The Sun.
London, England, 1863-12-30 00:00:00

THE, POLISH INSURRECTION.

(From the Special Correspondent of the Times.)
St. PETERSBURG, Dec. 21.

The Abbe IlLackiewicz has at last been taken by
the Russians, and from this it may be inferred that
the principal detachment of insurgents in Lithuania
has been broken up. Mackiewicz's band was formed
out of the remains of the one commanded by Siera-
kowaki, and had been mainly recruited in the Go-
vernment of Kovno. The Russian papers, after re-
peating day by day and week by week that the
Lithuanian insurrection was at an end, are now
making a great fuss about the capture of this well-
known Lithuanian chief. If some other chief suc-
ceeds in re-organising Mackiewicz's detachment we
shall still be told that there are no insurgents in
Lithuania, and the, statement will be persisted in
until the Russians may happen to find it to their
advantage to admit once more that they have been
mistaken. In any case, however, the capture of such
a chief as Mackiewicz must be a great blow to the
Lithuanian insurrection.

I do not know whether English readers have ever
asked themselves how it is that `Vilna and Kovno
have shown themselves so much more Polish in feel-
ing than all other parts of Lithuania. In an ethno-
logical point of view neither of these provinces is
eminently:Polish and the number of Poles by race in
the Government of Kovno does not amount to three
per cent. on the entire population. But, on the other
hand, if we classify the inhabitants of this Go-
vernment by religion, we find that the enemies
of Poland—that is to say, the members of what
the Russians call the " orthodox" and the Poles
the " schismatic" Church—are scarcely more
than three per cent. strong (3.33, according :to
Busehing's statistical tables) ; and when the
Russians ask, with real or affected indignation, how
a province in which less than the thirtieth part of
the population is Polish can be claimed as forming
part of Poland, the answer to make to them is—
because, with the exception of one thirtieth part of
the population, the whole province is Polish in feel-
ing. This calculation is perhaps unduly favourable
to the Russians ; for it is more than doubtful, as I
will afterwards show, whether the members of the
orthodox Church in Kovno, \Vilna, and, indeed, in
Lithuania generally, do not regret their forced se-
paration from the Latin Communion. But, admit-
ting even that the 30,000 Russo-Greeks of the
Kovno provinces, which contains altogether about
1,000,000 inhabitants, are mainly attached to the
Russian Church, the fact remains that in Kovno the
movement in favour °f Polish independence has
been as general and as difficult to suppress as in
any of the provinces of the kingdom of Poland
where the Russians are willing to admit that a Pole
is really a Pole.
As the inhabitants of England do not as a rule
know whether they are of Celtic or Germanic race,
but feel all the same that they are Englishmen, so
the inhabitants of Poland and of Lithuania, wher-
ever they have not been brought under the influ-
ence of Russian priests, feel that they are Poles,
without knowing or caring under what ethnological
heading they may be classed in statistical tables.
But where the Russian Church any Russian teach-

