XX. SLAVI, SLAVONIANS, SLAVES, RUSSIANS.

AUTHORITIES:

Schaffarick, Corpus Scriptorum Histori? Byzantin?, Nestor, Fischer, Karamzin, Gerebtzoff, etc.

At what epoch the Slavic race left the common home of the Aryans and immigrated into Europe, will forever remain an insoluble mystery. Some ethnologists suppose the Slavi to have preceded the Gauls, and think they find their traces all over central Europe, on the Po, and around the Adriatic Gulf. At all events, the Slavi are very ancient occupants of European soil, and without doubt took possession of it long before the Germans. The region between the Danube, the Vistula and the Volga, was from time immemorial, as it still is, distinctly a Slavic region, although at some previous time, it was probably occupied by the Yellow or Finnic races. Subsequently the Slavi covered the lands between the Vistula and the Elba (now again lost), and colonized the southern shores of the Danube.

From immemorial time, the Slavi were an agricultural people; and perhaps they were the first who cultivated the virgin soil of Central and Northern Europe. The Slavi lived in villages, and were or[Pg 234]ganized in rural communes, electing their chiefs, (joupan) or ancients (starschina). As early as the time of Herodotus, the commerce in grain was very active at the mouth of the Dnieper, and then, as at the present day, the Slavi imported their wheat to Byzantium (Constantinople), Greece, and Asia Minor.

The region occupied by the Slavi, from the Volga, along the Don (or Tanais) and the Danube, was the highway of the various branches of the Mongolian, Finnic, Uralian, Scythic, or Turanian family, in their invasions. All these old and classic denominations for the inhabitants of Asia, north of Baktria and the Himalayan mountains, are now merged in that of Tartars. So, in remote antiquity, Tartar Scythians, mixed with Slavi, dwelt on the Tanais, north of the Danube, and very likely on the plains east of the Dnieper. Other invasions of Asiatic Tartars, as Huns, Avars, Bulgars, Maghyars, Petschenegues, Polovtzy, Ugri, Turks and Tartars proper—doubtless early familiarized the primitive agricultural Slavi with the horrors of war, oppression and enslavement. And among the slaves which, under the name of Scythians, the Phenicians and Greeks trafficked in, there were doubtless some of Slavic origin.

It was very late when the Slavic race began to take part in the European or Western movement. Neither in the remotest times, nor in the great Western impulse during the early part of the Christian era, do the Slavi appear as invaders or conquerors on their own account. For many centuries, the Slavi in their rela[Pg 235]tions with other races and nations, must rather be considered a passive or recipient than an expanding or creative race. For these reasons slavery does not seem to have been indigenous in those parts of the Slavic family which constituted independent groups, at the time when the race first dawns upon the horizon of history.

The Emperor Mauritius, in the sixth century, in giving an account of the defensive warfare of the Slavi, says that when they made prisoners in war, they kept them as such for a year, and afterward left it to their own choice either to settle among them or return to their native country. Thus, at an epoch when perpetual war raged all over the world, when from time immemorial prisoners of war everywhere formed the bulk of the slaves for domestic labor and for traffic, the Slavi alone were humane toward their captives.

The Slavi, however, became diseased by slavery, partly from external infection—partly from the internal development of events similar in character to those pointed out in other nations as the origin of slavery; and having once taken hold of the nation, it worked in a similar way as in other lands. For here again we see the ever recurring analogy between the origin, nature, and workings of social and bodily diseases—the same everywhere, under the equator as around the pole.

In the tenth and eleventh centuries, the Germans, under the Saxon emperors, carried on a war of conquest, almost of extermination, against the Slavi,[Pg 236] from the Baltic along the Elbe to the Styrian and Carinthian Alps. The number of war-prisoners and peaceful settlers carried away and enslaved was immense. Many of them were sold in the Baltic ports, others in Venice, others again were distributed in the interior of Germany, and in such vast numbers that from them arose the general designation of "slaves" to all chattels of whatever race; and such was the origin of the word, which was afterward incorporated into all the languages of Europe.[20] Subsequently the harshest feudal tenures regulated the condition of the rural population of Bohemia, Moravia and Hungary, which did not terminate till the events of 1848-'49 put a final end to villeinage (robot) in all these countries.

