The New Baltic States by the Same Author
Total Page：16
File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb
v ? Skuodas Q2^^'^~bVrisks n a i Goiunayasc ^ , 'Z a re n a x vKaunata eskuciai. Telnai X i ---- J ( c \ , \\ ^kviski. Darfda, JWKal / ^ i W X5 ^ v ,/ p&iito 'Sfesa* ■(MKKKLj^ffZarz&i Varrnal® r _ .'"Tr. AX c*/! iranenuirbaus'^ Ubeuai'<;»v —-'-wvJ’aSLa ;uu° Raavdiski^^beduwi g W * — ^ SZVieSa |; S v e k s n a , Kaliuienaii mcyUekrug. ^ j£ 4 f Griiiu $7 ^ ^ -KILRISCHES: 3& L A _ . i W t / HAFF S . <\£ otw - & .,,..,#^ V J)1 v A i/= r \ -r i f \ tti__ at $ *m Q § \ ' V i?4 Pliasa. < ifaLatea Glubokoie Midhan^en. I& M G SBERG * Vkr^any0 l e M M m Dolginov © B A S T V RZL S S I A— |gAraisfe Goldapp° ^ A s’tnena ^^°^^^^(oloJeshna. Jp ienai Bons’s’ov— gf f'TQlexishui ?imoUnchi .. OstrolenKel^f^x' THE NEW BALTIC STATES BY THE SAME AUTHOR THB SONG OF TIADATHA THE TRAVEL! OF TIADATHA BRITISH NORTH BORNEO THROUGH FORMOSA THB DRAGON OF KINABULU In collaboration with Major Desmond Chapman-Huston SIB JOHN COWANS, G.C.B., G.C.M.G., THB QttARTBRMASTBR-GENBRAL OF THE GREAT WAR THE HOUSE OF THE BLACKHEADS, TALLINN THE NEW BALTIC STATES AND THEIR FUTURE AN ACCOUNT OF LITHUANIA, LATVIA AND ESTONIA BY OWEN RUTTER F.R.G.S., F.R.A.I. WITH TWENTY-FIVE ILLUSTRATIONS AN D A MAP METHUEN & CO. LTD 36 ESSEX STREET W.C. LONDON First Published in 192$ PRINTED IN GREAT BRITAIN TO BRIGADIER-GENERAL ALFRED BURT C.B., C.M.G., D.S.O., A.M. THE GODFATHER OF THE BALTIC STATES IN GRATITUDE AND ADMIRATION PREFACE jA LTHOUGH my visit to the Baltic States was in / % no sense “ officially conducted," I am under a deep /■ % obligation to the Governments of Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia for their courtesy and generous assistance during my stay in their countries, and I must also record my gratitude to their people, who, although I was a total stranger to them, made me welcome wherever I chanced to go. To General Alfred Burt, who has championed the cause of these new Republics, I owe my warmest thanks for his sympathetic interest in this book, and also to Mr. E. J. Harrison, of the Lithuanian Legation; to Mr. E. Birin, the Latvian Charge d’Affaires and Consul-General in London ; and to His Excellency Dr. Oskar Kallas, the Estonian Minister in London. Thanks to their help, I think I may claim that the facts here presented are accurate: my opinions, on the other hand, are my own, and for them I alone am responsible. When I have felt it necessary to criticize I have tried to do so as an impartial observer nor, in criticizing, have I forgotten that it is unfair to judge these countries, which are rising from devastation to prosperity, by the standards of countries whose history has been happier than their own. O. R. T h e C r o f t , W a r g r a v e , March, 1925. CONTENTS FAOX P r e f a c e vii CHAPTER I. T o w ar d s th e B a l t ic i II. P e r A sp e r a ad A str a 16 III. T h e H a p p y P e o p l e 38 IV. D ow n th e N em u n as 60 V. I n L ith u a n ia M inor 74 VI. R ig a : th e W in dow o f th e B a l t ic 98 VII. F rom S erfd o m to L ib e r t y 114 VIII. A P r o p h e c y F u l f il l e d 133 IX. T h e N e w F arm ers 150 X. S ome L ettish C h a r a c te r s 170 XI. T h e O x fo r d o f th e B a l t ic S ta te s 183 XII. T h e C i t y o f T o w ers 204 XIII. H ow E sto n ia h a s m ade Goo d 214 XIV. L a n d e d P e a sa n t s 228 XV. T h e P rom ise o f th e F u tu r e 246 B ibliography 265 I n d e x 271 LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS THE HOUSE OF THE BLACKHEADS, TALLINN Frontispiece PACING PAGE A LITHUANIAN WEIGHING MACHINE IO LIBERTY AVENUE, KAUNAS IO THE LITHUANIAN WAR MEMORIAL 14 (Photograph by permission o/tht Lithuanian Legation) A LITHUANIAN CART 40 THE GOOSE-GIRL 40 A LITHUANIAN BUTTER-MAKER , 56 (Photograph— Verlag Hans Kuhnkies) DR. JONAS BASANAVICIUS 94 (Photograph— Sehriever) RIGA 9g (Photograph— Klio) ST. PETER’S, RIGA la2 (Photograph— Vec) THE POWDER TOWER j02 (Photograph— Vec) TIMBER FLOATING DOWN THE DAUGAVA 138 (Photograph— Reeksts) A TIMBER RAFT THE CHATEAU OF BARON MEDEM, MEITENE 152 A LATVIAN FARM AFTER SPRING FLOODS 152 (Photograph— Klio) TYPES OF LETTISH COSTUME (Photograph— Reeksts) VALK i ; 6 TARTU UNIVERSITY I7g (Photograph— Riedel) PEASANTS OF SAARE ISLAND, ESTONIA jgg (Photograph by permission o f Eesti Raima. Museum) X LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS xi FACING PAG* THE CASTLE, TALLINN 206 PART Or THE CITY WALL, TALLINN 2°6 NARVA 220 HARVESTING FLAX 244 ( Photograph— Parikos) IN THE FLAX FACTORY 244 (Photograph by permission o f the H&lliste F la x Co.) N o t b .