Literature of Dalmatia Proper.
The neighbourhood of the Italians exercised in very early times a happy influence on the literature of the Dalmatians. The small republic of Ragusa, during the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, was at the zenith of its splendour and welfare. Celebrated Italians were teachers in her schools; and the persecuted Greeks, Lascaris, Demetrius Chalcondylas, Emanuel Marulus, and several others, celebrated over all Europe for their learning, found an asylum within her walls. Thus the treasures of the classics and of the Italian middle ages became familiar to the noble youths of Ragusa, until, in the beginning of the sixteenth century, poetry began to appear in a national dress. The Italian influence remained strikingly visible. Blasius Darxich, Sigismund Menze, Mauro Vetranich, and Stephen Gozze (ob.[pg.129] 1576), are mentioned as the first Dalmatian poets. The latter wrote a comic epic, the Dervishiade, which met with great success. A poem of the same kind is Jegyupka, the Gipsy, by Andreas Giubronavich, printed at Venice 1559. Dominic Zlatarich (ob. 1608) translated Tasso and the Electra of Sophocles, and was himself a lyric poet.
The annals of this period, towards the end of the sixteenth century, report likewise the name of a lady, Svietana Zuzerich, as an Illyrian poetess; called also Floria Zuzzeri, as an Italian poetess; for she wrote with success in both languages. Several other ladies followed the example, as Lucrezia Bogashinovich, Katharina Pozzo di Sorgo, etc.
During the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, Ragusa enjoyed peace, and a degree of wealth and prosperity most favourable to high attainments in science and literature. The first Slavic theatre was founded here, and the dramatic art seems to have been considered so honourable, that even noblemen acted publicly; as is related of Junius Palmota, who died in 1657. The noble names of Palmota or Palmotich, Gondola or Gondolich, for they appear alternately both in the Slavic and Italian form, are very frequent in Ragusian literature. Junius Palmota wrote tragedies; selecting his subjects principally from Slavic history. But his most esteemed production is a Slavic version of a great Latin epic on Christ, by M.H. Vita, which may be considered as a kind of precursor to Klopstock's Messiah. John Gondola, a dramatic writer before him, translated Tasso's Jerusalem Delivered; and left many lyrical poems.
In the year 1667, a horrible earthquake in a few moments destroyed the prosperity of the state for whole centuries. It was as if the genius of the Ragusian literature had been crushed under the ruins. From that period we find all that relates to literature in a rapid decline. The catastrophe itself, however, furnished the poets with a new subject. In the same year, N.[pg.130] Bonus published a poem entitled, The city of Ragusa to her Rulers; and Jacob Palmota (ob. 1680) wrote an elegiac poem, The renovated Ragusa. But the most interesting production of this period is a collection of national songs, published by the Franciscan monk, And. Cacich Miossich.[134] This work, although executed with little critical taste or judgment, and disfigured by many interpolations, might have given to the literary world a foretaste of the treasures, which fifty years afterwards were to be discovered here.
Whilst Slavic poetry found so many votaries among the Dalmatians, it is a remarkable fact, that all their historians wrote in Latin or Italian. They possess indeed a very old chronicle, of the date of A.D. 1161, written in the Slavic language by an anonymous Presbyter of Dioclea, and translated by himself into Latin; but in the more flourishing period of the Dalmatian literature, the love of their own language was overcome by the stronger desire of a more universal reputation than any works written in Slavic could procure for them. The names of N. Ragnini, Francisco Gondola, Razzi, and Caboga, must here be mentioned. The dialect of the country, however, found some advocates even among the clergy. For some theological works it was preferred to the Old Slavic; or at least the Latin letters were chosen for this language instead of the Glagolitic types. An Old Slavic translation of the Gospels and Epistles by Bernardin de Spalatro was printed with Latin letters, Venice 1495. At the same place appeared, in 1613, Bandulovich's translation of the same holy books in the common language. A Jesuit, Barth. Cassio, A.D. 1640, had translated both the Old and New Testaments; but the printing of it was prevented by the bishops. Anton Cacich wrote a work on moral theology, in[pg.131] the common dialect of the country: and several ecclesiastics of high standing published works for religious instruction in the same language. The period following the catastrophe of Ragusa was fertile in theological, or rather religious, productions. The works of the archidiaconus Albertus, as also of Gucetich and others, contain treatises for spiritual edification, devotional exercises, etc. Biankovitch, bishop of Makarska, wrote a treatise of Christian doctrine, Venice 1708, in the common Dalmatian dialect. But this dialect found its most ardent champion in a priest, Stephan Rosa, who exerted himself greatly to have the old church Slavonic entirely superseded by the Dalmatian-Servian language. He made a complete translation of the whole Bible, and sent it to the pope, requesting