22 Ethnographical Memoir on the Nations of Slavonian Race. 



2. Of the Southern Tribes belonging to the Eastern Branch 

 OF the Slavonian Race. 



Besides the Russians and the various tribes of the western Slavonian 

 race, spread through the north of Europe, who will be mentioned in the 

 sequel, there are several nations belonging to the same family, inhabiting 

 the south-eastern part of the continent, or the countries between the 

 Adriatic and the Euxine. The latter are partly subject to the Austrian, and 

 partly to the Ottoman empire. They may be divided into three classes, which 

 are termed severally the Servians, the Croats, and the Winds, or southern 

 Wends. The tribes included in each of these classes are distinguished 

 from those which belong to the other departments by their peculiar 

 dialects, and by other traits. To the Servian branch, according to the 

 evidence afforded by their idioms, belong the Servians, properly so 

 termed, inhabiting the province of Servia, the Bosaians, the Bulgarians, 

 the Uskoks, the Morlachians, the Slavonian people of Wallachia, the 

 people of eastern or Servian Dalmatia, including the republic of Ragusa, 

 and the Servians scattered through Hungary and Siebenburg.* The se- 

 cond, or Croat branch, includes all the Croat nation, not only the people 

 of Croatia Proper, but some Croat tribes inhabiting districts in Hungary, 

 Dalmatia, and Carniola.f The Winds, or southern Wends, who constitute 

 a third branch springing from this southern division of the Slavonian race, 

 are distinguished likewise by peculiarities of dialect, and by the inveterate 

 hatred which tliese people and the Croats everywhere bear to each other. 

 The Winds are inhabitants of several provinces in the Austrian dominions, 

 further to the north-west than the former tribes, as Carniola, Carinthia^ 

 Steyermark, or Stiria.J 



These tribes are allied by the evidence of their dialects to the Russians, 

 much more nearly than to the Poles or the western Slavonian nations. They 

 are on this ground referred by Adelung and Dobrowsky, to the great eastern 

 division of the Slavic race, anciently termed Antes. Theproximity ofidiom is 

 such between the Servians and the Russians, that the former people having 

 embraced Christianity about a century before the latter, and having in use 

 the Slavonian alphabet and liturgy framed for them by Cyril and Metho- 

 dius, these were adopted by the Russians on their conversion and even 

 continue to be used at the present day in the churches of Russia, having 

 undergone but slight alterations. § By Nestor, the old ecclesiastical Rus- 

 sian dialect is termed Servian j and both the Russians and the Servians 

 make use, according to Adelung, of the same bible and other religious 

 books, and understand each other in conversation better than the individuals 

 of any other two Slavonian tribes. 



• Adelung, Mithrid, th. 2. p. 639. f Adelung, p. 647. Dobrowsky, p. 32. 



X Adelung, p. C54. Dobrowsky, p. 32. § Adelung, p. 621. 



