Poland: A Study of the Land People and Literature/Part 1/Chapter 2
II
Warsaw (Warszawa) is a city of more than 400,000 inhabitants. As is well known, it is situated on the river Vistula (Wisla), a broad river, over which of late years a great iron bridge has been built from the square where the castle is situated to the suburb Praga, so tragically celebrated in the history of Poland. I don't know if it was in consequence of Hauch's beautiful song that the stream in its winter dress, full of grey floating ice, appeared so melancholy.
The city is of great extent, but with its decayed grandeur and the horrible memories it calls up at every turn, it makes a mournful impression. In the last century, next to Paris, it was the most brilliant city in Europe; now it is a Russian provincial town. It then had the character of prodigal splendour; now it is a forlorn, neglected place, which declines more and more every day, not the least thing being done by the authorities for its appearance and improvement. It cuts one to the heart to see the wretchedly paved streets, or the terrible old sandstone figures in the Saxon garden, on coming from a luxurious city like Vienna, or one which has blossomed out with such rapidity as Berlin.
For whereas the capitals of countries elsewhere are generally the object of the rulers' care, almost of their tenderness, and cities elsewhere from mere self-love take heed of beauty and convenience, and strive to provide as great attractions for country folks and for foreigners as possible, Warsaw is the capital of a country whose existence the government does not recognise, and is a city whose pride the government wishes to humble in every way. We must remember that Warsaw has no "home rule," no civic council, and nothing at all like it. Russian Poland is altogether a country where nothing is elected. As there is no parliament, so also there is no municipal government. Only a part of the taxes collected in the city is used for the city itself, the remainder goes to St. Petersburg. Russian self-esteem makes all the arrangements, and Russian covetousness carries them out. The condition of the roads in the vicinity of the city is only to be understood by one who knows the Russian idea in Poland, the rule that when 80,000 rubles are appropriated to a highway, 40,000 must go into the pockets of the officials. No illusion has been left to the inhabitants of the city. As long ago as the 16th of October, 1835, when the Tzar Nicholas visited Warsaw for the first time after the great rising of the people in 1830-31, he said plainly to the deputation which came to greet him, that the castle, which he had caused to be constructed, was built not for the protection of the city, but against it; he threatened the Poles with the misfortunes which awaited them if they did not give up their "dream of a separate nationality, an independent Poland, and all such chimeras," and he concluded with the words: "I have caused this castle to be built, and I declare to you that at the least attempt at insurrection I will have the city blown to pieces, and I will then have it razed to the ground, and depend upon it, it shall not be rebuilt during my reign."
Since the unfortunate revolution of 1863, nothing at all has been undertaken for the cleanliness or well-being of the place, though by reason of a lack of waterworks and sewerage the beautiful city is one of the least healthy in Europe. The bed of the streets is so soft that the paving stones fall away from each other in ridges and holes, but nothing has been done since 1863 to repair them; nay, in all these years, with the exception of the town-hall, which was burned at that date, not a public building has been erected. The whole of the civil and military administration is carried on in confiscated private and public buildings. Time destroys whatever it will without any one seeking to repair the damage. Thorwaldsen's Copernicus, which is so popular in Warsaw that the common people call a statue a Copernicus, is covered with dirt, but is never cleaned. The pedestal is crumbling away under it, but no one restores it. The Copernicus is one of the oldest statues of the city. It was completed and unveiled May 11, 1830, after the distinguished author Stanislaw Staszic (1755-1826), the first great orator of the Polish democracy, who gave all that he possessed to objects for the public good, had made a contribution of 70,000 Polish florins to the national subscription for the erection of the memorial. On the other hand, the monument to Prince Joseph Poniatowski which Thorwaldsen had undertaken during his stay in Warsaw, September-October, 1820, and which in 1829 arrived in the city to be cast in bronze, was indeed unveiled the same day as the Copernicus, but was removed, as soon as the revolt of 1831 was quenched in blood. It is now to be found rebaptized as a St. George, and inaccessible, in the grounds of a Russian private citizen, the Prince of Warsaw, not far from the city.
The only public memorials in good condition are: the colossal monument to Paskiewicz in the middle of the main street of the Cracow Suburb (Krakowskie Przedmiescie), erected in gratitude because he, "trusty and active as the knout in the hands of the executioner" (Mickiewicz) in September, 1831, when the last heroic defenders had blown themselves up into the air, conquered the redoubts before Warsaw and entered the city—and the great iron obelisk, commemorating the names of the Poles, who, in 1831, informed against their countrymen, and were hanged or shot on that account as traitors or spies. On the sumptuous granite pedestal rest four metal lions. About the base of the obelisk are horrible-looking heraldic eagles with two heads of supernatural size. The inscription in Russian and Polish over the names reads thus: "The Poles who fell for fidelity to their Sovereign." This obelisk very possibly misses its mark in Warsaw!
