The northwestern part of Hungary is inhabited by the Slovaks, a Slavic nation, who appear to be the direct descendants of the original Slavic settlers in Europe. Numerous colonists of the same race are scattered all over the other parts of that country. The Byzantine historians, and, somewhat later, the Russian annalist Nestor, speak of the region on the north of the Danube as being the primitive seat of the Slavi. In early times the Sarmatae limigantes or Jazyges metanastae, nomadic tribes between the Danube and the Theiss, whose name indicates incontestably their having been Slavi,[205] are mentioned as having troubled the Byzantine empire. But they soon disappeared entirely from history,[pg.213] and it is not before the ninth century, when they were already Christians, that we meet them again. At that time Slovakia, in Slavic Slovansko, viz. the regions adjacent to the two rivers Waag and Gran, reappears as an ingredient part of the ephemeral kingdom of great Moravia. The rest of Pannonia was inhabited by other Slavic tribes, by Bulgarians, Rumelians and Khazares. In A.D. 894, the Magyars conquered Pannonia, drove back the Slovaks into the mountains, and made them tributary; whilst they themselves settled on the plains. But although the Slovaks appear to have submitted to their fate, and to have thenceforth lived on good terms with their conquerors, it cannot unconditionally be said that the two nations were merged in each other; since, even after nearly a thousand years have passed, they still speak different languages. The Magyars learned the arts of peace from the Slavi; who, besides being already Christians, had built many cities, and were mechanics, traders, agriculturists. All words and terms relating to these occupations, the Magyars had to obtain from them. The Slovaks on their side lost their national existence in that of their Asiatic conquerors, entered into their ranks as soldiers, and participated thence-forward in all their fortunes; but the influence of the Magyars on their language could be only inconsiderable, since the circle of new ideas which the Slovaks had to receive in exchange from them, barbarians as they were, could be only very limited. The language however is the only remnant of their national existence which the Slovaks have preserved; in every other respect they belong to the Hungarian nation, of which they form an ingredient part, as the Magyars form another; and on the glory of whose valiant deeds they have an equal claim.
Hungary, traversed by two large rivers, the Danube and the Theiss, is divided into four great districts, usually called this side the Danube and beyond the Danube, this side the Theiss and beyond the Theiss. The district this side the Theiss is the[pg.214] principal seat of the Slovaks. The counties Trencsin, Thurocz, Arva, Liptau, and Sohl, are entirely inhabited by them, amounting to about 550,000 in number. In the other counties of the same district they live more mingled with Russniaks and Magyars; and, together with the numerous Slovakish settlements which are scattered over all Hungary, are computed in all at about 1,800,000. About 1,300,000 of them are Roman Catholics, and the remaining 500,000 Protestants.
The Slovakish language, exposed through the geographical situation of the nation, to the influence of various other Slavic idioms—as the Polish, Bohemian, Malo-Russian, Servian, and Vindish—is more broken up into different dialects than perhaps any living tongue. In its original elements it is very nearly related to the Old Slavic language;[206] a fact which is easy to be explained, when we consider that the development of this language must have been the result of the primitive cultivation of the Slavi; and that the region about the Carpathian mountains, the seat of the ancient as well as of the present Slovaks, was the cradle of all the Slavic nations which are now spread over the whole of eastern Europe. Of all living Slavic tongues, the Bohemian is the nearest related to the Slovakish, especially as it appears in the oldest Bohemian writers; a circumstance which induced Dobrovsky at first to consider both languages as essentially the same; or rather to maintain, that the Slovakish was nothing more than Old Bohemian. But after entering more deeply into the subject, he found reason to regard the Slovakish idiom as a separate dialect, which forms the link of connection between[pg.215] the Bohemian and Croatian-Vindish dialects, or between the two principal divisions, the Eastern and Western stems, of the great Slavic family.[207]
To enumerate the features by which the Slovakish dialects are distinguished from the other Slavic languages, would oblige us to enter more into detail than would be acceptable to persons not acquainted with any of them; as we may suppose to be the case with most of our readers. Besides, most of the peculiarities which could be alleged as general characteristics, are contradicted by so many single cases, that all general rules would be in danger of being rendered void by a plurality of exceptions. The only thing which belongs to the Slovaks alone, and is not common to any of the other Slavic tongues, is a variety of diphthongs where all the rest have simple vowels; e.g. kuoñ, horse, for koñ; lieucz, light, for lucz, etc. In the counties situated on the frontiers of Galicia, the Slovakish language participates in many of the peculiarities of the Polish tongue; on the frontier of Moravia, the dialect of the people approaches nearer to the vernacular idiom of that province, and consequently to the Bohemian; which has been adopted as their own literary language. On the Slovaks who live more in the interior of the country, the influence of the Magyars, or of the Transylvanian-Germans, or of the Russniaks, or of the Servians, is more or less prominent, according to their locality. The less exposed to the influence of other races, the purer of course has the proper Slovakian idiom been preserved, But even in its purest state, it has, as we mentioned above, a strong and decided resemblance to the Bohemian tongue; from which it is however distinguished by a more harmonious and pleasing sound; its vowels being fuller and occurring more frequently. But a peculiarity which distinguishes it more materially, is a treasure of words and phrases obsolete[pg.216] or entirely unknown in the present Bohemian language; although they were to be found in the old Bohemian, and are so still, in part, in the Old Slavic, Russian, and Vindish dialects. Schaffarik mentions that G. Rybay, a minister in the county of Bacz, who possessed many valuable manuscripts, had collected 15,000 words for a Slovakish Idioticon, and that it would be easy to enlarge this number.[208]
