Historical View of the Languages and Literature of the Slavic by Therese Albertine Louise von Jacob Robinson

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Languages and Literature of the Slavic Nations

HISTORICAL VIEW OF THE LANGUAGES AND LITERATURE OF THE SLAVIC NATIONS

With a Sketch of Their Popular Poetry

by

TALVI

With a Preface by Edward Robinson, D.D. Ll.D.
Author of _Biblical Researches In Palestine_, etc.

New-York: George P. Putnam, 155 Broadway

M.DCCC.L

PREFACE

The present work is founded on an essay, which appeared in the
Biblical Repository for April and July, 1834, then conducted by the
undersigned. The essay was received with favour by the public; and
awakened an interest in many minds, as laying open a new field of
information, hitherto almost inaccessible to the English reader. A few
copies were printed separately for private distribution. Some of these
were sent to literary men in Europe; and several scholars of high name
among those acquainted with Slavic literature, expressed their
approval of the work. Since that time, and even of late, inquiries
have repeatedly been made, by scholars and by public libraries in
Europe, for copies of that little treatise; which, of course, it was
impossible to satisfy.

These circumstances, together with the fact, that in these years
public attention has been more prominently directed to the character
and prospects of the Slavic nations, have induced the author to recast
the work; and to lay it anew before the public, corrected, enlarged,
and continued to the present time; as a brief contribution to our
knowledge of the intellectual character and condition of those
nations, in the middle of the nineteenth century.

In its present shape, the work may be said to supply, in a certain
degree, a deficiency in English literature. It is true, that
the literature of the Russians, Poles, Bohemians, and some
others, is treated of under the appropriate heads in the
_Encyclopaedia Americana_, in articles translated from the German
_Conversations-Lexicon_, though not in their latest form. The Foreign
Quarterly Review also contains articles of value on the like topics,
scattered throughout its volumes. Dr. Bowring, in the prefaces to some
of his Specimens of Slavic Poetry, has given short notices of a
similar kind. The Biblical literature of the Old Slavic and Russian
has been well exhibited by Dr. Henderson[1]; while an outline of
Russian literature in general is presented in the work of Otto[2].
Valuable information respecting the South-western Slavi is contained
in the recent work of Sir J.G. Wilkinson.[3] But beyond this meagre
enumeration, the English reader will find few sources of information
at his command upon these topics. All these, too, are only sketches of
separate _parts_ of one great whole; of which in its full extent, both
as a whole and in the intimate relation of its parts, no general view
is known to exist in the English language.

Yet the subject in itself is not without a high interest and
importance; relating, as it does, to the languages and literature of a
population amounting to nearly or quite seventy millions, or more than
three times as great as that of the United States. These topics
embrace, of course, the history of mental cultivation among the Slavic
nations from its earliest dawn; their intellectual development; the
progress of man among them as a thinking, sentient, social being,
acting and acted upon in his various relations to other minds. They
relate, indeed, to the history of intellectual culture in one of its
largest geographical and ethnological divisions.

In this connection it is a matter of no small interest, to mark the
influence which Christianity has exercised upon the language and
literature of these various nations. It is to the introduction and
progress of Christianity, that they owe their written language; and to
the versions of the Scriptures into their own dialects are they
indebted, not only for their moral and religious culture, but also for
the cultivation and, in a great degree, the existence of their
national literature. The same influence Christianity is even now
exerting upon the hitherto unwritten languages of the American forest,
of the islands of the Pacific, of the burning coasts of Africa, of the
mountains of Kurdistan; and with the prospect of results still wider
and more propitious. Indeed, wherever we learn the fact, whether in
earlier or more recent times, that a language, previously regarded as
barbarous, and existing only as oral, has been reclaimed and reduced
to writing, and made the vehicle of communicating fixed thought and
permanent instruction, there it has ever been _Christianity_ and
_Missionary Enterprise_ which have produced these results. It is
greatly to the honour of Protestant Missions, that their efforts have
always been directed to introduce the Scriptures and the worship of
God to the masses of the people in their own native tongue. In this
way they have every where contributed to awaken the intellectual, as
well as the moral life of nations.

