684 



RUSSIA. 



show, 33,800 were buried. As 1,468 more were 

 hanged or shot by the courts-martial, and 7,060 

 forced to seek refuge in foreign countries, the 

 total of the melancholy list is swelled to 141,882. 

 Besides these, Poland has furnished two per 

 cent, of her male population as recruits. 



With regard to the Germans in the Baltic 

 provinces (Livonia, Esthonia, and Courland), 

 the efforts of Eussiflcation assumed, in 1867, 

 a more definite shape than they ever had 

 before, and caused a great excitement through- 

 out Germany. In September an imperial 

 ukase was issued ordering the immediate 

 energetic execution, with the cooperation of 

 all the ministers, of the ukase of 1850, com- 

 manding the introduction of the Russian lan- 

 guage into all the Government administrations 

 of the Baltic provinces where the regulation had 

 not hitherto been applied. The Livonian Par- 

 liament voted an address to the Czar, requesting 

 the continuance of the German language as the 

 official medium of communication in the Baltic 

 provinces of Russia. Though expressing them- 

 selves in the most loyal and submissive terms, 

 the petitioners beg to remind their sovereign 

 that the privileges of the province they represent 

 were sanctioned in the agreement of July 4, 

 1710, as well as in the stipulations of the 

 Nystadt treaty of peace. This petition was 

 received with great dissatisfaction by the Gov- 

 erment, which severely censured the Parlia- 

 ment for this demonstration. In the Prussian 

 Parliament, men of all political parties expressed 

 great indignation at these steps of the Russian 

 Government, and in the Baltic provinces the 

 German inhabitants on December 10th gen- 

 erally celebrated the anniversary of the issue 

 of the " Privilege of Sigismund," which they 

 regard as a sort of Magna Charta of their na- 

 tional rights. As this conflict between the 

 Russian Government and the German nation- 

 ality is probably the germ of the most serious 

 European complications, the " Privilege of Sigis- 

 mund " may acquire a great historic celebrity. 

 The Sigismund who granted this " privilege " 

 was Sigismund Augustus, King of Poland, to 

 whom the Livonians, after their country had 

 been ravaged for two years by the Russians, 

 applied for aid in the year 1561. In October 

 of that year a deputation from the Baltic prov- 

 inces came to Wilna to propose to the King 

 the union of these provinces with Poland. The 

 deputation was favorably received, and the 

 first act of Sigismund's rule over his new sub- 

 jects was the issue of the " privilege " on the 

 10th December following. This document se- 

 cured to the Baltic provinces the free exercise 

 of their religion, the maintenance of their 

 ancient customs, rights, and laws, and the free 

 election, " as in Prussia," of judges and gov- 

 ernment officials from among the German inhab- 

 itants. These provisions were strictly adhered 

 to during the period that the provinces re- 

 mained under the Polish rule, and in 1582 King 

 Stephen Batory, on returning from his victo- 

 rious Russian campaign, confirmed the "privi- 



lege" of his predecessor, and added to it several 

 articles increasing the powers of the local 

 ossemblies, and protecting the peasants against 

 appression by the land-owners. The period of 

 the Polish rule, which is regarded by the Livo- 

 nian historians as the golden age of their his- 

 tory, came to an end in the year 1621, when 

 Gustavus Adolphus conquered the Baltic prov- 

 inces. They remained in the possession of 

 Sweden until 1710, and their inhabitants had 

 ample cause to regret their change of mas- 

 ters. Their principal historian, Gadebusch, 

 complains bitterly of the persecutions of the 

 Swedish kings, of their disregard for the na- 

 tional customs and laws, and of the impover- 

 ishment of the country by the arbitrary contri- 

 bxitions levied on the land-owners, and recalls 

 with regret " the magnificent and salutary 

 privilege" granted to the Livonians by King 

 Sigismund. The same regime was continued 

 by Russia after her occupation of the country 

 in 1710, and it produced such hostility to the 

 Government in Courland that the inhabitants 

 joined in the Polish insurrection of 1794. The 

 Russian emperors then somewhat relaxed the 

 severity of their rule, and were rewarded by a 

 loyalty and attachment of which there have 

 been but few examples even among their Rus- 

 sian subjects. These feelings, however, are 

 rapidly disappearing before the Russifying 

 policy which is now predominant at St. Peters- 

 burg. The " privilege of Sigismund " has again 

 become a dead letter, and the inhabitants of 

 the Baltic provinces exhaust themselves in 

 vain regrets that the happy times when they 

 enjoyed the full exercise of their national 

 rights and customs under a Polish king can no 

 longer return. 



Not satisfied with the efforts for Russifying 

 all the non-Russian races of the empire, the 

 Russian Government openly patronized the Pan- 

 slavonian movement, the object of which is to 

 unite all the Slavonian populations of Austria 

 and Turkey with Russia. A grand Pa/islavoirian 

 demonstration was made in May by holding an 

 ethnographical exhibition at Moscow. On the 

 22d of May, Prince Gortchakoff, Vice-Chancel- 

 lor of the empire and Minister of Foreign Affairs, 

 received a deputation in the most cordial man- 

 ner, and made to them a significant speech, 

 thus, in particular, expressing himself with re- 

 gard to the Servians: "The Servians are a 

 youthful nation, and one having a great des- 

 tiny to fulfil. I am old, and perhaps shall not 

 live to see the day when my prophecy will be 

 borne out by fact ; but depend upon it my suc- 

 cessors will have the interests of the Servian 

 people as much at heart as I have." At a ban- 

 quet given to the delegates, an enthusiastic 

 Panslavistic speech was made by Count Tol- 

 stoo, Russian Minister of Education, and a Rus- 

 sian poet, Markevich, thus addressed the dele- 

 gates: "Yon are at home in this country, 

 and, in fact, more at home than in your own 

 lands, ruled by the foreigner. Here the mon- 

 arch and the subject speak the same language, 