The Slovakish language has never been a literary language; the first attempt to render it so, with a few trifling exceptions, was made about forty years ago; but the opposition which it met with from the literati who had already adopted the kindred Bohemian tongue for their literary language, together with the political obstacles which it had to encounter from the jealousy of the Magyars, seems to have been too strong to be conquered. Indeed, in consequence of this jealousy of the Magyars, the Slovakish language is so far oppressed, that even in the higher schools of the Slovaks themselves this language is not permitted to constitute a branch of instruction, like the Hungarian and Latin. Schaffarik thinks it probable, that in ancient times the vernacular tongue of the counties inhabited by Slovaks was used in public documents and similar writings; and that such historical monuments must be buried in the libraries and archives of the catholic archbishops, noblemen, and cities.[209] But this subject has never been sufficiently examined. The historical popular songs, which nearly a hundred years ago were familiar to the Slovakian peasants, and some of which appear to have been derived even from the pagan period, have perished, with the exception of a few initial verses.[210][pg.217]
There is no trace known to be left of the mental existence of this nation of nearly two millions of souls, until the middle of the fifteenth century. At that time a great body of Hussites, who were exiled from Bohemia, broke into Upper Hungary, and, under the conduct of Giskra von Brandeis, were hired by the queen Elizabeth against the rival Polish-Hungarian monarch Vladislaus, afterwards king of Bohemia. The Bohemian soldiers were accompanied by their wives and children, and settled finally in different parts of Hungary, Other Taboritic colonists followed them, and amalgamated gradually with the Slovaks, among whom they principally established themselves. It is probable, that at this time the Slovaks became familiar with the Bohemian as a literary language; which from its kindred genius and its similarity of forms was perfectly intelligible, and must have been highly acceptable to them. When the doctrines of the German Reformers penetrated into Hungary, they found the Slovaks already so well prepared, that those doctrines were at once spread among the people by numerous books written by Slovakian clergymen in the Bohemian language. The Bible and the liturgical books were written and printed in Bohemian; and many Bohemians and Moravians came into Hungary as preachers and teachers. Thus the dominion of the Bohemian language over the pulpit, and, since all the Slovakian writers of this period were clergymen, in the republic of letters also, was established among the Slovaks without struggle. There is nothing known of any[pg.218] catholic Slovakish writers at this period; if there were any, they probably followed the beaten track, and wrote also in Bohemian or in Latin. But the produce of the literary cultivation of the Slovaks during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, is at most but small: for the times appear to have been too heavy, and men's minds too much oppressed, for a free development of their powers. The civil wars, the devastations of the Turks, the religious controversies, and after the battle at the White Mountain, religious oppression and persecution, chased the peaceful muses from Pannonia, and put the genius of the people in chains. All the productions of these two centuries, with a few exceptions, are confined to theology, and are mostly sermons, catechisms, devotional exercises, or religious hymns. Schaffarik observes, that from these latter there speaks a melancholy gloomy spirit, crying for divine aid and deliverance.[211] Among the clergymen who during the first half of the eighteenth century exerted themselves for the diffusion of biblical knowledge, were Matth. Bel and D. Krman, who prepared a new edition of the Bible; G. Ambrosius and G. Babyl, authors of theological commentaries, etc. Those Slovakian writers who in any measure distinguished themselves, have been enumerated under their proper heads in our sketch of the Bohemian literature.[212]
The Bohemian dialect, as we have mentioned repeatedly, is perfectly intelligible to the Slovaks. But as it is not to them the language of common conversation, it cannot be familiar to their minds. If, in listening to their preachers in the churches, the people succeed in straining up their minds sufficiently to enable them to follow the course of the sermons and devotional exercises, it still seems rather unnatural, that even their prayer books, destined for private use, should not be written in their vernacular[pg.219] tongue; but that even their addresses to the Most High, which, more than any thing else, should be the free and natural effusions of their inmost feelings, should require such an intellectual exertion and an artificial transposition into a foreign clime. It is a singular fact, that, whilst every where else Protestantism and the friends of the Bible have advocated and attempted to raise the dialect of the people, in opposition to a privileged idiom of the priesthood, among the Slovaks the vindication of the vernacular tongue has been attempted by the Romanists, and has met with strong opposition from the Protestants. In the year 1718, Alex Macsay, a catholic clergyman, published sermons at Tyrnau, written in the common Slovakian dialect. The Jesuits of Tyrnau followed his example, in publishing books of prayers and several other religious works, in a language which is rather a mixture of the dialect of the people and the literary Bohemian language. During the last ten years of the eighteenth century, a more successful attempt was made to elevate the Slovakian dialect spoken on the frontiers of Moravia, and which approaches the Bohemian language most, to the rank of a literary language. At the head of this undertaking were the Roman catholic curates Bajza, Fandli, and Bernolak, especially the last. A society was formed, the members of which bound themselves to buy the books written in Slovakish by Bernolak and his friends. The Romanists proceeded in the work with great zeal and activity, and were patronized by the cardinal Rudnay, primate of Hungary; who himself published some of his orations held in the Slovakian dialect, and caused a voluminous Slovakish dictionary, a posthumous work of Bernolak's, to be printed.[213] A version of the Bible in the same dialect, made by the canon G. Palkowicz, who is[pg.220] also the author of the fourth volume of the above dictionary, was printed in the year 1831.
The Protestant Slovaks, who several centuries ago had already acquired by their own contributions the right of citizens in the Bohemian republic of letters,—especially during the course of the seventeenth century, when most of the native Bohemians had been banished from it,—feared to endanger the cause of literature itself by innovations of this kind. They too united themselves into a society, and founded a professorship of Bohemian-Slovakian literature at the Lyceum of Pressburg, which was occupied by another G. Palkowicz, honorably mentioned in our History of Bohemian literature.[214] The number of Protestant Slovaks being comparatively small, this institution was not sustained longer than ten years. To the names of the principal Slovakish-Bohemian writers during this and the last century, which have been given above,[215] we add here those of Bartholomæides, Tablicz, Lovich, and Moshotzy, themselves writers of merit, or promoters of literature and science.
