These associations also play a very useful part in the political organization. They are intermediate between individualism andcommunism, and so serve as an initiation into the practice of local government. The administration of the zadruga resemblesthat of a commune or joint-stock company in miniature. The gospodar discharges functions similar to those of a manager: hesubmits a report of his management to the deliberation and discussion of those subject to him. It is like an inchoateparliamentary system, being trained for the practice of public liberty. If the Servians, just emancipated, accommodate themselves so admirably to an almost republican constitution, and a system of government, which many western states would finda difficulty in maintaining, it is due to the Servians having passed, in the bosom of these communities, an apprenticeship inthe qualities necessary for independence and self-govern ment. It is surprising, says M. Ivitch, to see the good sensedisplayed by the Croatian peasants in the public deliberations in which they take part.
Another effect of the common life in the zadruga is to develop certain private virtues, such as affection among relations,mutual support, voluntary submission to discipline, and the habit of acting together for the same object. It has been assertedthat the family is a mere method of succession. Undoubtedly the right of succession, which is ordinarily incident on the deathof a relation, rouses evil sentiments, which are often placed in relief by the playwright, the novelist, or the artist. In the zadruga there is no succession. Every one having a personal right to a share in the produce, cupidity is never at variancewith family affection, and the thought of an inheritance to be received never comes to intrude itself on the grief caused bythe death of a father or an uncle. The pursuit of money does not inflame their minds, and there is, consequently, more scopefor natural feeling.
I believe I have not exaggerated the merits of these family- communities, or drawn a flattering picture of the patriarchal lifepassed in them. A visit to the Slav districts lying to the south of the Danube will suffice to disclose the social organizationexactly as I have described it. The flourshing appearance of Bulgaria, the best cultivated of all Eastern countries, shewsdecisively that the system is not antagonistic to good cultivation of the soil. And yet this organization, in spite of its manyadvantages, is falling to ruin, and disappearing everywhere that it comes into contact with modern ideas. (8) The reason is,that these institutions are suited to the stationary condition of a primitive age; but cannot easily withstand the conditions of asociety, in which men are striving to improve their own lot as well as. the political and social organization under which theylive. This craving to rise and to continually increase one's means of enjoyment, by which the present age is excited, isincompatible with the existence of family associations, in which the destiny of each is fixed, and can vary but little from thatof other men. Once the desire of self-aggrandisement awakened, man can no longer support the yoke of the zadruga, lightthough it be; he craves for movement, for action, for enterprise, at his own risk and his own peril. So long asdisinterestedness, brotherly affection, submission to the family chief, and mutual toleration for the faults of others, preservetheir empire, community of life is possible and agreeable even for the women; but, when these sentiments disappear, livingtogether becomes a purgatory, and each couple seeks to possess an independent home, to escape the community. Theadvantages of the zadruga , whatever they may be, henceforth are out of consideration. To live according to his own will, towork for himself alone, to drink from his own cup, is now the end preeminently sought by every one.
Without faith, religious communities could not survive. So, too, if family feeling is weakened, the zadruga must disappear. Iknow not whether the nations, who have lived tranquilly under the shelter of these patriarchal institutions, will ever arrive ata happier or more brilliant destiny; but this much appears inevitable, that they will desire, with Adam in Paradise Lost , toenter on a new career, and to taste the charm of independent life, despite its perils and responsibilities. In my opinion, theeconomist will not see these institutions disappear without regret.
1. For a more detailed account of ancient Slav institutions, consult for Bohemia the excellent history of M. Palacki and his Slawische Alterthümer , Leipsig, 1843;for Russia, Ewers, Aeltestes Recht der Russen , Dorpat, 1826;for Poland, Rossell, Polnische Geschichte , and Mieroslawski, La Commune polonaise du dixième au dix-huitième siècle ;and for the SouthernSlavs, the exhaustive treatise of M. Utiesenovitch, Die Houskommuniorien der Süd-Slaven , and also the admirable work ofM. Bogisitch, Zbornik sedasnjih pravnits o*****aja u jusnits Sievene , Agram, 1874. M. Fedor Demelitch has just publisheda summary of this excellent treatise, Le Droit coutomier des Slaves méridionaux d'après les recherches de M. V. Bogisitch ,Paris, 1877.
2. All who have had a near view of Servian homes have been struck by the fraternal intimacy of their patriarchal life. M.
