Part 11
The further north one travels, the more the bratstvo decreases, although the large communal households do not entirely disappear even in Russia. Everywhere the bond of relationship is very strong, and to become the godfather of a child unites one to its family for weal or woe. There is one relationship common among the southern Slavs which exceeds that of the closest tie of blood; it is that of _probratimtsvo_, or _prosestrimtstvo_, a brotherhood or sisterhood, or close friendship, between two men or two women, or even between a man and a woman, which among orthodox Slavs is still solemnized with the sacraments of the church. Of course this solemn service is followed by a feast, and the following toast shows the spirit of that occasion:
With whom drink I to-day? With thee, honoured brother, with thee drink I to-day In God’s name. The Virgin bless thine earthly store; Increase thine honour more and more; Be near thy friend with helpful deed, But never thou his help to need.
God grant thee much of earthly bliss, And may the saints thy forehead kiss. May wine for friends abundant flow, And children in thy household grow. May God unite our house and land, As we thus grasp each other’s hand.
Admirable as is the family tie which binds the Slav, abhorrent even to the strongest “Slavophile” is the position occupied by woman in the family and in the social life among Southern and Eastern Slavs. To escape the charge of prejudice, I shall quote a few proverbs current among the Southern Slavs--a few out of many hundreds:
The man is the head, the woman is grass. One man is worth more than ten women. A man of straw is worth more than a woman of gold. Let the dog bark, but let the woman keep silent. He who does not beat his wife is no man.
“What shall I get when I marry?” asks a boy of his father. “For your wife a stick, for your children a switch.”
Twice in his life is a man happy: once when he marries, and once when he buries his wife.
And the woman sings in the Russian folk-song, which I have freely translated,
Love me true, and love me quick, Pull my hair, and use the stick.
Although there are love-songs of another kind, in which woman is praised for her charms, she becomes virtually a slave as soon as she marries, and the little poetry of the folk-song does not accompany her even to the marriage altar. She is valued only for the work she can do in a household and for the children she can bear; and should this latter blessing be denied her, her lot becomes doubly pitiable, and she sometimes seeks release by suicide, after which the proverb says of her, “It is better thus; a barren woman is of no use in the world.” In Montenegro the proverb says, “My wife is my mule,” and she is treated accordingly; and to see her bent double beneath her load of wood, flour, or oil, while her liege lord walks erect by her side, with his arsenal of weapons in his girdle, is to see the proverb in action. Yet here, where woman’s lot is the worst, woman’s virtue is regarded most highly, the penalty for adultery being swift death, and the social vice almost unknown.
It would, of course, be unjust to charge every Slav with beating his wife, but, unfortunately, it is the rule rather than the exception among the peasants; and the lot of the Slavic woman grows better only as the Slav is further from Eastern barbarism and nearer to Western civilization. Yet she is wooed with the same ardour as is her more favoured sister, and perhaps she is loved just as much by her husband, only he has a strange way of showing his affection. That the Slavic woman possesses the qualities to make of herself a “new woman” can be plainly seen among the women of the higher class in Russia, where there is a second paradise for women; America, by common consent, being the first.
Among all the Slavs music is much loved, and the fields in the busiest harvest-time are melodious from song. The Czech’s love for music has become proverbial, although the proverb is not complimentary to him and was invented by his enemies. It is said that when a Czech boy is born, the nurse holds up to him a penny and a violin; if he seizes the penny, he will be a thief; if the violin, he will be a musician. It is true that every Czech village has its band, which often wanders all over Europe, making melody as it goes; and, in nine cases out of ten, the “Leetle Sherman pand” upon which the American bestows his pennies and his jokes does not come from Germany at all, but from some village in Bohemia. Mechanical musical instruments have played havoc with the native genius of these people. Slavic music has a melancholy strain, and this is especially true of the music of the Southern Slav, whose simple musical instruments, the “swirala” and the “gusla,” are not capable of giving one joyous note, even at a wedding. They may be truly called Jeremiac instruments. With love of music goes the love of dancing, and the Czechs and Poles invent new dances for every occasion, while the Southern Slavs cling to their monotonous national “kolo,” which is a reckless sort of kicking exercise, accompanied by the aforesaid instruments, while some old minstrel sings of the heroic deeds of the past.