The Poles and Russians were unaffected by feudalism in any of its social or constructive developments. Up to the seventh and eighth centuries, the Poles continued to elect their chiefs from all classes of the people—merchants and workmen. The prince or chief Leschko was a merchant; while Piast was a wheelwright, and became the founder of a long line of kings. But wars created the men of the sword, or nobility; and then in Poland, as everywhere else, the nobles began to encroach upon the rights and property of the weak, and to oppress the agriculturists, the free[Pg 237] yeomen (kmets, kmetones), and the husbandmen (gospodarsch); but neither of these were ever transformed into chattels. When the Poles became a distinct historical nation, chattelhood was disappearing from Europe. Their contests were principally with other Slavic nations and with the Germans; and no traces are to be found of the enslavement of prisoners of war. Their heathen neighbors were the Prussians, the Iadzwingi, and Lithuanians; and captives made among them were used either in public labors or strictly in domestic service, as were also prisoners of war in after-times made from the Tartars and Turks. When these prisoners became Christians, their chattelhood was at an end.

The name for a war-prisoner is niewolnik, "one deprived of the exercise of his will." When the Polish agriculturists were subjugated by the nobles, and their condition became that of villeins, or adscripti gleb?, they began to be called kholop (a name most likely borrowed from the Russian), also poddany, "subject;" and the rural relations had the general name of poddanstwo, "subjection."

The Biblical narrative of the curse of Noah upon Ham furnished an easy justification for reducing the people to bondage. Peasant (kholop) and Ham became synonymous in the mouths of the nobles and the clergy, who generally sprang from the nobility. The oppression of the nobles was absolute during the domestic wars of the twelfth and thirteenth centuries. The people resisted, but after various partial but[Pg 238] bloody struggles, the peasantry were subjected. In the royal domains the old yeomen (kmetones) still preserved their lands and some of their rights, and to the last days of Poland, the peasantry of the domains never became, either legally or in fact, adscripti gleb?. Casimir the Great, a Polish king of the middle of the fourteenth century, protected the rights of the peasantry against the oppressions of the nobles, and advised the peasants to defend themselves with flint and steel. He won the name of "king of the poor oppressed peasants" (krol khlopkow): perhaps it was the gratitude of the oppressed which conferred this title upon him, or perhaps it may have been a sneering epithet applied by the nobles. Goading indeed was the oppression of the nobles, and crushing in the extreme the servitude of the peasantry; but it never reached the point of chattelhood, excepting in rare cases of absolute lawlessness.

The kmetones, or free yeomen, and the husbandmen still generally remained in possession of the lands which were once their immediate property, but now only as possessors at the pleasure of the master—paying him a rent or tribute, in kind or labor, and deprived of the right of changing their domicile. The master could, at pleasure, elevate the tenant to a freeholder, or emancipate any of his household servants. The cities did not furnish such a sure refuge for runaways as did the cities in other parts of Europe. Military service, here as elsewhere, gave perpetual liberty to the bondman.

[Pg 239]

The Polish nobility had supreme sway, and were all in all; they constituted the nation, the legislators and the sovereign—even the kings being controlled by the nobles and their interests. The nobles have paid dearly for their tyranny and oppression, as they themselves now admit that serfdom was the principal cause of the downfall of Poland.

After the dismemberment of Poland, Friederich Wilhelm III. restored personal liberty to the peasantry in the parts of the kingdom which were allotted to Prussia; in the Austrian portion, the condition of the peasantry was ameliorated and their personal liberty partially restored by Joseph II.; while that part of Poland which, at the end of the eighteenth century, was annexed, or rather reannexed, to Russia—as Lithuania and the Russian provinces—came under the control of the regulations prevailing in the empire. In Poland proper, all the peasantry are now free and enjoy full civil rights; and even the soil tilled by the peasants will soon be fully freed from every kind of predial servitude attached to its possession: and thus the peasantry will recover at least a part of the property taken from them by violence or subterfuge long centuries ago.