that it might be printed and introduced under his high authority instead of the Cyrillic Bible. At the same time, he proposed that the mass should be read in the Dalmatian dialect; dwelling especially on the circumstance, that the Cyrillic language was an ingredient of the Greek church, and consequently the use of it in sacred things a species of Greek heresy. The pope appointed a committee to examine the new translation; the result of which was, as may easily be supposed, the rejection of a measure which savoured so strongly of Protestantism. From the time of this decision in A.D. 1754, nothing was done to provide the catholic inhabitants of Dalmatia, Bosnia and Slavonia with a version of the Bible, until at last a new translation, the first satisfactory one in the language, made by the Franciscan monk and professor Katanesich, was accepted and introduced in 1832 The merit of having procured it to be printed and published, belongs to the late primate of Hungary, cardinal Rudnay.[135]
The inconvenience of such an anarchical state of orthography, and likewise in part of the grammar itself, must of course have been felt very early; but it would seem that in this department[pg.132] also, the Dalmatian writers acted with more zeal and diligence, than success. The above-mentioned Barth. Cassio, and after him another Jesuit, J. Micalia, endeavoured in the first half of the seventeenth century to settle the orthography and subject it to fixed rules. Ardelio della Bella, a member of the same order, published in 1728 a dictionary and grammar, in which he abandoned the way opened by his predecessors, without however finding a better one. Jos. Voltiggi endeavoured to establish a third system of pronunciation and orthography; his dictionary and grammar appeared in the year 1803. A few years later a useful grammar was published by Appendini; also the great dictionary of J. Stulli, a work of considerable merit, and far excelling all previous works of the same kind.[136]
All the different systems and rules of orthography, exhibited and laid down in these works, had unfortunately no permanent result. The Dalmatians, the Slavonians, the Croats, and the Servians in Hungary, whenever they used Latin letters, all continued to write each in their own way. This continued until about twelve years ago; when new efforts began to be made to unite all the different branches of the Illyrico-Servians, and if possible also the Servians of the Greek Church, in the use of one general system of orthography. We have seen above the anarchy in respect to their literary language, which some years before the two Servians Davidovitch and Vuk Stephanovitch[pg.133] had found prevailing among their Cyrillic brethren; and what pains they took to introduce the pure dialect of the people (essentially the language of the Dalmatians) as the literary language of the whole race; as also the efforts made by Vuk to establish a new alphabetical system. It can hardly be doubted that these efforts; the interest they excited; and, above all, the claims preferred by some eminent scholars connected with them; roused the jealousy and just ambition of the Illyrico-Servians. They were far from being willing to give up the name of Illyrians for that of Servians; they felt themselves a part of a great whole, but they wanted to be acknowledged as the principal part. In order to become strong, they had above all to unite, A gentleman of uncommon energy and intelligence at Agram, Dr. Ludovic Gaj, the editor of a Croatian periodical, took the matter in hand. He prepared a new system of orthography for all the Illyrico-Servian dialects, founded on the Bohemian model, and greatly approved by the Bohemian scholars. He himself established a printing office in order to carry out his plan. At the same time he enlarged his paper, which now became "The Illyrian National Gazette;" and contrived to secure patrons of name and influence. Schaffarik declared himself decidedly in his favour. How far he has succeeded, and how far in general the few Illyrico-Servian literati have been able to keep up their budding literature during the recent tempests of the times, we are unable to say. We may say truly that we have wished for Dr. Gaj's system of union the very best success; and have expressed above, how desirable we deem it in every respect.[137]
Literature of the Catholic Slavonians.
The Slavonians of the Greek Church make use of the Cyrillic letters; and their productions belong therefore to that[pg.134] division of Servian literature.[138] We have seen above, that the catholic Slavonians also neither speak nor write a different dialect; but that only their mode of writing, the strange combination according to which they express the sounds of the same language, separates them from the Dalmatian Servians.[139] To enter into the details of these varieties would be of little interest for our readers.
The light of the Reformation penetrated at an early day into Slavonia, and gave birth to a kind of limited theological or ecclesiastical national literature. But the catholic clergy soon succeeded in extinguishing it; and in the same proportion, the Latin language continued to supersede the dialect of the people. In more modern days, the Latin has been preferred by nearly all catholic Slavonic writers; and their own literature is now almost exclusively limited to works for religious instruction, catechisms, prayer-books, etc.
