Page:Brandes - Poland, a Study of the Land, People, and Literature.djvu/63



two greatest military powers of the world, Germany and Russia, which are on bad terms with each other, but neither of which represents political freedom, the right of the nation and of the individual to self-government, have at present one task and object in common; with all the means at their command they wage a war of extermination against a nationality of from 14,000,000 to 16,000,000 people, which is tied and bound, oppressed and gagged as no other nationality in Europe is, but which nevertheless is treated by its rulers as if it overflowed or crushed out the elements which govern it, and we see it incessantly described as a danger or a threat.

The partition of the Polish kingdom is nearly a hundred years old. But it will not allow the three powers that accomplished it to be at peace. Even now it demands great efforts to establish it as just and right. It is not enough that they have caused the history of the world to be written as if all the blame were on the side of this old Poland. It is not enough that what among other people is counted as virtue or duty—love of one's country, its memories and language, hatred for its enemies and detractors—is branded and punished when professed by a Pole. It is not enough that no Polish deputy in the German or Galician parliament can escape swearing and protesting his faithful allegiance to the foreign power that shared in the partition, or that the youth of Poland are registered as soldiers in the German, Austrian, and Russian armies, are put into regiments where only a foreign language is spoken, and have to fight for foreign interests; more recently Russia and Germany