The Slavonians in what is now called Russia proper—from Lake Peypus and the Waldai Heights down to the banks of the Dnieper—lived, from time immemorial, in villages; these, again, were formed into smaller or larger districts (obschtschestwo, wolost), which elected for themselves their chiefs or heads (golowa).

[Pg 240]

Among the few cities in Russia, the great republican and commercial emporiums of Novgorod and Pskoff—well known and flourishing at the dawn of the medi?val epoch—formed the centres of that Slavic region. No nobility existed then, no slaves, and no bondmen. In 862 the republicans of Novgorod, distracted by domestic feuds and party dissensions, invited a Scandinavian, Nordman, or Vari?gue leader, called Rurick, to take upon himself the government of their republic. Rurick and his followers extended the Vari?gue supremacy as far as the southern region of the Dnieper, and Kieff became the capital of the Russian empire. At the commencement of this Vari?gue rule, no positive change was introduced into the internal organism of society, or the condition of the population. Rurick and his descendants were elected or confirmed by the Slavonic people, and he governed the cities and districts through his companions-in-arms or lieutenants. These, together with the direct descendants of Rurick, under the various designations of princes (kniaz and mouja), vassals, and warriors, were the founders of the Russian nobility. This, however, could not be called feudalism, as these functionaries corresponded somewhat with the counts and missi dominici, or lieutenant-deputies of Charlemagne. The grand-princes or grand-dukes of Kieff made war upon various tribes, mostly those of Mongolian or Tartar origin, and swept south of the Dnieper along the shores of the Black Sea down to the Caucasus; they repeatedly invaded the Byzan[Pg 241]tine empire, sometimes reaching even the suburbs of Constantinople. Then the war-prisoners and captives became domestic chattels, and chattels were also purchased from neighboring tribes and imported into Russia.

The name for a chattel, of whatever origin, is rab, raba, probably derived from rabota, "labor." Such rabs were employed in various kinds of labor, but principally in clearing the forests and cultivating the soil for their masters. Through contact with the Byzantine empire Christianity came into Russia, besides various other usages.

At this epoch, a new form of servitude appeared among the Russians; perhaps it was borrowed from the old society and civilization, or perhaps it originated from a new concatenation of circumstances: it was servitude by mutual agreement or kabala, by which one man gave up his person, labor, and liberty to another. This kind of bondman was called kholop. His servitude was usually contracted for a limited time, though sometimes for life; but was never inherited. Debts could be paid by the kabala writ.

The poor freeman could become a kholop by his own choice, or he could give up his children as kholops, as was then the custom among all nations, heathen and Christian. Such kabala-kholop, or servile person, could not be sold or disposed of in any way, as his servitude was limited in duration by specified time or by his death. Sometimes freemen choose servitude in order to escape worse conditions. Early in the domestic[Pg 242] economy of the nation, free tenants are found who hired lands for a year or more, paying the rent (obrog) in money, or binding themselves to cultivate half of the land for the proprietor and half for themselves. A subsequent law prohibited any such free tenants from contracting any work or kabala servitude with the landowners. The contracts of free tenants were obligatory for a year from St. George's day (April 17); but otherwise they could change their domicile or land at pleasure. The laws of the tenth and eleventh centuries stringently prohibit the infliction of any kind of corporal punishment on such free tenants. In short, these tenants had full civil liberty and full civil rights; they could own lands, and could become members of any rural or urbane community, practice any handicraft, etc.

