Page:The Slavs among the nations by T G Masaryk.djvu/34

 of their religious reform; the Poles experienced the tyranny of Germany after having been, unfortunately with the complicity of another Slav people, divided into three sections and deprived of their independence. The Slavs of the Middle and Lower Elbe had been entirely exterminated by the Germans, and the last remnants of that race constituted only that very small Slav nation, the Serbians of Lusatia. The political events which took place in Europe during the 18th century resulted in the almost simultaneous awakening of the Slavs—an awakening evidenced by the revival of their literature and their energetic efforts for moral and political regeneration. For this reason historians regard the 18th century as the era of the Slav renaissance. Since then, as already mentioned, there has been a succession of thinkers and philosophical historians who have sought to understand the meaning of the historical evolution of their own and of the other Slav nations, and, by the same process, the evolution of Europe and of the whole of mankind. The Slav renaissance was contemporaneous with the great French Revolution.