RUSSIAN ATROCITIES.

New Zealand Tablet, Volume IV, Issue 190, 17 November 1876, Page 7

RUSSIAN ATROCITIES.

It is not necessary to go back a hundred years to the time of that " most enlightened ruler," the " female philosopher," whom Voltaire affected to worship. She sent hordes of Cossacks and scarcely less brutal regular soldiery into Poland with express instructions to " cut to pieces, with God's belp, all Poles and Jews, the betrayers of our holy religion ... so that their name and memory shall be blotted out." The record of that first Polish campaign tells us that 200,000 men were slain under circumstances of great cruelty. Iv the single town of Human 16,000 perished. Gallows were erected on which were hung together a noble, a priest, a Jew, and a dog, with tho inscription, " All alike." Of course it will be contended that j Russia no less, but probably more, than the rest of the world, has progressed within the century. It is unfair, it will be said, to compare the Russians of 10-day with the predecessors of Suvaroff, as it would te ridiculous to compare the warfare of to-day with the military methods of that famous commander- This is true to a certain extent. But the Russian Government has rot cut itself loose from those Mongol traditions which own the same Asiatic birthplace as the Turkish proceedings that are now so loudly condemned. Let us put out of sight the events of 1831, the operations which justified Paskievich's memorable despatch: "Order reigns iv Warsaw." Let us come to 1863, when Russia was in a position somewhat, resembling the present position of Turkey. The Poles were in revolt.' They sought to shake off au intolerable yoke and resuscitate a national life, winch was in existence less than three quarters of a century bofore. How did Russia net towards her insurgents ? Things were done in the course of that conflict which fully equal, if they do not surpass, the atrocities of Bulgaria. Certainly no Pasha or Aga can claim to have signalised himself in this way more than Mouravieff, or the *' hangman Berg or Majunkiu. The details were published at the time, but have probably been forgotten by most who heard of them. There was slaughter of men, women were outraged, there was bayonetting of children, burning of'tlie wounded and other defenceless people, wholesale executions, to pass over plunder, robbery, destruction of property, &c. Besides these horrors fully 250,000 pet sons were sent to Siberia, or to the northern Governments of E uropean R ussia, during the three years 1863-66. Bittor complaints axe now made of Turkish disregard for the "red-eros»" of those who go to assist the

wounded. At that time all assistance to the wounded was sternly forbidden, and ruthlessly punished wherever discovered. How does Eussia act in time of peace towards those who violate no laws P It is well known that the Turks do not trouble themselves about the religious concerns of their Christian subjects, unless moved to do so, for interested reasons, by others. All who fulfil their civil obligations towards the State are unmolested, or rather are protected. Is this the case in Russia ? By the fifth article of the treaty of partition, 1773, Russia expressly binds herself to " leave the Catholics of both rites in statu quo, that is, in the free exercise of their worship (culte) and discipline, aud never to avail itself of its rights of supremacy to the prejudice of the status in quo of the Roman Catholic Church." Has this solemn obligation been fulfilled ? Prom the very outset it is notorious that the imperial agents devoted themselves to suppress Catholicity, especially among the TJniates. Catharine, first, and subsequently Nicholas, forced millions into schism through horrid cruelties.^ Minsk is a name which will not be easily forgotten. Lately the present Tsar, who has the reputation of being a mild-mannered man, took upon himself to complete the unfinished work of forcing every Catholic of the Greek rifce into the ranks of the schism. How this has been done is only too well known. The property of the. unfortunate peasantry who were to be "converted" was ruined by dragonnades, the poor people were driven with whips, cudgels, musket-blows, bayonet-thrusts, into the schismatic churches, and then entered in the registers of the "Orthodox." At Drolu, Pratulin, Polubice, places in the Government of Siedlec, occurrences happened which were, on a small scale, an anticipation of Bulgaria. Men, and even women, were killed, others were thrown into prison, and many were sent off into Siberia, not for any crime, but merely because they would not bo " converted." The peasants paid the contribution churged upon them; they submitted to theirjcattle being taken away in discharge of fines and penalties ; but into the schismatic churches they will not set their foot. When this movement of sympathy towards the Christian Slavs of: Turkey began to spr. ad, the notion eeems to have occurred to some among tlieso poor persecuted Poles that perhaps the Russian Government | would relent iv its treatment of themselves, who are Christians and Slavs as much as those at the other side of the Danube. Some of them began again to practise their own forms of worship. What took place ? The correspondent of the ' Neve Freie Presse ' of Vienna — I not a Catholic paper be it remembered — writing from the scone on August 18 (only a fortnight ago, and while the flood or Russian sympathy for the Turkish Slavs threatened to break down all the | barriers of international propriety), tells us that tbo3e poisons were attacked by the military " for opposing themselves to the religious arrtui^oraents of the Russian Government. There were many killed and wounded. . . Many women also wero killed. . . About one hundred peasants, twenty peasant women, and four clor^ymen. hnv<iboen taken prisoners to the fortress of Warsiw. The arrests have not yet ceased." And these persons suffered thus, not because they were insurgents, or for any offenca against public order or tho laws, but for practising a form of Christian worship which. Russia swore to protect when first she seized upon Poland. — ' London Tablet/