ing predominate, and when hatred of Poles is in-

culcated as a primary virtue, then the cause of
Poland is hopeless ; and in accordance with this
incontrovertible theory we find that the Polish in-
surrection broke oat first and in greatest torte in
the Catholic kingdom of Poland; and that it broke
out secondly and ;in less force in Lithuania, where
the Russo-Greeks are slightly in the majority; and
that it broke out thirdly and was at once suppressed
by the inhabitants themselves in the Ruthenian
provinces (Volhynia, Podolia, and Kieff), where the
Russo-Greeks are to the Roman Catholics in the
proportion of ten to ems.
What holds good of the whole territory of the
ancient Polish republic holds good also of Lithuania
in particular ; and thus it happens that the rising in
favour of Polish independence has been most formi-
dable, and has lasted longest in the Government of
Kovno which is the most Catholic, but, in an ethno-
logical sense, the least Polish of all the Lithuanian
governments. The Russian Government has suffi-
ciently Russified the Ruthenian provinces for all
fighting purposes, and if it had any spare civilisation
to introduce there they might in time make the
peasants Russian in the full sense of the word; but
it has no hold whatever oa the inhabitants of Kovno
and Wilma or of any districts in the other Lithu-
anian Governments where the Russo-Greeks are not
greatly in the majority. In Lithuania, generally,
it is easy to stop any demonstration on the part of
the educated classes—who, with scarcely an excep-
tion, are Catholics—by raising up the Russo-Greek
peasantry against them ; but this creditable plan is
not found to answer in these regions, where all
classes are bound together by a common religious
faith, and receive the same religious teaching.
It would be an error to suppose that only the
Catholic inhabitants of Poland feel as Poles ; but
there is a positive anti-Polish feeling among all the
peasantry who belong, of their own free-will, to the
Russian Church, and are under the influence of the
Russian clergy. In Lithuania, however, whatever
may have been the case in the Ruthenian provinces,
it seems by no means certain that the peasants,
forced to quit the Grcek-Uniate for the Russo-Greek
religion, have ever become sincerely attached to the
latter. Russian evidence on such a subject as this
is of the highest value, and in the secret report
drawn up by General Nazimoff, Governor-General
°I \Vilna, in October,lS6o, the following important
l'44'ltses occur :
b;;;Itillst orthodox religion was re-established in Lithuania
faith. Ltonciliatien of the united Greeks to the orthodox
and even4s: mt asses'
weak in the principles of that faith,
religion etli:nderstanding that they were returning to the
bible and inaZ forefathers, requited the guidance of sen-
education (1.5. tlgable pastors Their want of
developes an ina"Atthe rural clergy of the orthodox faith)
tion of their
tion and even carelessness in the execu-
trcrae poverty of tliailt hrough atheir cupidity and the ex-
naestic life, not rendered indepen-
dent by adequate sala,t
placed in exclusive reiati, while they are at the same time
t onutt the impoverished peasants,
necessarily dependent
reduced to the level of th-e-a!,; the village priests are thus
nity which should appe.atfintotort!ers, and, losing the dig-
er religious influence over their t'aer!?ffi. office exercise no moral
the
tistioners. With regard
to the outward condition of
not to perceive that they are at pre
at
it is impossible.
formerly, a
state of neglect and poverty, especiaii4,till
tsb.
districts. The contrast which the oikt,
xe less populous
present in their exterior to the ChureZa Churches thus
Catholic faith, to which all the nobility auir
zethte Roman
Polish provinces ia:are orrzedof th
Western provinces (i e.,
ithe
the Russian Empire)
alike by their external grandeur and their i,,,,,u4auliashed
o.
belong, and which .
ficence, naturally suggests to the lower orders
r.;nr
inacy of the Catholic religion. At the same
.tilaa%.:
impossible for the poor peasant to add to the sOlendeol lot
the orthodox Churches."
" During 30 years," says the Governor-General
of Wilna, in another part of the same report :--
" Notwithstanding the severe measures adopted towards
the local population, which were a constant inducement to-
wards reactionary movements—notwithstanding
various
privileges granted to Russian nobles in the leasing of estates
and other advantages extended to them,—these measures
have, nevertheless, not had the effect of drawing Lithuania
closer to Russia, of confirming among the Greek uniates the
orthodoxy which has so feeble a hold on them, of spreading
a knowledge of the Russian language, or of increasing in the
country the number of native Russians. The latter con-
sideration is more especially important, because the chief
authorities of the province are reduced to the necessity of
confiding the execution of all administrative measures,
whether official or secret, to functionaries belonging to the
local population, and connected with it by their religion,
their families, their language, and their relations generally."
as,.
It would appear, in short, from this report, as well
am the one drawn up two years later on the
aa -
ills Rub- the
tla ice,. by Minister of the Interior, that
nia7ol‘l'lBsinns who have the best sources of infer-
ith 'iLb:Ppencato them agree to a considerable extent
not regarding the forced converts
of Lithuania': in
faith ; Very steadfast adherents to the Bas-
on behalf 07`,..uoraily, that the rising in Lithu-
,7)(
;land w,s a ruovel-raLee ind(pencknee of all ancient
,ttenfet.
iss-hieh the ii1126i3.0 Go
,rnment must have
title to Lithuania is reeor,fun,:y prepared. Russia's
ised by every State in
is at least a, ‘‘._
Europe, and
to vonetia. But when
as that. of Austria
the Rass;:n Government, Prekn s Easton Ist'flt,ers, and even
Lithuanie Tl'-que a than Russia holds
of.the
the majority of its
inhabitant., that statetn.ent
laa fairly
.ec'tiall to tale queB-
- ; while any "
PolishTet that it is
supported in any part of I.;s"tainions bet
by portion of the edersate:: p 0,0,,t be _
_yt
by a positive denial, ip.3..q OT-1 • te4tilnqn7 clufea