Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 22.djvu/163

 SLAVS 147 recent times they had only huts made of osiers and led a half nomadic life. Certainly municipal institutions are no feature of Slavonic life, and the paucity of large towns in Russia is striking even at the present day. According to Kreck, words are to be found very early which show the development of the nation from the family. Thus the commune (obstchina, rod} becomes the family (plemya) and the family the people (narod, yenzik). There are common terms for law (pravo pravda, "right"; zakon, "law"). Besides agricultural pursuits we have mention of the arts of braiding (j)lesti), weaving (tkati), tailoring in a series of common expressions for portions of apparel, carpentering (tesati), working in iron, etc. Of the primitive Slavonic flora we have the oak (doub), the lime tree (lipa), the acorn (yavor), the beech (bouky the willow (vr'ba), the birch (breza), the pine (bor), as also special kinds of fruit, the apple (yabl'ko), the pear (grousha), the cherry (vishnya), the nut (orekh), and the plum (slim). Other Pictet placed the original home of the German and views. Litu- Slavic races on the northern bank of the Oxus. Thence he thought they came over the extensive plains of Scythia to the Pontus Euxinus. The doctrine of the European origin of the Aryans appears to be steadily gaining ground. It is supported by Professors Rhys and Sayce of Oxford. The last-named is inclined to see the home of the Indo-European race in "the district in the neighbourhood of the Baltic." Dr Ludwig Wilser 1 makes Sweden and the north German shores the centre of the primitive Aryans, from which the Germanic tribes, Celts, Latins, Greeks, Slavs, Lithuanians, Iranians, and the invaders of India gradually detached themselves, migrating mostly southwards and eastwards. 2 Leaving now the attempts to determine the primitive home of the Slavs and the date of their immigration into Europe, and also the names which they have in common, whether used by themselves or given by foreigners, we will trace as far as possible the derivation of the chief Names appellations of the Slavonic peoples. (1) Russians. For of the an analysis of this name see RUSSIA (vol. xxi. p. 87 sq.). Slavonic / 2 Bulgarians. B the 3d century we find Slavs settled DGODI68 between the Danube and the Balkans. Immigrations were going on till the middle of the 7th century, as these hordes were driven southwards by new invaders. About 681 the Slavonic settlers fell under the yoke of the Bulgarians, a Ugro-Finnish race, if we accept the views of Schafarik, Drinoff, and others. The origin of the Bulgarians them- selves is obscure. Some have made them Tatars. Pro- fessor Ilovaiski believes them to have been Slavs. The theory which connects the name " Bulgarian," " Bolgare," with the Volga is now no longer held. Early modifica- tions of the name, such as Burgari, Wurgari, &c., show its analogy with forms like Onoguri, Uturguri, Kutriguri. The elements of the word are bul and gari. Professor Vambery attempts to derive the name from the Turkish verb bulga-mak, "to revolt"; but this seems little better than a guess. We are told that Koubrat, a Bulgarian prince, made himself independent of the Avars, and that on his death his territories were divided among his five sons. The eldest remained in the ancient settlement on the Volga, where the ruins of their former capital, Bolgari, are still to be seen. The third son, Asparoukh, crossed the Dnieper and the Dniester, and settled in a place called Onklus, probably the Old Slavonic ongl, " angulus," 1 Die Herkunft der Deutschen : Neue Forschungen ilber Urgeschichte, Abstammung, und Verwandtschaftsverhaltnisse unseres Volkes, Carls- ruhe, 1885. 2 See an interesting article in the American Nation (3d December 1885), where it is shown that the first person to advocate this theory, which seems to be gaining ground among scholars, was Dr Latham, in his edition of the Germania of Tacitus. This view was supported by Theodor Benfey in 1868. between the Transylvanian Alps and the Danube. 