RUSSIA

Dominion, Volume 8, Issue 2271, 3 October 1914, Page 7

RUSSIA

HER PEASANTS & COSSACKS

GREAT AWAKENING

SPREAD OF LIBERAL IDEAS

The awakening of the Russian peoplo to Western civilisation is geiiorully dated from the emancipation of the serfs on February 19, 1801. On that memorable day Tsar Alexander 11, by Imperial manifesto, granted freedom to 22,000,000 peasants. A second ukase— on April vj), IS63—by which corporal punishment was abolished, was hardly less important. The great mass of the somnion people were ior three hundred years mercy of their owners' violence. They wero driven by the spur, the lash aud "the cat," and wero often oranded with hot irons like so many cattle. Like all great reforms, even the enthronement of liberty was attended by immediate want and suffering. Ignorant,.dependent, inarticulate, penniless, ,tho emancipated millions wero entirely without resource. The lands which they had previously worked belonged to the nobility, and to save mom from starvation tho Government had to advance large sums to buy them shares in small holdings. As suspicion is always associated with ignor<mce, they jumped to tho conclusion that the Tsar had not only grafted them ircodom, but also their lands. They charged their previous owners with robbing them. They wero widespread'riots m cortain districts, and they were subdued only after bloodshed. To the itreat claso oF peasants who had become artisans and skilled workers freedom was an unmixed blessing. It was no longer necessary for them to go back on to tho land for long periods of cruel slavery. ■ ,

An Agricultural People, Mr. Stephen Graham, hi "Undiscovered Russia," declares that the cry of •back to the land," which has been heard in Western. Europe for two or three generations, will not be introduced to Russia for at least a hundred years. Russians are an agricultural people, bred to the soil, illiterate in remote districts as savages, with no ambitions to live in the towns. "They are strong asvgiants, simple as children, and amazingly superstitious." They live as Ruskiu . tried to persuade English People to live in "Fors Clavigna." Ihey are obediently religious, respectful to their elders, and content to use implements of cultivation that elsewhere have long been thrown on the scrap heap. Tho national curse is vodka, the mtoxicating liquor of the country, and wero it not for the fact that the women are strictly temperate, it is believed°that the national physique would rapidly degenerate. Mr. Noviu O. Winter, in "The Russian Empire of 10-day and Yesterday," divides tho great country into various sections, and shows their varying characteristics, tor, although. the main stock is Slav there are as many varieties of human beings as there, are of soils and climates. - '

; Tho most important, districts in th< . present war. are the Baltic provinces ■ ' i - o i a " d > Ulwania or "Little .Russia,' and the provmcos of Podolia and Volhyma, known as "Rod Russia," on the borders of Galicia, now being won from Austria. ' "Great Russia," which em. braces about a third of the total populatum, centres in Moscow, and em. braces a district bounded by Kursk bmolensk, Novgorod, Vologda, Niin Novgorod, and Tumbov. Tins is a land or long and severe winters. Hibernating Peasants. '■■ ~,H nlei j s .„ tll , e peasant-is-able to =do i ■ little skilled work, which is very seldom, ho hibernates like a bear. His little cottage is almost Oiermetacalh sealed mid partially snowed up. Foil the greater part of his time he lies idle on top of the great stove, that fills up ■about a fourth of the living room, ir an atmosphere that is not changed foi months. His cattle, fed on straw oe cupy adjoining buildings, and assist ii the pollution. . With the birth o spring and the thawing of tho fields mo Great Russian" becomes a differ put being. Although his staple fooc is represented by ; sour cabbage (preserved m barrels to be cookec m many ways), black bread anc cucumbers be works for sixteen hour! a day, and is tireless. His religion is designed to cheapen his cost of livino and to inure him to semi-starvation. I* is seldom that ho oan get an egg, a littli meat, butter, or milk, but no mattoi how lucky ho may bo in securing tlii superior' provender, ho nvust no°t ea : anything but tho cabbage or the blacl bread on Wednesdays and Fridays J hose> are strict 'fast days. There ari also four Lents m each year. Durim one of them the poor Russian sacrifice] Ins appetite for about seven weeks. His religion ■ allows him a little eompensahon, however, at tho harvest festival I'or a few days at this time he is able to gorge himself with coarse pork, mutton, and beef, and to drink himself mto unconsciousness with, vodka. The youths—they are often under twentytegm their courtship in the spring, an< marry m tho following autumn. They d ( not value good looks in their brides s< I much as strong working arms. A wed ding feast lasts two or three days, 01 ■"■the-peasant life, of course. In the until the food and drink give out. This towns there are all stages of civilisation, and ideas of "the rights of man" Have taken hold there, to penetrate the density of provincial ignorance as they did m Franc? before 1789. -"Little Russia,'.' or the 'Ukraine,,is- the part ot the country, generally sneaking south of Poland, stretching' from the Ualieian border in the west almost' tc the eastern boundary of Europe. Tin River Dnieper is its chief waterway, i'or centuries it was' the bulwark that protected Poland and Lithuania from n • £ s . and Tnrtars - The "Little Uussian is a brighter and more buoyant being than his compatriot of the north He lives in a, more genial climate, and likes brightness and colour, l'or centuries his forbears worked hard fought hard, and the people as a whole are brave and vigorous. Their little villages stretch down the river valleys, and their windmills are frequent landmarks across • the far-reaching steppe* -Women and girls work in the fields with the men. The great market is Kharkov, which is surrounded by fine oak forests, and by flourishing fields of ??*; Kharkov was for long an outpost ot the Cossacks, and -was tho scene'of many a dashing conflict with the Tartar marauders.

