Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 22.djvu/166

 150 SLAVS Bui- As for the sake of convenience we group Pala?o-SIavonic under gariau Old Bulgarian, we shall divide Bulgarian itself into Old and New. litera- (1) Old Bulgarian. We have space here only to mention some of tare. the more remarkable codices, (a) Codex Assemani in the Vatican, edited by Racki, perhaps belonging to the llth century, contains extracts from the Gospels for each day of the year, (b) Codex Clozianus, so called because it once belonged to Count Cloz of Trent, contains homilies by Chrysostom, Athanasius, and Epiphanius, supposed to be of the llth century, (c) Codex Marianus, found by Grigorovich in a monastery on Mount Athos, edited by Jagic, of the llth century, (d) Codex Zogrcqrfiensis, also edited by Jagic, assigned to the 12th century. These are the chief Glagolitic 1 manu- scripts. One of the oldest Cyrillic 2 manuscripts is (a) the Ostromir Codex (see RUSSIA, vol. xxi. p. 103). It is of the llth century and was written by the diak or deacon Gregory for Ostromir, the posadnik or governor of Novgorod. Other Cyrillic documents are (b) certain legends and homilies which originally belonged to the monks of the abbey of Suprasl near Bialystok in Poland. They have been edited by Miklosich. The half Cyrillic and half Glagolitic manu- script called the Texte du Sacre must not be forgotten, becaiise on it the French kings were accustomed to take the oath at their coronation at Rheinis ; part of it is of the 14th century. There are also many translations from the Byzantine writers in Old Bulgarian, as from John Malalas, George Hamartolus, and others. (2) Modern Bulgarian. The Bulgarians have some fine collections of popular songs. We can only allude here to the most celebrated, (a) The edition of the brothers Miladinoff published at Agram in 1861, a very interesting collection, with notes on Bulgarian proverbs and customs ; these unfortunate men were murdered in a Turkish prison. (b) The popular songs of the Macedonian Bulgarians collected by Verkovich ; of this only one volume appeared, now veiy scarce. Verkovich has since published a work entitled Veda Slovena, in which he professes to have discovered Old Bulgarian ballads relating to Orpheus ; but the production is regarded by most critics as an im- posture, (c) The collection published in 1875 by Auguste Dozon, con- taining many interesting ballads, (d) The Bulgarian Popular Miscel- lany (Bulgarski Narodni Slovnik) of Basil Cholakoff, published in 1873. The rise of Modern Bulgarian literature is altogether recent. The father of it was the monk Paisi, who lived towards the end of the 18th century. He wrote a book on the history of Bulgaria in Bulgarian, which may be compared to the similar one of Raich in Servian. One of his pupils was Sophronius, bishop of Vracha (Vratza), who wrote his own life and adventures (1804). A trans- lation of the New Testament was published by Sapernoff in 1821. George Venelin (1802-1834), a Little Russian from the neighbour- hood of the Carpathians, travelled in Bulgaria in search of manu- scripts and had some remarkable adventures there, which are related in the account of him by Bezsonoff ; he may be said to have revealed the existence of Bulgaria to the west. Among other writers may be mentioned Rakovski, the author of some eccentric works, but a true patriot, and Slaveikoff. Vazoff is a living poet of some reputation. The Bulgarian Literary Society has now been removed from Braila to Sofia, where it issues its journal (Periodichesko Spisanie). Servian. Servo-Croatian and Slovenish. Of these languages the southern or Herzegovinian dialect has become the literary language of Servia. It is sometimes called the " shtokavstchina " from its use of the word shto for the interrogative " what." The language of the coast or Dalmatian littoral is called " chakavstchina " from the use ofcha in the same way, and Slovenish " kajkavstchina " from the use of kaj. There is practically no difference between the Servian and Croatian dialects, but a quasi-diflerence has been created between them, much more apparent than real, by the employment of the Latin alphabet by the Croats and of the Cyrillic by the Serbs. The reasons for this divergence being theological, it is probable that it will not soon be put an end to. The Servian language is the softest of all the Slavonic tongues and elides many of the consonants. It is rich in tense forms, having preserved the Old Slavonic aorist. The accent is capricious. 3 The vocabulary has incorporated many Turkish words ; but these will probably be gradually eliminated as the nation wakes to greater self-consciousness. For an account of Servian literature, see SERVIA, vol. xxi. p. 689. Sloven- The Slovenes are sometimes called " Wends " and their language " Windish " or " Wendish," an inconvenient term, as it causes some confusion with the tongue of the Lusatian Wends, of which more will be said shortly. Slovenish begins in Styria just south of Klagenfurt (Celovec). Besides Carinthia and Carniola, it is also the vernacular of a small part of Hungary, being spoken in the corner adjoining the river Mur. It is somewhat tiresome to find the few books printed in ish. 1 The origin of the Glagolitic alphabet still remains a puzzle. It is now considered older than the Cyrillic. According to some, it is a modification of Greek cursive writing. Others connect it with Armenian and Albanian alphabets. But none of these views have found general acceptance. The alphabet, is now only used by the Dalmatian Slavs in their liturgical books. 