Page:Catholic Encyclopedia, volume 14.djvu/72

 SLAVS

50

SLAVS

territory than at present. They extended along the Drave as far as the Tyrol, reaching the valleys of the Rivers Rienz and Eisack ; they also occupied the larger part of what is now Upper Austria, Lower Austria as far as the Danube, and from the district of the Lun- gau in Southern Salzburg through Carinthia, Carniola, Styria, the crownland of Gorz-Gradiska, and a large part of Friuli. Under German supremacy the terri- tory occupied by them has grown considerably less in the course of the centuries. They still maintain themselves only in Carniola, in the northern part of Istria, about Gorz, and in the vicinity of Triest, in the mountainous districts north of Udine in Italy, in the southern part of Carinthia and Styria, and in the Hungarian countries bordering on the farther side of the Mur River. Carinthia is becoming rapidly Germanized, and the absorption of the other races in Hungary by the Magyars constantly ad- vances. According to the census of 1900 there were then 1,192,780 Slovenes in Austria, 9-1,993 in Hun- gary, 20,987 in Croatia and Slavonia, probably 37,000 in Italy, in America 100,000, and 20,000 in other countries. There are, taking them alto- gether, probably about 1,500,000 Slovenes in the world; 99 per cent of them are Catholics.

F. Croats and Serbs. — In speech the Croats and Serbs are one people; they have the same literary language, but use different characters. The Croats write with the Latin characters and the Serbs with the Cyrillic. They have been separated into two peoples by religion, political development, and dif- ferent forms of civilization; the Croats came under the influence of Latin civilization, the Serbs under that of the Byzantines. After the migrations the warlike tribe of the Croats gained the mastery over the Slavonic tribes then living in the territory be- tween the Kulpa and the Drave, the Adriatic and the River Cetina, in Southern Dalraatia. They founded the Croat Kingdom on the remains of Latin civiliza- tion and with Roman Catholicism as their religion. Thus the Croat nation appeared. It was not until a later date that the tribes living to the south and east began to unite politically imder the old Slavonic name of Serbs, and in this region the Servian nation de- veloped. Decided movements of the population came about later, being caused especially by the Turkish wars. The Servian settlements, which origi- nally followed only a south-eastern course, now turned in an entirely opposite direction to the north- east. The original home of the Serbs was abandoned largely to the Albanians and Turks; the Serbs emi- grated to Bosnia and across Bosnia to Dalmatia and even to Italy, where Slavonic settlements still e.xist in Abruzzi. Others crossed the boundaries of the Croat Kingdom and settled in large numbers in Servia and Slavonia, also in Southern Hungary, where the Austrian Government granted them religious and national autonomy and a patriarch of their own. Some of the Serbs settled here went to Southern Russia and founded there what is called the New Servia in the Government of Kherson. Consequently, the difference between the Croats and the Serbs consists not in the language but mainly in the re- ligion, also in the civilization, history, and in the form of handwriting. But all these characteristic differences are not very marked, and thus there arc districts and sections of population which cannot bo easily assigned to one or the other nation, and which both peoples are justified in claiming.

Taking Serbs and Croats together there are: in Austria, 711,382; in Hungary and Croatia, 2,839,016; in Bosnia and Herzegovina, probably 1,700,000; in Montenegro, 350,000; in Servia, 2,298,551; Old Servia and Macedonia, 350,000; Albania and the vilayet of Scutari, about 100,000; Italy, 5000; Russia, "2000; America and elsewhere, ;U)0,000. In addition there are about 108,000 Schokzians, Bunjevzians, and

Krashovanians, Serbo-Croatian tribes in Hungary, who were not included with these in the census. Con- sequently the number of this bipartite people may be reckoned approximately as 8,700,000 persons. Ac- cording to Servian computation there are about 2,300,000 Croats in Austria-Hungary; the Croats reckon their number as over 2,700,000. The con- troversy results from the uncertainty as to the group to which the Bosnian Mohammedans and the above- mentioned Schokzians, Bunjevzians, and Ivrashova^ nians, as well as the population of Southern Dalmatia, belong. As to reUgion the Serbs are almost exclu- sively Orthodox Greek, the Croats Cathohc, the great majority of the inhabitants of Southern Dalmatia are Catholic, but many consider themselves as belonging to the Servian nation. The branches in Hungary mentioned above are Catholic; it Ls still undecided whether to include them among the Croats or Serbs.

G. Bulgarians. — The Slavonic tribes living in ancient Roman Moesia and Thrace south of the Danube and south-east of the Serbs as far as the Black Sea came under the sway of the Turanian tribe of the Bulgars, which estabhshed the old Kingdom of Bul- garia in this region as early as the second half of the seventh century. The conquerors soon began to adopt the language and customs of the subjugated people, and from this intermixture arose the Bul- garian people. The historical development was not a quiet and uniform one; there were continual mi- grations and remigrations, conquests and inter- mingling. When the Slavs first entered the Balkan peninsula they spread far beyond their present boundaries and even covered Greece and the Pelo- ponnesus, which seemed about to become Slavonic. However, thanks to their higher civilization and supe- rior tactics, the Greeks drove back the Slavs. Still, Slavonic settlements continued to exist in Greece and the Peloponnesus until the late Middle Ages. The Greeks were aided by the Turkish conquest, and the Slavs were forced to withdraw to the limit that is still maintained. The Turks then began to force back the Slavonic population in Macedonia and Bulgaria and to plant colonies of their owm people in certain districts. The chief aim of the Turkish colonization was always to obtain strategic points and to secure the passes over the Balkans. The Slavonic popula- tion also began to withdraw from the plains along the Danube where naturally great battles were often fought, and which were often traversed by the Turk- ish army. A part emigrated to Hungarj', where a con- siderable number of Bulgarian settlements st ill exist ; others journeyed to Bessarabia and South Russia. After the liberation of Bulgaria the emigrants began to return and the population moved again from the mountains into the valleys, while large numbers of Turks and Circassians went back from liberated Bulgaria to Turkey.

On the other hand the emigration from Macedonia is still large. Owing to these uncertain conditions, and especially on account of the slight investigation of the subject in Macedonia, it is difficvdt to give the size of the Bulgarian population even approximately. In approximate figures tlic Bulgarians number: in the Kingdom of Bulgaria, 2,864,735; Macedonia, 1,200,- 000; .\sia Minor, 600,000; Russia, 180,000; Rumania, 90,000; in other co\intries, 50,000, hence there are altogether perhaps over 5,000,000. In Bulgaria there are besides the Bulgarian population, 20,644 Pomaks, that is Mohammedans who speak Bulgarian, 1516 Serbs, 531,217 Turks, 9862 Gagauzi (Bulgarians who speak Turkish), 18,874 Tatars, 66,702 (^.reeks in cities along the coast, 89,563 G>^Jsies, and 71,023 Rumanians. The kingdom, therefore, is not an absolutely homogeneous naticmality. In religion the Bulgarians are Orthodox Greeks with exception of the Pomaks, already mentioned, and of the I'aulicians who are Catholics. The Bulgarians are divided into a num-