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CHAPTER XXIV — THE BALTIC REPUBLICS
LITHUANIA, LATVIA AND ESTHONIA
North of Poland we come to one after another of the three little new Baltic republics, Lithuania, Latvia and Esthonia. The northern borderline of Poland has the outline of a crab, extending its two claws to embrace between them both East Prussia and Lithuania. Of East Prussia and how it was separated from the rest of Germany so as to give Poland an outlet to the Baltic along the Vistula we have already spoken. Lithuania we are now to visit. The Lithuanians claimed the Baltic coast east of East Prussia and extending back across old Russia to the great city of Vilna. But Poland also claimed Vilna, and in the desire to make Poland strong, so that she might once more defend western Europe against a Russian invasion, she was given almost everything she asked. Lithuania was thus left a tiny land shorn of her one rich city.
It is not easy, when we begin to penetrate these lands which were
so long held by Russia, to separate the people of one race from another;
for many races have here been so intermingled in a common misery that
no one people stands clearly separated by exact frontiers or purity of
race. The Jews, to be sure, spread through all the Baltic provinces which
had once been Polish; and today they form as large and important an
element in the city life of Vilna as they do in Warsaw itself. But the
aristocracy of these lands consisted mainly, before the World War, of
Today the Lithuanians have been rescued from their centuries of servitude, and are making a determined effort to be self-governing. Their land is really the valley of the Niemen River; and though Vilna has been denied them, they have been given instead the German built city of Memel, at the mouth of the Niemen. Memel is a valuable port to open to Lithuania the sea trade of the world. Without Memel the Lithuanians would be in hopeless case indeed; for their land offers no other harbor. The low Polish plateau here extends to the north in a somewhat higher ridge; so that the Baltic coast is rough and abrupt, and the rivers flow through deep valleys which they have dug for themselves in the course of ages. As we travel north across this plateau into Lithuania, the country grows ever wilder, colder, and more forest-covered. The pine tree takes the place of the more southern beech and birch. In the depths of the Lithuanian pine forests we could still find bears and even some of the wild buffaloes which were once the chief animal life of all this region.
Vilna, when we reach it, is a busy town of nearly two hundred thousand people. It stands on a group of sandy hills overlooking its own. little Viliya River, a tributary of the Niemen. As far back as man's knowledge reaches, this has always been a "holy city." In old pagan days a sacred fire was kept burning on what is now the Castle Hill; it was dedicated to Perkunas, the Lithuanian god of light. When, in the fourteenth century, a Lithuanian ruler became king of Poland also, he forced his subjects to become Christians, and raised on the site of the sacred fire a cathedral which has ever since been the center of Lithuanian worship. There are many other quaint and ancient churches to be seen in modern Vilna, but the cathedral dominates them all. It is a crude but gigantic building which stands now as a national memorial. It contains the graves of many noted Poles and Lithuanians.
Deprived of their ancient holy city, the Lithuanians have set up their
capital at Kovno, a city lying where the Viliya joins the Niemen. The
rivers here have dug their valley two hundred feet below the level of the
plateau, so that Kovno rises on the steep hillside as a sort of natural
fortress. Its defenses were improved and increased by the Russians until
this was one of the chief fortifications of their western frontier.
Napoleon,
The old city of Mitau, once the capital of the Letts, shows us the quiet life the Latvians are living to-day. © Ewing Galloway, New York
North of the Niemen, between Kovno and the Baltic, we shall find the bulk of the true Lithuanians, nearly two million of them. They are peasant farmers, tall and blond, and thin featured. They will seem to us rather handsome, though somewhat heavy and clumsy and slow of movement. They are a Caucasian people, but belonging to some far older period of migration than the 'Teutons and the Slavs, by whom they are surrounded. Their language shows a closer kinship to Sanskrit, which is the parent language of most European tongues, than is shown by any of the others. Apparently therefore, the Lithuanians have dwelt here for many ages, partly submerged by each new wave of Teutons or of Slavs, but always managing to escape complete destruction because of the deep forests of their land, the darkness and the cold. They are a gentle somewhat somber people. They have been called the "children of shade," as contrasted with the Poles, "the children of the sun."