But although their language was thus relinquished in a practical point of view, it remained nevertheless the object of investigation to some of their profoundest scholars. Thus the Latin works of Prof. Katancsich, are almost all of them devoted to Slavic philological inquiries, etc, The translation of the Bible mentioned above, was made by the same learned individual.[140][pg.135]
Schaffarik in his history of the Slavic Language and Literature enumerates, on Dobrovsky's authority, the Croatians or Croats as a distinct branch of the great Eastern Slavic stem. Later researches however have identified them, to a certain extent, with the other Southern Slavi or Illyrico-Servians, with whose language theirs is essentially the same. The recent political events, and their struggles against the Hungarians, have made the Croats in our days again the subject of some interest and curiosity, There is however such a confusion in the early history of this race; such a change of names, boundaries, and constitutions; such a contradiction between the accounts of ancient writers and the experience of modern times; that it would require a long historical exposition to give to the reader a clear view of their relation to each other and to their Slavic brethren. For such an exposition there is no room in these pages.[141]
The subject becomes far simpler if we consider the Croats only in respect to their language, as it prevails among them at the present time. Here they do not appear as a distinct race; but still are divided into two portions. One, in Military Croatia, comprising the military districts of Carlstadt and Varasdin, and also the Banal Border, speak the Dalmatian-Servian dialect with very trifling variations; the other, in Provincial Croatia, i.e. the provincial counties of Agram, Kreutz, and Varasdin, approach nearer to the Slovenzi or Vindes, whose language will be the subject[pg.136] of our next section.[142] The dialect of this latter division of the Croatians forms indeed, in a certain measure, the transition and connecting link between the Dalmatian-Servian and the Vindish languages.
We have mentioned above,[143] that the Croatians adopted a system of writing different from that of the Dalmatians. The earliest documents of their literature are of the sixteenth century, and all belong to the history of the Reformation. Here also the new doctrines found minds willing to receive them; and as several of the magnates, among whom is the illustrious name of Zriny, were also their supporters, there was no difficulty in establishing a press, in order to diffuse the new light with greater speed and certainty. In the course of the last half of the sixteenth and the beginning of the seventeenth centuries, a large number of Croatian books, catechisms, postillae, etc. were printed. One of the warmest champions of the Reformation was Michael Buchich, curate of the island Murakoz, who publicly adopted the Calvinistic confession, and endeavoured to spread abroad his own, convictions by sermons and writings. Persecuted by the bishops, condemned by synods, he and his followers found some protection in the Christian tolerance of the emperor Maximilian II. But the successors of this prince thought otherwise; and the most powerful of the Hungarian noblemen took arms for the defence of the Romish religion. At the diets held in 1607 and 1610, destruction was sworn to the new doctrines and to their adherents; and all steps were taken for the fulfilment of the oath.
In the middle of the seventeenth century, all Croatia had[pg.137] reverted to Romanism. From that time onward, for more than fifty years, there was not a thought of cultivating the language of the people; all books were again written in Latin, and are so mostly even to the present day. The first who interested himself anew for the foundation of a national literature, was Paul Ritter, of Vitezovich, ob. 1713, who procured a printing office to be established by the estates, and himself wrote several books in the Croatian language. A few writers followed his example; but the activity of the press was, and is now, almost exclusively devoted to the printing of the ordinary catholic books for spiritual edification and religious instruction. The Gospels are extant in the Croatian dialect; but not the whole Bible. Most of the Croats, however, are able to read and understand the books of their Dalmatian neighbours.[144]
The idea of a union among the Illyrico-Servians in respect to orthography and literature, was principally favoured by the Croatians, and indeed originated among them. Here Dr. Gaj and Count Janko Draskovich, who endeavoured to interest the Illyrian ladies in the subject, by a patriotic address, had their residence. The events of our own days have taught us, how in general the feeling of Slavic nationality, in opposition to the Magyar nationality, was roused among the Croatians; for although all the different Slavic tribes scattered throughout Hungary—Slovaks, Ruthenians, and Servians—participated in them, yet that feeling was strongest among the South western Slavi; who united, as is generally known, to elect Jellachich as their Bann.[pg.138]
The Slavic inhabitants of the Austrian provinces Carinthia, Carniola, and Stiria, extending from thence in scattered villages into Udine once the territory of Venice, and of the Hungarian counties Eisenburg and Szala, about a million in number, call themselves Slovenzi. By foreign writers they have generally been called Windes or Vindes; a name, however, less definite and less correct; inasmuch as the term Vindes or Vendes served in ancient times among the Germans as a general name for all Slavic nations. The Slavic settlements in Carniola took place at a very early period, certainly not later than the fifth century. In the course of the following centuries their number was increased by new emigrations from the southeast; and they extended themselves into the lower parts of Stiria and Carinthia, and the western counties of Hungary.[145]
In regard to the language of this people, it was formerly considered a matter of certainty, that it had never been a written language before the time of the Reformation. But the investigations of modern philologians have proved, on the contrary, that this portion of the Slavic race was earlier acquainted with the art of writing than were any of the other branches; probably even before the time of Cyril; and since the discovery of several very old manuscripts in the library of Munich, every doubt of this fact has been silenced. According to Kopitar,[146] the true home of the Old Slavic Church language is to be found among[pg.139] the Pannonian and Carinthian Slavi; and it was for them that the Old Slavonic Bible was translated. The liturgy of Methodius was, however, soon supplanted by the Latin worship; which at any rate must have been earlier established in this part of the country; since Christianity appears to have been introduced about the middle of the eighth century, by German priests.