The street traffic is by no means inconsiderable; in the markets there is the same life as everywhere else where buying and selling take place in the open air. But it strikes the stranger that in those places where the people are to be seen in large numbers, as on their Sunday promenades in the principal streets, they never have the contented and well-to-do Sunday look common in other large cities, but a melancholy or brooding expression. A merry scene is never witnessed in the street, and a joke is never overheard.
The physiognomy of the city does not, however, lack character. The Circassian regiments (that is to say, in reality Cossacks and Armenians in Circassian costume) with their fur caps, their sabres at their sides, their yataghans in their belts, have a picturesque oriental appearance. Every moment also you meet among the less characteristic Polish carriages a Russian equipage, in which a Russian officer is driven by a coachman in the long black national costume with the blue scarf round the waist.
One of the most noticeable things, so far as externals are concerned, in the streets of Warsaw is, that without exception all the names (even of the streets), all the signs, all the notices are in two languages or two kinds of characters; on the left side the inscriptions are in Polish, on the right in Russian, or above in Russian and below in Polish. It is a little element in the contest which the government keeps up to force the foreign language on the Polish nationality.
Recently the government has even begun to try to introduce the Russian language into the Roman Catholic Church. On account of a refusal to carry out an order of this kind, the Bishop of Wilna, Hryniewiecki, was exiled to Yaraslaw, and some weeks later his substitute, Harasimowicz, to Wologda.
The only place where it is allowed to speak the Polish language publicly is on the stage. As yet it is not forbidden to give Polish theatrical representations, and this circumstance has given to the theatre a preponderance in Polish intellectual life, which is intelligible, but unfortunate, and so much the more harmful and unnatural as the dramatic literature of the country is rather poor. There is something depressing in seeing this seriously constituted and highly endowed people attributing an importance to the theatre which it by no means deserves in a nation without pronounced dramatic qualities. If many of the best literary men have devoted themselves to theatrical criticism, it is because in the guise of examination and analysis of the ideas put forward in the plays, they can say and suggest much which it would be impossible to advance without this opportunity or veil.
The theatre in Warsaw is on the decline at the present moment. It is directed by a courtier who is bitterly hated, and who rules it in a military fashion, without the least artistic insight. It has indeed one important comic actor, but otherwise no men of talent of the very first rank, and no contemporary school of dramatic authors who could place peculiarly national aims before the younger men who frequent it. The greater part of the répertoire consists of French plays, and the style of acting is essentially French. However, in Helen Marcello, the theatre in Warsaw has an actress who fascinates by her beauty and her glow of passion, and only a few years since it had two admirable actresses who would shine on any stage.
One, Madam Popiel-Svienska, whom I saw play at a performance for a charity in Pailleron's "L'Étincelle," was a roguish and delicately emotional ingenue; a chubby little figure, youthful in her movements, with a delicate face, which shone with goodness of heart, its shadows dimples and its sunbeams smiles. When this lady married an elderly man of high rank, he demanded (like the egoist in Musset's Bettine) that she should retire from the stage, and she complied with his humour, although the public in Warsaw even now constantly embraces every opportunity to protest against this determination. At the passage in "L'Étincelle" where she says something to this effect: "I must play comedy again," by a previous agreement among the spectators hundreds upon hundreds of bouquets were thrown upon the stage, so that the play was interrupted for several minutes.
The second and far greater actress Poland has produced, who now enjoys a world-wide reputation, since of late years she has played chiefly in English, in London and North America, and only for six weeks in each year appears at the theatre in Warsaw, is generally known by her first husband's name, as Mme. Modrzejewska. The Poles are justly proud of her; she is one of the wonders of the nation. When in 1879 a national greeting was to be given to Kraszewski on his fiftieth anniversary as an author, Helena Modrzejewska was asked to come to Cracow and take part in the play at the festival in honour of the prolific author. Her appearance, like her art, is of the grand style. She has a brilliant beauty, is now (1888) over forty years old, but her figure is still slender and elegant without meagreness, and her face, with its regular features, large dark eyes, pure strong lines of the mouth, and the Asiatic grace of her smile can never lose its beauty. I have seen her in "Dalila," by Feuillet, in Sardou's "Odette," and in "L'Étincelle," and I have never in my life seen better art than hers, when as Odette during a visit to her daughter she has to suppress the maternal feelings which overpower her. One of Mme. Modrzejewska's best roles is Nora in Ibsen's "Doll's House"; I had a great wish to see her in it, and she was almost equally eager to play it for a countryman of the author; but we did not count on the despotism of the director of the theatre, who withdrew his consent at the last moment, from pure spite.