—E xcept where otherwise acknowledged the above illustrations are from photographs by the author. Do thou, great liberty, inspire our souls, And make our lives in thy possession happy, Or our deaths glorious in thy just defence. A d d i s o n . THE NEW BALTIC STATES CHAPTER I TOWARDS THE BALTIC Why I went to the Baltic States— The tragedy with a happy ending— Bibles as contraband— Liberty at last— Friendly feeling for England— Linoleum for Polish corridors— Customs trials— A bluff that paid— The friendly American— First impressions of Lithuania— The fertile country side— Lithuanian geography— Kaunas, the makeshift capital— A town with an unhappy history— In the footsteps of Napoleon— Types in Liberty Avenue— A new profession— A living War Memorial— The Cross and the pagan altar— An inspiring ceremony— The noble brotherhood. § i HE impulse to write this book came to me one summer afternoon in a Knightsbridge drawing room. I had been sent a card of invitation ** to meet the Ministers of the Baltic States.” I knew just enough about the Baltic States not to confuse them with the Balkans (as I found some of my friends did) and to realize that they were not (as others seemed to think) part of Russia. But I knew little more than that, and so, having a questing mind, I accepted the invitation and went to that At Home. I went expecting to obtain a little mild information about the three new republics of which I was so lamentably ignorant, but I was not prepared for what I heard. I learnt that the story of the peoples who live on the fringe of the Baltic Sea is a tragedy that is having a happy ending. At the time when our Magna Charta was signed all liberty was lost to them. For centuries they lived under a foreign yoke, their own ideals, literature and languages suppressed yet never dying. They were isolated from Western Europe 2 THE NEW BALTIC STATES and cut off from all possibilities of education. The most dangerous contraband on the Lithuanian frontiers was never tobacco or spirits but prayer books in the Lithuanian tongue. Their struggle (for struggle they did) was not for economic or political freedom, but for that freedom which is the primitive right of all human beings. They wished, as Doctor Oskar Kallas, the Minister for Estonia, declared, to think as their brains were created to think, to feel as their hearts instinctively felt, to speak the language that came most readily to their tongues. All through those bitter years, however, the Baltic peoples preserved their own individuality and their own aspirations. For nearly eight hundred years they waited on for liberty, and they did not wait in vain. That afternoon General Alfred Burt, who, as head of the British Mission to the Baltic States, has done so much for these countries that he is come to be regarded as their godfather, described how the victory of the Allies had made it possible for their dreams to come true— not at once indeed but after incredible struggles, and largely thanks to the Allied Mission and the American Red Cross Commission which helped them to carry out their work of reconstruction in the republics they had so recently proclaimed. And they had little enough upon which to build. The war had left their countries devastated, impoverished, depopulated and, since they had always been underdogs, they had few men of affairs to tackle the problems with which they were confronted— problems that might well have daunted statesmen and administrators of mature experience. Yet it seemed that it was being done. They had drunk of freedom and were not intoxicated. Slowly, in spite of setbacks and inevitable difficulties, they wrere prospering. The right men had come forward as, at such times, men do. Their independence was recognized. Their Governments were stable and organized. The people themselves, once landless, were now a race of farmers, and content. Their currency was on a gold basis. More than that, their budgets balanced.