Slavic peoples

“ In the course of this dispossession the most westerly Slavic group, the Polabic, between the Elbe and the Oder, were merged in the German, and, barring the remnant of Wends in Lusatia (the Sorabi or Northern Serbs) , have disappeared entirely from ethnic geography. The great Slavic nation of the present day is Russia, but the great number of Slavic peoples who are not Russian and the considerable Russian population which is not Slavic renders impossible the study of this race on strictly national lines. ”

“ The northern Slavs include the Russians, Poles, Slovaks, Czechs, and Wends; the southern is composed of the Serbs, Croatians, Slovenes, and Albanians. Both of these are broad-headed, the southern group being rather taller and considerably darker than the one which surrounds Germany. All the modern Slavic peoples of northern Europe approximate to the Alpine type; from which it follows that intermixture of them with the Teutons ought normally to produce shorter stature, darker hair and eyes, and, most persistently of all, an increased breadth of head. ”

“ East of the Scandinavian peninsula and of the German-speaking population of central Europe, spread out like a great fan, are a variety of peoples who possess many common characteristics, including a group of closely related languages, which are called Slavic. These Slavs in the year 1500 included (1) the Russians, (2) the Poles and Lithuanians, (3) the Czechs, or natives of Bohemia, within the confines of the Holy Roman Empire, and (4) various nations in southeastern Europe, such as the Serbs and Bulgars. ”

“ As the result of these differences of advance in population, the Slavic peoples have been raised from the lowest to the highest weight in numbers; the Germanic have dropped just enough in the scale to take second place; while the Latinized folk of Southwestern Europe, or Latins as we call them, have fallen far from the share they had in the peopling of the continent 100 years ago. Of each 1,000 Europeans in 1801 the Slavs numbered 268, the Latins 355, the Germanics 375. In 1850 the count was 310 for the Slav, 321 for the Latin, 369 for the Germanic. ”

“ As traders, as the business elements in the cities, however, they are found even up in Varna and Bourgas in Bulgaria.
In the interior there can be no doubt that the Slavs are in the vast majority over all the other peoples. The names of the smallest villages, as indicated on Austrian maps, the most trustworthy that have been made, are obviously Slavic. Down through Thrace, almost to Constantinople, over to a few miles outside Saloniki, sweeping over almost into the mountains of Albania, up to Montenegro, the people are Slavic. ”

“ Yet the subject in itself is not without a high interest and importance; relating, as it does, to the languages and literature of a population amounting to nearly or quite seventy millions, or more than three times as great as that of the United States. These topics embrace, of course, the history of mental cultivation among the Slavic nations from its earliest dawn; their intellectual development; the progress of man among them as a thinking, sentient, social being, acting and acted upon in his various relations to other minds. ”

“ In general, they appear as a peaceful, industrious, hospitable people, obedient to their chiefs, and religious in their habits. Wherever they established themselves, they began to cultivate the earth, and to trade in the productions of the country. There are also early traces of their fondness for music and poetry; and some circumstances, of which we shall speak in the sequel, seem to justify the supposition of a very early cultivation of the language.
All the knowledge we have respecting the ancient history of the Slavic race, as we have seen, is gathered from foreign authors ”

“ These are the dictates of nature, which only an artificial point of honour can overcome.
But, for the full enjoyment of Slavic popular poetry, we must exact still more from the reader. He must not only divest himself of his habitual ideas and views, but he must adopt foreign views and prejudices, in order to understand motives and actions; for the Oriental races are far from being more in a state of pure nature than ourselves. He will have to transport himself into a foreign clime, where the East and the West, the North and the South, blend in wonderful amalgamation. ”

“ After having ceased for centuries to be a language of common life, the Old Slavic has of course lost that kind of pliancy and facility, which only a living language, employed to express all the daily wants of men, can possibly acquire. ”

