THE BALKAN PEOPLES IN ART AND INDUSTRY
The five centuries of Turkish domination, during which all the arts and
most of the crafts were neglected in the Balkan Peninsula, killed nearly
completely the ancient civilisations of the Greeks, the Serbs, and the
Bulgars. But a few traces of the old culture survive to this day as
mournful and tattered relics of the greatness of those departed Empires.
The old Bulgarian Empire, combining a Slav with a Turconian element; the
old Serbian Empire, almost purely Slav but influenced a little by
Italian and Grecian influence, evolved in the days of its greatness the
beginnings of a national literature and national architecture. In Serbia
particularly was there a strong and promising growth of humane culture,
and the greatest of the Serbian rulers, Stephen Dushan (14th century),
whose death before the walls of Constantinople at the beginning of the
Turkish invasions gave up the Balkan Peninsula to the Crescent, left as
one monument to his name a well-reasoned code of laws. He was throughout
his reign a sincere friend of learning. In Bulgaria during the 10th
century, under the Czar Simeon, there was a brief efflorescence of
learning. Montenegro, which alone of the Balkan States kept its head
unbowed before the Turk, was a busy centre of literary effort in the
16th century. Under the stress of constant war, however, the arts of
peace died down almost completely in the Balkans until the Liberation of
the peoples in the 19th century. During the interval, however, the
peasants in their homes kept up some little knowledge of the traditions
of their forefathers' greatness. Legends were passed down from father to
son in chants set to a rough music. In these chants, too, were recorded
the deeds of heroism which marked the ever-recurring revolts against the
Turk.
What survives to-day from this period of oppression is a very
characteristic national music, melancholy usually, as might be expected,
but of arresting sweetness; and an art of peasant-applied decoration,
which recalls the earlier and more primitive forms of Byzantine Art.
Balkan tapestries, Balkan carpets, Balkan embroideries, woven or
stitched by the peasant women, have a note of barbaric boldness in
design and colour which distinguishes them at once from the peasant work
of other countries.
This applied art in decoration is wisely fostered by the various
governments, and there is liberal encouragement also given to modern
art. Especially is this the case in Bulgaria. The impression I have got
from seeing picture collections in the Balkans is that the local artists
have learned foreign methods without adding any national bent of their
own, and contrive to give a native character to their pictures only when
they make the choice of some particularly horrible subject. Yet there
should come a vigorous art as well as a vigorous literature one day from
these Balkan States. There the mysticism, the melancholy, the
transcendentalism of the Slav is mixed with the fatalism of the Turk,
and the vivacity of the Greek and the Roumanian in the national types.
Byzantine traditions, Slav traditions, classic Greek traditions, Roman
traditions mingle to influence this composite character, the two former
predominating, but the two latter having a very definite power. It
should be rich soil for talent, even for genius.
Interesting opportunities were given in the Southern Slav Art
Exhibitions of 1904 and 1906 (the first at Belgrade, the second at
Sofia) to note the trend of art in the Balkans. At those Exhibitions
Bulgarian, Serbian, Croatian, and Slavonian arts were represented. The
Croatian pictures--I follow a trustworthy guide in stating this--showed
a high degree of technical skill, not distinguishable from Austrian art
in character: the Slavonian pictures were also technically good, but of
a more impressionist character: the Serbian pictures imitated in
technique the Old Masters, but took their subjects almost exclusively
from Serbian history: the Bulgarian pictures had no national
characteristic in style, but usually sought to be transcriptions of some
form of Bulgarian life of the day.
Summing up the art position in the Balkans, it can be fairly said that
before the outbreak of the last great war very good progress had been
made for the few years since the Liberation from the Turks. A wise
policy for the future would be to encourage as much as possible the
peasant arts and crafts which are distinctive, and not to seek to
impose too much of modern art education, which may stifle national
influences and inflict a sterile sameness.
