russian.
♦Advance in Eastern Asia. 1858.♦
Far again to the east, Russia has added a large territory on the
Chinese border on the river Amoor. ♦Extent and character of the Russian
dominion.♦ All these conquests form the greatest continuous extent of
territory by land which the world has ever seen, unless during the
transient dominion of the old Mongols. No other European power in any
age has, or could have had, such a continuous dominion, because no
other European power has ever had the unknown barbarian world lying
in the same way at its side. Nowhere again has any European power
held a dominion so physically unbroken as that which stretches from
the gulf of Riga to the gulf of Okhotsk. The greater part of the
Asiatic dominion of Russia belongs to that part of Asia which has
least likeness to Europe. It is only on the Frozen Ocean that we find
a kind of mockery of inland seas, islands, and peninsulas. Massive
unbroken extent by land is its leading character. And as this character
extends to a large part of European Russia also, Russia is the only
European land where there can be any doubt where Europe ends. The
barbarian dominion of other European states, a dominion beyond the
sea, has been a dominion of choice. The barbarian dominion of Russia in
lands adjoining her European territory is a dominion forced on her by
geographical necessity. The annexation of Kamtschatka became a question
of time when the first successors of Ruric made their earliest advance
towards the Finnish north.
♦Russian America.♦
Alongside of this continuous dominion in Europe and Asia, the Russian
occupation of territory in a third continent, an occupation made by sea
after the manner of other European powers, has not been lasting. The
Russian territory in the north-west corner of America, the only part
of the world where Russia and England marched on one another, has been
sold to the United States.
* * * * *
♦Final Survey.♦
To return to Europe, the events of the nineteenth century have,
in the lands with which we are dealing, carried on the work of the
eighteenth by the further aggrandizement of Russia and Prussia. The
Scandinavian powers have withdrawn into the two Scandinavian peninsulas
and the adjoining islands, and in the southern peninsula the power
of Denmark has been cut short to the gain of Prussia. The Prussian
power meanwhile, formed in the eighteenth century by the union of
the detached lands of Prussia and Brandenburg, has in the nineteenth
grown into the imperial power of Germany, and has, even as a local
kingdom, become, by the acquisition of Swedish Pomerania, Holstein, and
Sleswick, the dominant power on the southern Baltic. The acquisition of
the duchies too, not only of Sleswick and Holstein, but of Bremen and
Verden also, as parts of the annexed kingdom of Hannover, have given
her a part of the former oceanic position both of Denmark and Sweden.
Russia has acquired the same position on the gulfs of the Baltic which
Prussia has on the south coast of the Baltic itself. The acquisition
of the new Poland has brought her frontier into the very midst of
Europe; it has made her a neighbour, not merely of Prussia as such, but
of Germany. The third sharer in the partition has drawn back from her
northern advance, but she has increased her scrap of Russia, her scrap
of Little Poland, her scrap of Moldavia,[78] by the suppression of a
free city. The southern advance of Russia on European ground has been
during this century an advance less of territory than of influence. The
frontier of 1878 is the restored frontier of 1812. It is in the lands
out of Europe that Russia has in the meanwhile advanced by strides
which look startling on the map, but which in truth spring naturally
from the geographical position of the one modern European power which
cannot help being Asiatic as well.
FOOTNOTES:
[51] See above, pp. 160-162.
[52] See above, p. 163.
[53] A common name for these closely allied nations is sometimes
needed. _Lettic_ is the most convenient; _Lett_, with the adjective
_Lettish_, is the special name of one of the obscurer members of the
family.
[54] See above, p. 130.
[55] See Einhard, Annals A. 815, where we read, ‘trans Ægidoram
fluvium in terram Nordmannorum ... perveniunt.’ So Vita Karoli 12:
‘Dani ac Sueones quos Nortmannos vocamus,’ and 14, ‘Nortmanni qui Dani
vocantur.’ But Adam of Bremen (ii. 3) speaks of ‘mare novissimum, quod
Nortmannos a Danis dirimit.’ But the name includes the Swedes: as in i.
63 he says, ‘Sueones et Gothi, vel, si ita melius dicuntur, Nortmanni,’
and i. 16, ‘Dani et ceteri qui trans Daniam sunt populi _ab historicis
Francorum_ omnes Nordmanni vocantur.’
[56] See above, p. 131, 159.
[57] See Adam of Bremen, iv. 16.
[58] The origin of Samo and the chief seat of his dominion, whether
Bohemia or Carinthia, is discussed by Professor Fasching of Marburg
(Austria) in the _Zweiter Jahresbericht der kk. Staats-Oberrealschule
in Marburg_, 1872.
[59] See Schafarik, _Slawische Alterthümer_, ii. 503.
[60] See above, p. 198.
[61] The Poles claim Boleslaf the First as the first king. But Lambert
(1067), who strongly insists on the tributary condition of Poland,
makes Boleslaf the Second the first king. The royal dignity was
certainly forfeited after his death.
[62] There can be no doubt that the Russian name strictly belongs to
the Scandinavian rulers, and not to the Slavonic people. See Schafarik,
i. 65; Historical Essays, iii. 386. The case is parallel to that of the
Bulgarians and the Franks, save that the name _Rus_ is said to be, not
a Scandinavian name, but a name applied to the Swedes by the Fins.
[63] See above pp. 365, 436.
[64] This document, granted at Metz in 1214, will be found in
Bréholles’ _Historia Diplomatica Friderici Secundi_, i. 347. It reads
like a complete surrender of all Imperial rights in both the German
and the Slavonic conquests of Waldemar. It may be that it seems to
have that meaning only because the retreating of Terminus was deemed
inconceivable.
[65] Vratislaf, who reigned from 1061 to 1092, is called the first king
of Bohemia, but his royal dignity was only personal. The succession of
kings begins only with Ottocar the First, who reigned from 1197 to 1230.
[66] See above, p. 437.
[67] See above, p. 448.
[68] Conquered by Sweden 1643, restored to Denmark 1645. Ceded to
Sweden 1658, but recovered the same year.
[69] See above, p. 467.
[70] There is no doubt that the title of _Czar_, or rather _Tzar_,
borne by the Russian princes, as by those of Servia and Bulgaria in
earlier times, is simply a contraction of _Cæsar_. In the Treaty of
Carlowitz Peter the Great appears as Tzar of endless countries, but he
is not called _Imperator_, though the Sultan is.
[71] See above, p. 212.
[72] See above, pp. 319, 437.
[73] It is however to be regretted that, in bringing back the old names
into these regions, they have been so often applied to wrong places.
Thus the new _Sebastopol_ answers to the old _Cherson_, while the new
_Cherson_ is elsewhere. The new _Odessa_ has nothing to do with the old
_Odêssos_, and so in other cases.
[74] See above, p. 208.
[75] See above, p. 228.
[76] See also p. 222.
[77] See above, p. 449.
[78] See above, p. 441.