Studies in Literature and History
capture in the interminable wars, have produced incessant crossing of
breeds. It is not often understood or remembered that in former times
a tribe or band of foreign invaders, when they had to cross the sea or
to make long expeditions, very rarely brought women with them. So when
they settled on the conquered lands they must have intermarried,
forcibly or otherwise, with the subject race. If they massacred the
men, the women were part of their booty. Neither is the test of
language a sure one, though it is the best we have, and is becoming
more and more the criterion of race; for a kind of struggle for
existence goes on among the languages, they spread or contract under
various influences, mainly political. The folk may change their
language as they may change their creed; and, what is more remarkable,
they may even change their race. According to the book I have just
quoted, the Ottoman Government classes all its subject population into
religious communities. Whatever be a man's race or language, if he
professes Islam, he is called a Mohammedan; if he is of the orthodox
Greek Church at Constantinople, he is Greek or Rumi, for Stambul was
the capital of the Roman empire; or else he is Katholik, Armenian, or
Jew, according to his creed, not according to his birthplace or his
blood. So the official designations are religious, while the popular
usage is various, sometimes following race, sometimes creed, and it is
still constantly shifting, as I shall presently try to explain.
And here it may be interesting to mention a peculiarity of the growth
and constitution of the Eastern or Greek Church, in contrast with the
Western Church of Rome. The Roman Church has always claimed
universality--it has ignored and attempted to trample down all
political and national divisions; it demands of all Roman Catholics,
whoever they may be, submission to the supreme spiritual dictation of
the Roman pontiff, and those who accept any other authority are
outside the pale. From the beginning the Roman Catholic Church has
made incessant war upon every kind of heresy or dissent, transforming
the old rites and worships where they could not be exterminated. It
proclaims independence of the State, it has no local centres or
national branches. The Pope at Rome claims spiritual authority over
all Roman Catholics everywhere. But the historical fact that the
Eastern or Greek Church was always under the control of the Byzantine
empire at Constantinople, has kept this Church much more closely
allied to the temporal power; and the result has been that throughout
its development it has remained closely connected with the State. So
that wherever a fresh State has been formed, the Greek Church has
become national, and the spiritual authority, adapting itself to
political changes, has become a separate institution. The most signal
example of this is to be seen in Russia, where the Greek Church, being
cut off from Constantinople, had its own independent Patriarch up to
the time of Peter the Great; and very lately, when Bulgaria became a
State, it set up its own head of the Church, or Exarch. When Bosnia
and Herzegovina were ruled by the Turkish Sultan, the chief of the
Greek Church in that country was the Patriarch at Constantinople. Now
that these provinces have passed under the administration of Austria,
the ecclesiastical authority has also been transferred from the
Patriarch to local Metropolitans. Each new State shows a tendency to
establish what I may call spiritual Home Rule. We know that in Western
Europe the establishment of National Churches came in by one great
religious upheaval that is called the Reformation. In Eastern Europe
the movement has proceeded gradually, keeping pace with the rise and
recognition of separate governments, and the result has been the
multiplication of internal ecclesiastical divisions.
I have said that the Ottoman empire recognises only religious
denominations in the classification of the people. Apparently this was
the general usage in former times. A Greek meant a member of the
orthodox Greek Church, who might or might not be an inhabitant of
Greece, nor would he necessarily have spoken the Greek tongue. If a
Christian changed his religion, as a matter of course he changed his
name and his designation; he was placed in another group. But the
pressure of political independence has been latterly bringing into
prominence the idea of Race. Odysseus, from whose book I quote again,
gives us the very curious fact that even race is not immutable, it
changes like religion, with the political movement; it has become a
question of political expediency. When a separate State has been
organised, as in Bulgaria, or when a league for shaking off the
Turkish yoke is being organised, as in Macedonia, the plan of the
leaders is to induce the people to drop minor distinctions of origin
and to unite for the purposes of political combination, under some
larger national name, to call themselves Hellenes in Greece,
Bulgarians in Bulgaria, and Macedonians in the Turkish province of
Macedonia. Moreover, when a new State has been thus formed, like
Greece, Servia, Bulgaria, on the principle of Race, the patriotic
party begins to discover that many Greeks or Bulgarians are outside
the territory, and they set up a claim to enlarge their boundaries in
order to bring these people inside. So that the questions of races and
churches are used to keep up continual intrigues, dissensions, and a
lively agitation throughout these countries. For since religion is
always a powerful uniting force, there is a constant effort to bring
the people to congregate under the Established Church of their new
State, to renounce their obedience to any spiritual head outside its
limits. We have, therefore, the curious spectacle of a frequent
shifting of denominations of Race and Creed for the purpose of
political consolidation. In fact we are witnessing in the Balkan
Peninsula a struggle among the petty States to strengthen themselves
by capturing each other's population.
