Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 59, No. 364, February 1846

SERVIA AND THE "SERVIAN QUESTION."

The principality of Servia was, a few years since, scarcely known to the English public except as an obscure province of the Ottoman empire, into which few travellers had penetrated; and of the population, internal resources, &c., of which, little information existed, and little curiosity was felt. But the singular political drama of which it has lately been the theatre, and the patriotic resolution by which its people, though deprived of support from their legitimate suzerain, the Sultan, menaced by the power of Russia, and abandoned to their fate by the other great powers of Europe, have yet succeeded in establishing their independence, and maintaining in his place the ruler whom they had chosen, has invested Servia with a degree of interest in the eyes of Europe, which gives value to whatever tends to dispel our ignorance of a country, which, by the new position it has assumed, has shown good title to take rank as "the youngest member of the European family." A work, therefore, which should give the same clear insight, even to a limited extent, into the present condition and future prospects of Servia, as was given some years since in regard to Hungary and Transylvania, by the well-known volumes of Mr Paget, would at this time be a valuable addition to our literature; but we are compelled to say, that this desideratum is far from being adequately supplied by the publication now before us. The author's descriptive powers are by no means of a high order; – mountain and valley, castle and river, pass before us, in his pages, without any definite impression being produced of their features or scenery; and while page after page is filled with criticisms of the accommodations and cuisine at his different halting-places, and verbatim reports of dialogues, on trivial subjects, between Author, on the one part, and Renegade, Cadi, Dervish, President, and other dramatis personæ, on the other, we look in vain for that extent and accuracy of information which we might have expected from a traveller who has enjoyed more than ordinary opportunities of mixing familiarly with Servians of all ranks and degrees, from the prince to the peasant and making himself acquainted with their feelings and national character. The deficiency of political information would appear even more remarkable. Though the author was personally acquainted with M. Petronevich, one of the leaders of the National party, whom he visited in his exile at Widdin; and though he was subsequently resident at Belgrade for some time after the restoration of this able minister and his colleague, M. Wucicz, to their country, scarcely an allusion escapes him throughout, to the political movements which led either to their banishment or their recall. As various circumstances and expressions, however, lead us to suppose that Mr Paton's tour may have had reference to objects which do not appear on the surface of the narrative, this mysterious silence may not be without good reasons; and we shall deal with him, accordingly, simply as a traveller in a hitherto untrodden track, which we hope, erelong, to see more fully explored. Mr Paget, we believe, is now a naturalized denizen of Transylvania: cannot he find leisure for an excursion across the Save?

Mr Paton announces himself, in the title-page, as the author of a work entitled "The Modern Syrians," with which it has not been our good fortune to meet; but from the conclusion of which we presume the thread of the present narrative is to be taken up, as he presents himself, sans ceremonie, on the pier of Beyrout, preparing to embark on board an Austrian steamer for Constantinople: – "I have been four years in the East, and feel that I have had quite enough of it for the present." On the third day they touched at Rhodes, "a perfectly preserved city and fortress of the middle ages, with every variety of mediæval battlement – so perfect is the illusion, that one wonders the warder's horn should be mute, and the walls devoid of bowman, knight, and squire." Though these ancient bulwarks of Christendom, within which the White-Cross chivalry, under d'Aubusson and L'Isle-Adam, so long withstood the might of the Osmanli, are thus briefly dismissed, Mr Paton immediately after devotes five pages to some choice flowers of Transatlantic rhetoric, culled from the small-talk of one of his fellow-passengers, whom he calls "an American Presbyterian clergyman" – though we grievously suspect him to have been a boatswain, who had jumped from the forecastle to the pulpit by one of those free-and-easy transitions not unusual in the "free and enlightened republic." At Smyrna, he signalized his return to the "land of the Franks," (which we had always imagined to be Europe,) by ordering a beefsteak and a bottle of porter, and bespeaking the paper of a Manchester traveller in drab leggings – and we at last find him safe in Constantinople. For all that concerns the city of the Sultan, he contents himself with referring his readers to the volumes of Mr White – and certainly they could not have been left in better hands; and so, "after a week of delightful repose," during which he was greatly indebted to the hospitality of the embassy, "I embarked on board a steamer, skirted the western coast of the Black Sea, and landed on the following morning in Varna."

