Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 25, 1914.djvu/105

 Collectanea, 93

The \Miite Ruihenians must be carefully distinguished from the Red Ruthenians (Little Russians or Ukranians as they prefer to be called) of Ukraine and Galicia etc., whom they resemble closely in language. The Ukranians have an intellectual centre at Lemberg, where lectures are given and books published in the language.*

From the earliest times the White Ruthenians and the Lithu- anians have suffered oppression upon all sides, on the north by the Livonians, on the west by the Teutonic Knights of the Cross, on the south by the Poles, and on the east by the Russians. In these early days the Lithuanians lived in clans, separated from one another by tracts of forest. Ryngold (1225) first united them, and his son Mendog allied himself to the Livonians and conc^uered White Ruthenia. The language of the conquered race, however, became the official'^ language, and spread nearly all over Lithuania." It was even spoken at the court and at many houses of the nobles. About 1325 Gedymin, who styled himself Rex mult07-um Ruthen- orum, extended his conquests far into Poland and Russia. His son, Jagello, under whom Lithuania became Christian, contrived a union with Poland by marrying Hedwig, Queen of Poland. After this the histories of the two countries became identical, and Polish influence spread rapidly. It was not till then that the White Ruthenian " language became replaced by Polish.

The great forests which still cover the land have had a profound effect on the character of the people. They are the last virgin forests of Europe, and in them still linger a few Zubr or European bison. Up to the fourteenth century they afforded the inhabitants a means of evading their enemies, and caused them to be untouched by the civilisation and Christianity which swept over the more accessible countries, so that they were one of the last peoples in Europe to be robbed of the glories of paganism. Their


 * Sevcenka, the Ukranian national poet, has been translated into Russian.

White Ruthenian, and as late as the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries White Ruthenian was taught in the schools of Lithuania proper.
 * The Statiit Litcivski (1588) declared that all Acts must be drawn up in

^ Litwa i Btaionis, by Leon Wasilewski.

' There is a difficulty in the nomenclature, for the White Ruthenian language was called Ruthenian in Poland, and Lithuanian in Moscow.