“ Much less of barbarism and wild revenge meets us in their modern productions, namely, the epic poems relating to the war of deliverance in the beginning of the present century; although their oppressors had given them ample cause for a merciless retaliation. In the shorter and more lyric songs, of which a rich treasure is the property of most Slavic nations, and in which their common descent is most strikingly manifested, there prevails a still purer morality, and the most tender feelings of the human breast are displayed. ”

“ The suppleness of Asia and the energy of Europe, the passive fatalism of the Turk and the active religion of the Christian, the revengeful spirit of the oppressed, and the child-like resignation of him who cheerfully submits,—all these seeming contradictions find an expressive organ in Slavic popular poetry. Even in respect to his moral feelings, the reader will frequently have to adopt a different standard of right and wrong. ”

“ If we attempt to characterize Slavic popular poetry as a whole, we have chiefly to consider those shorter songs, which are common to all Slavic tribes, and which alone can be compared to the ballads of other nations. For, among the Slavi, only the Servians, including the Dalmatians, Montenegrins, and Croats, who speak the same language,—and indeed among all other modern nations they alone,—possess long popular epics, of a heroic character. ”

“ The history of the language is our object, not the history of the people; we therefore give of statistic and political notices only so much, as seems to be requisite for the illustration of our subject.
The earliest data for the history of the civilization of the Slavic race, we find in their mythology; and here their oriental [pg.5] origin again appears. The antithesis of a good and evil principle is met with among most of their tribes ”

“ As for the purity and universality with which popular poetry is preserved among the Slavic nations, we strongly fear, that the chief cause of these advantages lies in the barrenness of their literature, and in the utter ignorance among the common people even of its elements. ”

“ In laying before our readers a sketch of Slavic popular poetry, we must renounce at once any attempt at chronological order. Slavic popular poetry has yet no history. Not that a considerable portion of it is not very ancient. Many mysterious sounds, even from the gray ages of paganism, reach us, like the chimes of distant bells, unconnected and half lost in the air; while, of many other songs and legends, the colouring reminds us strongly of their Asiatic home. ”

“ No other Slavic nationality is more self-conscious and patriotic, not to say chauvinistic, in its national feeling, and at the same time none begins to be so permeated with general European culture and so advanced economically. ”

“ These poor and scanty accounts of the mythology of the ancient Slavs are supplemented by old traditions which still live among the people, these legends being very rich and containing ample survivals of the past, since even after their conversion to Christianity the common folk clung to their pagan beliefs. Thus ancient national tales, preserved to this very day, contain distinct traces of the early faith, and these traditions, verified by old evidence, are of such prime importance that they will form the basis of our description of Slavic mythology. ”

“ It must further be borne in mind that the extant data treat of the period immediately preceding the introduction of Christianity, when the Slavic nations, inhabiting a wide-spread region and already possessed of some degree of civilization, had made considerable progress from their primeval culture. Hence no inferences may be drawn from the mythology of one Slavic nation as to the religion of the Slavs as a whole. ”

“ This is a scarcely desirable state of affairs in view of the fact that the Slavs as a whole are lower and more primitive in character and condition than the Germans. The cultivated portion of Slavic populations forms a very small proportion in number of the whole, and stands far in advance of the abundant multitude of peasants and artisans, a vast body of people who are ruled chiefly by fear ”

“ The near relationship of the Slavic nations among each other, is exhibited in no feature more strikingly than in their national popular poetry, especially in the little lyric songs, the immediate effusion of their feelings, wishes, and cares; whilst epic poetry, which draws her materials from the external world, must hence, in every nation, be in some measure modified by their different fortunes and situations. ”

“ It is high time to take up once more the main thread of our argument—how far did the Slavic invasion, which so profoundly influenced the agrarian institutions, affect the physical type of the people of Germany? We may subdivide the Slavic-speaking nations of eastern Europe into two groups, which, however, differ from one another and from the pure Alpine race only in degree. ”

“ The specific names, however, Antes and Slavi, which Adelung applies to the great divisions, and which were first used by Jornandes, are arbitrary, and less distinct than those adopted by Dobrovsky, Kopitar, and Schaffarik; who divide all Slavic nations, according to certain philological affinities and differences, into the North-Western and South-Eastern Stems. ”

