In the hands of the peasantry lies the destiny of the empire, its regeneration or its fall. By ameliorating their condition and gaining their good will, the sultans cannot fail to succeed in their reforms. By working in opposition to them and exciting their enmity, success is impossible.
The social system introduced by the victorious Othmans among the conquered nations was not as oppressive as is generally believed. The Turks, unlike the Germanic nations, the Huns and Normans, did not take forcible possession of private property and divide it among their conquering hordes. From those who acknowledged themselves subject to their rule, the Turks exacted tribute, but protected their liberties and political institutions. The conquerors introduced their laws into the country, but not forcibly. To those who still adhered to the Christian religion, they extended the rights of self-government, subject, however, to a military tax. This was very far from degrading the cultivators of the soil to servitude; this did not deprive them of their possessions, inherited or purchased. But by a gradual change in the government this civil equality and liberty in the possession of property was superseded by an aristocratic and almost absolute despotism. The Ottomans came in contact with a people ruling under Byzantine law, of which (as of the feudal system) they had but a confused knowledge. The feudal system having taken root in Greece, and having been already introduced into Albania, had necessarily much influence on the contiguous provinces of Moldavia and Wallachia, Servia and Bulgaria. Here the Greek emperors, with correct notions of right and wrong, had governed wisely and justly in a simple administration, which gave place to a complicated system of laws and refinements, as unintelligible as they were useless and ineffective. In the double heritage of Greece and Rome, the conquerors imitated only their faults, moral and intellectual, and thus made more prominent the fall of the two countries. The Turks were not sufficiently enlightened to understand the laws and customs of the Greeks and Romans, and profit thereby; nor could they resist the charm thrown around aristocracy and venality, but succumbed to their baneful influences. The degeneracy of the laws caused the misery of the peasantry, and paralyzed the energies of the empire. The pashas gained almost unlimited power, founded on the ruins of civil liberty. They did not scruple to persecute the suffering peasant, even in the sanctuary of his familyheld in the highest veneration by the Turk. The peasants in many instances had no other alternative than to fly to the mountains for safety, and lead a wretched existence by rapine and murder. Some left Turkey to settle in Russia and Austria, in search of that liberty and protection which was denied them at home.
The Turkish peasants are not insensible to the degradation in which they are languishing. But accustomed, in suffering and privation, to find consolation in fatalismwhich teaches implicit acquiescence in and obedience to the will of Allahthey drag out their days in passive submission. Seditions are almost always excited by unbelievers, who feel their wrongs more deeply. The devout Turkish peasant seeks no better fortune than the means wherewith to build a little cabin, with windows and doors religiously closed to vulgar eyes. He finds comfort in the words of his holy book: 'He is the happiest of mortals to whom God has given contentment.' He performs his daily labor, makes his prostrations, smokes his chibouk, and lives oblivious of care. He is far from being indifferent to reforms, but is loth to take the initiative in political innovations and social wars. His heart is with the cause, but here also he is resigned: 'God is greatHis will be done.' This same spirit of resignation and submission to the divine will, from being a virtue becomes his greatest curse.
The Servians, a hardy and vigorous race, who pride themselves on their victories over the Moslems, stand in the van of the reform movement. By the new constitution given to Servia in 1838, there exists no longer any distinction of classes. All pay taxes, in proportion to the value of their property, to the municipal and general government. All the peasants are proprietors, and all the proprietors are peasants. The Servians and Albanians have never refused foreign aid. They gave a kind welcome to the legions that Nicholas sent across the Pruth, and worked in concert with the brave warriors of the north, in the hope of gaining a nationality and a recognized name.
The moral condition of the Bulgarians does not differ essentially from that of the Servians; but there is a wide difference in their political organization. The Bulgarians are yet only peasants, unprotected against the violence and exactions of the sultan. They are more enterprising than the Servians, and, could they enjoy an equitable legislation, would soon vie with them in wealth and prosperity. They envy the national and democratic institutions of the Servians, who are related to them by blood, by religion, and a common tongue. They are eager for reforms, both social and political, which shall give them a constitution similar to that of Servia. In this they must ultimately succeed. The two people are one in their sympathies: one cannot enjoy privileges without exciting the jealousy of the other. Unless concessions are made, the day is not far distant when the Bulgarians will revolt, as the Servians did under Tzerny George, and gain the right of self-government.
The Illyrian peasants have not as promising a future. They are divided among themselves, both in politics and religion; the several clans and parties are engaged in ceaseless strife and bickering. On the most trivial pretence a community will rise in arms and carry ruin and desolation to its neighbor. The face of the country everywhere shows signs of the terror under which it groans. In many districts the humblest dwellings are fortified citadels, gloomy and threatening; observatories are stationed in trees and on high cliffs, to guard against surprisals; the streets of the towns and villages are traversed by gloomy figures of athletic savage warriors, with fierce and sinister expression of countenance, and their right hand resting on a belt garnished with its brace of pistols. They are in such a deplorable state of ignorance, and so blinded by mutual hatred, that they are incapable of perceiving their wants and obtaining their rights by concerted action.
The Servians and Bulgarians, although by nature not less warlike than the Illyrians, are more pacific. This quality is, to a certain degree, attributable to a better government; but their great advantage consists in their being friends of labor. They are not divided by internal factions; their pistols serve for ornaments, not offensive weapons; their rude exterior hides within a gentle, childlike nature. Though laborious, they seek not to amass wealth; kind to each other, to strangers they are hospitable and generous. They are extremely courteous and polite, and theirs is not the humility of the Austrian peasant, who kisses the scornful hand of his superior; it is the deference and respect that youth bears to age, or the attention which the host gives to a welcome guest.
In Servia and Bulgaria, Christianity has gained the ascendancy; the light of the gospel imparts comfort and happiness to all; but the Illyrians, through a blind zeal in their social dissensions, have debarred themselves from its vivifying and soothing influence.
During the early part of the last century, the peasants of the Moldo-Wallachian provinces were enfranchised, but have not yet obtained the right of property legislation. Being contiguous to Poland and Hungary, their attention is naturally called to all the noise of reform and to all the social questions that agitate the two countries. Unless concessions are made, unless the peasant is recognized as proprietor of the soil of which to-day he is but the farmer, a revolution will take place, in which the Sublime Porte will lose these provinces as effectually as it did the pashalies. It is not absolutely necessary, though it would be judicious, to give Moldavia and Wallachia the same political organization as Servia enjoys. The question now, is not of rulers, whether they shall be sent from the divan or chosen from the people; but is of property legislation and municipal institutions.