Be this as it may, the definite history of the language begins only with the Reformation; and it is principally to the exertions of one distinguished individual, that it owes its introduction into the circle of literature. There is nothing more pleasing in the moral world, than to behold the whole life of a man devoted to one great cause, his thoughts all bent on one great object, his exertions all aiming at one great purpose; and so much the more, if that object has respect to the holiest interests of mankind. Such was the case with the primus Truber, who may be called the apostle of the Vindes and Croatians. The direct results of his labours long ago perished in the lapse of time; but this does not render them less deserving, although it diminishes his fame. Truber, born A.D. 1508, canon and curate at several places in Carniola and Carinthia, seems to have been early in life impressed with the truth of the new doctrines of the Reformation. His sound judgment taught him, that the surest way of enabling his flock, and the common people in general, to receive the new light in a proper spirit, would be the diffusion of useful knowledge among them. And as the German, which at the present day is almost exclusively the language of the cities of Stiria, Carniola, and Carinthia, was at that time far less generally understood, he ventured to commit to paper a dialect apparently never before written. In the second edition of his New Testament, A.D. 1582, he states expressly: "Thirty-four years ago, there was not a letter, not a register, still less a book, to be found in our language; people regarded the Vindish[pg.140] and Hungarian idioms as too coarse and barbarous to be written or read."
Truber and his assistants in this great work of reformation and instruction, among whom we mention only Ungnad von Sonnegg and Dalmatin, met every where with opposition and persecution; but their activity and zeal conquered all obstacles, and succeeded in at least partially performing that at which they aimed. Meantime, Christopher, duke of Würtemburg, a truly evangelical prince, had opened in his dominions an asylum for all those who had to suffer elsewhere on account of their faith. The translation of the Scriptures every where into the language of the common people, was regarded by this prince as a holy duty; and this led him to cause even Slavic printing-offices to be established in his dominions, Thither Truber went; and after printing several books for religious instruction, he published the Gospel of Matthew in a Vindish translation, Tübingen 1555; and two years later the whole New Testament. As Truber did not understand the Greek original, his translation was made from the Latin, German, and Italian versions. At the same time a translation for the Dalmatic-Croatians was planned; and several works for their instruction printed and distributed. Truber, thus an exile from his own country, died in 1586 as curate in the duchy of Würtemburg, engaged in a translation of Luther's House-postillæ.
Two different systems of orthography had been adopted by Truber and Dalmatin. For this reason, when in 1580 the whole Vindish Bible was to be printed at Wittemberg, it seemed necessary to fix the orthography according to acknowledged rules. This led also to grammatical investigations. In the year 1584, a Vindish grammar was printed at Wittemberg, the author of which, A. Bohorizh of Laibach, was a pupil of Melancthon, and a scholar of that true philosophical spirit, without which no one should undertake to write a grammar, even where[pg.141] he has only to follow a beaten path; much less when he has to open for himself a new one. Thus the Vindish written language, almost in its birth, acquired a correctness and consistency, to which other languages hardly attain after centuries of experiments, innovations, and literary contests. According to the judgment of those who are best acquainted with it, the Vindish language has undergone no change since the time of Bohorizh,—a fact indeed scarcely credible; and the less so, because during that whole interval it has been maintained almost exclusively as a spoken language. About thirty years after the publication of this grammar, the Roman Catholics, sheltered by the despotic measures of the archduke Ferdinand, afterwards the emperor Ferdinand II, gained a complete victory. All evangelical preachers, and all Protestants who faithfully adhered to their religion, were exiled; their goods confiscated; and, more than all, their books burned, and their printing-office in Laibach destroyed.[147] Fragments of the Gospels and of the Epistles were however printed at Grätz, in 1612, for the Slavic Catholics, in their own language.
A whole century passed, and the Vindish language seemed to be entirely lost for literature and science. Towards the close of the seventeenth century, an academy was founded by some learned men of Carniola, on the plan of the Italian Academy; and some attention was again paid to the language of their forefathers. In A.D. 1715 a new edition of Bohorizh's work, with several alterations and without mentioning the true author, was printed by a capuchin, P. Hippolitus; who left also in manuscript a Vindish dictionary, the first in that language.[pg.142]
Fifty-three years later, another grammar was published by the monk Marcus Pochlin; a work in itself, according to the best authorities, utterly devoid of merit, but which from the necessity of the case, and for the want of a better, met with success, was reprinted in 1783, and remained in common use until the appearance of Kopitar's grammar. This last work,[148] written by one of the most eminent Slavists of the age, made a decided epoch; not only in the history of the Vindish language, but also, by its learned preface and comments, in the Slavic literature at large. Several grammatical works, not without merit, and for the most part founded on Kopitar's grammar, have since been published;[149] and since scholars like these are now occupied with the cultivation of the Vindish language, there exist for it and for its kindred dialects the happiest prospects.