"The Russian Cowboy." > ' Tho "Cossack," who figures freely on Russian battle fields, is the Russian cowboy, and is one of tho finest rough riders in tho world. Soma travellers go ae far as to say that in horsemanship he almost rivals the horsemen of way-back Australia. Ho camo from tho Slav stock, but he has always been a •iranderor with his horses aiid cattlo, Mid lias mingled his blood with many pooples. Tho namo "Cossack" comes from a Tartar word "Kasak," meaning wanderer, and is pronounced in Russia with a strong emphasis on the last syllable. The old Cossacks mixed with tho wild Mahometan stock on the borders of Asia, frequently kidnapped numbers of Tartar women, and established what is really a now race. From timoito time, their numbers wero recruiter by runaway serfs and fugitives from justice who adopted tho wild, roving lifo. Originally there were four tribes of Cossacks, taking their names from tho Dnieper, Don, Volga, and Ural rivers. Those of the Dnieper had a series of fortified camps alone Southern B.ussia, from tho 'Dnieper to the Sea of

Azov, and carried on an intermittent warfare with the Ttartars of the Crimea, stealing their cattle, aud occasionally sacking their towns. Queen Catherine gave them an immense tract of land as a reward for their loyalty during her reign. She built shops, houses, and churches for them in the district of JMcaterinoslav, which meaiis "Catherine s Gift." The Cossack is of the Russian Orthodox faith, and he finds his religion a fino excuse for his raids and quarrels. Military Service.

When universal military servico was introduced to Russia in 1873, the Cossaclcs wero given large areas of land, on condition that they mado themselves available for military service when called upon. Nearly 400,000 of them are liable, and row of them require a second calling. J hey provido their own equipment— everj'thing except arms—and on their fino black hones make a cavalry forco noted for its daring and ferocity. In their civil life they manage their affairs by a sort of communism, each man being entitled to his share in tho land,' tho timhSr, and oven the fish in the rivers. His individual harvest only is his own. The Baltic provinces, which have been the fighting grounds in all invasions fTom tho west, stretch from tho Gulf of Finland to Lithuania and Poland. The Gorman language is heard here almost as frequently as the Russian. ■ The city of Riga was founded about the year 1200. Shortly after a Christian order name'd "tho Sword Bearers," who woro whito crosses on their shoulders, set out from Westphalia and Saxony to convert the heathen of tho neighbouring country to the Gospel. As-.they had superior arms, their proselytising was very successful, and it was not very Jong before they bad reduced the heathen native tribes to slavery. German landlords erected their ' manors and drove the subject race into, battle to repel the 'Poles, the .'Danes, tho Swedes, the Lithuanians, and the RusLithuauia was a great power in tho middle ages. It was afterwards part of Poland, and, on tho partition of that country in 1772 and 1793, was absorbed by Russia. The country . includes 1 the Governments of Wilna, Grodno, Vitebsk, Mohiley, and Miusk, and is unusually fertile. The population are mainly of the Lutheran and Russian religions, but in many places tho heathen gods are still "worshipped in secret. The position of the serfs in this part w,as worse than elsewhere, and evidences of tho fact still remain in the dirty, pov-erty-stricken appearance of the towns and villages. Of tho 200,000 people in Wilna, one-third are Jews, who conduct most of tho business. On- a neighbouring hill there is a relic of the old heathen worship, where tho sacred fire was kept burning for many years.

A Despotlo Government. The march of. intellect into the scattered towns and villages of Russiadotted freely over a country of broad plains; dense primeval forests, and icebound northern latitudes—has been ex-" treniely slow. A despotic Government has ruthlessly stamped put the flickeriugs of intelligence whenever they have 'appeared, and a proud nobility have found it to their interests to keep the people in subjection. Yet the printed word carries far. ' It finds its way in spite of all laws and law makers. The younger generation" of Russians learn to read, and papers and pamphlets get into the cottages somehow or other, to awaken the minds of the cottagers and lead them to think. An English traveller recently traversed Ukrania. He stopped at a peasant's door to ask for a glass of milk,. and let it be known that he was an Englishman; The peasant was keenly _ interested. He took the traveller asido, and said —"I, too, have your liberal ideas. I have heard that you give the land to the people, and we here 'are working quietly for the same thing. I know-you will not betray me." The war, terrible though its cost in human life -and suffering, will give the progress of "ducation and ideas an impetus that it may not have gained in fifty years of peace. Millions of the young men are marching out amongst more progressive and enlightened peoples, to realise their v own ignorance and the extent of their own suffering. New worlds are opening to them —new worlds of freedom, prosperity, and intelligence.