Balkan industry varies greatly with the height of the country, as well
as with the racial type. The mountaineers are usually lacking in steady
industry: the peoples of the plain are usually exceptionally hard
workers. Very many emigrants from the Balkans go to the United States to
work there in the mines, and on works of railway construction, for a
term of years. The Bulgarian will come back from the United States with
£300 saved up, and settle down in his native village as farmer or
trader. The Serbian will come back with £200 saved up, but with a wider
knowledge of United States life, and he will settle down as pastoralist
or farmer, but not as trader. The Albanian or Montenegrin will come back
with little or no money, but with a wonderful armoury of silver-adorned
weapons and much other personal decoration. So graced, the mountaineer
will have no difficulty in marrying the girl of his choice, and she will
do most of the work that is needed thereafter, whilst he attends to the
hunting and the fighting. The Greek and the Roumanian go abroad,
preferably as traders, and afterwards elect to stay abroad, though it
is to be recorded in proof of modern Greek patriotism that in 1912 there
was a steady flow of Greeks from all parts of the world coming back to
their native land to fight in the army.
[Illustration: A BULGARIAN FARM]
Considered industrially the Bulgarian is the best type in the Balkans.
He is a steady, tireless worker on the soil; takes to factory life
amiably; and has in a very strongly marked degree "the road-making
talent."
A very valuable index to national character is provided by a people's
roads. The most successful Imperial governors, the Romans, were also
builders of the finest roads the world has known. The British people
have been good road-builders as well as good Empire-makers; the French
people, too, and every other people who at any time have done big
enduring work in the government of the world. If a nation is not a good
road-building nation it will not go far: and the converse is probably
true. On this road-building test the Bulgarians have a prosperous future
indicated, for they are very pertinacious and skilful road-builders.
During the 1912 war I noticed that despite all other pre-occupations
they were pushing roads forward at every possible opportunity. The
Turks going back to Adrianople and Kirk Kilisse found a great number of
roads built or building--the first serious efforts in that direction
since the downfall of the Roman Empire.
The Bulgarian's chief occupation is agriculture. The system of land
tenures is that of peasant ownership. There are no large estates and
very few non-occupying landlords. The chief crops are wheat, barley,
maize, rice (around Philippopolis), tobacco, and roses. The tobacco is
of as good quality, almost, as that of Turkey. The Bulgarian Government
encourages the culture of tobacco by distributing seed, free of cost,
among the planters, by setting a bounty on the export tariff, and by
authorising the Bulgarian National Bank to consent to loans on the
surety of certificates granted to the planters until they are able to
dispose of their crops advantageously.
Tobacco culture is carried on chiefly in the south and in the provinces
of Silistria and Kustendil. The area of the plantations is estimated at
3000 hectares. The province of Haskovo has the greatest yield; then
follows Philippopolis, with 300,000 kilograms; Kustendil and Silistria,
210,000 kilograms. According to approximate calculations based on
various statistics, three-fourths of the tobacco crop of Bulgaria is
consumed by the inhabitants and only a quarter is exported.
The rose crop is next in importance after tobacco. The roses are used
exclusively for the distilling of attar of roses. The rose gardens are
limited to 148 parishes of the provinces of Philippopolis and Stara
Zagora, and occupy a total area of 5094 hectares. The quantity and
quality of the attar depend very much on the weather at the time of
bloom and gathering. The roses most cultivated in Bulgaria are the red
rose (_Rosa damascena_) and the white rose (_Rosa alba_). The best
gardens are at Kazanlik, Karlovo, Klissoura, and Stara Zagora. The
distilling of the attar is now a Government monopoly. The cultivation of
beetroot has been introduced recently and is confined to the province of
Sofia. The sugar refinery near Sofia utilises the whole crop for local
consumption.
It is interesting to note in connection with Balkan agriculture that as
far back as 1863 the much-abused Turk had actually adopted the very
modern idea of an agricultural _Credit Foncier_ system in the Balkans!