That this Slavic branch, a mountain people, had its treasures of popular poetry, has always been supposed; and many single pieces, not without beauty, have been communicated to the public in German translations. A collection of these flowers, which fade rapidly away in this German neighbourhood, was ten years ago made by Achazel and Korytko.[150]
The literature of a people, among whom every individual of any education may call another highly cultivated language in the fullest sense his own,—as is the case with the Bohemians and Slovenzi in respect to the German,—cannot be very extensive. There have, however, in modern times, been published several works of poetry and prose in the Vindish language; among the[pg.143] writers of which we can mention only the most distinguished. Such are, V. Vodnik, author of some collections of poems; Kavnikar, author of a biblical history of the Old and New Testament, and several works for religious edification; Farnik, Kumerdcy, Popovich, etc.
But the most important work, both in a philological and moral point of view, is the translation of the whole Bible, set on foot by G. Japel, and executed by a society of learned men. This version being intended for Catholics, was made from the Vulgate, and was published at Laibach 1800, in five volumes; the New Testament appeared also separately, in two volumes, Laib. 1804. A Slavic pulpit, which was established ten years ago at the same place, has also been of great service to the language.
The inhabitants of the provincial counties Agram, Kreutz, Varasdin, and the neighbouring districts, called Provincial Croatia, who speak a somewhat different dialect of the Vindish language, but are able to read that version of the Bible, have nevertheless several translations in their own dialect, lying in manuscript, and only waiting for some Maecenas, or for some favourable conjuncture, in order to make their appearance.
The only portion of the Vindish race among whom the Protestant religion has been kept alive, are about 15,000 Slovenzi in Hungary. Their dialect approaches in a like measure to that of the Slovaks; and hence serves as the connecting link between the languages of the Eastern and Western Slavic stems. For them the New Testament exists in a translation by Stephen Kuznico; Halle 1771; reprinted at St. Petersburg, 1818.[pg.144]
According to the opinion of the Russian, and especially of the Bohemian philologians, Bulgaria and the adjacent regions of Macedonia, are the real home of the Old Slavic language; which was here, as they suppose, the language of the people in the time of Cyril, who was born in Thessalonica.[151] No other Slavic dialect however, as Kopitar remarks, has been so much affected as the Bulgarian by the course of time and foreign influence, both in its grammatical structure and its whole character.[152] It has an article, which, as if in order to show whence it was borrowed, is put after the word it qualifies, like that of the Walachians and Albanians. Of the seven Slavic cases, only the nominative and vocative remain to it; all the rest being supplied by means of prepositions. As Bulgaria has been for centuries the great thoroughfare of other nations, the Slavic natives have become mixed with Rumenians, Turco-Tartars, and perhaps Greeks, It is in this way, that the state of their language may be accounted for.
Up to 1392, when Bulgaria was an independent kingdom,—tributary to the Greek empire, until the decline of the latter[pg.145] encouraged them to break the weak tie of vassalage.—their writings were in the Old Slavic language; and many documents in it are still extant in monastic libraries. Venelin, a young Russian scholar, who by his researches on the Bulgarian, or, as he would fain call it, the Bolgarian language, had excited great hopes in the learned Slavic world, was sent in 1835 to Bulgaria, by the Russian Archaeographical Commission, to search, after historical documents and to examine the language. The publication of a "Bolgarian Grammar," and two volumes of a "History of the Bolgarians," were the result. While engaged in preparing a third volume, he died; less regretted by the literary world, it is said, than would have been anticipated some years before; since his productions had not justified the expectations raised by his zeal. He seems to have been one of those visionary etymologists, who found their conclusions on the analogy of sound and similar accidental features; a class of scholars, which, in our age of philosophical research, has no longer much chance of success.
The history of the Bulgarians is a series of continued warfare with the Servians, Greeks, and Hungarians, on the one hand; and on the other, with the Turks, who subdued them, and put an end to the existence of a Bulgarian kingdom in A.D. 1392. The people, first converted to Christianity by Cyril and Methodius, had hitherto adhered to the Greek church; except for a short interval in the last half of the twelfth century, when the Roman chair succeeded in bringing them under its dominion. Since the establishment of the Turkish government, apostasy to Muhammedanism has been more frequent in Bulgaria, than in any other of the Christian provinces of the Porte. Still, the bulk of the population has remained faithful to the Slavic Greek worship. The scanty germs of cultivation sown among them by two or three of their princes, who caused several Byzantine works to be translated into the Bulgarian dialect, perished during the Turkish[pg.146] invasion. The few books used by the priesthood in our days, are obtained from Russia. They have no trace of a literature, and the only point of view from which their language, uncultivated as it is, can excite a general interest, is in respect to their popular songs. In these this dialect likewise is said to be exceedingly rich.