Many among the Slovaks, like many of their brethren the Magyars, and among other Slavi the Bohemians and Illyrians, have received a German education, and have that language at command. For the sake of more fame, or a larger field of influence, these mostly prefer to write in German. Among them was[pg.221] Schaffarik; until, from a principle of patriotism, he adopted the Bohemian.[216][pg.222]
The regions of the Baltic and Lower Vistula, after the Goths and Vandals had finally left them, were occupied, towards the fourth century, by the Lettonians and Lithuanians, who are according to some historians Slavic, and according to others Finnic-Scythic tribes.[217] It appears, that the various nations which inhabited this country were by the ancients comprised under the name of Sarmatae. In the sixth, or according to others, in the seventh century, the Lekhes, a people kindred to the Czekhes, and coming like them from the Carpathian regions, whence they were urged forwards by the Bulgarians, settled on the banks of the Vistula and Varta. Lekh (Ljakh) signified in old Bohemian a free and noble man, and had[pg.223] this meaning still in the fourteenth century.[218] The Lekhes were divided into several tribes, of which, according to Nestor, at first only those who settled on the vast plains, polie, of the Ukraine, were called Polyane, Poles, i.e. inhabitants of the plain. The tribes which occupied Masovia were called Masovshane; the Lekhes who went to Pomerania, Pomoriane, etc. The specific name of Poles, as applied to all the Lekhish tribes together, does not appear until the close of the tenth century, when the generic appellation of Lekhes or Ljakhes had perished. In the year 840, the chiefs of the different tribes united themselves under one common head; at that time they are said to have chosen a husbandman by the name of Pjast for their duke, and the male descendants of this, their first prince, lived and reigned not less than six hundred and thirty years. From Germany and Bohemia Christianity was carried to Poland by Romish priests, probably as early as the ninth century. In the beginning of the tenth, some attempts were made to introduce the Slavic liturgy into Poland. Both species of worship existed for some time peacefully side by side; and even when, through the exertions of the Latin priesthood, the Slavic liturgy was gradually superseded by the occidental rites, the former was at least tolerated; and after the invention of printing, the Polish city of Cracow was the first place where books in the Old Slavic dialect, and portions of the Old Slavic Bible, were printed.[219]
In the year 965, the duke Miecislav married the Bohemian princess Dombrovka, and caused himself to be baptized. From[pg.224] that time onward, all the Polish princes and the greatest part of the nation became Christians. There is however not one among the Slavic nations, in which the influence Christianity must necessarily have exerted on its mental cultivation, is so little visible; while upon its language it exerted none at all. It has ever been and is still a favourite opinion of some Slavic philologists, that several of the Slavic nations must have possessed the art of writing long before their acquaintance with the Latin alphabet, or the invention of the Cyrillic system; and among the arguments by which they maintain this view, there are indeed some too striking to be wholly set aside. But neither from those early times, nor from the four or five centuries after the introduction of Christianity, does there remain any monument whatever of the Polish language; nay, with the exception of a few fragments without value, the most ancient document of that language extant is not older than the sixteenth century. Until that time the Latin idiom reigned exclusively in Poland. The teachers of Christianity in this country were for nearly five centuries foreigners, viz. Germans and Italians. Hence arose that unnatural neglect of the vernacular tongue, of which these were ignorant; the private influence of the German, still visible in the Polish language; and the unlimited dominion of the Latin. Slavic, Polish, and heathenish, were to them synonymous words. Thus, while the light of Christianity everywhere carried the first dawn of life into the night of Slavic antiquity, the early history of Poland affords more than any other part of the Christian world a melancholy proof, how the passions and blindness of men operated to counterbalance that holy influence. But although so unfavourably disposed towards the language, it cannot be said that the influence of the foreign clergy was in other respects injurious to the literary cultivation of the country. Benedictine monks founded in the beginning of the eleventh century the first[pg.225] Polish schools; and numerous convents of their own and other orders presented to the scholar an asylum, both when in the year 1241 the Mongols broke into the country, and also during the civil wars which were caused by the family dissensions of Pjast's successors. Several chronicles in Latin were written by Poles long before the history of the Polish literature begins; and Polish noblemen went to Paris, Bologna, and Prague, to study sciences, for the very elements of which their own language afforded them no means.
Polish writers are in the habit of dividing the history of their language into five periods.[220]
The first period extends from the introduction of Christianity to Cassimir the Great, A.D. 1333.
The second period extends from A.D. 1333 to A.D. 1506, or the reign of Sigismund I.
The third period is the golden age of the Polish literature, and closes with the foundation of the schools of the Jesuits, A.D. 1622.
The fourth period comprises the time of the preponderance of the Jesuits, and ends with the revival of literature by Konarski, A.D. 1760.
The fifth period comprehends the interval from A.D. 1760 to the revolution in 1830.
As the Polish literature of our own day bears a different stamp from that of former times, we may add a sixth period, extending from 1830 to the present time.
Before we enter upon a regular historical account of these different periods, we will devote a few words to the history and character of the language itself.