The present work has been prepared with great care; and with the aid
of the latest and best sources of information, so far as they were
accessible. The author, however, would be the last to desire, that any
one should regard the volume as comprising a full or complete history
of the literature of the seven or eight Slavic nations. Scholars
familiar with the subject, and especially intelligent Russian, Polish,
or Bohemian readers, will doubtless discover in it deficiencies and
errors. Limited to the resources of a private library,--for the public
libraries of the United States and of Great Britain have as yet
accumulated little or nothing in the Slavic department,--and without
the privilege of personal intercourse with others acquainted with
Slavic literary matters, the author desires to be distinctly
understood, as aiming only to present a _sketch_, an _outline_,--a
work which may fill its appropriate place, until it shall be
supplanted by something more perfect.

The preceding remarks have reference especially to the first _three_
Parts of the volume. In the _fourth_ Part, containing a Sketch of the
Popular Poetry of the Slavic nations, the author is perhaps still more
at home; and the reader, it may be hoped, will receive gratification
from the views and specimens there presented. Similar views, and a few
of the same specimens, were given in an article from the same pen, in
the North American Review for July, 1836.

In conclusion, it may not be inappropriate to remark, that
circumstances have combined to secure to the author some
qualifications for the preparation of a work of this kind, which are
not common to writers in the English language. A residence of several
years in early life in Russia, first in the southern provinces, and
afterwards at St. Petersburg, presented opportunity for a personal
acquaintance with the language and literature of that country. At a
later period, this gave occasion and afforded aid for an extensive
study of the Servian dialect and its budding literature; the results
of which were given to the public in a German translation of the very
remarkable popular songs and ballads of that country[4]. The field was
new: but certainly that can be regarded as no barren soil, nor that as
a fruitless labour, which at once drew the attention, and secured to
the translator the friendship and correspondence, of scholars like
Goethe, von Humboldt; J. Grimm, Savigny, G. Ritter, Kopitar, and
others. Similar researches were subsequently extended into the popular
poetry of the Teutonic and other nations; a portion of the results of
which have likewise been given to the public[5].

I may venture to commend this volume to the good will and kind
forbearance of the reader, in view of the difficulties which must ever
press upon the writer of such a work. The enterprising publisher has
done his part well; and I would join him in the hope, that the book
may prove an acceptable offering to the public.

E. ROBINSON.

NEW-YORK, April 10, 1850.

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 1: See _infra_, p. 45.]

[Footnote 2: Page 100.]

[Footnote 3: Page 121.]

[Footnote 4: _Volsklieder der Serben, uebersetzt von Talvj_, Halle
1825-26, 2 vols.]

[Footnote 5: _Versach einer geschichtlichen Charakteristik der
Volkslieder germanischer Nationen, etc. von Talvj_, Leipzig 1840.]

* * * * *

CONTENTS.

INTRODUCTION.

Origin of the Slavi, 1.--Mythology, 4.--Early language and dialects,
6.--Classification, 7.--Eastern Stem, 8.--Western Stem, 11.--Slavic
languages, 13.

_Part first_.

HISTORY OF THE OLD OR CHURCH SLAVIC LANGUAGE AND LITERATURE.

Home of the Old Slavic, 26.--Characteristics, 29.--Alphabet,
30.--Cyril and Methodius, 31.--Their translation of the Bible,
34.--Influence of the Old Slavic on the other dialects,
36.--Glagolitic alphabet, 37.--Dodrovsky's theory, 37.--THREE PERIODS,
34.--First Period, 39.--Second Period, 41.--Third Period, 42.--Present
state, 45.

_Part second_.

EASTERN SLAVI.

CHAPTER I.

HISTORY OF THE RUSSIAN LANGUAGE AND LITERATURE.

