Full resolution (JPEG) - On this page / på denna sida - Chapter I. An Historic Survey of the Cultural Conditions of the Baltic Lands
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the simple, uneducated man of the people, arose a new Fata Morgana
of Equality, which changed his former contentedness into a delirium of
envy and ambition. He regarded his services henceforth exclusively
from the point of view of supply and demand. There was a constant
demand for his work as no agricultural or industrial production is
possible without the labourer. He therefore made his supply of work
conditional on higher and higher demands for pay, in order to procure for
himself a better financial and social position, as he was conscious of his
own power in regard to the numerical superiority of his class, in
comparison with the educated class, and universal suffrage gave him the
opportunity to take advantage of it.
The process of levelling the different classes of society in their mode
of life which is now going on in Europe, is nowhere more noticeable
than among the Balts, who almost throughout belong to the educated
classes, while the Letts and Estonians fill the ranks of the peasants,
manual workers and proletarians, and as the difference of class here,
coincides with the difference of race — more or less — the socialistic
attack was the more vigorous, being supported by nationalistic
aspirations. The Balt appeared in the eyes of the Letts and Estonians as an
adversary in a double sense — as an educated man and also as not
belonging to the Lettish or Estonian race.
The Letts and Estonians were caught by the nationalistic tendency
of the age, which grew up amongst them stronger and stronger in
opposition to the Slavophil policy of russification. Apart from the fact that
for an Empire constituted of such heterogeneous elements as Russia, a
forceful russification was dangerous, and a contradiction in terms, the
Great Russians were in Russia in the minority (48 %) in comparison
with the total number of the rest of the population; force produces
opposition, attack — resistance, proscription of ideal values, such as
racial individuality or religious conviction, enhances fidelity to personal
individuality and faith. The Letts and Estonians became more and
more nationalistic as they were subjected to a system of ruthless
russification, and finally, when by the Russian revolution and the favour of
the Entente Powers, they were given the possibility of separating from
Russia, the consciousness of their racial individuality produced the desire
for complete political independence. They took advantage of the
nationalistic formula of self-determination and attempted to bring into effect
the principle proclaimed by Bluntchli, by which humanity must
chrystalise into as many States as there are racial individualities: „Each
racial individuality a State, and each State a racial individuality“.
Thus, when the inauguration of Latvia and Eesti took place, the
Balts found themselves in the position of an alien element in their own
country. They were in the minoritiy, their vote could not carry, and
they were only able to take an indirect share in the foundation of these
States on racial lines, simply because they were not Letts and Ests.
At the same time, from masters they became servants, from superiors
they were relegated to underlings, from rulers they became ruled, bound
hand and foot to the majority.
The change was so sudden that it was deeply felt, more so as it
was carried out in rather a brutal way, and an orgy of licence by people
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