The extent of country, in which the Polish language is predominant, is much smaller than would naturally be concluded[pg.226] from the great circuit of territory, which, at the time of its power and independence, was comprised under the kingdom of Poland. We do not allude to the sixteenth century, when Poland by the success of its arms became for a short time the most powerful state in the north; when the Teutonic knights, the conquerors of Prussia, were compelled to acknowledge its protection; and when not only were Livonia and Courland, the one a component part of the Polish kingdom, and the other a Polish fief, but even the ancient Smolensk and the venerable Kief, the royal seat of Vladimir, and the Russian provinces adjacent to Galicia, all were subjugated by Poland. We speak of this kingdom as it was at the time of its first partition between Russia, Austria, and Prussia. Of the four or five millions of inhabitants in the provinces united with Russia at the three successive partitions of 1772, 1793, and 1795, only one and a half million are strictly Poles, that is, Lekhes, who speak dialects of that language;[221] in White and Black Russia, the Russniaks are by far more numerous; and in Lithuania the Lithuanians. Besides the independent language of these latter, the Malo-Russian and White Russian dialects are spoken in these provinces; and all documents of the grand-duchy of Lithuania before it was united with Poland in A.D. 1569, were written in the latter.[222]
The Polish language is farther spoken: 1) By the inhabitants[pg.227] of the kingdom of Poland formed in 1815, three and a half millions in number, or reckoned together with the Poles of the Polish-Russian provinces, five millions; 2) By the inhabitants of the cities and the nobility of Galicia, belonging to Austria, and the Poles in the Austrian part of Silesia, about three millions; 3) By the inhabitants of the small republic of Cracow, about one hundred thousand; 4) By the inhabitants of the Prussian grand-duchy of Posen, and a part of the province called Western Prussia, together with the Poles in Silesia and the Kassubes in Pomerania; In all less than two millions.[223]
Thus the Polish language is spoken by a population of about ten millions.[224] Like all living languages, it has different dialects, and is in one place spoken with greater purity than in another. As these varieties, however, are neither very striking nor have ever had an influence on literature, they do not concern us here.
The ancient Polish language seems to have been very nearly related to the dialects of the Czekhes and the Sorabian Vendes. Although very little is known in respect to the circumstances and progress of the formation of the language into its present state, it is sufficiently obvious, that it has been developed from the conflict of its natural elements with the Latin and German idioms. Of the other Slavic dialects, the Bohemian is the only one which has exerted any influence upon the Polish tongue. The Italian and Turkish words introduced during the dominion of an Italian priesthood, and through the political relations of the Poles and the Turks, never entered deeply into the body of[pg.228] the language; and might be easily exchanged for better Polish forms of expression.
Of all the Slavic dialects, the Polish presents to the foreigner the most difficulties; partly on account of the great variety and nicety of shades in the pronunciation of the vowels, and from the combination of consonants in such a way that only a Slavic tongue can conquer them, and cause the apparent harshness in some measure to disappear;[225] partly on account of its refined and artificial grammatical structure. In this latter respect it differs materially from the Russian language; which, although equally rich, is remarkable for its simplicity and perspicuity. The Polish and Bohemian idioms, in the opinion of the best judges, are above all others capable of faithfully imitating the refinements of the classical languages; and the Polish prose is modelled after the Latin with a perfection, which, in the golden age of Polish literature, was one of its characteristic features. It is therefore surprising, that the Polish language in poetry, although in other respects highly cultivated, does not admit the introduction of the classical prosody. We mean, the Polish language in its present state; for it is very probable, that in its original character it possessed, in common with all the other Slavic languages, the elements of a regular system of long and short syllables. So long, however, as there have existed Polish poets, they have not measured, but, in imitation of the French, have counted the syllables. With the exception of a few recent poets, who have written in blank verse, and a few weak attempts to adapt the Greek principles of accent to the Polish language, all Polish poetry is, like the French, in rhyme;[pg.229] and the French Alexandrine is the favourite form of the Polish poets.[226]
From the introduction of Christianity to Casimir the Great, A.D. 1333.
In dividing the early part of the history of the Polish literature into two periods, we follow the example and authority of Bentkowski; although it seems to be singular to pretend to give an account of a literature which did not yet exist. The history of the Polish literature does not indeed properly begin before the close of the second period; yet that of the literary cultivation of the nation commences with the beginning of that period; and a few slight traces of it are to be found even in the middle of the first. Of the language itself, nothing is left but the names of places and persons, and some Polish words scattered through the Latin documents of the time, written without orthographic rules, and therefore often hardly intelligible. There exists an ancient Polish war-song, the author of which is said to have been St. Adalbert, a Bohemian by birth, who was bishop of Prague at the end of the tenth century;[227] but even according to Rakowiecki, [pg.230] a philologist who is more disposed than any other to find traces of an early cultivation of the Slavic nations, and especially of the Poles, this song, or rather hymn, is, in its present form, not older than the fourteenth century. All that is extant from this period is written in Latin. Besides some unimportant documents and an anonymous biography of Adalbert, there remain several historical works of the twelfth and thirteenth centuries.
Martin Gallus, a Frenchman, who lived in Poland between 1110 and 1135, is considered as the oldest Polish historian. Other chronicles of Poland were written by the bishops of Cracow, Matthew Cholewa, and Vincent, son of Kadlubec, who died in 1223; by Bogufal, bishop of Posen, some twenty years later; and by Godzislav Baszko, about thirty years later still. Strzembski wrote towards the middle of the thirteenth century a history of the popes and Roman emperors. In 1008 duke Boleslav, the son of Miecislav, invited Benedictine monks to Poland, who founded convents at Sieciechov and Lysagora, with schools attached to them. This example was followed at a later period by other orders: and in Poland, longer than in any other country, education was entirely in the hands of the ecclesiastics. For several hundred years the natives were excluded from all clerical dignities and privileges, and the numerous monasteries were filled only with foreign monks. Even as late as the fifteenth century, foreigners had decidedly the preference. In the year 1237 Pelka, archbishop of Gnesen, directed the institution of schools by the[pg.231] priests; but added the recommendation to the bishops, that they should employ as teachers only Germans who understood Polish. In A.D. 1285 at the synod of Leczyc, they went a step further in excluding all foreigners, who were ignorant of the Polish language, from the places of ecclesiastical teachers and instructors. But more than eighty years later, it was found necessary at the synod of Kalish in 1357 to repeat the same decree; and even a century after this time, in A.D. 1460, John Ostrorog complained that all the rich convents were occupied by foreign monks.[228] These ignorant men were wont to throw into the fire the few writings in the barbarian language, which they could discover; and, as instructors of the youth, were able to fill the heads of the young nobility with the most unnatural prejudices against the vernacular tongue of their own country. Besides the clergy, many other foreigners also settled in Poland, as mechanics and traders, especially Germans. But as they all lived merely in the cities of Poland, they and their language had far less influence on the people, than was the case in Bohemia, where they mingled with all classes.