Origin of the Russians, 47.--Periods, 49.--Language and dialects,
49.--Russian Proper, 49.--Malo-Russian, 50.--White Russian, 51.--FIRST
PERIOD, 52.--SECOND PERIOD, 60.--Energy of Peter the Great, 60.--THIRD
PERIOD, 65.--Lomonosof, 66.--FOURTH PERIOD, 72.--The emperor Alexander
and his influence, 72.--Russian Bible Society, 74.--Karamzin,
76.--FIFTH PERIOD, 85.--The emperor Nicholas and his measures,
85--Panslavism, 86.--Pushkin, 95--Works on the Russian language, 101.

CHAPTER II.

HISTORY OF THE ILLYRICO-SERVIAN LANGUAGE.

SECTION I.

_Language and Literature of the Illyrico-Servians Proper._

Language written with different alphabets, 103.--Characteristics,
104.--History, 105.

_Servians of the Greek Church._

Their extent, 107.--Earlier literature, 108--Modern writers, 112--Vuk
Stephanovitch, 113.--His collection of popular songs, 114.--His
arrangement of the alphabet, 116.--- Recent poets, 118.--Montenegro,
the Vladika, 119.

_Servians of the Romish Church._

GLAGOLITIC LITERATURE, 123.--Manuscripts, _Text du Sacre_,
124.--Earliest works and writers, 126.

SECULAR LITERATURE, 127.--_Dalmatia Proper_, 128.--Ragusa and its
literature, 128.--Orthography, 131.--Dr. Gaj, 133.--_Catholic
Slavonians_, 133.

SECTION II.

_Language and Literature of the_ CROATIANS, 135.--Relation of the
Croats to other Slavi, 135.--Orthography, etc. 136.

SECTION III.

_Language and Literature of the_ VENDES _or_ SLOVENZI, 138.--Their
home, 138.--Efforts of Truber, 139.--Orthography, etc.
140.--Literature, 142.

CHAPTER III.

LANGUAGE OF THE BULGARIANS.

Corruptions, 144.--No trace of early literature, 145.--Present state,
146.

_Part Third_.

WESTERN SLAVI.

CHAPTER I.

CZEKHO-SLOVAKIAN BRANCH.

SECTION I.

_History of the Czekhish or Bohemian Language and Literature._
Bohemian literature distinguished, 147.--Early history,
149.--Moravians, 151.--Note on pronunciation, 151.--Characteristics of
the language, 154.--Periods, 156.--FIRST PERIOD, 157.--SECOND PERIOD,
163.--John Huss and Jerome of Prague, 167.--Their martyrdom,
170.--Consequences, 174.--THIRD PERIOD, 182.--Golden age of Bohemian
literature, 183--Events, 184,--Literary activity, 188.--Desolations of
the thirty years' war, 195.--FOURTH PERIOD, 196.--Paralysis of
literature, 196.--Emigrants, Comenius, 197.--Slovak writers,
199.--FIFTH PERIOD, 200.--State of the language, 201.--Writers,
202.--Dobrovsky, 204--Kollar, 206.--Panslavism, 207--Schaffarik,
207.--Palacky, 209.--Works on the Bohemian language, 211.

SECTION II.

_Language and Literature of the Slovaks._

Home of the Slovaks, 212.--Their language, 214.--Earliest traces of a
literature, 217.--Understand the Bohemian dialect, 218--- Writers in
German, 220.--Grammars, etc. 221.

CHAPTER II.

HISTORY OF THE POLISH LANGUAGE AND LITERATURE.

Origin of the Lekhes, or Poles, 222.--Periods, 225.--Extent of the
Polish language, 225.--Its ancient character, 227.--FIRST PERIOD,
229.--SECOND PERIOD, 231.--THIRD PERIOD, 235.--Rapid progress of
literature, 235.--Toleration, 236.--Dissidents, Unitarians, etc.
236.--Culture of the language, 240.--Printing offices and schools,
241.--Degradation of the peasantry, 241.--Copernicus, 243,--Writers,
244.--FOURTH PERIOD, 250.--Perversion of taste, 251.--Theological
controversy and persecution, 252.--The Jesuits prevail, 253.--Poets,
255--FIFTH PERIOD, 256.--Revival, French influence, 257.--Political
struggles, 258.--Schools and cultivation, 259.--The peasantry were
serfs, etc. 260.--Literary activity, 262.--Effect of French influence,
263.--Writers, 264.--Czartoryski, 265.--The family Potocki,
266.--Lelewel, 268--Niemcewicz, 275.--SIXTH PERIOD, 285.--Causes of
the revolution in 1830, 285.--Results upon literature, 286.--Russian
efforts to destroy Polish nationality, 287.--Historical researches,
288.--Literature of Polish emigrants, 291.--Lelewel, 292.--Mickiewicz,
293.--Recent poetry, 297--Works on the Polish language, etc. 298.

