Page:Anthology of Modern Slavonic Literature in Prose and Verse by Paul Selver.djvu/12

viii south of the Carpathians, and while one detachment settled on the Drave, the other, crossing the Save and Danube, penetrated to the Balkan regions and developed into the Slovene, Serbo-Croatian and Bulgarian groups; the third fraction extended in a vast circle from the lower Dnieper basin, and reached the Gulf of Finland, the upper Dnieper and the Volga to the north, the Don to the east, and the lower Danube to the south. This division formed the Russian race, which was further modified within itself under the influence of varying local conditions."

This account deals feasibly with the difficult question of origins. It has the additional advantage of forming a convenient basis upon which to catalogue the modern Slavs. By retaining the three suggested divisions, which may be designated as Western, Southern and Eastern (this being the order in which their origins are dealt with), we arrive at the following statistical arrangement:—

Western Slavs.—Poles, 20 millions.

Czechs, 7 millions.

Slovaks, 2 millions.

Wends, 150 thousand.

Southern Slavs.—Serbo-Croatians, 9 millions.

Bulgarians, 5 millions.

Slovenes, 1$1⁄2$ millions.