The History of Yugoslavia. Henry Baerlein
Hungary were treated differently, the latter being given not the territory they had claimed but one much more extensive, so that they themselves were in a great minority.[42] The Croats found themselves, of course, no longer joined to the Dalmatians. Everywhere a flood of Germans, the "huzzars of Bach," was loosened on the population; German was erected to be the official language. But the Slovenes took advantage even of the German atmosphere. Their national consciousness, which Napoleon had awakened after centuries, was now aroused. They took small interest, as yet, in politics, but strove to make material progress, principally in agriculture, partly too in commerce, such as in the exploitation of their splendid forests. Like the Slavs of Istria, they had no educated class—except the clergy—which was strong enough and was sufficiently well organized to lead them. Consequently it was difficult to make much headway in the towns against the Germans here and the Italians there. But they were not discouraged; by means of organizations, political and economic, they fought this denationalizing effect of the towns. That they succeeded in arresting the tendency—for example at Gorica and Triest—is even more laudable in view of the serious educational handicap which for years they had to face, and which the Austrians continued to inflict upon them until 1914. The provincial administration of Carinthia, for instance, was in 1914 maintaining three Slovene schools and six hundred and twelve German schools, although the Slovenes formed one-third of the population. What the Austrians said was that German was a world-language and that it was a fad to want to learn Slovene. Perhaps the Slovenes told them that Welsh is not a world-language. Anyhow, being not only a patriotic but a very practical race, they built their own schools in the villages, with the result that they have to-day a far smaller proportion of illiterates—17–½ per cent.—than either the Croats or the Serbs. It was well that they were patriotic and practical; they would otherwise have reaped a bitter harvest. The Slavs of Istria, Croatia and Dalmatia were in contact with no German territories and were for that reason left in the cold shades. The Slovenes, having Germans near them and among them, had to have a share in what the Germans were enjoying and they reaped sagaciously. One must admit that it was practical on Austria's part to favour the Italian language in Dalmatia, for it was from there that she supplied herself with functionaries for the provinces of Lombardy and Venice.
THE CROAT PEASANTS AND THEIR CLERGY
The Croat peasants were in a much worse condition than the Slovenes, and the nobles who might have assisted them in building schools had recently been ruined by the Austrian agrarian policy, for when in 1853 the Austrians put into execution what the Diet of Croatia had resolved to do in 1848 and freed the peasants from their serfdom, the indemnity they gave the landlords was in Austrian State papers, which the landlords had to take at the face value, though this was far above what they were worth. The owners of the so-called latifundia, mostly German or Hungarian noblemen, lost very little; for their wide domains were cultivated mostly by hired labour, not by peasants settled on the land. But these big landlords were not eager to build schools for peasants. It is said these should have been provided by the Church. The Croatian clergy in the villages would stand in a much better light if they had, irrespective of the higher clergy, made more vigorous attempts to bring down the illiteracy figures which to-day are said to be, for Croatia and Slavonia, 65 per cent. The higher clergy worked, with very few exceptions, hand in hand with Austria's Government, which Government was, after the Concordat of 1855, the close ally of Rome. If it was the Government's desire to build no schools, the higher clergy for the most part acquiesced. It surely is a function of a Government to occupy itself with education and to turn away from the great landlords who are frightened that a peasantry more educated will be troublesome. But those who have to bear a good part of the criticism are the village clergy; it is human not to criticize them half so much for what they left undone as for some aspects of their private life. The usual old stories circulate to the effect that they refuse to exercise their office till the peasant who is asking them to baptize or to marry or to bury some one brings a suitable amount of produce, eggs or fowls or something else, in lieu of money; but what is a more serious matter is the question of women. Three-and-twenty priests in the diocese of Zagreb passed a resolution a year or two ago that they were in favour of a married clergy. A Yugoslav bishop told me that most, if not all, of these gentlemen had anticipated the Papal consent; but that in his diocese only 3 per cent. of the clergy lived in sin [hostile critics say he should have added the word "openly"], whereas in two other Yugoslav dioceses, which he named, such clergy might amount to 50 per cent. An examination of this question, which exists in other countries, would be unprofitable, were it not that in Croatia, with a Roman Catholic and Orthodox population living very often side by side, the circumstances are peculiar. The people do not take up any narrow attitude towards the Church of which they are not members: a Roman Catholic will go to an Orthodox and an Orthodox to a Roman Catholic church if they have none of their own. They intermarry; and since their sacred days, such as Christmas, are not celebrated at the same time the non-celebrating congregation cease to work, out of sympathy. Even with the alteration of the Orthodox calendar there will be days which one community will keep as workless days, so that it may go visiting the others and congratulating them. But this bland behaviour of the people is unfortunately not maintained when they discuss their priests. And in the Lika, where the population leads a rough, laborious life, they are not satisfied to have an academical discussion. They hold that if a man is celibate he is not manly, and scenes have taken place which Hogarth might refuse to draw.
WHAT THE CZECHS ARE DOING TO-DAY
The twenty-three priests of the Zagreb diocese who were in favour of a married clergy and of several other reforms could not stand up against their ecclesiastical superiors. The movement has made no open progress and their leader has been constrained to abandon Holy Orders and become a timber merchant. Nevertheless the idea of a national Church has not vanished; a good deal depends for other countries on the degree of success which attends the newly established national Church in Czecho-Slovakia. It already possesses over half a million adherents out of a population of 13 millions. We may be going to witness the rise of a series of national Churches, a consummation which—a Roman Catholic might observe—will very likely be no more successful in bringing nearer the brotherhood of man than the wide-flung Catholic Church. The enthusiastic nationalism of such new Churches may, in fact, help to postpone that happy state of things. In any case, and whatever be the results, we shall do well not to ignore the beginnings of what may be a mighty Reformation.
Ever since 1848 the Czech clergy have been anxious to obtain reforms, not so much in dogma as in discipline. They assert that it is more in accordance with the democratic spirit of the age if a priest is selected not by some magnate but by his prospective parishioners; they desire to have their mother-tongue employed for the liturgy—in this respect they are in advance of most Catholic countries—and they wish to allow their priests to marry or not to marry, as each man prefers. This, one need hardly say, is the point which, almost to the exclusion of all others, is taken up by the hostile compatriots of the new believers. "It is nothing more nor less than this," said a portly Benedictine abbot to me one day in Prague, "there are priests who live in concubinage and they actually want to have it legalized!" But in Czecho-Slovakia, with her vivid memories of the Hussites in the fifteenth century—magnificent new monuments to John Huss decorate the principal towns—in Czecho-Slovakia the old régime has not the same power as in Croatia. At first the new Church was sneered at, being called a Churchlet, then they called it a sect, and now they say it may persist for fifty years. While its critics occupy themselves so largely with the topic of clerical celibacy, the founders of the Church themselves are much more interested in other questions. They do not greatly concern themselves with their priests' apparel, holding that this need not trouble them more than a little, since they are striving for something more weighty—the freedom of conscience. In this, as they say, they are carrying on the doctrines of Huss, which were so bloodily repressed by the dominant party. Under Charles IV. the Roman Catholic Church possessed about one-third of all the land in Bohemia, while in Prague alone there were some three thousand priests. And if the doctrines of Huss had not sunk deeply into the minds of the Bohemians this new Church would have found her task very much more difficult. The first three bishops were ordained last year by the Serbian Bishop of Niš. It was at one time thought that the Orthodox religion would be adopted, but