THE GALICIAN PEASANTRY.
[Ftrom OUR SPECIAL CORRESPONDENT.]
Lemberg, May 16th, 1863. II will enable you to take a more comprehensive view of the present insurrection, if I give you a brief sketch of the past and present condition of the Galician peasantry, which is now em- ployed by the Austrian Government to perform public duty in every village. In England we hear something of the emancipa- tion of the serfs in Russia and falsely associate it in our minds with the abolition of negro slavery in America, but still less is known among us of the measures which in the years 1846-1848 led to constituting the Galician peasants unconditional proprietors of the land they before cultivated as tenants. This, too, was a species of emancipation, though the Polish peasant was never adscripttts glebae. There is no doubt that the initiative taken by the nobles in Galicia paved the way for the analogous but more comprehensive measure which now causes universal fermentation throughout the length and breadth of the Russian empire. In this respect the Polish insurrection could not have occurred at a more favourable moment, and much of the success it has met with is owing to the weakness of Russia induced by this cause. To the English mind the step taken by the nobles in 1816-1848 may appear incomprehensible and uncalled for, as the idea of a class of peasant proprietors is very foreign to our notions, accus- tomed as we are to the sight of a farmer and labouring class quite contented to make a livelihood out of land which does not belong to them. But we must cut our coat according to our cloth, and bear in mind that the system which suits us will not necessarily suit every nation. The universal prevalence of peasant proprietorship on the continent of Western Europe rendered it absolutely necessary to extend the system to the dismembered portions of the ancient kingdom of Poland as western civilization advanced. Accordingly, in the year 1845 the Galician nobles assembled together and took counsel as to the most ex- pedient moans of raising the condition of the peasant, for they were sagacious enough to foresee that, unless the peasants be- came more enlightened, it were hopeless to instil any sort of patriotism into them. Unlike the Scotch Highlanders, the Swiss and Tyrolese, whose mountains seem to breathe an heroic nature into the inhabitants, and in a sense to stand to them in the place of education,—natural depositaries, as they are, of the history of the country,—the Polish peasant is an ignorant brute, whose cunning is his only natural endowment. The "roboth" system which prevailed up to the year 1848 was briefly as follows :—The whole of the ancient kingdom of Poland, with the exception of the Crown lands, and such as belonged to religious establishments, was portioned out into manors, just as England was at the time " Domesday " book was composed. The waste lands of these manors, and such portions as the lord did not require for his own use, were occupied by his dependents. Much the same relation existed between the lord and his tenants or villeins in Poland as with us in all that related to accompanying the lord to battle; and receiving from him protection in return ; but a more stringent and onerous tenure of land prevailed in this country than in England. By the roboth, or panszezyna—literally "lord's service "—the peasant was compelled to work so many days a week on the lord's land in proportion to the amount of land he held of him. For four acres he had to work two days; for six acres, three days with his hands, or two days with a pair of horses ; and besides, to supply the lord's household with poultry, vegetables, fruit, &c. In return for this the lord had to care for the peasant when sick, pay his expenses for going to law, rebuild or repair his cottage if destroyed or damaged by any accident, and afford him general protection, In connection with the roboth was the system of "servitutenz," or common rights of the lord and commune respectively. These referred principally to col- lecting fire-wood and cutting down timber and pasturing cattle on meadow lands. Up to the year 1846 the commune or collec- tive body of peasants regarded these rights as to a certain extent privileges conceded by the lord, but in that year the Austrian Government in exciting the peasantry to cut the throats of the landlords, told them that all the land was theirs and belonged to them of right, so that so far from looking upon the " servitutem" as a mark of the generosity of the lord, they took the Govern- ment at their word, and commenced agitating with a view of getting possession of the whole of the property of their former masters. Before the close of the year 1848 the nobles abolished the roboth system, and constituted the peasants uncondi- tional proprietors of the lands they had before held on so onerous a tenure. After the revolution of 1848 had been put down at Vienna, the Austrian Government came forward and refused to ratify the spontaneous act of the nobles, and Insisted on getting the credit itself. Accordingly, the Government cir- culated all through Galicia a proclamation to the effect that the nobles had no power to do what they had done, assuring the peasantry that they held the land of the nobles by a most crazy tenure, and so thoroughly corrupted them by spreading com- munistic ideas among them that the act of the nobles was looked upon with suspicion rather than gratitude. The proclamation went on to say that the Government in whose power alone it lay to abolish the roboth, being convinced by the zeal so lately showit by the peasantry (in the massacres of 1846) of their fitness to receive so great a boon, presents them unconditionally with the lands they may hold at present, insinuating that at no distant day, if their conduct continue exemplary, there would be further spoil to divide among them. With these facts before one, it is not difficult to understand the hostile attitude assumed by the Galician peasantry towards the insurrection, which their lords do their utmost to foment. The service, which it is in their power to render to the Government, and which they do render most willingly, is immense.
