Page:A history of Bohemian literature.pdf/391

374 grew to one of the largest books consisting entirely of sonnets which exists. The first collection was published in 1821, and consisted principally of reminiscences of Mina and of Jena, though Kollar's enthusiasm for the Slav race also already finds expression here. It was impossible that so fervent a Slav should love a German girl, but Kollar discovered that the family of Schmidt had come to Thuringia from Lusatia, which was formerly a Slav country, and where, indeed, a Slav dialect lingers to the present day. Mina thus being a Slav, it was possible to celebrate her as the "Daughter of Sláva," a goddess who personifies the Slavic race. Kollar firmly maintained that such a goddess had existed in the heathen mythology of the Slavs, but recent and more critical writers have expressed doubts on the subject. At any rate, Kollar gave the name of the Daughter of Sláva to the second and enlarged edition of his sonnets, which appeared in 1824. While the first collection had consisted mainly of love songs, the national Slav motive now becomes equally prominent. Kollar was greatly struck by the fact that large parts of Northern Germany, including the country near Jena, where Kollar had first loved and written, were formerly inhabited by Slavs. Constant warfare with the Germans, which began at the time of Charles the Great, has indeed long since destroyed all trace of these Slavs, but Kollar's imagination recalled them to life. Though very little is known of the Slav inhabitants of Northern Germany, there is no doubt that Kollar has greatly idealised them. The edition of the Daughter of Sláva published in 1824 consisted of three cantos. The poet, accompanied by Milek (the Slavic god of love), who has descended from heaven to bring him news of Mina, visits the countries that are