Baltic, then were Swedish provinces; and the possession of Pomerania, Rugen, and Bremen made her an important member of the Germanic empire. These territories are now all reft from her, and the most valuable of them form the staple of her victorious rival's strength. Could she resume them—could the Sweden of 1648 be reconstructed, we should have a first-class Scandinavian state in the North, well qualified to maintain the balance of power, and check the progress of Russia; whose power, indeed, never could have become formidable to Europe save by Sweden becoming weak.
The decisive triumph of Russia over Sweden at Pultowa was therefore all-important to the world, on account of what it overthrew as well as for what it established; and it is the more deeply interesting, because it was not merely the crisis of a struggle between two states, but it was a trial of strength between two great races of mankind. We must bear in mind, that while the Swedes, like the English, the Dutch, and others, belong to the Germanic race, the Russians are a Sclavonic people. Nations of Sclavonian origin have long occupied the greater part of Europe eastward of the Vistula, and the populations also of Bohemia, Croatia, Servia, Dalmatia, and other important regions westward of that river are Sclavonic. In the long and varied conflicts between them and the Germanic nations that adjoin them, the Germanic race had, before Pultowa, almost always maintained a superiority. With the single but important exception of Poland, no Sclavonic state had made any considerable figure in history before the time when Peter the Great won his great victory over the Swedish king.[1] What Russia has done since that time we know and we feel. And some of the wisest and best men of our own age and nations, who have watched with deepest care the annals and the destinies of humanity, have believed that the Sclavonic element in the population of Europe has as yet only partially developed its powers; that, while other races of mankind (our own, the Germanic, included) have exhausted their creative energies and completed their allotted achievements, the Sclavonic race has yet a great career to run; and that the narrative of Sclavonic ascendency is the remaining page that will conclude the. history of the world.[2]
