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i9i7] ESTHONIAN ASPIRATIONS 491
"Ah! that is just the point, Monsieur! No, no! we
take a very different view of our national frontiers. In
the first place, south of Lake Pei’pus the limits of your
Government of Pskoff do not coincide at all with the
limits of Esthonian nationality ; the latter predominates
in the western portion of the Government in question.
The district and town of Izborsk, in particular, must
absolutely belong to us."
"What? Izborsk? But from the legendary
beginning of Russian history Izborsk appears as a Russian
town ; it has remained one. Listen : I know through the
genealogy of my family that in the time of the Tsar
Theodore, son of John the Terrible, a Nekludoff was
made Lieutenant of the Tsar in Izborsk, and was given
a large property there which has belonged up till
latterly to his descendants—distant relations of mine—
and which was sold quite recently to the local peasants—
good and true Great-Russian moujiks, if ever there were
any!"
" I must renew my apologies to you, Monsieur, but
this only proves that your ancestors figured amongst
the oppressors of the Esthonians, and established
Great-Russian colonists on their soil! But let us leave
Izborsk out of it.1 What are you doing with the whole
of Ingria? Yet from time immemorial it has been
inhabited and cultivated by Esthonians; now Ingria
extends east of the Narova as far as Lake Ladoga, that
is to say it includes the whole northern half of what you
have since called ’the Government of St. Petersburg.’
All this country is undeniably ours."
" But, then, what would you do about the large
agglomerations, of purely Russian population, which
constitute large villages, or rather small towns, manu-
1 An Esthonian infiltration does really exist in the province of Pskoff;
but only since 1861. The noble proprietors having sold much land, it
was mainly Esthonian immigrants who bought it, divided it up and
settled down there. The instituting of the " Peasants’ Bank " caused
this colonisation to cease, for from that time onwards it was Russian
peasants who bought the large properties which were for sale.
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