In that year Midhat Pasha, Governor of the Danubian Vilayet, prepared a
scheme for the creation of banks, to assist the rural population. The
scheme having been approved by the Turkish Government, several of these
banks were established. The peasants were allowed to repay in kind the
loans which were advanced to them, the banks themselves selling the
agricultural products. With the object of increasing the capital of the
banks, a special tax was introduced obliging the farmers to hand every
year to these institutions part of their produce in kind.
When it was realised that these banks were of great service to the rural
population, to which they advanced money at 12 per cent
interest--instead of 30-100 per cent, as the usurers generally did--the
Turkish Government extended the reform to the whole Turkish Empire, and
obliged the peasants to create similar banks in all the district
centres. According to their statutes one-third of the net profits of
these banks was destined for works of public utility, such as bridges,
roads, fountains, schools, etc., while the remaining two-thirds went to
increase the capital of the banks.
During the Russo-Turkish war several of these banks lost their funds,
the functionaries of the Turkish Government having carried away all the
cash, as well as the securities and other property belonging to the
banks' clients. After the war the debtors refused to pay, and only part
of the property of the banks was restored, by means of the issue of new
bonds. For that unfortunate end the war is rather to be blamed than the
Turk. This _Credit Foncier_ system is pretty clear proof that the
Turkish power was not always cruel and rapacious, since so sensible a
reform was set on foot in one of the Christian provinces under the
Sublime Porte.
Apart from the industries of the soil, Bulgaria has a small mining
population and an increasing factory population. The Protective tariff
is used freely to encourage young industries, and there is an effort
just now to set up cotton-spinning as a national enterprise.
Serbia had a mixed pastoral and agricultural population up to the
outbreak of the war of 1912, with pig-raising as the greatest of the
national industries. By the Treaty of Bucharest she has, however,
acquired much new territory, and is now probably predominantly an
agricultural country. She has, too, great mineral resources at present,
but they are little developed, and fine forests which only need an
improvement of the means of communication to be commercially a big
asset. The Serbian is not so steadily devoted to his work as the
Bulgarian: his is the pastoral as opposed to the agricultural character.
Nevertheless he has a reasonable faculty of industry. As is the case in
Bulgaria the bulk of the land is held by peasant proprietors. These are
organised into communes very much on the Russian system. It is an
interesting fact that though in Serbia there is almost the same degree
as in Bulgaria of seclusion of the women of the nation, a Serbian woman
may be the head of the village commune, and, as such, exercise a very
real authority.
Both in Bulgaria and Serbia the rights of the commune are very jealously
safeguarded. The central government must take no part in the
administration of the communes, or maintain any agents of its own to
interfere with their affairs. The commune forms the basis of the State
fabric and enjoys a complete autonomy. It is the smallest unit in the
administrative organisation of the country. Every district is subdivided
into communes, which are either urban or rural. The commune is a
corporation. Every subject must belong to a commune and figure in its
registers, the laws not tolerating the state of vagrancy. The members of
the Commune Council are elected by universal suffrage, in the same way
and subject to the same precautions as the members of the National
Assembly. In passing it may be observed that theoretically the
governments of the Balkan States are free democracies. Practically they
are oligarchies tempered by assassination, which is still a favoured
political weapon.
The Serbian has not much of the commercial faculty: and people of other
nations manage very many of the businesses in Serbia.
The Montenegrin is willing to be a worker if it does not interfere with
his manly amusements of warfare. His occupations are pastoral and
agricultural pursuits and the chase. The Albanian is not content to be a
worker at all under any conditions. His occupations are dancing and
swaggering whilst his womenfolk carry on the bulk of the primitive
pastoral and agricultural work.
It is not possible to hope for much industrial or commercial progress in
Albania. But in Serbia and Bulgaria there are rich opportunities for
enterprise and capital provided that an era of peace could be reckoned
upon. It is the uncertainty on that point that will stand in the way of
future Balkan development. When after the Treaty of London the Balkan
League fell to pieces there was incurred, in addition to other
sacrifices, a serious loss of confidence on the part of European
capital.