THE SLAV CHARACTER.
WE said last week when discussing the future of the Slav in Europe that his real character was still unrevealed ; and that is essentially true, for of the Russian as he would be after, say, a century of freedom we know nothing. At present he is a man of pure white lineage—vide Charles Pearson's remarkable testimony on that point—who for many hundred years has been subjected to Asiatic conditions, which on many prominent points have gravely modified his character. No white man, for example, is by nature inclined to revel in obedience as the ordinary Russian now does, nor is there any other white people in which the idea of individual right is so imperfectly developed. Still, something is known of the present Slav, which is sufficient to give the attentive a glimpse of his character as it is and will probably remain. In the first place, it is clear that he belongs to no branch of the other great white families, but is a man of a separate breed, with its own qualities and powers. He is so unlike the Teuton that the two races, though much bound together by their historic fate, cannot learn to tolerate each other, but entertain each for each an acrid scorn which, on occasion given, frequently breaks out in open hostility. He is not like the Celt, though the Frenchman thinks he is, being less absorbed in himself, less addicted to lying to himself, and less dominated by the evil passion of envy. He is also less logical, and, even when good, less capable of that strenuous probity which distinguishes the good Frenchman, and is probably less the product of his heart than of his mind. Least of all is the Russian like an Englishman, being of all the great white races the most receptive, the least impatient of control, and the least inclined to a self-dependent individualism. He is, in fact, a Slav, of a race by itself the dominant note of which is a singular power of self-control. The world dimly perceives this, and talks of the Russian's obedience, his secretiveness, his endurance, his patience, his resignation ; but it is more than any or all of these things, it is true self-control that he possesses. The Russian can make himself do anything he has decided to do in a way which other white races despair of imitating or emulating. The whole history of the dissenting sects of Russia is full of illustrations of this proposition.. If he believes war to be forbidden, the Czar may chop him in pieces, or con- demn him to the horrors of life in Saghalien, that realisation of the Northman's idea of hell, but he will neither be drilled nor resist. He endures all without flinching; but even the Czar cannot drive the Memnonite into the ranks. If he becomes infected with the notion of Origen, he mutilates himself without a qualm, as the thirty or forty thousand Skoptsi do. If he thinks he ought to be buried alive, he allows his fraternity to bury him without resistance. No torture would drag out of a Russian the secret he intended to keep, or induce him to abandon a purpose upon which his mind had closed. His will is as powerful as that of the Sunyasee, and acts quicker, acts, in fact, with the rapidity of a child, who does what it thinks of doing instantly and without con- sidering consequences. It is not only sentries on duty who freeze to death in Russia, but coachmen on the box, policemen on watch, and. even thieves waiting for prey. They all have their business. to do, and they make them- . selves do it, with a supreme self-control which occasionally shows itself even in mental operations. The Russian can keep himself from rage when convenient, can submit when to another European submission seems degrading, can suspend the action of his own conscience when he has resolved on an action, say assassination, which afflicts it. This self-control, which is perfect, would make the Sovereign who could direct it effectually master of the world, but that it is held in check by two deficiencies.
One is a, certain want of energy. The Russian has energy, it is true, but it is not of the true Western kind, which goes on whatever the obstacles, determined not to stop till one is out on the other side. The energy of the Russian is that of the under-vitalised man, who does not stop and does not change, but who advances languidly, with halts, and with a proclivity to dying before his work is finished. Russian armies ordered beyond the frontier melt away imperceptibly, their own generals cannot say why. Foreigners declare that it is all bad feeding, or bad cloth- ing, or liability to disease, and talk of Russian corrup- tion and savagery ; but the soldier marching west. ward or southward is as well fed as he ever was, and his clothing is better for the air is warmer, and yet he disappears. The cause is want of " stamina "—that is, energy in the reservoir—more than want of supplies. You see the same thing in other departments of life. Nothing in Russia ever quite succeeds, unless, indeed, there are Germans in it. Of the twenty or thirty social reforms which have been suggested and adopted in this generation, not one has realised what was expected of it, and mosthave been given up. They meetwith some obstacle, Imperial authority, or popular prejudice, or a peculiarity of climate, and they are abandoned. A little more per- sistence might make them all succeed, but that is only to be evoked by " supreme order," which is not forth- coming. The second deficiency is the first carried a step farther,—the readiness of Russians, noticed by all who write of them or live among them, to despair. Their vast plains breed hopelessness. The English- man face to face with Chat Moss works on and on till it is filled ; the Frenchman tears his hair and works in spasms instead of steadily, but still he also fills the Moss ; the Russian, accustomed to be defeated by Nature, and lacking something within himself which is best defined, though not quite accurately defined, as energy, despairs. His own writers say he lacks hope; but the Englishman, who never despairs, is the least sanguine of mankind, and the Frenchman declares that hope is over, but that he must still go on. The Russian stops.
And finally, the Russian is differentiated from all other European races by the quality of excess. In him there is no moderation. It is constantly said that this is due to his "Asiatic" character ; but as he is not an Asiatic except in the way we all are, and as Asiatics are as moderate as Europeans,.that is not a good explanation. If the Russian favours you, he is the friend who Is closer than a brother ; if he hates you he is dangerous; if he is obedient it is perinde ac cadaver ; if he is mutinous he bakes his officers in the regimental ovens. If he is a philanthropist he strips himself of civilisation and be- comes a peasant ; if be is benevolent he will give away all he possesses. The Russian Liberal, as his Government knows too well, is a revolutionist, who would make a clean sweep of authority; the Russian Broad Churchman is the most utter of disbelievers, and unlike the English sceptic, holds all acts to be indifferent if their object was vaguely good. The Russian reactionary, on the other hand, regards Liberals as the Catholic regards blasphemers, that is, as men who until repentant are outside the pale of humanity. No people except the Russian could have produced either the Russian form of loyalty or the Nihilists. Limitations on power seem to the Russian illogical, as no doubt they also seemed to the Roman, while suspended belief, the English attitude towards many details of Christianity, is impossible to his temper. Whence this tendency to excess arises we find it difficult to decide, for it does not arise from the magnitude of his dominion, as is so often asserted ; but it is probable that everything presents itself to him in the absolute way in which it strikes the mind of a child. What the race will do with itself when it has attained its full development, and spread to the Persian Gulf and the Yellow Sea, belongs rather to the domain of prophecy than of calculation, depending in the main on the appearance, or non-appearance, of a really great Czar ; but the chances are that it will make some 'immense effort., either in the way of conquest or of social revolution, will be disappointed, and will wait, possibly for centuries, in languor and unchangeableness. "Remem- ber," said a leading Russian revolutionist to the writer twenty years ago, "to forecast the fate of Russia you must foresee that of the Romanoffs. They are the cement of Russia. Without them the Slays will break into a thousand more or less Socialistic little States, aggrandised, and I hope cultivated, Mira."
Previous page
