Page:The Spirit of Russia by T G Masaryk, volume 1.pdf/323

Rh position as a threatened nationality, from the outset dependence upon the other Slavs was an important element in the idea of the national renaissance. Dobrovský (ob. 1829), the great founder of the Slavistic movement, had doubts about the vital efficiency of his own nationality, but he was the first russophil to bring forward reasoned grounds on behalf of his ideas and sympathies. He paid a visit to Russia in the year 1792. In Bohemia he had several predecessors, most of whom wrote in German. Dobrovský himself, the most vigorous reawakener of his nation, like Dobner, Voigt, Pelzel, etc., wrote only in German and in Latin. There were likewise German Slavists (Alter of Vienna, etc.), and there were German historians (Anton, etc.) who occupied themselves with the history of the Slav nations. In Russia at this epoch historical interest was limited to the Russian past.

To Dobrovský the most notable element common to the Slavs was the linguistic, but he considered they displayed likewise a community of manners and customs, and he believed that it was possible to detect a Slav national psychology.

Upon the foundation established by Dobrovský, Kollár developed Herder's historico-philosophical and slavophil ideas into the notion of the literary mutuality of the Slavs. Kollár's studies at the university of Jena and his experiences of the German nationalist movement (at the Wartburg festival etc.) exercised no small influence on his mind. The aggressive nationalism of the Magyars also affected him very powerfully—he was born in Hungary, and in Pesth he became Protestant preacher to the Slovako-German congregation. The Slavs, he contended, must create for themselves a Slav universal culture, for it was their mission to take over the historic leadership of the world from the decayed Teutons and Latins. In point of program Kollár's Slav ideal was quite unpolitical; he wholly accepted Herder's humanitarian ideal, and he dreamed of a nonpolitical fraternity of the nations under the leadership of Slav civilisation. The study of Slav tongues was to subserve this end, and the extent to which they were to be mastered was graded in accordance with the learner's degree of culture. An ordinary well-educated man was to be able to speak the four main living languages, Russian, "Illyrian," Polish, and Czecho-Slovak; the more learned Slav should know also the dialects, Little Russian, Croatian, Wendic, and Bulgarian; finally the man of learning, the Slavist and