The Russian Bible Society had prepared a Bulgarian translation of the New Testament, intended more especially for the benefit of the Bulgarian inhabitants of the Russian province of Bessarabia. But the specimen printed in 1823 excited some doubt as to the competency of the translator in respect to his knowledge of the Bulgarian language; and it was deemed advisable to put a stop to its further progress. Among the Albanian portion of its inhabitants, the New Testament has been distributed by the British and Foreign Bible Society.
In the dearth of all philological helps in respect to the Bulgarian language, it is matter of grateful acknowledgment to Slavic scholars, that an American missionary, the Kev. E. Biggs, stationed at Smyrna, should recently have taken up the subject, and furnished us with a brief sketch of the principal features of the Bulgarian grammar. It seems that the Bulgarians have availed themselves of the printing establishment founded by the American missionaries at Smyrna; and some books in this language have been there printed. Mr. Kiggs says of the language, that "its literature is very slender, consisting almost entirely of a few elementary books, printed in Bucharest, Belgrad, Buda, Cracow, Constantinople, and Smyrna." A Bulgarian translation of Gallaudet's "Child's Book on the Soul," was sent by the same gentleman to New York. From the same source we learn that a Bulgarian version of the New Testament was printed at Smyrna in 1840, for the British and Foreign Bible Society; and that in 1844 the first number of a monthly magazine, entitled "Philology," was issued from the same press.
Of all the Slavic languages, the Bohemian dialect with its literature is the only one, which, in the mind of the protestant reader, can excite a more than general interest. Not so much indeed by its own nature, in which it differs little from the other Slavic languages; but from those remarkable circumstances, which, in the night of a degenerate Romanism, made the Bohemian tongue, with the exception of the voice of Wickliffe, the first organ of truth. Wickliffe's influence, however great and decided it may have been, was nevertheless limited to the theologians and literati of the age; his voice did not find that responding echo among the common people, which alone is able to give life to abstract doctrines. It was in Bohemia, that the spark first blazed up into a lively flame, which a century later[pg.148] spread an enlightening fire over all Europe. The names of Huss and Jerome of Prague can never perish; although less success has made them less current than those of Luther and Melancthon. In no language of the world has the Bible been studied with more zeal and devotion; no nation has ever been more willing to seal their claims upon the Word of God with their blood. The long contests of the Bohemians for liberty of conscience, and their final destruction, present one of the most heart-rending tragedies to be found in human history. Not less ready to maintain their convictions with the pen than with the sword, the theological literature of the fifteenth, sixteenth, and the first twenty years of the seventeenth centuries, is of an extent with which that of no other Slavic language can be compared. It is true, however, that most of these productions bear decidedly the stamp of the period in which they were written. Dictated by the polemical spirit of the age, and for the most part directed by one protestant party against another, there is very little to be found in them to gratify the Christian, or from which the theological student of the present day could derive any other than historical instruction. On the other hand, while the theological literature of all the other Slavic nations is almost exclusively limited to sermons, catechisms, prayer-books, and other devotional exercises, among the Bohemians alone do we meet with exegetical researches and interpretations, founded on a scientific examination of the original text of the Scriptures.
There are few branches of science or art in which the Bohemians have not to boast of some eminent name. But the talent for which this nation is the most distinguished is that of music A fondness for music and a natural gift to execute it is indeed common to all Slavic nations: but whilst their talent is mostly confined to a susceptible ear, and a skill in imitating,—for the Russians and Poles possess some celebrated musical performers though very few distinguished composers,—the talent of the[pg.149] Bohemian is of a far higher order. He unites the spirit of harmony which characterizes the Germans, with the sweet gift of melody belonging to the Italians, and thus seems to be the true ideal of a complete musician. A great part of the most eminent names among German composers are Bohemians by birth; and there is hardly any thing which strikes the American and English traveller in that beautiful region more, than the general prevalence of a gift so seldom met with in their own countries.
Bohemia, until the sixth century was inhabited by a Celtic race, the Boii. After them the country was called Boiohemnum, i. e, home of the Boii; in German still Böheim.[153] The Boii were driven to the south-west by the Markomanns; the Markomanns were conquered by the Lombards. After the downfall of the great kingdom of Thuringia in the middle of the sixth century, Slavic nations pushed forward into Germany, and the Czekhes settled in Bohemia, where an almost deserted country offered them little or no resistance. The Czekhes, a Slavic race, came from Belo-Chrobatia, as the region north of the Carpathian range was then called.[154] Their name has been usually explained from that of their chief, Czekh; but Dobrovsky more satisfactorily derives it from czeti, czjti, to begin, to be the first; according to him Czekhes signifies much the same as Front-SIavi.[155] The person of Czekh has rather a mythological than an historical[pg.150] foundation. The whole history of that period, indeed, is so intimately interwoven with poetical legends and mythological traditions, that it seems impossible at the present time to distinguish real facts from poetical ornaments. The hero of the ancient chronicles Samo, the just Krok, Libussa the wise and beautiful, and the husband of her choice, the peasant Perzmislas, all move in a circle of poetical fiction. There is, however, no doubt that there is an historical foundation for all these persons; for tradition only expands and embellishes; but rarely, if ever, invents.