“ Of all the surviving Slavic tribes, we have seen that the nationality of the VENDES of Lusatia is most endangered. If formerly, as a race, they suffered from persecution and oppression, they have now for several centuries shared all the advantages of an enlightened education and wise institutions with their German countrymen ”

“ In the natural course of development, the Slavic type is destined to separate from the Teutono-Romance or European type, and it will elaborate in a comprehensive synthesis the cultural elements that have undergone partial development at the hands of the other types. ”

“ Strabo describes some of the idols of the Rugians, in which we meet again the whole significant symbolization of the East. The custom prevalent among many Slavic nations, of females burning themselves with the corpses of their husbands, seems also to have been brought from India to Europe. ”

“ Nationality and honour with us, too, have disappeared; Nature alone has remained unchanged. Woods, rivers, towns, and villages would not abandon their Slav names. [155] The sound still remains, but the Slavic spirit has fled...." The introduction ends thus: "It is shameful when in misery to moan over our fate; he who by his deeds appeases the wrath of Heaven acts better. Not from a tearful eye, but from a diligent hand fresh hope will blossom. Thus even evil may yet be changed to good. A crooked path may indeed lead men astray, but not humanity at large. ”

“ The only Slavic people who present an unbroken surface for observation are the Russians, who, undivided by high mountains or other natural difficulties, have blended their differences to some extent, and have become a vast nation, with a common language, a common faith, and certain characteristics which have become the common possession of all the people. ”

“ Besides their common racial bond, each group is related by language, economic environment,{218} determined by climatic and political conditions, and above all, by religion, which is a stronger bond than even ties of racial kinship.
The entire Slavic world is living under the dominion of religion more or less clearly interpreted and understood. This manifests itself in conversation with the people. “God help you on your way!” “Go with God.” “Praised be the Lord Jesus Christ!” are common greetings as one journeys along Slavic highways and byways. ”

“ Strabo, Pomponius Mela, Pliny, Tacitus, and several other classical and a few oriental writers, allude to the Slavic nations occasionally. But the first distinct intelligence we have of them, is not older than the middle of the sixth century. ”

“ Russia is much more largely Asiatic in spirit than it is European. The typical Slav of today is, temperamentally, though not in a precise sense racially, a mixture of Tartar fierceness, old Slavonic stolidity, and Hindu Nirvana, which, being translated into Russian, is essentially Nihilism. Yet, today as for many centuries, the Slavic race is as truly homogeneous as any can be. ”

“ From that time they appear frequently in the accounts of the Byzantine historians, under the different appellations of the Slavi, Sarmatae, [9] Antae, Vandales, Veneti, and Vendes, mostly as involved in the wars of the two Roman empires, sometimes as allies, sometimes as conquerors; oftener, notwithstanding their acknowledged valour and courage, as vassals; but chiefly as emigrants and colonists, thrust out of their own countries by the pressing forward of the more warlike German or Teutonic tribes. Only the first of the above mentioned names is decidedly of Slavic origin ”

“ INTRODUCTION
SINCE those records of ancient Slavic life which have survived are very superficial, it is not surprising that only scanty and fragmentary knowledge of Slavonic religions has come down to us. ”

“ The great political questions which in the East of Europe have already disturbed the peace of nations—the idea of Panslavism, the disputed preponderance of Austria or Russia, the jealousy of the Slavic races against the Germans and among each other—have been allowed to exert a decided influence even on this purely historical question. ”

“ Slavonia, a kingdom that at one time included Croatia and that lies between the Drave and the Military Frontier.
Slavs, an important branch of the Aryan race-stock, comprising a number of European peoples chiefly in East Europe, including the Russians, Bulgarians, Servians, Bohemians, Poles, Croatians, Moravians, Silesians, Pomeranians, &c. At the dawn of history we find them already settled in Europe, chiefly in the neighbourhood of the Carpathians, whence they spread N., S., and W., assuming their present position by the 7th century. ”