From Casimir the Great to Sigismund I. A.D. 1333 to A.D. 1506.
Casimir is one of the few princes, who acquired the name of the Great not by victories and conquests, but through the real benefits of laws, national courts of justice, and means of education, which he procured for his subjects. His father, Vladislaus Lokietek, had resumed the royal title, which hitherto had been[pg.232] alternately taken and dropped; and was the first who permanently united Great and Little Poland. Under Casimir, the present Austrian kingdom of Galicia, which, together with Lodomeria, the present Russian government Vladimir, was then called Red Russia, was added by inheritance. Lithuania became connected with Poland as a Polish fief in the year 1386. when queen Hedevig, heiress of the crown of Poland, married Jagello, duke of Lithuania; but was first completely incorporated as a component part of the kingdom of Poland only so late as the year 1569. Masovia had been thus united some forty years earlier. At the time of the marriage of Hedevig and Jagello, the latter caused himself to be baptized, and introduced Christianity into Lithuania, where he himself in many cases acted as an apostle.
As to the influence of Casimir the Great upon the literary cultivation of his subjects, it was more mediate than immediate. Whilst his cotemporary and neighbour, Charles IV of Bohemia, loved and patronized the language of that kindred nation. Casimir paid no attention whatever to the vernacular tongue of his country; nor was any thing done under his administration for the development of that rich dialect. This king indeed, as early as A.D. 1347, laid the foundation of the high school of Cracow; but the regular organization and influence of this institution dates only from half a century later.[229] But by introducing a better order of things, by providing his subjects with their earliest code of laws, by instituting the first constitutional diets, by fortifying the cities and protecting the tillers of the soil against a wild and oppressive nobility, he established a better tone of[pg.233] moral feeling throughout the nation. A seed, sown in such ground, necessarily springs up slowly, but surely.
With Casimir the race of the Pjasts expired. His nephew, Louis of Hungary, a prince of the house of Anjou, was elected king; but his reign was spent in constant war, and left no trace of care for the internal cultivation of the country. The limitation of the power of the sovereign, and the exorbitant privileges of the Polish nobility, date from the reign of this prince; he resided mostly in Hungary, and granted to the Poles all their demands, in order to prevent the alienation of their crown from his house. After his death his second daughter, Hedevig, was preferred to the emperor Sigismund, who was married to the eldest, Mary; because this prince refused to subscribe the conditions demanded by the Polish Estates. Hedevig married Jagello of Lithuania; and under their descendants the Jagellons, who reigned nearly two centuries, Poland rose to the summit of its power and glory. With Siegmund I, the grandson of Jagello, but the fifth king after him, a new period of the Polish literature begins.
The history of the Polish language, as we have already said, properly commences only with the close, or at the utmost with the middle of the present period, when in the year 1488 the first printing office was erected at Cracow. Of the more ancient times, with a few exceptions, only weak and scattered traces are left. There was said to have existed a Polish translation of the Bible, made by order of queen Hedevig before the year 1390; but no copy had ever been seen; and there was reason to doubt whether it ever existed. There was extant however, an old manuscript of a Psalter, which the antiquarian Thadd. Czacki took to be a fragment of it; and other ancient manuscripts of portions of a Psalter were found at Saros Patak in Hungary, and seemed to belong to it. But no one of these codices bore any incontestable mark of its age. The Psalter of St. Florian, a convent near Linz[pg.234] in Austria, discovered in 1826 by the librarian Chmel, proved at last to be in reality the lost treasure. This important document, the origin of which could be philologically and historically traced back to the fourteenth century, after having given occasion to a passionate conflict in the Slavic literary world, was finally published by Kopitar in a complete and erudite edition, as the most ancient monument of the Polish language.[230]
All other Polish manuscripts of those times are fragments; documents relating to suits of law, translations of statutes issued in Latin, the ten commandments in verse, a translation of one of Wickliffe's hymns, etc.
The orthography of the language, and especially the adoption of the Latin alphabet, seems to have troubled the few writers of this period exceedingly. They appear to have founded their principles alternately on the Latin, the Bohemian, and the German methods of combining letters; an inconsistency, which adds greatly to the difficulties of modern Slavic etymology.[231] In 1828 a remarkable manuscript was published under the title, Pamientniki Janozara, or Memoirs of a Janissary. It was the journal of a Polish nobleman, who had been induced by circumstances to enter the Turkish army during the siege and conquest of Constantinople, an event which took place A.D. 1453. This interesting document of a language, that is so remarkably poor in ancient monuments, was no longer intelligible to the common Polish reader. It was necessary to add a version in modern Polish in order to make it understood.
Annalists of Polish history, who wrote in Latin, were not wanting in this period. Sig. Rositzius, Dzierzva,[232] and more especially John Dlugosz, bishop of Lemberg, wrote histories and[pg.235] chronicles of Poland; and the work of the latter is still considered as highly valuable.
From Sigismund I, to the establishment of the schools of the Jesuits in Cracow. A.D.. 1505 to A.D. 1622.
In northern climates, the bright and glowing days of summer follow in almost immediate succession a long and gloomy winter, without allowing to the attentive mind of the lover of nature the enjoyment of observing, during a transient interval of spring, the gradual development of the beauty of the earth. Thus the flowers of Polish literature burst out from their buds with a rapidity unequalled in literary history, and were ripened into fruit with the same prodigious celerity.