CHAPTER III.

LANGUAGES OF THE SORABIAN-VENDES IN LUSATIA, AND OF OTHER. VENDISH
TRIBES NOW EXTINCT.

History, 298.--Branches: The Obotrites, 300.--The Wiltzi, or
Pomeranians, 302.--The Ukern in Brandenburg, 303.--The Sorabians or
Vendes in Lusatia, 304.

1. _Vendes in Upper Lusatia._

Language, 308.--Influence of the Reformation, 308.--Two systems of
orthography, 310.--Literary efforts, 311.

2. _Vendes in Lower Lusatia._

Language, 313.--Literature mostly religious, 313.--Philological works,
314.

_Part Fourth_.

SKETCH OF THE POPULAR POETRY OF THE SLAVIC NATIONS.

SLAVIC POPULAR POETRY: Difficulties of the subject, 315.--Still
flourishes only among Slavic nations, 317.--Its antiquity and
prevalence, 318.--Nothing in it of romance, 319.--Different moral
standard, 320.--Nothing dramatic, 322.--Sometimes allegorical,
323--_Elegy_, 323.--Antithesis, 324.--Standing epithets,
325.--Plastic, 325.--Personifications, 327.--Superstitions,
328.--_Jelitza and her Brothers_, 329.--Moral characteristics,
332.--Love and heroism, 334.--Hopeless love, 336.--_The Farewell_,
336.--A mother's and sister's love, 338.

EASTERN SLAVI.

RUSSIAN POPULAR POETRY, 339.--Character and antiquity,
339.--Tenderness, 342.--_The Postilion_, 343.--Diminutives,
344.--Melancholy, 344.--Hopeless love, 344.--_Parting Scene_,
346.--_The Dove_, 347--_The Faithless Lover_, 349.--Veneration for the
Tzar, 350.--_The Boyar's Execution_, 350.--_The storming of Azof_,
353.--Malo-Russian songs, 354.--The Kozaks, 355.--Their history,
356.--Their ballads, 358--_The murder of Yessaul Tshural_,
359.--_Lament for Yessaul Pushkar_, 360--_Song of the Haidamack_,
362.--_Sir Sava and the Leshes_, 363.--_The Love-sick Girl_,
365.--_The Dead Love_, 366.

SERVIAN POPULAR POETRY, 366.--Only recently known,
367.--Characteristics, the Gusle, 369.--Cheerfulness, 369.--Roguery,
370.--Passion, 371.--_Parting Lovers_, 371.--_Rendezvous, St. George's
Day_, 372.--_United in Death_, 373.--_Household Matters_, 374.--Heroic
poems, 374.--Ravens ill boding, 376.--Subjects, 377.--Rite of
brotherhood, 378.--Modern heroic poems, 379.--Vuk Stephanovitch as
collector, 381.--Music, the Gusle, 382.--In what parts of the country
prevalent, 383.--BULGARIAN Ballads, 383--_The Slave Gangs_, 384.

POPULAR POETRY OF THE SLOVENZI, 384.--_The Dovelet_, 385.

WESTERN SLAVI.

BOHEMIAN POPULAR POETRY, 386.--Ancient Bohemian songs compared with
Servian and Russian ballads, 386.--German, influence, 388.--_The
Forsaken Maiden_, 389.--_Liberal Pay_, 389.--_Happy Death, The Lying
Bird_, 300.--_The Dead Love_, 391.