Mme. Modrzejewska prefers to play Shakespere, and her English répertoire consists almost wholly of Shakesperian rôles. She is indebted to her present husband, an extremely artistic man of the world, Karol Chlapowski, for her taste for English poetry, as well as for her higher development as an artist generally. Naturally enough, she felt the need of a broader sphere for her talents than that offered by the Polish language. But there is great danger that the life of travel as a star, which she has led of late years, will compel her to restrict her art to its coarser effects.
While the stage, as I have just said, is still Polish, the Polish language is absolutely forbidden in the University. All lectures, no matter whether they are delivered by men of Russian or Polish birth, must be in Russian. Not even the history of Polish literature may be taught in the language of the country. Nay, even in the corridors of the University the students are forbidden to speak Polish with each other.
Even more dangerous to Polish nationality is that provision of the law which requires that all instruction in the schools shall be in Russian. Even the scanty instruction in the Polish language is given in Russian. And so strict is the prohibition against speaking Polish in playtime, or generally in the school-grounds, that a boy of twelve years old was recently shut up for twenty-four hours in the dark because coming out of school, he said to a comrade in Polish: "Let us go home together." But the régime to which the schools are subjected with regard to the suppression of the national peculiarities is not confined to the domain of language. In a family which I was invited to visit the following incident happened. The son of the family, a boy of sixteen, the only son of a widow, one evening in the theatre had thrown a wreath to Helena Modrzejewska on behalf of his comrades. A few days after, in obedience to an order from the Minister of Education, the principal of the school called him up, and told him that he must not only leave the school, but that all future admission to any other school whatever was forbidden him; it was the punishment for having been guilty of a Polish demonstration. The boy went home and put a bullet through his head.
We may perhaps wonder that provisions which in certain circumstances drive a half-grown lad to suicide are maintained, or that so innocent a thing as the throwing of a wreath is forbidden. But the answer is, that as, a rule everything which betrays a love for the language is forbidden in Warsaw.
For instance, strange as it may appear, it is forbidden to give instruction to the common people, because instruction can only be given in Russian, which the common people do not understand. Their ignorance is very great; only one-fifth of the population can read and write. This strikes even the stranger who only remains for a few weeks in Warsaw; a coachman there is never seen reading his newspaper as in other cities; nay, the coachmen, as a rule, do not even know the numbers. You tell them the name of the street, say, as soon as you come into it, "to the left" or "to the right," and signal them when to stop. In the country the ignorance of everything to be learned from books must be extraordinary. Nevertheless, it recently happened that a young lady, who on her own estate was privately teaching four or five peasant children, received an injunction from the highest judicial officer of the district to desist immediately, since he, who had known her parents, was very unwilling to be the cause of her being sent far away, which would inevitably be the result if she, by continuing her efforts, compelled him to make a report thereon.
Whenever prosperous and patriotic people have asked permission to establish Polish country schools they have been refused. When at last several rich Poles, in their despair at the low level of civilisation of their people, gave way, and with the idea that Russian teaching was better than none at all, began to open Russian schools, no one attended; the peasants preferred ignorance to instruction in a foreign tongue.
Now and again the government stretches the bow so tightly that it breaks. For instance, about ten years ago an ukase provided that all domestic letters should be directed in Russian characters. When as a result of this, the number of letters was so greatly reduced that a considerable falling off in the postal receipts was perceptible, they were compelled to allow the decree to lapse.
The arrangements which tend to bring the ownership of the soil into Russian hands correspond to the endeavours of the government to Russianise the language. When the last great revolt was suppressed, an ukase was issued (Dec. 10, 1865) which prohibited the Poles from acquiring any land in the old Polish provinces of Lithuania, Podolia, Wolhynia, and Ukrainia, nay, which prohibited their bequeathing their real estate in these provinces to any other persons than their lineal descendants. Yet according to law, since the revolt there have been no Poles; they are all Russians. Even the Kingdom of Poland is called officially Vistulaland. It was thought, therefore, that by Poles the government meant the adherents of the Roman Catholic creed in old Poland, and that the prohibition would not be extended to others. But on inquiry as to who the Poles were, the answer was: "The Governor-General decides the nationality," an answer which left no hope.