The university of Cracow had been reinstituted under Jagello in A.D. 1400, and organized after the model of that of Prague. Although the most flourishing period of this institution was the sixteenth century, yet it presented during the fifteenth to the Polish nobility a good opportunity of studying the classics; and it is doubtless through this preparatory familiarity with the ancient writers, that the phenomenon to which we have alluded must be principally accounted for. It was moreover now the epoch, when the genius of Christian Europe made the most decided efforts to shake off the chains which had fettered the freedom of thought. The doctrines of the German Reformers, although the number of their professed disciples was in proportion smaller than in Bohemia, had nevertheless a decided influence upon the general direction of the public mind. The wild flame of false religious zeal, which in Poland also under the sons[pg.236] and immediate successors of Jagello, had kindled the faggots in which the disciples of the new doctrines were called to seal the truth of their conviction with their blood, was extinguished before the milder wisdom of Sigismund I; although the early part of his reign was not free from religious persecution. The activity of the inquisition was restrained. But the new doctrines found a more decided support in Sigismund Augustus. Poland became, under his administration, the seat of a toleration then unequalled in the world. Communities of the most different religious principles formed themselves, at first under the indulgence of the king and the government, and finally under the protection of the law. Even the boldest theological skeptics of the age, the two Socini, found in Poland an asylum.[233]
The Bohemian language, which already possessed so extensive a[pg.237] literature, acquired during this period a great influence upon the Polish. The number of clerical writers, however, which in Bohemia was so great, was comparatively only small in Poland. Indeed it is worthy of remark, that while in other countries the diffusion of information and general illumination proceeded from the clergy, not indeed as a body, but from individuals among the clergy, in Poland it was always the highest nobility who were at the head of literary enterprises or institutions for mental cultivation. There are many princely names among the writers of this period; and there are still so among those of the present day. This may however be one of the causes, why education in Poland was entirely confined to the higher classes; while, even during this brilliant period, the peasantry remained in the lowest state of degradation, and nothing was done to elevate their minds or to better their condition. For it is to the clergy, that the common people have always to look as their natural and bounden teachers; it is to the clergy, that a low state of cultivation among the poorer classes is the most dishonourable. During this period, however, the opportunity was presented to the people of becoming better acquainted with the Scriptures, through several translations of them into the Polish language, not only by the different Protestant denominations, but also by the Romanists themselves. Indeed, with the exceptions above mentioned, all the translations of the Bible extant in the Polish language are from the sixteenth or the beginning of the seventeenth century.[234][pg.238]
We meet also, among the productions of the literature of this period, a few catechisms and postillac, written expressly for the instruction of the common people by some eminent Lutheran and reformed Polish ministers. But the want of means for acquiring even the most elementary information, was so great, that only a very few among the lower classes were able to read them. The doctrines of the Reformers, which every where else were favoured principally by the middle and lower classes, in Poland found their chief support among the nobility. Comparatively few of the people adhered to them. There was a time, between 1550 and 1650, when half the senate,[235] and even more[pg.239] than half of the nobility, consisted of Lutherans and Calvinists. In the year 1570, these two denominations, together with the Bohemian Brethren, formed a union of their churches by the treaty of Sendomir for external or political purposes. In 1573, by another treaty known under the name of pax dissidentium, they were acknowledged by the state and the king, and all the rights of the Catholics were granted to the members of these three denominations, and also to the Greeks and Armenians. The want, however, of an accurate determination of their mutual relation to each other, occasioned repeatedly in the course of the following century bloody dissensions. The Protestants succeeded, nevertheless, in maintaining their rights, until the years 1717 and 1718, when their number having gradually yet considerably diminished, they were deprived of their suffrages in the diet. Their adversaries went still further; and, after struggling against oppression of all sorts, the dissidents had at length, in 1736, to be contented with being acknowledged as tolerated sects. After the accession of Stanislaus Poniatowsky to the throne in 1766, the dissidents attempted to regain their former rights. In this they were supported by several Protestant powers; but more especially by Russia, who thus improved the opportunity of increasing its influence in Polish affairs. In consequence of this powerful support, the laws directed against the dissidents were repealed; and in 1775 all their old privileges were restored to them, except the right of being eligible to the stations of ministers[pg.240] of state and senators. In more recent times the Protestants have been admitted to all the rights of the Catholics; although the Roman Catholic is still the predominant religion of the kingdom of Poland.
We have permitted ourselves this digression, and anticipation of time; although we shall have an opportunity of again returning to this subject. The influence of Protestantism on the literature of Poland cannot be denied; although its doctrines and their immediate consequence, the private examination and interpretation of the Scriptures, have occupied the minds and pens of the Poles less than those of any other nation among whom they have been received. We now return to the sixteenth century.
The Polish language acquired during this period such a degree of refinement, that even on the revival of literature and taste in modern times, it was necessary to add nothing for its improvement; although the course of time naturally had occasioned some changes. Several able men occupied themselves with its systematic culture by means of grammars and dictionaries. Zaborowski, Statorius, and Januscowski wrote grammars; Macynski compiled the first dictionary. The first part of Knapski's Thesaurus, an esteemed work even at the present day, was first published in 1621, and may therefore be considered as a production of this period. But the practical use, which so many gifted writers made of the language for a variety of subjects, contributed still more to its cultivation. The point in which it acquired less perfection, and which appeared the most difficult to subject to fixed rules, was that of orthography. That the Latin alphabet is not fully adapted to express Slavic sounds, is evident in the Polish language. Indeed the reputed harshness of this language rests partly on the manner in which they were obliged to combine several consonants, which to the eye of the occidental European can only be united by intermediate vowels. On the other hand,[pg.241] it is just this system of letters which forms a connecting link between the Polish language and those of western Europe; and although most Slavic philologists regret that the Latin alphabet ever should have been adopted for any Slavic language in preference to the Cyrillic, yet Grimm (with whom we fully agree) thinks that "the adoption of the former, with appropriate additions corresponding to the peculiar sounds of each language and dialect, would have been beneficial to all European languages."[236]
Although the art of printing was introduced into Poland as early as 1488, when the first printing office was established at Cracow, yet printed books first became generally diffused between the years 1530 and 1540. The first work printed in Poland was a calendar for the year 1490; the first book printed in the Polish language was Bonaventura's life of Jesus, translated for the queen of Hungary, and published in 1522. In the second half of the sixteenth century nearly every city, which had a considerable school, had also its printing office.[237] The schools were unfortunately confined to the cities; nothing was done for the peasantry, who have remained even to the most recent times in a state of physical and moral degradation, with which that of the common people of no other country except Russia can be compared. A peasant who could read or write, would have been considered as a prodigy. So much the more, however, was done for the national education of the nobility. In the year 1579 the university of Wilna was instituted; in 1594, another university was created at Zamosc in Little Poland, by a private nobleman, the great chancellor Zamoyski; which however survived only a few years, and perished in the beginning of the[pg.242] seventeenth century.[238] Numerous other schools of a less elevated character were founded at Thorn, Dantzic, Lissa, etc. most of them for Protestants.
