AFTER THE WAR.

Dominion, Volume 6, Issue 1589, 5 November 1912, Page 7

AFTER THE WAR.

HOPES OF NEW BALKAN KINGDOM. SLAV PATRIOTS' DREAM. From time to time it has been asserted that the Balkan States have reached an agreement among themselves as to their respective spheres of interest in Turkey. The dream of the patriotic Slav is, of ■course, to cultivate mter-Slav sympathies,, and, as political opportunity may offer, tt> work in the direction of creating either it geueral kingdom of the Southern Slavs' as a sort of counterpoise amicable with Russia, or (should Russian liberties der yelop) even a common Slav state, allied At federated with Russia. Galicia, Bohemia, Croatia, Carinthia, Dalmat-is, Sla;vonia, Bosnia, Herzegovina, Montenegro, '■Servia, Bulgaria—these are all Slav, in various • degrees of purity, practically speaking one language, with variations Of dialect .and script not greater than exist in Gei'man circles. . Unfortunately (says a retent writer in the "Westminster Gazette") the autocratic history of Russia has been such that she cannot yet be trusted to do for the Slavs what, Prussia has already done for'the■ Germans; that is, by a mixture of force,, reasoning, and cajolery, trusted to assume and keep control of the leading strings of State,; hence her policy.has been too. often , to sot one Baikal) State against tho other. , Moreover, her own treatment of tho Poles, which is, however, in some' respects less' crushing than. Prussia's treatment.of., her own Poles, contracts very unfavourably ill the Polish, mind with the liberal, treatment the Austrian Poles enjoy in Galicia. and elsewhere-except where the Hungarians get a.'chance of tyrannising over them. What is wanted iii nioderii Slav times is a man—a, man of tho Veuezelos typo in Greece; or We might even, say of the Parnell type in Ireland—who will keep u fixed and reasonable . goal ■. before him, and Work steadily with the sympathies of ail Slavs towards the ultimate. Accom : plishmcnt of, it,. , The Language Difficulty. . , Some years; ago, when I; was in Cranoiv and Prague, I T.'as astonished at the litter incapacity of ■ botlr Czechs :and Poles to exchange conversation with Russian speakers, although the general meaning or both. Bohemian and Polish spoken words and even printed sentences, advertisements, etc. (written in. Roman .character) could easily be made out by a mere Russian speaker. The same _ strange want of sympathy is "observable in the south, tho Bulgarians use the Russian letters, with the singlo qualification, that , they have abolished, the- distinction between a &rv?aiS^lslfX : us(y' 1 the' Russian (Cyrillian) letters; but they have added one or two and modified others, so that Russians and Bulgarians are nonplussed. Ihe -Cioatians use the' Roman' letters-, afte ■climax of i; absurdity .comes _ uv 'Bosnia, where a language is spoken ahs&lutely the ' 6amo as in Croatia, except, that it is. Written in Russian, letters (slightly modified, but not exactly as in Senna and Bulgaria), Hence we eee in every railway carriage and shop notices iii two rival languages, mutually unintelligible in Writing, yet exactly tho same. word for word and' letter for letter, except that "the form, of the letters differs; it is as • though the Scotch should assert their autonomy by issuing English notices iu Russian letteisi '' ' Stirring up Strife, Austria, in annexing Bosnia and Herzegovina, has increased the "divisional" spirit by granting to those States 'the right to 'U6e ■,their own .postage 6tam.ps. Hungary possesses' tiie -same right, but also further rights in coining money and issuing 1 notes that. Bosnia does not, possess ; tnus aw divisions and cross-divisions accentuated and cultivated, either in the interests of"a ruling family or in. the interests of an alien race partly hostile already to that family. The.purest (and Jictw* both economically and politically,, the most free) of all the. Slav units is ■undoubtedly .the Serb, closo upon which.' in purity conies the ■ MaloRussii (Little Russian). The Bulgarians, now quite free politically,-were onginally Tartaric, and their national designation is connected by some with the Word "Volga," down which rivor they worked their ways being an uncultured racc, t-hcy adopted Servian civilisation,, roligion, and even language, .and so'may now be considered good. Slavs. - ' "King of the Southern Slavs," After..the. last Turoo-Rus,sian war,' or during it, the Servian-Bulgarian sympathies' wei?'!-very close;'.'but .it did not suit JluSsia'that: it should continue so; accordingly they were set by- the, ears,' and. went to war with each other!. At present/ dospito Austrian, intrigues,., the tendency seems to be once, more: to. unite, and .King Peter, despite his age; arid many, faults, is freely hailed' all over the Southern. Slav world as "King of the Southern ' Slavs:," Of course the prompt ''recognition" (? putof tho "Tsar" Ferdinand of Bulgaria ivas. intended as a. counter T movo in tho Aust.ro-Gorman interest, but dynastic sympathies are not popular - sympathies, and the Bulgarian people are not King Ferdinand, in fact, the Bukaiest 'newspapers of I<lay 1 gave accounts of an alleged plot to get rid of King Ferdinand. Romania is ; jiot a Slav State, though ■ there, are many . Slavs'in it, and' its lnnguage'' (practically a "fancy" .form if Latin). ig considerably mixed with' Slav words. Like Bulgaria, Rumania lias a Germati ruling house, arid thus beoomos a useful catspaw against 'Bulgaria in case Bulgaria shows too rntich twidenoy to unite with Servia. Of course Count Aehrenthal's celebrated coup of 1?08 primarily i.ntended to "smash up" the growing inksrSlax entente. / Ferdinand' is considered by 6om« of his people to have sold them for a mess of pottage for himself. A rival. King Danilo of Montenegro {also a Slav),' was out off from Servia for over by having Bosnia-Herzegovina wedged in between himself and Servia, Thus we have three rival Slav Kinp, of wliom the ablest is no Slav at all, the purest a man deeply compromised by assassination, and tho third a pet tool of Italy and Russia, though con.' ected by marriage with Servia.

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