3 From this place they migrated to the localities which they have since occupied, where they became mixed with the original settlers, to whom they gave their name, just as the German Franks imposed theirs on the Gauls, and a branch of the Slavonians took the Finnish name of their conquerors. (3) Serbs. See SERVIA (vol. xxi. p. 688). The name "Croat" has been already explained under SERVIA (I.e.). (4) The Slovenes have preserved an old form of the family name, and therefore no explanation is necessary. (5) Poles. The first authentic date of their history is the year 963. Perhaps they are the Bulanes of Ptolemy. See POLAND, vol. xix. p. 285. (6) Bohemians or Chekhs. The word " Bohemia " " home of the Boii," a Celtic tribe has nothing to do with the Slavs who came into the country about 495, after the Marcomanni, who had dis- possessed the Boii. The derivation of the name " Chekh " or Czech has never been satisfactorily traced. Dobrovsky sought to connect it with a word ceti, signifying "to begin," and thus makes the name imply the original inhabitants. Schafarik, however, does not endorse this etymology. Perwolf 4 connects it with a root tak, " to beat," and thus makes the name mean " the warriors." Whatever the word "Chekh" may signify, it occurs, as Schafarik has shown, in other Slavonic countries. (7) Lusatian Wends or Sorbs. The word " Lusatia " (German Lausitz) is de- rived from the Slavonic lug or luza, signifying a low, marshy country. SLAVONIC LANGUAGES AND LITERATURES. The first to attempt a classification of the Slavonic Classi- languages was Dobrovsky, 5 who was followed by Schafarik fication and Schleicher. These agree in the main, except that a. ml Schafarik was so little acquainted with Bulgarian at that teristics time almost a lost language that he grouped it with of Ian- Servian. 6 The following are the characteristics of the two divisions, which we take from Schafarik's account with some trifling omissions : SOUTH-EASTERN. WESTERN. (1) raz, razoum. roz, rozitm. (2) iz, izdati. wy, ivydati. (3) korabl, zemlia. korab, zemia. (4) pravilo, molitisa. prawidlo, modliti sc. (5) mot, not. moc, noc. (6) zviezda, tzvet. hiciezda, gwiazda, kwiet. (7) ago. ego, cho. (8) omou, tqj. emu, ten. This division, however, has been repeatedly challenged. Schleicher insisted upon the two following as important principles: (1) primi- tive Slavonic dj, tj become in all west Slavonic dialects dz, ts( = c) ; among the Chekhs and Sorbs dz becomes at a later period z ; (2) d, t before I, n are preserved in the western dialects, but disappear in the south-eastern. Upon this last canon Johannes Schmidt 7 remarks as follows : " The dentals are preserved in Slovenish, certainly in the western part of its area ; thus modlim in the Freisingian documents, in the perfect participles, as predel, bodel, pletel, cretel, fern, dla, tla, and in the suffix dlo, as kresadlo, motovidlo, "Sidlo. D is also preserved in Slovenish before n, as omladnem, osladnem, zbodncm, padnem, kradnem. T, on the other hand, appears every- where to vanish before n, as obernem, 'I go round.'" He also criticizes two of the principles of difference given by Schafarik. The nom. sing. masc. of pronouns appears in western Slavonic to be increased by n, thus Chekh, Polish, Lower Sorb, ten ; Upper Sorbish, ton ; Polabish, to ; this, however, occurs in the Freisingian monu- ments, the earliest form of Slovenish, as ton. This n belongs to the stem, and is not a particle which has become fused with it ; ten, ton, original form t'n, correspond to the Old Prussian tans. The use of the preposition vi instead of iz is not a criterion ; vt is as much used in Russian as in west Slavonic, thus viborni, " the 3 See Drinoff s "Settlement of the Balkan Peninsula by the Slavs " (Zasdenie Balkanskago Poluostrora Slavyanami], Moscow, 1873. 4 Arch. f. slaw. Phil., vii. 622. 5 Institutiones Linguae Slcivicas Veteris Dialecti, Vienna, 1822. 6 Geschichte der slaimschen Spracfie und Literatur nach alien Mundarten, Pesth, 1826, p. 32. 7 Zur Geschichte des Indo-Germanischen Vocalismus, part ii. p. 178, Vienna, 1871-75.