So early as under Casimir, the son of Jagello, the Polish language began to be employed as the language of the court. Under his grandson Sigismund Augustus, the public laws and decrees were promulgated in the vernacular tongue of the country. But a language which thus issued from the court, was necessarily also dependent on the changes of the court. The influence of the French prince, Henry of Valois, successor of Sigismund Augustus, could not be considerable, as he occupied the throne only two months. But Stephen Bathory, prince of Transylvania, the brother-in-law of Sigismund Augustus, who was elected after Henry of Valois had deserted the country, was as a foreigner in the habit of interspersing his conversation and writings with Latin words, when the proper Polish words, of which language he had only an imperfect knowledge, did not occur to him. It is hardly credible that such a habit, or rather the imitation of it among his courtiers, could have had any influence on a language already so well established and cultivated, as the Polish idiom was at the close of the sixteenth century. The Polish literary historians, however, ascribe to Bathory's influence the fashion, which began at this time to prevail, of debasing the purity of the Polish language by an intermixture of Latin words and phrases.[239]
Although the Polish literature acquired during this period a kind of universality, and there were few departments of science, familiar to that age, which were not to some extent cultivated in it, yet it owes its principal lustre to the contributions made in it[pg.243] to history, poetry and rhetoric. The didactic style did not reach the perfection of the historical; nor did Polish literature acquire any wide domain in purely scientific productions. In accordance with the national tendency, the mass of distinguished talents was devoted to those interests, which yield an immediate profit in life, or which are themselves rather the results of empirical knowledge, than of abstract contemplation, viz. to politics, to eloquence, and to poetry, in so far as this latter is considered not as a creative power, but as the most appropriate means for expressing and describing the emotions, passions, and actions of man. There have however always been not a few gifted Poles, who have cultivated the field of science for its own sake, without reference to the practical importance of their labours; and there are more especially at the present time many distinguished names among the Polish mathematicians, natural philosophers, and chemists. In Copernicus himself, born indeed of parents of German extraction, and in a city (Thorn) mostly inhabited by German colonists, but also born a Polish subject and educated in a Polish university, Poland and Germany seem to have equal rights.[240]
The principal reason why didactic prose did not acquire the same degree of cultivation as the historical style, is, that all[pg.244] scientific works during this period, which was that of the formation of the language, were written by preference in Latin. Indeed, the authority of the classical languages did not suffer at all from the rising of the national literature. It is on the contrary a remarkable fact, that the cultivation of the vernacular tongue of the country, and the study of the Latin language in Poland, have ever proceeded with equal steps. The most eminent writers and orators of this period, who employed the Polish language, managed also the Latin with the greatest skill and dexterity. Even for common conversation, Latin and Polish were used alternately. Sigismund I, when separated from his first queen, Barbara Zapolska, maintained with her a correspondence in Latin; his second queen, Bona Sforza, used to employ that language in their most familiar intercourse.[241] Choisnin, in his Memoirs of the election of Henry of Valois, observes, that among a hundred Polish noblemen, there were hardly to be found two, who did not understand Latin, German, and Italian; and Martin Kromer goes so far as to state, that perhaps in Latium itself fewer persons had spoken Latin fluently than in Poland.[242] The reputation of the Latin poet Casimir Sarbiewski, in Latin Sarbievus, spread through all Europe. Most Polish poets were equally successful both in Polish and Latin verse. As the former language first developed itself in poetry, we therefore, in our enumeration of the principal writers of this time, begin with the poets.
Here the influence of the classics, and, above all, that of the Italian literature, is very distinctly perceived. Rey of Naglowic, ob. 1569, is called the father of Polish poetry. Most of his [pg.245] productions are of the religious kind, chiefly in verse, but also orations and postillæ. His chief work was a translation of the Psalms.[243]
His principal followers were the Kochanowskis, a name of threefold lustre. John Kochanowski, ob. 1584, by far the most distinguished of them, published likewise a translation of David's Psalms, which is still considered as a classical work; in his other poems, Pindar, Anacreon, and Horace, were alternately his models, without diminishing the original value of his pieces.[244] Adam Mickiewicz compares him, in respect to the brevity, conciseness, and terseness of his expression, with the last named Roman poet; in reference to his treatment of the classic elements, to Goethe. His brother Andrew translated Virgil's Æneid; his nephew Peter, with more talent and success, the great epics of Tasso and Ariosto.