We may pass over the "delightfully keen impressions" which Mr Paton records as produced by the contrast between the shores of Bulgaria and the Syrian climes he had lately left; the practical result of which was, that "a rattling blast from the Black Sea, more welcome than all the balmy spices of Arabia," made it advisable to don a pea-jacket! The fortifications of Varna, we are informed, were thoroughly repaired in 1843; "and from Varna to Roustchouk is three days' journey – the latter half of the road being agreeably diversified with wood, corn, and pasture, and many of the fields enclosed." A reference to the map will show that this "agreeably diversified" road passes under the famous lines of Shumla, and through many fields of fierce and stubborn fight between Turk and Russ, in the days before the Sultan was delivered over by his allies to his enemy, on the faith of a military report from a man who had never seen a regiment of regular troops under arms!1– but Mr Paton appears to consider such matters as exclusively the province of militaires, and passes on at once to Roustchouk, which he found "a fortress of vast extent; but, as it is commanded by the heights from which I was descending, it appeared to want strength if approached from the south. The ramparts were built with great solidity; but rusty old dismounted cannon, obliterated embrasures, and palisades rotten from exposure to the weather, showed that to stand a siege it must undergo a considerable repair." Several days were devoted to a general reconnoissance of the place; but the result was not satisfactory – "I must say that Roustchouk pleased me less than any town of its size I had seen in the East. The streets are dirty and badly paved, without a single good bazar or café to kill time in, or a single respectable edifice of any description to look at." A dinner with a Bulgarian family led us to expect some details of domestic economy; but, in place of this, we are regaled with the bad French of a hybrid Frank, who assured Author that Bukarest was equal to Paris or London; and when forced to admit that he had never seen either of those capitals, covered his retreat by maintaining that it was at least far superior to Galate and Braila! Hearing, however, that the Defterdar, an Egyptian Turk, had resided many years in England, and spole English fluently, Mr Paton sought an interview; and after "taking a series of short and rapid whiffs from my pipe," while considering the best way of breaking the ice, opened his battery by telling the Defterdar, "that few Orientals could draw a distinction between politics and geography; but that with a man of his calibre and experience I was safe from misconstruction – that I was collecting materials for a work on the Danubian provinces, and that for any information which he might give me, consistently with his official position, I should feel much indebted, as I thought I was least likely to be misunderstood by stating clearly the object of ny journey, while information derived from the fountain-head was most valuable. The Defterdar, after commending my openness, said, 'I suspect that you will find very little to remark in the pashalik of Silistria. It is an agricultural country, and the majority of the inhabitants are Turks. The Rayahs are very peaceable, and pay few taxes, considering the agricultural wealth of the country. You may rest assured that there is not a province of the empire better governed than the pashalik of Silistria. We have no malcontents within the province; but there are a few Hetarist scoundrels at Braila, who wish to disturb the tranquillity of Bulgaria; but the Walachian government has taken measures to prevent them from carrying their projects into execution.'"