What we have said in our introduction, in regard to the vestiges of an early cultivation of the Slavic nations in general, must be applied to the Czekhes particularly.[156] The courts of justice in which the just Krok and his daughter presided, and which the chronicles describe to us, present indeed a wonderful mixture of the sacred forms of a well organized society, and of that patriarchal relation, which induced the dissenting parties to yield with childlike submission to the arbitrary decisions of the prince's wisdom. According to the chronicle, so early as A.D. 722, Libussa kept a pisak or clerk, literally, a, writer; and her prophecies were written down in Slavic characters. The same princess is said to have founded Prague. A considerable number of Bohemian poems, some of which have been only recently discovered, are evidently derived from the pagan period. Libussa's choice of the country yeoman Perzmislas for her husband, in preference to her noble suitors, indicates the early existence of a free and independent peasantry. All these scattered features are however insufficient to give us a distinct picture of this early period; and here, as among all other Slavic nations, history commences only with the introduction of Christianity. The small states originally founded by the Czekhes, were first united into one dukedom during the last years of[pg.151] Perzmislas; while under his son Nezamysl, in the year 752, they are said to have first distributed the lands in fee, and to have given to the whole community a constitutional form.
The name of Boii, Bohemians, was transferred to the Czekhes by the neighbouring nations. They continued to call themselves Czekhes, as they do even now. The Moravians, a nearly related Slavic race, who probably came to these regions at the same time with the Czekhes, called themselves Morawczik,[157] from Morawa, morass, a name frequently repeated in Slavic countries. Until A.D. 1029, they were as a people entirely separated from the Bohemians. They had formed different petty states; their chiefs were called Kniazi, like those of their eastern brethren. The ancient Moravia, however, spread far beyond the limits of the present country of this name, and extended deep into Hungary. Hence this portion of the Slavic race was also generally comprised under the name of the Pannonic Slavi. We have shown above, in the history of the Old Slavonic language, that Moravia, then for a short period a powerful kingdom, was the principal theatre of Methodius' exertions.[158] As at this[pg.152] time Christianity had been already introduced into these regions, and the kings Rostislav and Svatopluk, as well as most of their subjects, were already baptized, it is very probable that they were induced by motives of policy to send to Constantinople for a Christian teacher. Oppressed by the Germans, the usurpations of whose emperors were in a certain measure sanctioned by the chair of Rome, they desired to secure for themselves in the Byzantine court a powerful ally. After the dissolution of the Moravian kingdom in A.D. 1029, the present Moravia fell to Bohemia; was separated from it repeatedly in the course of the following centuries; and at length, in the beginning of the seventeenth century, became together with this kingdom an ingredient part of the Austrian states.
The Moravians were among the earliest Slavic tribes converted to Christianity. As early as the seventeenth century a considerable portion of them were baptized by German priests. It was however not before the first half of the ninth century, that the first Christian missionaries entered Bohemia. In the year 845, fourteen Bohemian princes were baptized at Ratisbon. In the year 894 the duke Borzivog, the head of the nation, received baptism; but his successors went back to idolatry, and with them the greatest part of the people. Christianity was not firmly established in these regions until the second half of the tenth century. At this time the Slavic liturgy introduced by Methodius into Moravia was already, in some measure, by the indefatigable exertions of the Romish German priesthood, superseded by the Latin worship. Thus it never was fully established in Bohemia with the exception of a few churches, attached to convents founded expressly in memory of the Slavic saints, Jerome, Cyril, and Methodius. Their inmates however were expelled in favour of German-Bohemian monks, or they died; and with them disappeared every vestige of the innovations of Cyril and Methodius. Hence the Old Slavic language, and the noble translation of the[pg.153] Bible extant in it, have exercised only an inconsiderable influence on the Bohemian idiom.[159]
Bohemia, under the sovereignty of her dukes, and from A.D. 1198, under that of kings, was independent of the German empire, or at least did not belong to its circles; it recognized however a kind of sovereignty in that powerful neighbour, and the kings of Bohemia deemed it an honour to belong to the seven Electors, who chose the worldly head of Christianity. In the year 1306, the last male descendant of Perzmislas was murdered. His house had reigned in Bohemia in uninterrupted succession; although the kingdom was properly not hereditary, but elective, like Germany, Hungary, and Poland. After a short interval, the crown of Bohemia fell by succession to the house of Luxemburg, and thus became several times united with the Roman imperial crown. Under the emperor Charles IV, Bohemia rose to the summit of its lustre. It was he who founded, A.D. 1348, the university of Prague, the first Slavic institution of that description.[160] Under his successor, Wenceslaus, the war of the Hussites began. In the year 1457. the Bohemians maintained their right of election by placing George Podiebrad, a Bohemian, on the throne. The wisdom and equity of this individual justified their choice. In A.D. 1527, Ferdinand I, archduke of Austria, was elected king; and from that time the Bohemians have never again been able to detach themselves from Austria;[pg.154] with the exception of a short interval, during which the unfortunate palatine Frederic, known in the history of the thirty years' war, was placed on their throne. During the fifteenth, sixteenth, and the first half of the seventeenth, centuries. Bohemia was almost without interruption the theatre of bloody wars and contests in behalf of their religious liberties. Then came the awful stillness of death, which reigned for more than a hundred years over this exhausted and agonized country. For its revival and its present comparatively flourishing condition, it is indebted to its own rich natural resources, and to the wiser policy and milder dispositions of the more recent Austrian sovereigns.