Probably it was the nobles, the rich, the higher officials, who first established chattels (rabs) on their lands as tillers. From these originated, beside the rab, the krepostnoi kholop, "a serf strengthened or chained to his master," krepok signifying "strong," "strengthened," "attached by force"—krepost, "stronghold," etc. According to the laws collected or enacted by Vladimir and Yaroslaw in the tenth and eleventh centuries, rab and krepostnoi kholop were the descendants of prisoners of war, or of those who were bought as slaves and imported as such into Russia, and also the descendants of those who unconditionally married a slave woman; while the public, grand-ducal slaves or rabs were condemned criminals.

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Free tenants on the lands of the nobles, individual freeholders (odnodwortsy), etc., and the numerous rural communities owning land unconditionally and paying therefrom tribute—rather as public taxation—to the ducal treasury, constituted the rural population of Russia. From the time of Yaroslaw to the end of the sixteenth century, not one-tenth of the population was in the condition of rab, krepostnoi kholop, or serfs by writ or kabala.

The almost boundless extent of land constituting Russia was as yet unsurveyed, and no regular limits divided or marked the landed property. Thus it was easy for the strong to encroach on the lands of the rural communes, or on the new clearings made by individual freemen; and such annexations were often practised during the domestic wars between the numerous dukes, and during the time of Tartar domination. Iwan the Great (1462-1503) ordered, that whoever held a piece of land in undisputed possession for three years became its legal owner. But even the encroachments of the nobles did not transform the free laborers or tenants into serfs; and when a landlord was oppressive, whole villages abandoned him and contracted for land on other estates.

Chattels (rab, krepostnoi kholop) might be emancipated by the free will of the master; and a captive carried away by the Tartars, or a prisoner of war if a kholop, became free if he succeeded in escaping from captivity and returning to his country.

In the sixteenth century, all classes of the rural pop[Pg 244]ulation began to be called Christians (krestianin), the Tartars having bestowed this denomination on them; and this name is now legally in use. Under Tartar dominion the rural communities paid tribute per head; and for this reason their members could not change their domicile without giving security to the commune. But after the overthrow of the Tartars by Iwan the Great, they recovered the freedom of circulation.

The primitive grand-dukes of Kief granted appanages to their younger children, and sometimes a free rural commune constituted such an appanage. Vladimir, and after him Yaroslaw, divided the empire among their children; and thus originated the rather independent dukedoms of Twer, Smolensk, Wiazma, etc. The number of appanaged princes increased; and when, after a long and bloody struggle, the grand-dukes of Moscow mediatized all these small dukes, appanages became private property, and the rural communes were owned by the dukes (kniazia), but under similar conditions of freedom as the communes constituting the public domains.

Toward the end of the sixteenth century, Borys Goudenoff—an ambitious, unscrupulous, but highly-gifted parvenu—got control of the weak-minded Tsar Feodor, ruled during his lifetime, became regent of the empire after his death, and finally a murderer and usurper. To ingratiate himself with the nobility and the Bojars, in 1593 he published an edict (oukase), by which the free tenants were henceforth prohibited[Pg 245] from changing their masters or their domicile, and were at once reduced to serfs, adscripti gleb?. This first oppression quickly generated others still more odious, which stopped not till they ended in all the turpitude of chattelhood—-thus justifying the saying of Lessing: "Let the devil but get hold of one single hair, and he soon clutches you by the whole queue." So in 1597 a very rigorous oukase was published concerning the restitution of fugitive serfs, their wives, children and movables. Another oukase, ordering a census of all domestic servants to be taken, transformed into serfs even those who, six months before, had entered private service as absolute freemen. With the exception of the population in the free communes constituting the tsarian domains, all the other rural populations were thus transformed into serfs in the brief space of a few years.

During the seventeenth century, the tsars of the house of Romanoff confirmed these oukases. However, the serfs were not included in the sale of an estate, neither was it permitted to transfer them from one estate to another. There were various specific denominations for the different forms of servitude, according to the nature of the labor, the quantity of produce, or the number of days' service levied by the master.

