Page:The Position of the Slavonic Languages at the present day.djvu/23

 which has found expression in one of the most original and remarkable of contemporary literatures.

The third group of the western division of the Slavonic languages is that known as Čech-Slovak. This rather cumbrous designation is, at any rate, accurate and comprehensive. The term Bohemian is often used synonymously with Čech, but is inexact and ambiguous, as the country known to us as Bohemia, but to the Čechs only as Čechy a collective plural contains, besides the Slavs, a large German population. The term Čech-Slovak comprises two closely related Slavonic dialects, whose affinity hardly justifies their being treated as separate languages. Čech is spoken by about six and a half million people in the province of the Austrian Empire known as the kingdom of Bohemia, and in the provinces of Moravia and Austrian Silesia, Slovak by about two and a half millions in the north of Hungary. The term Slovak is the most general, accurate, and unequivocal designation for the Slavonic people who speak this dialect, but is of comparatively modern origin. The Slovaks call themselves Slovak, Slovaci; but a Slovak woman is called Slovanka; their dialect they themselves call Slovensky, and their country, Slovensko.

The Slavonic tribes, now known by the name of one of them, which gradually overshadowed and superseded the. others, viz. the Čechs, have from the earliest centuries of our era occupied the quadrilateral known in geography and history as Bohemia. Covered on all four sides by natural barriers in the shape of mountains and forests, the Čechs have, on the whole, maintained their original positions, though in the course of the turbulent Middle Ages; Germans reclaimed large portions of territory to the north and south of them. From the time of the incorporation of the kingdom of Bohemia in the Habsburg dominions, the Germanization of the country, especially of the intelligent classes, made steady progress till the nineteenth century, which in the triumphant revival of the Čech nationality has witnessed one of the most successful