Having thus put his readers in possession of this full, true, and particular account, derived from exclusive official sources, of all that is to be learned of the pashalik of Silistria, we next find Mr Paton, after two days steaming on the Danube, at Widdin, where the exiled Servian minister, M. Petronovich, was then resident, under the protection of the Pasha, whose name is known to all the world as the destroyer of the Janissaries and the defender of Shumla, the once formidable Hussein. To this redoubted personage, now apparently verging on eighty, Mr Paton was introduced by M. Petronevich at an evening audience, it being contrary to etiquette to receive visits by day during the Ramadan – and found him "sitting in the corner of the divan at his ease, being afflicted with gout, in the old ample Turkish costume. The white beard, the dress of the Pasha, the rich but faded carpet, the roof of elaborate but dingy wooden arabesque, were all in perfect keeping; and the dubious light of two thick wax candles rising two or three feet from the floor, but seemed to bring out the picture, which carried me a generation back to the pashas of the old school." Hussein has since retired from his government, to enjoy the immense fortune which he has accumulated by commercial speculations – the last specimen of the "malignant and turbaned Turk" of former days, whose war shout was heard under the walls of Vienna; and who will now be replaced by a smooth-faced hybrid in fez and frock-coat, waging a paper war with the ambassadors of the protecting powers in defence of the few sovereign rights still permitted to the Porte – such is the Pasha of the present day! The town of Widdin found even less favour in our traveller's eyes than Roustchouk. "Lying so nicely on the bank of the Danube, which here makes such beautiful curves, and marked on the map with capital letters, it ought (such was my notion) to be a place having at least one well-built and well-stocked bazar, a handsome seraglio, and some good-looking mosques. Nothing of the sort;" – and thus, sorely disappointed in his reasonable expectations, he proceeded on his way in a car drawn by two horses, which in six hours brought him to the banks of the Timok, the river which separates Servia from Bulgaria. The Servian population, among whom he now first found himself, struck him as a superior race, both physically and morally, compared with those whom he had just left, possessing a manliness of address and demeanour unknown to the serfs of Bulgaria; and, instead of the woolly caps and frieze clothes of the latter, the peasants wore the red fez, and were generally dressed in blue cloth. The plough cultivation of Bulgaria was now exchanged for the innumerable herds of swine, which form the staple commodity of Servia, fed in the immense oak woods which cover the country. "They form" (as Mr Paget informs us in his work on Hungary) "a very important article of trade between Servia and Vienna; and I doubt if Smithfield could show better shapes or better feeding than the market of a Servian village." Continuing his route along the banks of the Danube to New Orsova, where he crossed to the Hungarian bank, he again posted, with "an enormously stout Wallachian matron" for a travelling companion, to Drenkova, whence another steamer conveyed him to Semlin, and half an hour's pull down the Danube and up the Save (the line of the two rivers being distinctly marked at the confluence by the muddy colour of the former, and the clearness of the latter) landed him safe at Belgrade.

We may here mention an amusing anecdote, related in another part of the volume, in connexion with the town of Panczova below Semlin, where "the town-major, after swallowing countless boxes of Morison's pills died in the belief that he had not begun to take them soon enough. The consumption of these drugs at that time almost surpassed belief. There was scarcely a sickly or hypochondriac person, from the Hill of Presburg to the Iron Gates, who had not taken large quantities of them." Mais voilà le mot d'enigme. "'The Anglomania,"' was the answer to a query of the author, "'is nowhere stronger than in this part of the world. Whatever comes from England, be it Congreve rockets or vegetable pills, must needs be perfect. Dr Morison is indebted to his high office (!) for the enormous consumption of his drugs. It is clear that the President of the British College must be a man in the enjoyment of the esteem of the government and the faculty of medicine; and his title is a passport to his pills in foreign countries.' I laughed heartily, and explained that the British College of Health, and the College of Physicians, were not identical." We well remember a statement some years since among the innumerable puffs of the arch-quack, (now gone, we believe, to that bourn whither so many of his patients had preceded him,) that in gratitude for the countless cures of incurable diseases by the "Universal Vegetable Medicine," a statute of the Hygeist had been erected in Bukarest, not in his native brass, but 'in his habit as he lived;' and a woodcut was appended of the ipsissimus Morison, with his mustached phiz and tight frock-coat. As Bukarest is a long way off, we held this at the time for a pious fraud; but Mr Paton's anecdote gives it at least probability. Vive la charlatanerie!

