RUSSIA (LANGUAGE AND LITERATURE). 



the brave resistance of Uapp, under the walls of 

 Stnrfburg, of Suchet before Lums and notwith- 

 standing popular insurrections in several parts of 

 Alsatia and Loraine. Armistices put an end, by 

 degrees, to the war in these quarters the more 

 >|K'edily, because Louis XVIII. had already made 

 Ins entry into Paris, July 9. Immediately after his 

 return, Napoleon had abdicated. He hoped, per- 

 haps by that means, to appease the storm, and de- 

 parted for Rochefort, where he finally, July 15, 

 surrendered to the British. In Paris a diversity of 

 opinions prevailed in the chambers of peers and re- 

 presentatives. Their attention was occupied, while 

 the conquerors advanced, with the subjects of a re- 

 public, of Napoleon II., and anew constitution ; till 

 Fouche, who stood at the head of the provisional 

 government, closed their halls, and Louis reas- 

 rended the throne, strongly as such a proceeding 

 was deprecated by the voice of the people in the 

 chambers, and in the army. This restoration had 

 much influence on the event of the war. The 

 princes had received Louis as their ally. In their 

 declarations, they had spoken merely against Napo- 

 leon, not against the French people. The more 

 active a part the people had taken against them, 

 and the more strongly they still expressed themselves 

 in some places, against the Bourbons, so much the 

 more cautiously had they to act, in order to main- 

 tain the Bourbons on the throne (contrary to the 

 former opinion of the prince regent), against the 

 will of the French people. France was, therefore, 

 still overwhelmed with troops, and the ministers of 

 the allies were engaged with those of Louis in the 

 adjustment of political relations; but up to Sep- 

 tember 29, the parties were so far from agreeing, 

 that the former all took their departure. Not till 

 new ministers had been appointed, a few days after, 

 by Louis XVIII., were the preliminaries of peace 

 signed (October 2) ; these were confirmed in the 

 definitive treaty of November 20, which 1, fixed 

 the boundaries of France, as they were in 1790 ; 

 but, 2, took from it the fortresses of Landau, Saar- 

 louis, Philippeville, Marienburg, Versoix, with a 

 certain circuit of territory about each, to be subse- 

 quently defined ; 3, provided that Huningen should 

 be dismantled : 4, fixed an indemnity of 700,000,000 

 francs for the expense of the war, payable in five 

 years ; 5, provided that a line from Conde, through 

 Bouchain, to Bitsch, should be occupied, for the 

 same time by the allies, with 150,000 men, at the 

 expense of France ; and, 6, secured the demands of 

 all private persons on France, with the exception of 

 the bank of Hamburgh, emptied by Davoust in 1813. 

 This was the actual termination of the war ; for, till 

 then, the northern fortresses of France had been 

 beseiged, at least by the Prussians, and for the most 

 part conquered. By a separate agreement, half vo- 

 luntary, half forced, the restoration was granted of 

 all the works of art, of Italy, Germany, &c., accu- 

 mulated in Paris since 1792. Respecting Napoleon 

 the allies agreed that he should live at St Helena, 

 at the expense of Britain, as a prisoner of war, but 

 with all the alleviations of which such a situation 

 could admit. His family were banished from France, 

 under penalty of death, and the members of it were 

 obliged to have passports from the great powers. 

 The banishment of the Bonapartes was again pro- 

 nounced in 1831, together with that of the elder 

 line of the Bourbons. Murat, impelled by an un- 

 happy error, and deceived by the Neapolitan police, 

 made an attempt to recover his kingdom, and, Oct. 

 13, died the death of a criminal, at Pizzo, in Cala- 



bria. See the Histoire de I Expedition de Russia, 

 with an atlas, 3d edition, Paris, 1825, 3 vols., by 

 he French colonel of artillery, marquis de Cliam- 

 bray. The Russian colonel Butturlin's Hist, inilU. 

 de la Campagne de Russie en 1812, Paris, 18:24, 2 

 vols., with plans, was used by Chambray, in the 

 new edition of his work. See also the marquis of 

 Londonderry's Narrative of the War in Germany and 

 France in 1813 and 1814; and Segur's Histoire de 

 Napoleon et de la Grande Arnue pendant I'Annee 

 1812 (Paris, 1825, 2 vols.). 



Russian Language and Literature Under this 



lead we must distinguish two languages: 1. The 

 Russian language, originally the dialect of the 

 Sclavi, who founded the empire. It under went, as 

 did the empire itself, various changes. Thus it has, 

 by degrees incorporated into itself much of the 

 Scandinavian, Mongolian, Tartar (1225 to 1477), 

 and German, also the Polish and French languages. 

 The improvement of this forcible and harmonious 

 idiom is not, however, concluded, but is continually 

 advancing, by means of the national literature. 2. 

 The Sclavonian language, or that of the Sclavonian 

 Bible. It was fixed by the translation of the Holy 

 Scriptures, and so settled that it has since experi- 

 enced but few alterations. It is the language of 

 the Bible, of the old chronicles, as, for instance, 

 Nestor's, about 1 100, of the ecclesiastical laws, of 

 some of the pastoral instructions, and of the prayers 

 in the liturgy. A mixed language arose from the 

 combination of these two already mentioned, which 

 is used in sermons, in rhetorical prose, and in the 

 higher species of poetry. Its principal ingredient 

 is the Sclavian language; but it has borrowed 

 those words and phrases from the Sclavonian, which 

 being used for the expression of biblical ideas and 

 images, have thereby acquired more strength and 

 dignity. The Sclavonian, however, prevails in 

 sermons, and the Russian in oratorical prose, and in 

 the more elevated kinds of poetry. 



History of the Russian Language. The first 

 period, which was the longest, and most destitute 

 of literary productions, extends from the founda- 

 tion of the empire to Lomonosoff, who first intro- 

 duced a permanent change into the Russian lan- 

 guage. Important, as contributing to fix the writ- 

 ten language, was the introduction of. a current 

 written character, whereby the unwieldy letters 

 before used, and introduced by Cyril, were super- 

 seded (see Cyril), for the full expression of the 

 tones, which are peculiar to the Sclavian language, 

 and for which the Greek letters were neither suit- 

 able nor sufficient. Cyril had borrowed some charac- 

 ters from the Asiatic alphabets, the form of which 

 was an impediment to a people not fond of writing. 

 About the end of the seventeenth century, Elias 

 Kopiewitsch improved it, and brought the letters 

 to their present form, for the embellishment of 

 which so much has been done in the last ten years, 

 that the Russian characters may compare in beauty 

 of form with those of any European language. The 

 history of the Sclavian press, has, in modern times, 

 attracted much attention, and a copy of a work 

 printed in 1475 has been found. A Sclavonian 

 psalter was printed at Cracow, 1481. The psalter 

 of Kiev (1551) is the oldest work printed in Rus- 

 sia itself. Cracow was the cradle of Sclavonian 

 typography. The oldest monuments of the language 

 are, Oleg's treaty of peace and commerce of the 

 year 912 : Igor's treaty with the Greek emperor 

 ^945); the municipal charter of Novgorod (1019) ; 

 but the most important memorials are the Russian 



