SCLAVONIANS. 



139 



measure, Sclavonians'. The whole number of them 

 is estimated at 50,000,000. Five millions of these 

 belong to the southern Sclavonians ; and their dia- 

 lect is called Illyrian, or Servian. The Servians 

 (Rascians) are, next to the Czeches, the most civi- 

 lized and powerful of all the southern Sclavonians, 

 zealous friends of the Greek church, and brave de- 

 fenders of their rights. Suroweicki describes the Scla- 

 vonians, as a nation employed wholly in agriculture 

 and the raising of cattle, and who fight only in self- 

 defence. The Sclavonians, in general, are courageous, 

 lively, and hospitable, attached to their national man- 

 ners and national fame. Though fond of spirituous 

 liquors, they are diligent and intelligent ; but in 

 mental cultivation they have remained, with the 

 exception of the Bohemians and the Ragusans in 

 the middle ages, behind the Germans, because they 

 are scattered over a wide extent of country, and have 

 comparatively little intercourse with other nations, 

 are engaged in frequent wars, and have unfavoura- 

 ble institutions of government. The Sclavonic go- 

 vernment has been at all times a republican oligarchy. 

 The different tribes were subject to chieftains (called 

 zupany and woiwody) and independent of one ano- 

 ther. In no Sclavonic territory have feudal laws 

 bound the inferior lords of the soil ; no where has 

 the right of property given industry and prosperity 

 to the great body of cultivators who have remained 

 always vassals ; no where has the Roman code, or 

 the civilization of the West, become deeply rooted; 

 for the Germans, on whom the Sclavonians bordered, 

 were the objects of their mortal hatred, being al- 

 ways hostile neighbours, and often their oppressors. 

 There were some cities of Sclavonic origin, which 

 carried on an active trade ; as Novgorod, Kiev, 

 Pleskow, in Russia (Dantzic, in Pomerelia, was of 

 Danish origin ; and the existence of Wineta, the 

 splendid commercial city of the Wends, which was 

 situated in Pomerania, on the river Divenow, near 

 Wollin, was destroyed by the Danes, and then sunk 

 in the sea, is extremely doubtful, according to Geb- 

 hardi's History of the Wendish-Sclavonic states) ; 

 but no one of those cities had a long duration. Julin 

 (now Wollin), in the tenth, eleventh, and twelfth 

 centuries, was a rich and populous mart, till, in the 

 last part of the twelfth century, it was demolished 

 by the Danes. Ragusa, the only Sclavonic repub- 

 lic, maintained its existence more than 1 100 years 

 from 656 to 1806. It was, moreover, the first 

 nurse of Sclavonic literature. With regard to the 

 older history of this nation, we refer the curious to 

 Surowiecki's valuable work, On the History of the 

 Sclavonic Tribes (in the Polish language, Warsaw, 

 1824), where the author shows from Procopius, 

 Jornandes and Sidonius, that the Sclavonians are 

 thi 1 same with the Veneti. 



Sclavonic Languages. The Sclavonic language, 

 which, both in its roots and the words formed from 

 them, bears a strong resemblance to the Greek, 

 Latin, and Teutonic, is spoken by more than sixty 

 nations, from the countries on the east of the Adri- 

 atic sea, to the shores of the Icy ocean, and from 

 the Elbe to the Russian islands of the Pacific. In 

 all of the Sclavonic dialects appear traces of an 

 early, though imperfect, civilization, to which the 

 race had attained in its primitive seats. The Scla- 

 vonians are thus shown to have been acquainted, 

 not only with agriculture and mining, but with na- 

 vigation ; and the civilization of the whole people 

 was promoted by the intercourse which subsisted 

 between the different cities. The origin of the 

 Sclavonic language must be looked for in India : the 



Devanagari (see Indian Languages) has fifty-six 

 letters ; the old Sclavonic alphabet consists of forty- 

 six ; the Bohemian of forty-two. The religious 

 rites of the Sclavonians resembled those of the Hin- 

 doos, and their women, like those of the latter, were 

 accustomed to burn themselves on the funeral pile 

 of their husbands. The Sclavonic has even yet 

 preserved many roots of Indian origin. The Croa- 

 tian traveller Brezowski declares that he was able 

 to understand the Hindoos as far as to Cochin-China, 

 and to render himself intelligible to them. The Scla- 

 vonians are divided by their dialect into two great 

 classes. To the first belong the Russians, Illyrian s, 

 Montenegrins, Bulgarians, Servians, Bosnians, Dal- 

 matians, Croatians, and the Wends in Carniola, 

 Carinthia, Stiria, and in the county of Eisenburg. 

 To the second belong the Bohemians (Czechen, or 

 Tschechen), Moravians, the Slowacs of Hungary 

 (about 4,000,000), the Upper and Lower Lusatians, 

 the Poles, and Silesians. It is a disadvantage to 

 Sclavonic literature, that no single dialect has pre- 

 vailed as the literary language ; and that, owing to 

 the great extent of country over which the Scla- 

 vonic race has spread, and the diversity of its poli- 

 tical and religious institutions, several dialects have 

 become written languages. It is remarkable that 

 the Sclavonians have preserved their national cha- 

 racter, and have flourished to such a degree, when 

 we reflect that they have been the first to suffer 

 from the storms which have broke over Europe, 

 from invading hordes of barbarians. They were 

 exposed to the first fury, not only of the Teutonic 

 nations, but also of the Tartars, Huns, and Turks. 

 The Sclavonians of Prussia, Brandenburg, Pome- 

 rania, Saxony, Altenburg, Misnia, and Silesia," 

 yielded up their nationality only after a long strug- 

 gle, and in consequence of the severest measures. 

 Thus Frederic of Brandenburg prohibited the 

 teaching of the Sclavonic language under pain of 

 death, and introduced the German by force. The 

 Lusatians still preserve their language and manners. 

 According to Dobrowsky, the primitive Sclavonic 

 is extinct. It was divided into two chief dialects 

 the Antian, or that of the Antes, or eastern Scla- 

 vonians ; and that of the western Sclavonians, or 

 the Sclavian. To the Antian stock belong, accord- 

 ing to this author, three branches: the Russian 

 (divided into the Great Russian and the Little 

 Russian), the Servian and Croatian; and to the 

 Sclavian, the three branches of the Bohemian, the 

 Servian, and the Polish. In general, the Sclavonic 

 is less completely developed than the other Euro- 

 pean literary languages; but the Sclavonians were 

 the first of the European races to translate the 

 Bible into their mother tongue. The Russian and 

 Polish languages comprise literatures of consider- 

 able value and extent. (See Russian Language and 

 Literature, and Polish Language and Literature, 

 under the heads JRussia and Poland.') The Ser- 

 vian or Illyrian language has recently received new 

 cultivation. The Sclavonic dialects of Bosnia and 

 Bulgaria differ little from the Servian. The Car- 

 inthian, or Wendish dialect, and the Slowac in 

 Moravia, are nearly related to the Bohemian. The 

 Wendish, in Lusatia, is a mixture of Polish and 

 Bohemian; but in Lower Lusatia it is very dif- 

 ferent from those and from the Servian. The 

 Bohemian has reached a high degree of cultivation. 

 Prague is the central point of the literature. (See 

 Bohemian Language and Literature.) In Schaffa- 

 rick's History of the Sclavonic Language and Lite- 

 rature, according to its dialects (Buda, 1826), the 