Cities among the Slavs are rare; the people usually live in villages, nearly all of which have common characteristics. It seemed strange to find that I could walk through a Russian village near Moscow, and yet could easily think myself among the Slovaks, thousands of miles away, or even among the more picturesque Dalmatians on the Adriatic. The villages all look alike. There is always one street, and just one, in the village; one wood or mud house leans against the other, one thatched roof overlaps the other, and there is never more than one fire at a time in a village like this; for generally the whole business burns down at once. The barns, called “stodoly,” are generally built together, a short distance from the village. The church occupies the centre of the village, and near by is a mud-puddle, where geese, pigs, and babies take their daily swim. Put into some convenient place a pump, tie some ox-teams to it, place in the foreground clouds of dust or a sea of mud, and you have a fair picture of Slavic villages.
Of course they differ in degrees of ugliness, the Russian village taking the first prize for unadulterated homeliness, as there is no sign of beauty, not even a primitive attempt at decoration, anywhere. Among the Slovaks in Hungary, and among the neighbouring tribes, there is an attempt at art. Crudely painted houses are the rule, and somewhere about them there will be an indication of decoration, but it requires a vivid imagination to find out just what it is, the art spirit being strong but undeveloped.
Little flower-gardens near or around the houses are seldom or never seen in Russia, but are common among the Czechs and other Western Slavs. The interior of the houses differs among them as to size and arrangement. The Russian house has two rooms, separated by the main entrance. One is called the cold room and the other the hot room. The hot, or winter room has as its chief possession a brick bake, cook, and heating stove or oven, the top of which is the bedstead in the winter-time; and a very comfortable place it is. The cleanliness in these Slavic homes is also of varied degrees, and is often conspicuous by its absence. Dirt, I am sorry to say, is often in evidence, and certain insects which would annoy us dreadfully exist in these rooms in uncountable numbers, but are treated with silent contempt, which does not tend to their diminution.
The Slavic tribes differ in their costumes, but nearly all of them have retained the sheepskin coat, which they wear summer and winter. The wool is turned inside. The skin is often coloured red, and the legs of the sheep hang over the shoulders. Both men and women wear this coat; but, of course, the woman’s coat is decorated in fantastic ways and costs a great deal of money. The rest of the man’s attire consists of linen trousers and shirt, home-made from the tough fibre to the coarse stitching. A cap is also worn, and in Russia is generally of fur. There are numberless varieties of this dress, but in each village all dress alike, differing only in the fineness of the material used.
“How do the women dress?” Can a man ever describe a woman’s dress? And can any mortal describe the Slavic woman’s dress, when in nearly every village they have a peculiar style? And, oh! what styles! Colour in everything; red, yellow, silver, and gold, laces and embroideries and what-not, costing sometimes nearly two hundred dollars. But, of course they do not get a new dress every year, just one in a lifetime, or, if they are really good, maybe two. The costliness of the woman’s dress is the cause of much suffering, for, although the styles do not change, vanity is a shrewd mistress, and will put a half-inch broader lace upon a woman’s cap, thus setting all the feminine hearts on fire from envy; and the next market day the broader lace will be shading every woman’s eyes, although perhaps a feather-bed had to be pawned, or next winter’s pig had to wander to the butcher’s ere its time had come.
Among the Slovaks, with whom woman’s garb is most costly and most picturesque, there is a great desire to lay it aside and adopt the more fashionable dress of society; for the peasant’s costume compels one to be addressed as an inferior--_ti_ (thou)--and putting on the modern garb puts one, at least in the eyes of strangers, upon a higher social level, and _onyi_ (you) is the pronoun used.
The Slavic peasant lives simply enough at home. His food consists largely of a vegetable diet, and meat on the table is the sign of a holiday, a wedding, or of a fortunate excursion into a neighbour’s chicken-coop or pig-sty. Among one large tribe they have only one meal a day, usually at noon. It is cooked in the morning and kept warm under the ashes or under the feather-bed until it is time to eat it.
The main staples of diet among all are, potatoes, black, sour rye bread, cabbage for soups and cakes; _kascha_, or gruel; and, finally _barshtsh_, a concoction made of beets, and not half so bad as it looks.
The Czech has a reputation as an epicure, and the Bohemian girl is generally an excellent cook, in addition to her other good qualities. To mention Slavic cooking and leave out garlic would be “Hamlet with the Prince left out,” and I feel sure that travellers in Slavic countries will readily testify to the excessive presence of this fragrant bulb, although they may never have seen it.