SLOVAKIAN Ballads, 392.--_The Mother's Curse_, 392--_Sun and Moon_,
394.

POLISH POPULAR POETRY, 394.--Formerly neglected, 395--Ancient hymn,
396.--Ballads, characteristics, 396.--_Invasion of the Tartars_,
397.--Orphan ballads, 399.--_Poor Orphan Child_, 399.

POPULAR POETRY OF THE VENDES, 400.--Characteristics, 401.--_The
Orphan's Lament_, 401.--_Good Advice for Lads_, 402.--Dying out, 404.

ADDITIONS AND CORRECTIONS, 405.

INDEX OF SLAVIC AUTHORS, 407.

* * * * *

NOTE.

On the Orthography and Pronunciation of Slavic proper names, see the
note on p. 151; also the note under the letter V in the Index.

* * * * *

HISTORICAL SKETCH.

INTRODUCTION.

The earliest history of the Slavic nations is involved in a darkness,
which all the investigations of diligent and sagacious modern
historians and philologians have not been able to clear up. The
analogy between their language and the Sanscrit, seems to indicate
their origin from India; but to ascertain the time at which they first
entered Europe, is now no longer possible. Probably this event took
place seven or eight centuries before the Christian era, on account of
the over-population of the regions on the Ganges.[1] Herodotus
mentions a people which he called Krovyzi, who lived on the Ister.
There is even now a tribe in Russia, whose name at least is almost
the same.[2] Strabo, Pomponius Mela, Pliny, Tacitus, and several other
classical and a few oriental writers, allude to the Slavic nations
occasionally. But the first distinct intelligence we have of them, is
not older than the middle of the sixth century.[3] At this period we
see them traversing the Danube in large multitudes, and settling on
both the banks of that river. From that time they appear frequently in
the accounts of the Byzantine historians, under the different
appellations of the Slavi, Sarmatae,[4] Antae, Vandales, Veneti, and
Vendes, mostly as involved in the wars of the two Roman empires,
sometimes as allies, sometimes as conquerors; oftener, notwithstanding
their acknowledged valour and courage, as vassals; but chiefly as
emigrants and colonists, thrust out of their own countries by the
pressing forward of the more warlike German or Teutonic tribes. Only
the first of the above mentioned names is decidedly of Slavic
origin;[5] the second is ambiguous; and the last four are later and
purely geographical, having been transferred to Slavic nations from
those who had previously occupied the territory where the Romans first
became acquainted with them.

It results from the very nature of this information, that we cannot
expect to get from it any satisfactory knowledge of their political
state or the degree of their civilization. In general, they appear as
a peaceful, industrious, hospitable people, obedient to their chiefs,
and religious in their habits. Wherever they established themselves,
they began to cultivate the earth, and to trade in the productions of
the country. There are also early traces of their fondness for music
and poetry; and some circumstances, of which we shall speak in the
sequel, seem to justify the supposition of a very early cultivation of
the language.

All the knowledge we have respecting the ancient history of the Slavic
race, as we have seen, is gathered from foreign authors; the earliest
of their own historians did not write before the second half of the
eleventh century.[6] At this time the Slavic nations were already in
possession, partly as masters, partly as servants, of the whole vast
extent of territory, which they now occupy; and if we assume that at
the present time about seventy or eighty millions speak the Slavic
language in its different dialects, we must calculate that at the
above mentioned period, and in the course of the next following
centuries, before the Slavic was by degrees supplanted in the
German-Slavic provinces by the German idiom, the number of those who
called that language their mother tongue was at least the fifth part
greater. Schloezer observes, that, with the exception of the Arabians,
no nation on the globe had extended themselves so far. In the South,
the Adriatic, the range of the Balkan, and the Euxine, are their
frontiers; the coasts of the Icy Ocean are their limits in the North;
their still greater extent in an Eastern and Western direction reaches
from Kamtschatka and the Russian islands of the Pacific, where many of
their vestiges are to be found among scattered tribes, as far as to
the Baltic and along the banks of the rivers Elbe, Muhr, and Raab,
again to the Adriatic. It is this immense extent, which adds greatly
to the difficulties of a general survey of the different relations and
connections of nations, broken up into so many parts. The _history of
the language_ is our object, not the history of the people; we
therefore give of statistic and political notices only so much, as
seems to be requisite for the illustration of our subject.