Rybinski maintains, as a lyric poet, in the opinion of several critics, the same rank with John Kochanowski; like him he wrote Polish and Latin verses, and was created poet laureate. Simon Szymonowicz, called Simonides, ob. 1629, obtained likewise the poetical crown from the pope Clement VIII; indeed his Latin odes secured him a lasting fame throughout all Europe, and procured him the appellation of the Latin Pindar. In Polish he wrote mostly idylls, after the model of Theocritus, Bion, and Moschus; but these, as their chief merit consists in the sweetness and delicacy of the language, only natives are able fully to appreciate.[245][pg.246] The productions of his friend and contemporary Zimorowicz have the same general character, but are of less value in respect to diction. Other lyrical poets of merit may be named; e.g. the archbishop of Lemberg, Grochowski, a very productive writer; Czahrowski, Klonowicz, called also Acernus, and others.[246] As poets of a religious character we name here together, without reference to the denomination to which they belonged,—since most of the Polish poetical productions of this age were of a higher character than to suffer the intrusion of polemics,—Dambrowski, Bartoszewski, Miaskowski, whoso hymns are considered as the finest of that period, Sudrovius, Turnowski, and others. The age was also rich in satires and epigrams, Polish as well as Latin. Productions of this class by the two Zbylitowskis, Pudlowski, Kraiewski, and a great many others, are still extant.
The facility of rhyme in a language so rich in rhymes as the Polish, seduced several writers to use verse as a vehicle for the most trivial thoughts, or for subjects the very nature of which is opposed to poetry. Thus Paprocki of Glogol, who is esteemed as a diligent historian and accurate investigator of the past, wrote his numerous works on genealogy and heraldry mostly in rhyme.[247] Other historical poems were also written, which perhaps would not have been utterly deficient in merit, had they been transferred into prose.
Eloquence, so nearly related to poetry, and which, nevertheless, perhaps on that very account, should be distinguished from it by the most definite limits, is a gift, the cultivation of which[pg.247] may be expected above all in a republic. The Poles possess indeed all the necessary qualities for public orators; and eminent talents not only for poetical eloquence, but also for the pulpit, are not uncommon among them. Gornicki, ob. after 1591, Czarnkowski, Odachowski, and others, but especially the first named, were considered as the most distinguished orators of the age. The eloquence of the pulpit was exhibited in its highest eminence by Peter Skarga, court preacher of Sigismund III, whom his cotemporaries used to call the Polish Chrysostom; and by the learned Jesuit Wuiek, who also translated the Bible into Polish.[248] The sermons and orations of both of them, besides numerous other theological productions, were published at the time. Other theological writers of some distinction were, among the Catholics, Stanislaus Karnkowski, archbishop of Gnesen, Bierkowski, who was Skarga's successor, Bialobrzeski, Kuczborski, the Jesuit Rosciszewski, and others; among the Protestants, Seklucyan, the translator of the Polish Bible for Protestants;[249] Koszutski of Zarnowec, Radomski, Gilowski, and Budny, one of the leaders of the Unitarians, who also translated the Bible into Polish from the original languages.[250] We must remark, that the Polish theological literature of this period evinced much less of a polemical spirit than might have been expected, in an age when that of the neighbouring countries, Bohemia and Germany, abounded in controversial books and pamphlets, replete with unchristian bitterness and doctrinal rigidity. For productions of this character we have to look in Poland to the following period. The wise moderation of the two Sigismunds, and of Stephen Bathory, seems to have had a prodigious influence on the minds of the nation, to pacify them and keep them within appropriate limits.
History, especially national history, was justly considered as [pg.248] one of the subjects most worthy of human attention. History is the great school, in which nations appear as the pupils, experience as the teacher; and the fate of mankind depends on a wise application of the great moral lessons which they daily receive. Most of the Polish historians of this ago preferred however the Latin language; but their productions are too intimately connected with Poland to be separated from its literature, and may, therefore, be named here. The Polish chronicle written by Matthew of Miechow, body physician to Sigismund I, and published in 1521, was the first historical work printed in Poland. Martin Kromer, bishop of Ermeland or Warmia, called the Livy of Poland, Wapowski, Guagnini, an Italian, but naturalized and ennobled in Poland, and Piasecki, a Protestant, distinguished for his frankness, wrote works on Polish history; Koialowicz, on that of Lithuania. They all wrote in Latin. The first who published an historical work in Polish was Martin Bielski, ob. 1576. His chronicle of Poland, which is of value in every respect, is written in a style so beautiful, that it was called le style d'or. His son Joachim continued this work as far as to the reign of Sigismund III.[251] Another Polish chronicle, compiled with more erudition than taste, was written by Stryikowski, the author of numerous works on various subjects.
Other writers of merit, some of whom published original works on portions of history, while some translated the Latin volumes of their countrymen, or those of classic historical authors, were Wargocki, the Polish translator of Julius Cæsar, and other Roman writers; Orzechowski, also lauded as an orator; Januszowski, Blazowski, Paszkowski, Cyprian Bazylik, and others. Works on tactics were published by John Tarnowski, a general[pg.249] celebrated in his time; by Strubicz, and Cielecki. Collections of statutes and laws were made by Herbart, Sapieha, Groicki, Sarnicki, and others.
Several memoirs referring to this period, and written during it, have been first published in our days; since the value of cotemporary historical documents has begun to be sufficiently appreciated. One of these publications (Wilna, 1844) is a chronicle referring to the first half of the sixteenth century; and was written by John Tarnowski, the general mentioned above. The manuscript had been long considered as lost.
It still remains to note the progress made in the philosophical sciences. We remarked above, that scientific works in Poland were mostly written in Latin; and since the case with them is different from that of historical works,—because, as the results of scientific examination and discovery, they are independent of the country where they are written, and belong to the world,—we therefore mention here only those works which were published in the Polish language. Falimierz, in Latin Phalimirus, first ventured to use the vernacular tongue of the country for a scientific book. He published as early as 1534 a work on natural history, and especially Materia medica. The first medical work in the Polish language was written in 1541 by Peter of Kobylin; the first mathematical work by Grzebski. Their example was followed by Latosz, Rosciszewski, Andrew of Kobylin, Umiastowski, Spiczynski, Siennik, Oczko, Grutinius, Syrenski, in Latin Sirenius, and others, all physicians, astronomers, botanists, etc.[252]