Let us pause for the night at one of the poor little farm-holds, and
watch and listen. The houses are usually log huts containing only a
single room. The furniture consists of handmade benches and beds and
in one corner a loom, on which the peasants weave their own clothes, as
American farmers did a century ago. The men dress in the most sober,
modern clothes, though they still usually retain their ancient foot-gear,
sandals of leather, tied around the ankle with strips of flax. The women
also dress simply and quietly, and usually in white garments. Sometimes
they retain their old style tight bodices with home embroidery. We
shall find that these people talk little, but are much given to chanting and
listening to old national songs. These are not tales of victory, but songs
of lamentation or farewell. Or sometimes they are critical, semi-humorous tales, mildly sarcastic, and full of a generous feeling for the softer
beauties of nature. The Lithuanians are an intelligent people, shrewd
and strong now that opportunity has come to them. Already they have
passed laws reclaiming for themselves most of the fertile lands, and
It is but a step across the low hill-land which serves as a frontier
between Lithuania and its next northern neighbor, the Republic of
Latvia. Latvia consists mainly of the lower valley of the Dwina River
of the West. This large stream drains most of northwestern Russia
and then flows past the great seaport city of Riga into the Gulf of Riga
and the Baltic Sea. The people here, as in each of the Baltic republics,
eagerly rejected Russia's rule when her breakdown in the World War
gave them the opportunity. They seized control of their homeland,
and set up a government of their own. Except for Riga, which has
always been a city of German merchants in the midst of these more
Eastern races, Latvia is the land of the Letts. They are a people akin
to the Lithuanians; perhaps they were once but the wilder frontiersmen
of the latter race; for their chief tribe was known as "the men of the
land's end," and their language seems but a more modified dialect of
Lithuanian. The Letts, however, were never joined with Poland, as
were the Lithuanians, and so received little of Polish culture. The Letts
remained Pagan until well into the eighteenth century; and their Pagan
The ancient Latvian capital was Mitau, now but a small city in the heart of the land. Beyond it on the Baltic coast lies the port of Libau, on a shore where amber is washed up from the sea in such quantities, that the earliest known name of Latvia is the name given it by the old Phenician traders; they called it "Amber Land."
Libau occupies one of the few good natural harbors on the Baltic. Hence ocean steamers from the United States long made this their port of entry into Russia; and railroads built by the Russians reach back from here into the interior. The Letts now depend largely on this port for their farm traffic. They ship out grain and eggs and timber, and receive in exchange chiefly the coal which becomes increasingly necessary as we advance toward the frozen north. The harbor of Libau is usually free of ice; but the whole Gulf of Riga just north of it freezes over in winter, and Riga is closed to traffic for four months or longer every year. We are approaching the far north. The upper waters of the Baltic lead us to the coldest section of Europe.
Riga itself, once the chief trading-city of Russia, was sadly desolated by siege and plunder and starvation in the World War. It lost more than half of its people and all its trade. Today it is reviving as the chief city of Latvia; and those who have carried money hither out of Russia are spending it in gaiety. Riga, however, can no longer count on the great Russian trade which used to gather goods here from all the Dwina valley, and was even connected by means of canals with the farther rivers of central Russia and the East. Riga's future prosperity must be much more local than its former splendor. From the sea, this ancient semi-German city still presents a beautiful picture of domes and many towers. The highest tower, over four hundred feet high, is that of St. Peter's church, which stands as a splendid medieval monument in the center of the "old town." This once crouched close to the river bank, and was guarded from the pagan Letts by mighty walls.
In this "old town" we shall find most of the treasured memorials
of the city. There is a merchants' guild-house belonging to the so-called
Virgin's Guild, which dates from the thirteenth century. In those days
the holy order of the Teutonic Knights ruled the city, and united religion
The Esths are Protestants of western Christianity. Russian Bolshevism bred some converts among them, but roused most to a reassertion of their religious faith.
"Oh, my God, whither shall I flee?
The woods are filled with wolves, and the fields with tyrants.
Oh, my God, punish my father, punish my mother;
For they brought me to life in this land of slavery."
Another cries, "Oh Riga, thou art fair! But who made thee fair? The misery of the Letts." Of the frowning castle above our heads, one song cries, “If I had the money I would buy the Castle of Riga, Germans and all, and treat them as they have treated me. They should dance on red hot stones."
Of more popular character is the ancient Hall of the Blackheads, probably the oldest building of the city, but gorgeously reconstructed in recent years. The Blackheads were originally a jolly society of bachelor merchants, but by degrees they came to have large power as representatives and champions of the town folk. The society has survived every vicissitude of six centuries and still holds a festival at Carnival time.
We must leave Riga and its jollities, so as to visit the third of the little Baltic republics, Esthonia. This lies north of Latvia along the southern shore of the great Gulf of Finland, beyond which lies Finland, and at the head of which is old St. Petersburg, now Leningrad. Esthonia has its sea-port and chief city, Reval, on the Finnish Gulf. The city was formerly the chief naval station of Russia, but today is occupied only by the former peasants of this region, the Esthes.
These are a Finnish race. All Russians of the north are more or less touched with Finnish blood for once the Finns held all this land. But the Esthes themselves are pure Finns of ancient stock. Their language holds few words, but its sounds are musical; and the peasants chant constantly as they work, retelling old sagas. Hence modern scholars have gathered from them many an ancient legend. The chief of all Finnish sagas, the Kaleva, deals with this Esthonian land. Its hero or demigod, Kalev, held a stronghold on the Castle Hill of Reval. The Finnis are an Asiatic people, and these Esthes still retain something of the flat face and slanting eyes of the East. They are a shrewd-headed folk, keen and clear of mind, but cold hearted, grasping and ungenerous. The misery of centuries, which has softened the spirit of the Letts, has made these Esthes hard and reckless. They are the least admirable of these reviving Baltic peoples, yet they may perchance prove the most successful as a nation.
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