I think I may have said enough to prove, briefly and superficially,
the importance, in Central and South-Eastern Europe, of the ideas of
Race and Religion, the necessity of understanding their strength and
operation. So soon as we cross into Asia we find these ideas
universally paramount. It will perhaps be remembered that Henry Maine
pointed out long ago, in his book on Ancient Law, that during a large
part of what we call modern history no such conception was entertained
as that of territorial sovereignty, as indicated by such a title as
the King of France. 'Sovereignty,' he said, 'was not associated with
dominion over a portion or subdivision of the earth.' Now I do not
believe that a territorial title is assumed at this moment by any of
the great Asiatic sovereigns in Asia. Here in Europe we talk of the
Sultan of Turkey, the Shah of Persia, or the Emperor of China; but
these are not the styles or designations which are actually used by
these potentates; they are each known, on their coins, and in their
public proclamations, by a string of lofty titles, generally
religious, like our 'Defender of the Faith,' which make no reference
to their territories. Such were the titles of the Moghul emperors of
India, and I may here observe that the term Emperor of India, now
borne by the English king, is entirely of British manufacture. The
truth is that Asiatic kingdoms have no settled territorial
boundaries, they are always changing, just as our Indian frontiers are
constantly moving forward; and wherever in Asia there exists a
demarcated line of frontier, it has been fixed by the intervention of
European governments interested in maintaining order. In Mohammedan
lands the basis of a ruler's authority, in theory at least, is
religious, and all through Western Asia there is the closest
connection between the State and the dominant creed of Islam; for a
Mohammedan sovereign's authority is ecclesiastical, so to speak, as
well as civil; he is bound, in the words of our Litany, not only to
'execute justice,' but to 'maintain truth'; and the theory of two
separate jurisdictions, spiritual and temporal, is practically
unknown, though of course in dealing with religious questions the
ruler must be supported by the chief expounders of the law of Islam.
To borrow a phrase from Hobbes, 'the religion of the Mohammedans is a
part of their policy,' as it is also the fundamental bond of their
whole society.
We have seen that in South-Eastern Europe there is an intricate
intermixture of the distinctions of race and religion, with a tendency
of race to win the mastery. This is because the people of those
countries were conquered by Islam, but only partially converted, and
the Turkish Sultans, as I have already said, encouraged discord among
their Christian subjects. But in Western Asia the faith of Islam not
only conquered but converted much more completely; it almost
extirpated other faiths in Asia Minor and Persia, leaving in Asia
Minor only a few obscure sects, like the Nestorians, in a region that
had been wholly Christian, and leaving in Persia only some scattered
relics of the great Zoroastrian religion, still represented in two or
three towns by those whom we call Parsees. In these lands, therefore,
religion has generally mastered race, for the laws that regulate the
whole personal condition and property of the people are determined by
their religion, with a certain variety of local customs. Nevertheless,
beneath the overspreading religious denomination there are a large
number of tribal groups, all of whom are known by tribal names. Most
of these tribes are fanatic Islamites, but in the midst of them is one
group which is distinct by religion and probably by race--I mean the
Armenians. They do not form a majority of the population in Armenia,
they are scattered about Western Asia, and are divided into two
Christian sects, which under the Turkish empire are regarded as two
religious communities. Their recent terrible misfortunes afford a
signal and melancholy warning of the danger of interfering in Oriental
affairs without a full understanding of the complications arising out
of these very differences and antagonisms of race and religion that I
have been endeavouring to explain. And the whole story is a striking
example of the tremendous power of religion in Asiatic politics. In
1895 the European Powers interposed in the name of justice and
humanity to press upon the Turkish Government the reforms that had
been promised by treaty, and thus to better the condition of the
Armenians, by securing to them a certain share in the local and
municipal government. But the Armenians are a scattered and subject
people, different in race and religion and language from the ruling
Turks, and the demand for giving them some kind of independence
alarmed the Turkish Government and inflamed the fanaticism of the
Mohammedans. The only result of European intervention was a frightful
massacre of the Armenians, which the European Powers witnessed without
any serious attempt to stop. Such are the consequences of
misunderstanding the real political situation and the forces at work.
Probably many people in England had a very hazy notion of what the
Armenians were, or what their name signified. We have always to
remember that throughout Asia, and indeed over the greater part of the
non-Christian world, the various sections of the population very
rarely use for themselves, or indeed for the country that they dwell
in, the name that is used for them by Europeans. As our own system has
become territorial, as we call any natural-born inhabitant of France a
Frenchman, and so on, we are led by a false analogy to talk of Turkey
and the Turks, Persia and the Persians, India and the Indians, China