If you understand by a government a machine for developing the resources of the country in such a manner as shall advance the best interests of the people, there is nothing of the sort here, but in its place a gigantic system of police. Count Ments- dorff-Pouilly is the first policeman—and I understand a very smart one—and the peasant with his sheepskin coat is the last. The steps from the one to the other are through the Kreis-amt- mann, the Bezirks-amt-mann, and the Wojt, or chief of the commune. This individual is inspired by the Bezirks-mann, who is inspired by the Kreis-amt-mann, who is inspired by Count Mensdoiff- Pouilly, who is inspired by the spirit of Metternich, who though dead yet lives in the misery of Italians, Hungarians, Poles, and whatever other nationalities are being trampled down by his accursed system. The peasants of the villages of Galicia are formed into a regular police force, and have received orders to arrest all strangers and suspicious persons, and bring them up before the Wojt. I will take a case of every-day occurrence,— a parish priest or landed proprietor having occasion to leave his own immediate neighbourhood, is caught straying—like a Cairene dog in a strange quarter of the city, and arrested by a peasant, or band of peasants, as the case may be; at night always the latter. As a preliminary step the unfortunate individual is conducted to the village gin-shop, and there compelled to stand a glass all round. In some cases of rare exception the drama does not extend beyond this first act, but in most the raising of the curtain for the second act exhibits the same actors as before in the house of the "Herr Wojt," who gravely demands to see the traveller's passport. The Wojt is invariably unable to read or write, but after turning the docu- ment over several times, and pretending to read it—as often as not holding it the wrong way upwards—he invariably observes to the assembled company that this is a very bad passport, upon which the unfortunate victim is often carried some ten or fifteen miles out of his road to the Bezirks-amt-mann, who is most likely, at the moment, either dining or sleeping, or not at home, so that a whole day is constantly taken up in this vexatious manner. There is scarcely a respectable parish priest or proprietor along the Galician frontier who has not been subjected more than once to this unpleasant treatment.
It matters not who the individual is, he must be had up before the Herr Wojt. Prince Lubomirski, one of the largest landed proprietors of Galicia, informed me he had himself been twice stopped by the peasantry in the villages immediately contiguous to his own. The insurgents having resorted to the ingenious
method of adopting official costumes, which enables them to pass unmolested, and to convoy waggons laden with arms across the frontier, the Wojts got scent of this, and determined not to be cheated in this way, and proceeded shortly after to arrest a couple of Bezirks-amt-manner, who protested in vain. In the face of a whole country swarming with spies and policemen you may well wonder bow it is possible to organize detachments and furnish them with arms. Count Meutsdorff-Pouilly (who would rank as A 1 in the metropolitan police force), is at his wits' ends to know what to do. Only yesterday he seut the most strict injunctions to the officials along the frontier to redouble their activity, which would appear excessive already. The key to the problem is to be found in the attitude of the Hungarian troops, whose hatred of all that is Austrian and Russian has alone rendered the continuance of this insurrection possible. If instead of conveying stores and men, and favouring the in- surgents in every possible way, these troops followed the example of the"Galician infantry, and thrust every impediment in their way, the Polish insurrection had been put down long ago. But the Hungarians have not forgotten that it was through this very Galicia that the Russians passed in 1849, on their way to help Austria to crush out Hungarian liberties. The force of retribu- tive justice is very remarkably shown in this episode.
I see in the Vienna newspapers of yesterday, that the Emperor of Austria has been graciously pleased to grant an amnesty to all those individuals who were compromised in Siebenburgen or Transylvania, by the events of 1848-1849. It must not be forgotten that in that country, too, did Austria follow the same wicked policy as here in Galicia in 1846. In Siebenburgen she made the same promises to the peasantry, and in a similar manner they rose and cut the throats of the landed proprietors. An officer whose acquaintance I made at Bzeszow is the sole survivor of a family of eight from those massacres. In England we know not the blessedness of our own institutions till we compare them with the miseries which so many Continental nations have to bear.
In a weekly letter it would be in vain to attempt to give you even a summary of the military operations, so various and widely extended are they. Let it suffice to add that, Hydra-like, for every one head cut off the insurrection puts forth two fresh ones. It was not difficult to foresee from the beginning that on the success of the movement in Lithuania, and the three Ruthenian provinces—Volhynia, Podolia, and Ukraine, would depend the ultimate issue of the insurrection, and it is precisely to these provinces that the drama is now shifting.
ENGLISHITAIN.
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