The Bohemian language is the common property not only of the Bohemians and the Moravians, constituting together about three and a half millions in number, but also of nearly two millions of Slovaks, those venerable remains of the ancient Slavic settlements between the Carpathian mountains and the rivers Theiss and Danube. This people, so nearly related to the Czekhes, occupy the whole north-western part of Hungary; and are, besides this, scattered over that whole kingdom. They speak indeed a dialect or rather several dialects essentially different from the language spoken in Bohemia and Moravia; but the circumstance of their having, since the Reformation, chosen the Bohemian for their literary language, amalgamates their contributions to literature with those of the Bohemians, and gives them an equal right to the productions of these latter.
Of all the modern Slavic languages, the Bohemian was the first cultivated. Two bishops of Merscburg, Boso towards the middle of the tenth century, and Werner at the close of the eleventh, as also fifty years later another German priest, Bruno, were above all active in promoting the holy cause of Christianity by religious instruction. The application of Latin characters to Slavic words had long been familiar to the German priesthood; inasmuch as very early attempts had been made to[pg.155] convert the subjugated Slavic tribes, scattered through the north of Germany.
They now were applied to the Bohemian, so far as writing was requisite for religious instruction. According to the old chronicles, there were even some regular schools erected in those early times, one at Budecz, near Prague, and another somewhat later in Prague itself, where Latin was taught. Be this as it may, the Latin and German languages had an early influence on the formation of the Bohemian. Many foreign words were adopted and amalgamated with the language; still more were formed from native roots, after the model of those two idioms. In later times this capacity of the Bohemian has been greatly improved; it being one of the few languages, which, in philosophy, theology, and jurisprudence, have not borrowed their terminology from the Latins and Greeks, but formed their own technical expressions for ideas received only in part from other nations. The extraordinary refinement of the Bohemian verb we have mentioned in our remarks upon the Slavic languages in general. In respect to free and independent construction, the Bohemian approaches the Latin; by its richness in conjunctions it differs essentially from the Russian, and is able to imitate the Greek in all its lighter shades. Thus it yields neither in copiousness nor in pliability, neither in clearness nor in precision,[161] to any other Slavic language; while in respect to lexical and grammatical cultivation it is superior to all of them. The Bohemian alone, of all the Slavic languages, has hitherto succeeded in imitating perfectly the classic metres; although the same degree of capacity for them is acknowledged in the Southern-Slavic dialects.
After so much well deserved praise, we must also mention, that in respect to sound, the reproach of harshness and want of euphony has been made with more justice against none of the[pg.156] Slavic tongues. It is true that all the reasons, by which we have above seen the Slavic languages in general defended,[162] apply with equal weight to the Bohemian in particular. It appears also, that this apparent harshness is more a production of modern times, than a necessary ingredient of the original language; for the ancient Bohemian of legends and popular songs sounds by far more melodious; and the dialects spoken by the Slovaks, which are kindred to the Old Bohemian, are full of vowels, and are even distinguished from the other Slavic tongues by diphthongs. On the other hand, it cannot be denied, that the accumulation of consonants, in which the Bohemian surpasses by far, not the Polish, but the southern and eastern languages, and its peculiar preference of the vowels e and i over the fuller sounding a, o, u, do not add to the euphony of the language; although it seems singular to bring forward such a reproach against a people so distinguished for their musical talent.
The history of the Bohemian literature may be divided into five periods.
The first comprises the whole interval from our first knowledge of the Czekhes to the influence of Huss; or from A.D. 550 to A.D. 1400.
The second period comprises a full century, from Huss to the general diffusion of the art of printing.
The third period, the golden age of the Bohemian literature, comprises about the same interval, and extends to the battle at the White Mountain, A.D. 1620.
The fourth period, extends from the battle at the White Mountain to the revival of literature in 1774-1780.
The fifth period, covers the interval from 1780 to the present time.[pg.157]
From the first settlement of the Czekhes, A.D. 550, to John Huss, A.D. 1400.