Full resolution (JPEG) - On this page / på denna sida - VIII. The Baltic problem
<< prev. page << föreg. sida << >> nästa sida >> next page >>
Below is the raw OCR text
from the above scanned image.
Do you see an error? Proofread the page now!
Här nedan syns maskintolkade texten från faksimilbilden ovan.
Ser du något fel? Korrekturläs sidan nu!
This page has never been proofread. / Denna sida har aldrig korrekturlästs.
102 PROBLEMS CONFRONTING RUSSIA
£250 damages at the Northampton Assizes from defendant,
who had described him as a German. That makes the
position abundantly clear.
The beginning of the history of the Baltic Provinces
resembles early English history in so far as the Saxon
founders of the English heptarchy were of the same racial
origin as those of Livonia. Up to the present the Esths,
natives of Esthonia and Livonia, call the people of Teutonic
descent inhabiting the provinces " Saxons." Looking
through the historic vista of the past, the English Saxons
may be reminded that there is a close relationship between
themselves and the Baltic Saxons, although centuries of
a different fate have, to a certain extent, obscured the
remembrance of the tie between the people of these happy
islands and those of the severely tried Baltic shores. Since
their foundation by the Saxons both countries have been
overrun by various invaders, but neither lost touch with
the other. Two illustrations of this fact may be quoted :
King James I of England gave the island of Tobago, one
of the Lesser Antilles, as a present to his godchild, James,
Duke of Courland, of the Kettler dynasty ; then, again,
many British families, such as Hill, Scott, Jacobs, Addison,
Magnus, Miller, Proctor, Armitstead, Gregg, Gordon, Bruce,
Keith, and others, immigrated to the Baltic Provinces and
intermarried with the local nobility and bourgeoisie. Many
families of Baltic noblemen have intermarried with Russian,
Swedish, and Finlandish stock, not to mention numerous
cases of Baltic noblemen who, having left their provinces,
settled in the interior of Russia, intermingling for generations
with the Great Russians. All points to the fact that in the
course of their long history the educated classes of the
Baltic Provinces have created for themselves a new
ethnographic individuality and a particular Baltic type of
civilisation and culture. In short, a new Baltic nationality is in
the making.
The English have no quarrel with the Baltic Provinces.
Before the outbreak of war there was a brisk trade going
on between Great Britain and Libau, Riga, and Reval. It
<< prev. page << föreg. sida << >> nästa sida >> next page >>