The literature of the Slav is abundant, and some of it is no doubt great. That of Bohemia is the oldest, that of Poland the most finished, and that of Russia in modern times the most abundant. The folklorist has here much virgin territory in which to gather material, but it remains to be seen whether it is worth gathering and preserving. Both folk-lore and literature are strongly realistic, being a reflection of the Slavic character, and not a protest or reaction, as with the Germanic people. The Slav speaks and sings about plain things plainly, but naturally, and not offensively when one understands the source of his song. It never makes sin attractive, and consequently is wholesome. The lyric love-song is made in the hearts of the people, travels from lip to lip, and is simple and beautiful in the original; thus the Czech sings:
If I see thee, kneeling, praying In the church, my dear, I am far from God and heaven, But to thee am near; If I’d love my God in heaven As I now love thee, I would saint or very angel In His presence be.
The Slovak sings thus of love:
Whence getteth everybody Love in his very breast? It grows not on the bushes, It’s hatched not in the nest; And were this love abiding On rocks as heaven high, We’d send our hearts to find it, Yes, even if we die.
More poetically, the Croatian sings:
Oh, what is love? a zephyr mild, As gentle as a new-born child, To kiss each blossoming flower. Oh, what is love? a wild storm-cloud, A roaring, maddening tempest loud, A weeping, drenching shower. Oh, what is love? a scattered gloom, A thousand glorious flowers in bloom, A glowing, burning fireball, A giant held by chains in thrall, A joyful, chiming wedding bell, A dreadful chasm, a burning hell. Oh, may thy love, thou dearest child, Like spring winds be, so sweet, so mild! Oh, reach to me thine angel hand, And lead me to that heavenly land!
One of the marked characteristics of the Slav is his deep religious feeling. If you wander through Moscow, you will see at every step evidences of this in the many churches, chapels, and wayside icons before which the faithful cross themselves or lie prostrate in the dust. Everywhere the Russian manifests his deep allegiance to the Church, and every action of his life is in some way influenced by its teaching. He obeys implicitly all its rules, especially in regard to the many fast or feast days. He venerates the churches and cloisters, has implicit faith in the intercession of the saints, and every year out of every village go forth pious pilgrims over barren wastes and through dense forests to some sacred tomb in some faraway cloister. The height of ambition of every pious mujik is to make a pilgrimage to Jerusalem, and a whole lifetime is spent in self-denying struggle to accumulate money enough for that purpose.
Common to all the Slavs is the tendency to superstition; remnants of the old heathenism remain everywhere, startling one by stories and usages which during centuries of winters’ nights have grown to grotesque proportions in the dark, uncomfortable izbas of the peasants, and have curiously blended with their Christian faith, so that it is difficult for them to distinguish one from the other. The Slav is usually charitable to the poor, although not always generous to the weak, and he cannot be praised for excessive hospitality. He is too often clannish, is apt to be jealous, and consequently not always faithful or honest. The Polish and Russian peasants are proverbially thievish; as one of their current sayings has it, “the only things which they will not carry away are hot iron and millstones,” a characteristic which they lose completely under better economic conditions.
The Slav is humanity still in the rough, and to that fact are due his faults, his virtues, his weakness, and also his strength.
XIII
THE SLAVIC INVASION
The Slovak and the Pole, or the “Hunkies” as they are often contemptuously called, are among the most industrious and patient people who come to our shores. I know this because time after time I have followed them from their native villages, across the sea and into the coal mines of Pennsylvania, or the steel mills, coke ovens and lime stone quarries along the lakes, to which they were called because their virtues as labourers were known. Even on board ship they are the most patient passengers, for hardships are not new to them, and the bill of fare, meagre though it is, contains not a few luxuries to which their palates are strangers; if it were not for the seasickness, they would consider their ocean trip as much of a pleasure as do those of us who cross the sea for a wedding trip or a vacation. I have crossed the ocean with them ten times at least, and have never heard a word of complaint, although their more refined travelling companions say much about their untidiness, rudeness, and other marks of semi-civilization. I have never seen one of them read a newspaper; only one man do I remember who read a book, and that was a prayer-book of the Greek Church. They leave their picturesque garb at home, and lie on the deck in all sorts of weather in all kinds of dress and undress, the women being barefooted even in winter. In conversation with the men I can never go beyond the facts that they are going to work, earn money, pay off a mortgage on a piece of land at home, or save enough money to send for Katchka or Anka to be their wedded wife. If the Slovak feels any great emotions when he reaches New York, he never expresses them; he is usually dumb from wonder and half frightened, as he faces this new and busy world in which he will be but an atom or just so much horse-power. In spite of the contract labour law, he is billed to an agent in New York or taken to Pennsylvania, where his new life begins and too often ends in a coal-mine.