The hospitality of Mr Consul-general Fonblanque, and the attentions of the numerous friends of M. Petronevich, soon made Mr Paton quite at home at Belgrade, where he remained till the end of the year 1843, having arrived some time in the autumn, since the re-election of Prince Alexander, and the exile of Petronevich, and his colleague Wucziz, took place in July of that year. He found Belgrade much Europeanized since a previous visit which he had paid it in 1839, – "It was then quite an Oriental town; but now the haughty parvenu spire of the cathedral, a new and large, but tasteless structure, with a profusely gilt bell-tower in the Russian manner, throws into the shade the minarets of the mosques, graceful even in decay. Many of the bazar shops have been fronted and glazed; the Oriental dress has become much rarer; and houses, several stories high, in the German fashion, are springing up every where." The Turkish governor was at this time Hafiz Pasha, the unsuccessful commander at Nezib, lately appointed in the room of Kiamil, who had been displaced at the mandate of Russia for the share he had taken in the first election of Prince Alexander; but his jurisdiction is now confined to the fortress and the Turkish quarter, which lies along the Danube; the remainder of the town, lying piled street upon street up the steep bank of the Save, being under the Servian authorities. During his stay, Mr Paton paid frequent visits to the Pasha, whom he generally found in an audience room overlooking the precipitous descent to the Danube, "studying at the maps: he seemed to think that nothing would be so useful to Turkey as good roads, made to run from the principal ports of Asia Minor, up to the depôts of the interior, so as to connect Sivas, Tokat, Angora, Koniah, Kaiserieh, &c., with Samsoon, Tersoos, and other ports." The ramparts of the fortress are said to be in good condition, though "very unlike the magnificent towers it the last scene of the Siege of Belgrade at Drury-Lane," – a piece of useful information for play-going Cockneys – and the Lange Gasse, or main street, with the palace of Prince Eugene, built during the Austrian occupation of Servia from 1717 to 1789, is still standing, though half choked up with bazar shops and Turkish houses. The Prince holds no formal levees; but Mr Paton was present at a dinner given to the corps diplomatique in the palace, and was received in a saloon "with inlaid and polished parquet; the chairs and sofas covered with crimson and white satin damask, which is an unusual luxury in these regions; the roof admirably painted in subdued colours, in the best Vienna style. High white porcelain urn-like stoves heated the suite of rooms. The Prince, a muscular, middle-sized, dark-complexioned man, with a serious composed air, wore a plain blue military uniform;2 the Princess, and her dames de compagnie, wore the graceful native Servian costume; the Pasha the Nizam dress, and the Nishan Iftihar, (diamond decoration of his rank;) Baron Lieven, the Russian Commissioner, in the uniform of a general, glittered with innumerable orders;3 Colonel Philippovich, a man of distinguished talents, represented Austria; the Archbishop, in his black velvet cap, a large enamelled cross hanging by a massive gold chain from his neck, sat in stately isolation; and the six feet four inches high Garashanin, minister of the interior, conversed with Stojan Simitch, the president of the senate, one of the few Servians in high office who retains his old Turkish costume, and has a frame that reminds one of the Farnese Hercules. Then what a medley of languages – Servian, German, Russian, Turkish, and French, all in full buzz! We proceeded to the dining-room, where the cuisine was in every respect in the German manner. When the dessert appeared, the Prince rose with a creaming glass of champagne in his hand, and proposed the health of the Sultan, acknowledged by the Pasha; and then, after a short pause, the health of Czar Nicolay Paulovich, acknowledged by Baron Lieven; then came the health of other crowned heads. Baron Lieven now rose, and proposed the health of the Prince. The Pasha and the Princess were toasted in turn; and then Mr Wastchenko, the Russian Consul-general, rose, and in animated terms drank to the prosperity of Servia. The entertainment, which commenced at one o'clock, was prolonged to an advanced period of the afternoon, and closed with coffee, liqueurs, and chibouques, in the drawing-room: the Princess and the ladies having previously withdrawn to the private apartments."

At the end of the year, Mr Paton returned to England; and after an absence of six months, returned in August 1844 to the banks of the Save, reaching Belgrade at the moment when preparations were being made for the triumphal reception of the patriot ministers Wuczicz and Petronevich, who had at length been restored to their country by the tardy intervention of England. The day of their arrival was celebrated by a universal jubilee. Surrounded by an immense cavalcade, the exiles paraded the streets, amid the rapturous acclamations of the multitude, to the great portal of the cathedral, where they were received by the Archbishop and clergy: – "They kissed the cross and the gospels, which the Archbishop presented to them, and, kneeling down, returned thanks for their safe restoration. The Archbishop then advanced to the edge of the platform and began a discourse, describing the grief the nation had experienced at their departure, the universal joy for their return, and the hope that they would ever keep peace and union in view in all matters of state, and that in their duties to the state they must never forget their responsibility to the Most High. Wuczicz, dressed in the coarse frieze jacket and boots of a Servian peasant, heard, with a reverential inclination of the head, the discourse of the prelate, but nought relaxed one muscle of that adamantine visage: the finer but more luminous features of Petronevich were under the control of a less powerful will. At certain passages his intelligent eye was moistened with tears. Two deacons then prayed successively for the Sultan, the Emperor of Russia, and the Prince, – and now uprose from every tongue, and every heart, a hymn for the longevity of Wuczicz and Petronevich. 'The Solemn Song for Many Days' is the title of this sublime chant, which is so old that its origin is lost in the obscure dawn of Christianity in the East, and so massive, so nobly simple, as to be beyond the ravages of time, and the caprices of convention." The town was illuminated in the evening; and a ball was given at the new Konak or palace, built by the exiled Prince Michael, which was attended "by all the rank and fashion of Belgrade – senators of the old school, in their benishes and shalwars, and senators of the new school, in pantaloons and stiff cravats," which we agree with Mr Paton in considering as no improvement on the graceful costume of the East. The Servian ladies, however, have in general the good taste to retain the old national costume; and "no head-dress that I have seen in the Levant is better calculated to set off beauty. From a small Greek fez they suspend a gold tassel, which contrasts with the black and glossy hair, which is laid smooth and flat down the temple. The sister of the Princess, who was admitted to be the handsomest woman in the room, with her tunic of crimson velvet, embroidered in gold, and faced with sable, would have been, in her strictly indigenous costume, the queen of any fancy ball in old Europe."

