THE GERMAN IN RUSSIA.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LII, Issue 15912, 8 May 1915, Page 1 (Supplement)

THE GERMAN IN RUSSIA.

BY R. W. BF.ID.

When* the Tsar, soon after '' 1P war opened, abolished the name St Petersburg, substituting for it that of Petrograd. a great many intelligent people outside of Russia may have failed to realise the full significance of this memor able and historic art. Neither did the official announcement that the removal of the Germanised name of the capital was but part 'of a vast, movement for the weeping from the country of all things German bring adequate enlightenment. Even after a high Russian Minister lied declared that '" never again" was to be Russia's watehward in all her future relations with Germany, the drastic and farreaching pronouncement was attributed to nothing more than justifiable anger because of the Kaiser-created war- Russia, said the Minister, will never again trade with Germany, never again be on friendly terms with Germany. Russia's decision to remove now and for all time the malign influence of Germany from the country should rank a? one of the most momentous ever taken by the Tsar and his Ministers. The truth is that for centuries Germany in general and Prussia in particular have been a veritable curse to the people and the Governments of Russia. Frequently during recent yea's has the question been heard : "What is it, that keeps the Tsar, and the nobility with whom he is surrounded, so distinct from, so far apart from, the great, body of the Russian people?" There is one principal answer, and it is: The influence and the presence of Germans. Until a period not at all remote the Government. of the Tsar was run, not on Russian or Slavic lines, but 011 German, and no two races in Europe are more different in thought, speech, manners of life, and sentiment than the Slavs and the Teutons. I The governing powers of Russia for centuries had the terrible misfortune of

*>ing influenced, often entirely cot rolled, by non-Russians. The intruder' ime (sometimes as conquerors, like tin longols, as queens and consorts such aj >ophie Paleologue, the wife of Ivan tin Tiird. Sophie was the daughter of thi Emperor of the Eastern Empire, and ii ier train, ?'e read, "came a great num >er of Greek followers." Among those ollowers were many members of the ireek clergy, whose political ideas fav mred the autocratic form of Government Jut Greek ways of thought were not ir iccordance with the national characteris ics of the Slavs. The gulf between th< Russian princes and their subjects rapidly wame more wiw and more deep. Ther lerman influences appeared within the Russian Court. So well had tho Greeki prepared tho way for the more ambi ions, less scrupulous. Germans that lvar the Fourth, personally mistrusted and his aims thwarted by his people, is founc declaring: "1 am not a Russian, lan German." Even in those early, far-of days Germanism was potent for evil Ivan the Fourth, known as Ivan the Ter rible, caused himself to be proclaimed Tsar of all the Russia*. He was Rus sia's first autocrat. "Peter the Great," says a recen writer, " Europeanised Russia, covered i' with a veneer of civilisation—Germar civilisation. He brought Russia a little nearer to Europe, but unfortunately es ranged himself and his house from hii people." Peter the Great, it will be remembered, married as his second wif< Catherine, a woman of obscure birth whose first husband had been a Swedish dragoon. After her came the notorious Catherine, who married Peter the Third. This Catherine was the daughter of the Prince of Anhalt-Zerbst, the Governor of Stettin, and a field-marshal of Prussia. The' Russian Court now became in all respects Prussian. Peter displayed "a mean type of military enthusiasm, which has been aptly described as corporal's mania." He speedily became unpopular and was assassinated, probably at the instigation of his wife, who immediately became Empress. This Catherine, a remarkable and unscrupulous woman, ruled Russia chiefly through a succession of favourites. Among her numerous whimsical projects was one to overthrow British supremacy in India; another to revive, under Russian suzerainty, the Greek Empire at Constantinople. "Eve* since Peter the Great," we read, "the Russian Government continually gave preference to numerous German adventurers, who swooped down upon Russia and ruled over the Slavs. They became the instruments of despotism and the evil advisers of Tsardomi They fostered the, already existing antagonism between Tsar and ' people— did not hesitate to play the part of agents-provocateurs, stirring rebellion and furnishing the Government with an excuse for repressive measures." The Slavs, tho people of Russia, refused to follow or to trust the Germanised Tsars and Tsaritzas and their German advisers, and they were oppressed, humiliated, impoverished, and imprisoned. From time to time the descendants of the old Russian nobility attempted to break the thrall of the Germans and to rid the country of their evil presence. Thus when Anna Ivanovna succeeded to the throne conditions of Government according to Russian ideas were dictated to her, and reforms were not only verbally promised by her, but were also embodied in a constitution which she signed. "But, once upon the throne, "she tore up the Magna Charta at the advice of the German party, headed by her lover, Biren." German despotism in Russia reached its summit while this Biren ruled the coun- ; try. Almost all power was placed in the hands of Germans. Dignitaries of tho , Court, Home and Foreign Ministers, j chiefs of the army— Russia's ambas- ! sadors— were Germans. Biren clearly ' recognised that to tho Slavs the foreign ' yoke was hateful. Therefore, the slightest ; appearance of insubordination was puni ished by fines, imprisonment, and death. ' Very slowly has the work of einnncipai ion' proceeded, and the marks of German I oppression are still visible within the 1 land. We can quite believe and under - ! stand that all that is absurd and cruel iln its government Russia has borrowed I from Germany. Prussian severity for j years was experienced to the full by I tho Russian soldiers. Germany's " feroI cious discipline" was introduced into the armies of the Tsar, and along with Prussian methods, weird German words, which the Slavs could scarcely pronounce, such as Hauptwacht, FeldweW. Feldzechineister. Exereizhaus. and Feuerwerker. Garshin, a famous Russian author, writing thirty years ago, gave the views of a German general on the proper treatment of Russian soldiers. Here is a. brief extract: "The soldiers must be beaten from time to time, so as to make them subject to fear: they will then i obev without reasoning. It is preferable i to have for military service brutes that '' do not reason." Patriotic Russians have long seen the I danger of Germanism to the liberty of i Russia, and at intervals have entered into bold and outspoken denunciations. There is. for instance, Skobelev's reply to an address from Serbian students, delivered in 1882. "1 must tell you candidly." he said, "why Russia is not always at the height of her patriotic duties ' in "general, and of her role as a Slavonic i nation in particular. We are the victims lof the foreigner and of his, intrigues. I Only with the sword in hand shall we be able to shake off his yoke. Do you I wish to know the name of this foreigner? He is the German." Russia's sword is at last in hand, and the yoke of the Germag will 6oon be no more«