2 An account of the Cyrillic alphabet is given in vol. i. p. 613 sq. 3 The accent in Russian and Servo-Croatian is especially difficult. Professor Grote of St Petersburg has already written with great learning on the subject, and Professor Leskien of Leipsic is now publishing a work, Untersuchungen iiber Quantitdt wid Betonung in den slnwischen Sprachen, of which the first part on quantity in Servian has already appeared. this part of the country using Magyar orthography. These Slovenish provinces formed a margravate and have long been attached to the domains of the house of Hapsburg. In 1883 they celebrated the six hundredth anniversary of this union and a handsome volume was published in commemoration of the event. For a time they were seized by Ottocar of Bohemia, but regained by Rudolph f., who divided them among his sons. The theory that Old Slovenish ex- hibits the oldest known form of Slavonic has already been discussed. The language has preserved a dual both in the noun and the verb and its vocabulary teems with interesting Slavonic forms. The attempt of Ljudevit Gaj to fuse Slovenish and Servo-Croatian and make one great South Slavonic literary language is alluded to in SERVIA (vol. xxi. p. 691). Slovenish exhibits an older form of Slavonic than Servian, just as Slovak is earlier than Bohemian. A good grammar was published by Kopitar at Laibach in 1808. To this is prefixed a valuable essay on the Slavonic languages, which was the first treatment of Slavonic philology in a scientific Avay ; nothing so valuable appeared till the epoch-making Institutioncs of Dobrovsky (1822). Grammars were afterwards published by Metelko and Murko, but these have been far surpassed by that of Suman, a pupil of Miklosich. 4 The orthography of the language has been much improved and it is to be hoped that some of the Germanisms which now disfigure it will be expelled. The Slovenes must banish from their vocabulary such words as farba (farbe), farar (pfarrer), and britoff (friedhof). The earliest specimens of the literature are the manuscripts from Sloven Freising in Bavaria now preserved in the library of Munich. They ish have been assigned to the 9th or 10th century and are written in litera- Latin letters. From that time we find no more trace of the ture. language till the Reformation, when Truber (in 1557) translated the New Testament into Slovenish. He was obliged, however, to quit his country. In 1584 the whole Bible appeared at Tubingen under the superintendence of Juri Dalmatin ; in 1584 the first Slavonic grammar was published by Bohoric, a schoolmaster of Laibach and pupil of Melanchthon ; and in 1592 appeared the first Slovenish dictionary by Megiser. 5 After the Protestant movement had been stopped by Ferdinand II., the country fell into a torpor, as did Bohemia. In this condition it remained during almost the whole of the 18th century, the only productions of that barren period being a few plays and religious works without merit, and the grammars of Pochlin and Gutsmann. Valentine Vodnik (1758-1819) was a poet of some eminence. He flourished during the existence of the short-lived Illyrian kingdom which had been evoked by Napoleon and was destined to fall to pieces rapidly. About this time he composed his Iliria Ozivljena (The Revival of Illyria); but, sympathizing too much with the French, he incurred the wrath of the Austrians when they came back into possession, and was deprived of his posts, dying soon afterwards in poverty. Other writers are Jarnik and Ravnikar. The most celebrated poet was Francis PreSern (1800-1849), whose lyrics enjoy great popu- larity among his countrymen. The Matica Slovenska (Slovenish Literary Society) issues a journal and publishes useful works. In a recent number there is an interesting article by M. Erjavec, entitled "Fragments from a Traveller's Wallet," where we have lists of words gathered by the author from rural districts inhabited by Slovenes. The Resanian dialect of Slovenish may be said to have been discovered by Professor Baudouin de Courtenay; certainly no one before his time had made any study of it. The Rezani, amounting to about 27,000, live on the north-eastern corner of the Italian frontier, in two valleys of the Julian Alps, and are Italian subjects. There is also a work on this dialect by Carlo Podrecca, called Slavia Italiana. The Ugro-Slovenish dialect, although it has not been used much as a literary language, is interesting, because it shows some connexion with Slovakish, and is thus a link between the south-eastern and western branches of the Slavonic languages. Western Branch. Polish. The dialect of Great Poland has become the literary Polish, language. It is a vigorous tongue, but has incorporated too many German and Latin words. The "macaronic" style of Polish writing which did so much to disfigure the language is discussed in POLAND (vol. xix. p. 301). Polish has preserved the nasals a and f. Its accent is almost invariably on the penultimate. There are excel- lent grammars by Maiecki and Malinowski, and the monuments of Old Polish have been well edited by Nehring and Baudouin de Courtenay. The splendid lexicon of Linde in six large volumes is a monumental work. The Silesian dialect is threatened with rapid extermination by the encroachment of the Germans. It has been treated of by Malinowski. 6 Here also may be mentioned a book by Krynski on the dialect of Zakopan at the foot of the Tatra mountains to the south of Cracow. Under POLAND (vol. xix. p. 299 sq.) will be found an account of Polish literature. 4 Sloven ska Slovnica, by Spisal J. Suman, Laibach, 1882. 5 Others have since appeared by Murko and Jane2i<5. The Slovenish Literary Society is now publishing a dictionary, of which the German-Slovenish part has appeared in two stout volumes, a very valuable work. 6 lieitrage ztir slavischen Dialectologie ; iiber die Oppelnsche Mundart in Oberschlesien, Leipsic, 1873.