The home which he will make for himself is one of many, and all alike are painted green or red,--shells of buildings into which crowd from fifteen to twenty people who are taken care of by one woman whose husband may be the foreman of a gang and the chief beneficiary of its labour.
In the town of Verbocz, in Hungary, I recently met a man who had returned from America with $2,000 in his pocket, and whose career here is typical of a large number. He came to America fifteen years ago and worked in a mine in Pennsylvania near Pittsburg. He had stayed long enough to learn English, to be able to receive and give orders and have them carried out, so he became a foreman. His wife and children then came, and moved into one of the houses previously described, bringing with them twenty men, boarders. Through much industry and frugality they saved these $2,000 and now in their old age they had returned to spend that money at their pleasure. The wife has permanently put off the peasant garb and has retained in her vocabulary such bits of English as “come on,” “go on” and “how much,” which she displays on every occasion. The children are still in America, one of the sons being in the saloon business, and on the road to greater wealth than that which his father accumulated.
Their competitors in the field of labour accuse them of filthiness, yet, after having walked through hundreds of these shanties, I can say that the report of untidiness among them is exaggerated; for the majority of homes are cleaner than their crowded condition would warrant, while there are not a few in which the floors are scrubbed daily, and fairly shine from cleanliness. Just as uncomplainingly as into the life on board ship, the Slovak fits into the new work, whatever it may be, and no animal ever took its burden more patiently than he does his, as he faces unflinchingly the hot blasts of a furnace or the dark depths of mines. He can be worked only in gangs directed by one of his number who has gathered a few crumbs of English, and who seasons them freely by those words which are usually printed in dashes. Such a thing as rebellion he does not know, as his whole past history testifies; in our strikes he is a very convenient scapegoat and not seldom a sheep, led to deeds whose consequences he has not measured. In nearly every case of violence which I could trace and in which he took an active part, he was inflamed by drink which interested persons had given him.
He is considered by the tradesmen of his town to be their most honest customer, and one merchant who has dealt with the Slovaks for twelve years, who has carried them from pay-day to pay-day, and through strikes and lay-offs, told me that he had not lost one cent through them, while his losses from the other miners were from fifteen to thirty-five per cent.; and, with but slight variations, this is the testimony of all the merchants.
In no small measure this is due to their fear of law, for in Hungary every debt is collectible, and not even the homestead is exempt from the executioner. There is also no petty thieving in communities where they have lived for twenty years, and they have never been accused or even suspected of theft. As one common accusation against them is that they spend very little in this country and send most of their earnings abroad, I examined this matter very carefully, interviewing every merchant and every class of merchants, the postmasters, and even the saloon-keepers, and they all agree that these people are fairly good customers.
In visiting their homes I found that usually they are not lavish as to house-furnishings; the front room, which in the American household would answer for the parlour, is filled by the trunks of the boarders, and in a few cases has that beginning of American civilization, the rocking-chair. A stand with a white cloth cover holding a few knickknacks is a rarity, but exists in about five per cent. of the houses I have visited; carpets I have seen only twice, but the lace-curtain fashion has not a few imitators. Upon his bed the Slovak lavishes a great deal of money, making it his costliest piece of furniture, while his imported feather-beds keep out entirely the more sanitary mattress and blankets. He does not stint himself in his food, as is commonly supposed, for he eats a good deal, although his steak, being cut from the shoulder, is cheap, and is always called “Polak steak.” He eats quantities of beans, cabbage, and potatoes, and about eight dollars a month covers the board bill of an adult. He drinks too much, but drinks economically, preferring a barrel of beer for the crowd to the more expensive glass, and he carries a bottle in his hip pocket as invariably as the cowboy is supposed to carry a pistol. Instead of whiskey he sometimes takes alcohol and water, which may, after all, be the same rose by another name. In buying clothing I am told that he buys the best which is fitted for his work and for his station, and to see him after working hours, cleanly washed and dressed in American fashion from the boots up to the choking collar, one would not suspect him of miserliness. He does save money, for out of an average earning of forty dollars a month he will send at least fifteen dollars to Hungary, and on pay-day the money-order window in the little post-office is crowded by these industrious toilers who have not forgotten wife, children, old parents, and old debts.
Many of them claim that they would buy houses in this country if they were assured of steady work, and in many places they plead that they cannot buy property because the company owns all the real estate and prefers to rent all the houses falsely called homes.