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The great measure served to increase the national agitation which was connected with other causes. There had long been an enthusiastic party of "Slavophils," actuated by a strong race-feeling, and eager for "Panslavism," or a union of Slavonic peoples. It was the people in Russia which moved the court, against its will, to go to war, single-handed, with Turkey, in 1877.
In the circle to which Sergey Ivanovitch belonged, nothing was talked of or written about just now but the Servian War. Everything that the idle crowd usually does to kill time was done now for the benefit of the Slavonic States. Balls, concerts, dinners, matchboxes, ladies' dresses, beer, restaurants everything testified to sympathy with the Slavonic peoples.
From the meagre data at our disposal we are justified in concluding, that, left undisturbed, the Slavonic Jews would have evolved a civilization rivalling, if not surpassing, that of the golden era of the Spanish Jews. But this was not to be. Their onward march met a sudden and terrific check.
Governments consent to decide their disagreements by arbitration and to disband their armies! The differences between Russia and Poland, between England and Ireland, between Austria and Bohemia, between Turkey and the Slavonic states, between France and Germany, to be soothed away by amiable conciliation!
The task of governing them, when once she has overcome their resistance, will be one of extraordinary difficulty, and will involve a complete revision of her own standards of government and administration. Her record and that of Hungary in the Slavonic South does not inspire one with confidence as to the result.
Constantinople still held its ground as the magnificent capital of the Eastern Empire, maintaining the old civilization, but her dominions were threatened by the vigorous Persians on the east, and on the north by the Bulgarians, a nation chiefly Slavonic and very savage and formidable. This was the inheritance to which Justinian succeeded, in right of his uncle Justin, a successful soldier.
Remains of primitive Slavonic culture have been dug up on the islands in the Baltic Sea and even as far west as Hanover; remains of an identical culture have been found as far east as the Volga, so the Slavs have been widely spread out over Europe in earliest days.
It included almost the entire rural population of Russia. The peasant was legally a freeman. He lived unchanged under the old Slavonic patriarchal system of Mirs, or communes, and Volosts. These were the largest political organizations of which he had personal cognizance. He knew nothing about Muscovite consolidation, nor oligarchy, nor autocracy.
There is, however, something fine in this Slavonic conception of events worth commemorating; they may celebrate victories, but they also observe the anniversaries of great national disasters, "lest they forget." In the broad space between the Town Hall and the Tyn Church stands an imposing group of statuary.
On the south were the African deserts, not penetrated even by travelers. On the west was the ocean; and on the north were barbaric tribes of different names and races—Slavonic, Germanic, and Celtic.
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