The earliest data for the history of the civilization of the Slavic
race, we find in their mythology; and here their oriental origin
again appears. The antithesis of a good and evil principle is met with
among most of their tribes; and as even at the present time in some
Slavic dialects every thing good, beautiful, praiseworthy, is to them
synonymous with the purity of the white colour, they call the good
Spirit _Bielo Bog_, the white god; the evil Spirit _Tcherno Bog_, the
black god. The _Div_ of the old Russians seem to be likewise akin to
the _Dev_ of the Hindoo; the goddess of life, _Shiva_, of the Polabae,
to the Indian _Shiva_; as the names of the Slavic personification of
death, _Morjana_, _Morena_, _Marzana_, evidently stand in connection
with the Indian word for death, _Marana_. Strabo describes some of the
idols of the Rugians, in which we meet again the whole significant
symbolization of the East. The custom prevalent among many Slavic
nations, of females burning themselves with the corpses of their
husbands, seems also to have been brought from India to Europe.

There are, however, other features of their mythology which belong to
them exclusively, and which remind us rather of the sprightly and
poetical imagination of the Greeks. We allude to their mode of
attributing life to the inanimate objects of nature, rocks, brooks and
trees; of peopling with supernatural beings the woods which surrounded
them, the mountains between which they lived. The _Rusalki_ of the
Russians, the _Vila_ of the southern Slavic nations, the _Leshie_ of
several other tribes, nymphs, naiads, and satyrs, are still to be
found in many popular tales and songs. If, however, we have compared
them to the poetical gods of the Greeks, we must not forget to add,
that their character has less resemblance to these gods, (who indeed
appear only as ordinary men with higher powers, more violent passions,
and less limited lives.) than it has to the northern Elf; and the
German Nix and mountain Spirit--without heart and soul themselves, but
always intermeddling with intrusive curiosity in human affairs,
however void of real interest in them; revengeful towards the most
trifling offence or the least neglect; and beneficent only to
favourites arbitrarily chosen.[7]

The earliest historians mention the Slavi as divided into several
tribes and as speaking different dialects. There are no very ancient
remains of their language, except those words or phrases, which
we find scattered through the works of foreign writers; and these
mostly perverted by their want of knowledge. Besides these we have
the names of places, of festivals, partly still existing, and of some
dignitaries, _Knes_, _Zupan_, etc. There are, indeed, among the
popular songs of the Bohemians, Servians, Russians, and several other
tribes, many which are evidently derived from the pagan period; but as
they have been preserved only by tradition, we must of course assume,
that their diction, has been changed almost in the same proportion as
the language of common life. Hence, national songs, before they have
been fixed by letters, are always to be considered as much safer
proofs for the genius than for the language of a people.

It is, however, probable that at least _one_ Slavic idiom was
cultivated to a certain degree in very ancient times; for from the
single circumstance, that Cyril's translation of the Bible, written in
the middle of the ninth century, bears the stamp of uncommon
perfection in its forms, and of great copiousness, it is sufficiently
evident, that the language must have been the means of expression for
thinking men several centuries before. There is, indeed, no doubt that
the state of the language, as it appears in that translation, required
no short interval of preparation.

The first attempts to convert portions of the Slavic race to
Christianity were probably made before the seventh century; but it was
only at the beginning of the ninth that their partial success became
of importance to their language and literature. It is true, that by
the last investigations of the late great Slavist, B. Kopitar, the
fact has been ascertained, that a portion of the Slavic race was
already in possession of an alphabet _before_ Cyril;[8] but as this
fact appears to have had no further result, we must still consider the
ninth century and Cyril's translation of the Gospels as the beginning
of their literary history, the dawn at least of a brighter day.

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