While occupied by his preparations for a tour into the interior, Mr Paton one day encountered "a strange figure, with a long white beard, and a Spanish cap, mounted on a sorry horse" – this was no other than Holman, the well-known blind traveller, whom he had last seen at Aleppo, and who, having passed in safety, under the safeguard of his infirmity, through the most dangerous parts of Bosnia, was now on his way to Walachia. He instantly recognised Mr Paton's voice, and mentioned his name on being told where he had last seen him; and after a walk on the esplanade, in which the objects in view were described to him, while turning his face to the different points of the compass, he appeared to have acquired a tolerably clear idea of Belgrade. Another visitor of Mr Paton, Milutinovich, the best living poet of Servia, on hearing the name of Holman, (of whose wanderings in the four quarters of the globe he had read in the Augsburg Gazette,) was so awe-struck at finding himself in the presence of even a greater traveller than Robinson Crusoe, (whose adventures Mr Paton found regarded as an authentic narrative by the monks of Manasia,) that he reverentially kissed his beard, praying aloud that he might return home in safety. When the day of departure approached, "orders were sent by the minister of the interior to all governors and employés, enjoining them to furnish me with every assistance, and with whatever information I might require;" and all preparations being completed, Mr Paton and his man Paul set off horseback, like Dr Syntax and Patrick, for the highlands and woodlands of Servia.

Shabatz (more correctly Czabacz,) a town on the Save, between forty and fifty miles above Belgrade, and one of the few garrisons still retained by the Turks, was the first point of destination; and reaching it on the second day, he was hospitably received by Gospody (Monsieur) Ninitch, the government collector, to whom he had an introductory letter from the minister Garashanin. Before the revolution, Shabatz numbered 20,000 Osmanlis, the sites of whose kiosks and gardens are still pointed out on the Polje, or open space between the town and the fortress, – at present the only Moslems are the garrison of Bosniak Redif or militia, occupying the dilapidated fortifications. It is the episcopal seat of one of the Archbishop's three suffragans; and the author, accompanied by his friend the collector, paid his respects to the Bishop, whom he had previously met at Belgrade. The conversation turned principally on the system of national education, by which, in a few years, reading and writing will be universal among the peasantry, while the sons of the better classes are prepared, by instruction in German, &c., for a further course of study in the Gymnasium of Belgrade, the germ of a future university. A proof of the taste now spreading for general literature was afforded by the library of the Archpriest, "Jowan Paulovich, a self-taught ecclesiastic: the room in which he received us was filled with books, mostly Servian, but among them I perceived German translations of Shakspeare, Young's Night Thoughts, and a novel of Bulwer's." The son of this priest was studying mining engineering at the expense of government, at Schemnitz in Hungary, a capacity in which he may one day do good service to his country, as the great mineral riches believed to exist in Servia are hitherto wholly unexplored. Having completed the circuit of all the notables in Shabatz, including Luka Lasaravich, a once redoubted lieutenant of Kara-George, and now an octagenarian merchant, with thirteen wounds on his body, Mr Paton prepared for a fresh start, drinking health and long life to his kind host and hostess in a glass of slivovitsa, or plum brandy, the national liqueur. But his good wishes were not destined to be fulfilled; for within a month an abortive attempt at a rising was made by the partisans of the exiled Obrenovich family, a troop of whom, disguised as Austrian hussars, entered Shabatz, and shot the good collector dead as he issued from his house to enquire the cause of the disturbance. The attempt, however, was futile, and the whole party were taken and executed.