No blow could have struck the Polish national cause more severely than this ukase; for no country lies nearer to the hearts of the Poles than Lithuania, which since the days of Jagiello and Jadwiga (since 1386) has been united with Poland, and in spite of the difference of language, has felt itself to be a Polish land. Many of the leading men of Poland—natives of the region—have echoed the celebrated words of Mickiewicz:—
Lithuania, like health art thou my fatherland!
He who has never felt the want of thee has never known thy worth.
It was natural that when possible they evaded the law by occupying and cultivating as tenants the land they did not dare to possess as owners, a course which was facilitated by the fact that the principal Russians, who had government donations of Lithuanian estates, soon felt themselves so isolated and so much out of place in the country, that they were content to abandon their new possessions, or at least to leave the care and cultivation of them to others. The danger that after a while the Russians would buy up all the land and soil of Lithuania thus seemed to be warded off. But a short time ago a new ukase of December 27, 1884, which set Warsaw in a blaze, ordered that no Pole—and the Governor-General determines the nationality—should be allowed to lease, act as steward for, or manage the estates in any of the parts of the country specified in the previous order, and—which seems still more rigorous to Western Europeans—this ukase has a retrospective force, so that all the earlier contracts of lease or stewardship were declared by it to be null. Effective power cannot be denied to a decree of this kind.
And of similar import are several of the regulations which have been made of late to strike at those who have some intellectual object in view.
Besides the ineffective censorship already spoken of there is one which is effective. The weekly newspaper, Prawda (Truth), the most progressive newspaper in Poland, the organ of the Positivists, has 3400 lines. It has happened that for a single number 7000 lines have been erased before the paper was published. The censor seems to be so capricious that it is impossible to foresee what will be allowed. The editor, the celebrated author, Alexander Svientochowski, writes as if there were no censor, and as an editor he cannot send his articles to any other paper.
The supervision of everything written would seem at least to ensure that the writers would escape punishment; for since nothing can be printed unless it has been read and approved, it would seem impossible to do wrong as an author. Nevertheless, young authors are to be met with who have repeatedly suffered a punishment of from three to five months' imprisonment in the interior of Russia; they were punished for their intentions, for what was struck out, or rather, they do not certainly know what they were punished for, since they are struck at not by a law, but by a police regulation.
The fact is the government does not need a law to attain its end; it has at its command what is better, the administrative way, and this administrative way means, as a rule, Siberia.
I have named the word which is in the air in Warsaw, the spectre which broods over the city like a nightmare, the threat which lurks about every man's door, the memory of which is to be read in the faces of so many men and women.
The first lady I took in to dinner on the first day of my stay in Warsaw—a beautiful, elegant woman with a Mona-Lisa smile, and something proud in her bearing—spent three years in the mines of Siberia. She had carried a letter during the revolt.
The next evening in a not very large room, more than two hundred years of Siberia were collected. There were not a few men who had spent from 1863-83 there, if we reckon the time it took for them to go on foot; this takes more or less time according to the situation of the place of exile in Siberia, but always a very long time, and the journey on foot is one of the most painful portions of the period of punishment. From Kief to Tobolsk it takes a year; to the Nertschink mines in the department of Irkutsk more than two years. One evening at a party a young man asked me to talk a little with his father who was sitting in a corner. "He is," he said, "the old man with one leg you see there." He had lost a foot in the revolt, was exiled, and had been obliged to walk the whole distance on his wooden leg; it took him two winters and one summer.
Of course those who return from exile are taken care of in Warsaw as they are always penniless, since confiscation of real and personal property is part of the punishment. Of the several surviving members of the national government of 1863, one keeps a book-shop, another has a private situation, and so on.
After the revolt about fifty thousand Poles in all were carried out of the country. They were either sentenced to hard labour in the salt works and mines or in the forts, or (for the most part) to domicile in some country village from which it would be impossible for them to escape, yet with narrowly restricted choice of occupations. Others again would be allowed to move freely within certain limits; yet even they were strictly forbidden certain occupations, as, for instance, all kinds of teaching. They were taken to their places of destination in bands of about three hundred persons, guarded by Cossacks and watch-dogs, passing the nights in large sheds, where there were pallets for the women and children, while the others slept as they could. It is estimated that there are about one thousand Poles in Siberia, but of the so-called Wodworency—that is, wandering peasants or petty nobles of Lithuania—several thousand.
Intellectually few countries would have been able to survive such a depletion as Poland has endured for the last twenty years. Only think what one-tenth of the loss of five thousand or one-hundredth of the loss of five hundred of its most advanced sons and daughters by an exile of many years would mean for Denmark!