In 1718, Peter the Great ordered a general census to be taken all over the empire. The census officials, most probably through thoughtlessness or caprice, divided the whole rural population into two sections:[Pg 246] 1st. The free peasants belonging to the crown or its domains; and 2dly. All the rest of the peasantry, the krestianins or serfs living on private estates, were inscribed as khrepostnoie kholopy, that is, as chattels. The primitive Slavic communal organization thus survived only on the royal domain, and there it exists till the present day. The census of Peter having thus fairly inaugurated chattelhood, it immediately began to develop itself in all its turpitude. The masters grew more reckless and cruel; they sold chattels separately from the lands; they brought them singly into market, disregarding all family ties and social bonds. Estates were no more valued according to the area of land they contained, but according to the number of their chattels, who were now called souls (duschy). In short, all the worst features of chattelism, as it exists at the present day in the American Slave States, immediately followed the publication of this accursed census.

The rural communes upon the royal domains, however, still preserved their ancient organization and even comparative freedom; but Peter the Great, as well as all his successors, rewarded his favorites, or those rendering public service, with estates or grants of land; and as such grants were taken from the royal domains, in this way hundreds of thousands of free peasants were transformed into chattels. Catharine II. also distributed great numbers of such estates among her favorites, besides confirming all the privileges of the nobility; and so likewise did Paul I.[Pg 247] Alexander I. desired to exempt the peasants in this transfer; but Nicholas I. in reality was the first emperor who granted estates excepting therefrom the resident peasantry; he also published an oukase that henceforth no rural communes from the domains shall be granted to private individuals. Paul I., in 1797, reduced the weekly servitude of the kholop to three days, the other three remaining to himself.

Alexander I. desired to emancipate the serfs throughout the whole empire, but only succeeded, and that very partially, in the so-called German or Baltic provinces—where, moreover, the German nobles and landowners succeed in impoverishing the peasants even more after emancipation than they could before. Alexander I. also prohibited the sale of single peasants, either male or female, separate from their families; he forbade their sale in the markets; and no one could purchase or own serfs unless he had at the same time twenty acres of land for each family. But all these tutelary laws were more or less evaded during his reign. He permitted the nobles freely to emancipate their serfs; but very few of them followed the example set by Prince Alexander Galitzine and a few others, and not more than three hundred thousand families were thus set free. Nicholas I. also spoke favorably of emancipation, and even attempted it, but unsuccessfully.

During all this period, military service was a great engine of emancipation. Enlisted serfs were forever free, together with their wives and children. But[Pg 248] military service lasted for twenty-five or thirty years, and was often more oppressive than serfdom in the village.

During the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, the peasantry now and then avenged their wrongs by isolated murders of the more oppressive masters and their families. Partial insurrections even took place, the most celebrated of which is that of Pugatschoff under Catharine II., which swept over the bodies of slain nobles and officials, from the mountains of Orembourg to the very gates of Moscow.

But the day of justice now dawns upon Russia. The whole Christian world glorifies the efforts of Alexander II., supported by a considerable portion of the nobles, to restore freedom and homesteads to the twenty millions of serfs. The success of the great emancipation movement is beyond doubt, beyond even the possibility of being stopped, although the carrying out of such a colossal revolution requires time and meets with many impediments.

At the example of Russia the tributary nomads of Asiatic Tartary have emancipated their slaves and abjured further enslavement; and Turkey, likewise, has inscribed her name upon the grand roll of emancipating empires.

Thus the whole ancient world shakes off slavery, and attempts to wash away its ancient and bloody stain; while the New World, or at least a part of it, still glories in the barbarous abomination.

No special law in Poland decreed the serfdom of the[Pg 249] rural population, nor in Russia their transformation into chattels. Nowhere, indeed, in the whole history of man has the conception of justice and law been so degraded as to legislate freemen, or those partially free, out of their sacred and inherent rights, beforehand. The most bloody records of humanity have not preserved any such act of legislation, and even the name of a Nero or a Heliogabalus are free from such a stain. It was left to the modern worshippers of the blood-reeking slave-demon to enact such laws; it was left to the highest judicial tribunal of the United States to brand into the brow of justice, there to remain for eternities, the infernal Dred Scott decision.