Slavonia

“ It is clear that all this applies to the Slavonians of Croatia, Bosnia, Servia, and Slavonia—i. e. the triangle at the junction of the Save and Danube. It has no application to Istria, Carniola, Carinthia, and Styria. Have any writers so applied it? Some have, some have not. More than this, many who have never applied it argue just as if they had. Zeuss, especially stating that the Slavonic population of the parts in question was earlier than that of Croatia, still, makes it recent. Why? ”

“ The Croats occupied most of the region now known as Croatia-Slavonia, Dalmatia, and north-western Bosnia, displacing or absorbing the earlier inhabitants everywhere except along the Dalmatian littoral, where the Italian city-states usually maintained their independence, and in certain districts of Slavonia, where, out of a mixed population of Slavonic immigrants, Avars and Pannonians, the Slavs, and especially the Serbo-Croats, gradually became predominant. ”

“ The northern Slavonians are found chiefly in Bohemia, Moravia, Galicia, and the north of Hungary; the southern in Carniola, Dalmatia, Croatia, Slavonia, and the Military Frontier. The Magyars or Hungarians occupy chiefly Hungary and Transylvania, and number 5,590,000, or 16 per cent, of the whole population. ”

“ Few men are stronger, physically or morally, than the Slavonians of the Ottoman Empire.
The deplorable Turkish administration has been unable to change the precious qualifications of this people. Though continually beaten down with the sword, they always rise again; the least hope of independence nerves their hearts. The hospitality of the Southern Slavonians, their language brimming with poetry, and their national songs, all impart to them a fine and beautiful character. ”

“ Croa`tia and Slavonia (2,201) , a Hungarian crownland, lying between the Drave and Save, tributaries of the Danube, and stretching westward to the Adriatic. It is half as large as Ireland, wooded and mountainous, with marshy districts along the river courses. The soil is fertile, growing cereals, fibres, tobacco, and grapes; silkworms and bees are a source of wealth; horses, cattle, and swine are raised in large numbers. The province is poor in minerals, and lacks a harbour. The people are Slavs, of Roman Catholic faith; backward in education, but showing signs of progress. ”

“ The embers are carried home to be used as remedies in sickness.714 As practised in Slavonia, the custom of the need-fire used to present some interesting features, which are best described in the words of an eye-witness:—“In the year 1833 I came for the first time as a young merchant to Slavonia; it was to Gaj that I went, in the Požega district. The time was autumn, and it chanced that a cattle-plague was raging in the neighbourhood, which inflicted much loss on the people. The peasants believed that the plague was a woman, an evil spirit (Kuga) , who was destroying the cattle ”

“ The river Save, which forms the Southern boundary of the country, and facilitates commercial communication, protects the Slavonian from the incursions of his predatory neighbours better than fortifications and sentinels. What nature affords and industry acquires, he therefore enjoys in peace and security. He is in consequence much more civilized and assiduous than his neighbours on the Western frontiers; his dress is neater, his food and implements are superior, his cattle are better treated and better fed ”

“ An excellent illustration of this statement is offered by the contrast between the Slavonic group of supernatural beings of this class and their equivalents in lands tenanted by non-Slavonic members of the Indo-European family. A family likeness will, of course, be traced between all these conceptions of popular fancy, but the gloomy figures with which the folk-tales of the Slavonians render us familiar may be distinguished at a glance among their kindred monsters of Latin, Hellenic, Teutonic, or Celtic extraction. ”

“ Nestor derives the Slavonians from Japhet—describes their life, first on the banks of the Danube, then their colonization to the northeast as far as the River Ílmen (the ancient Nóvgorod) , the Oká, in central Russia, and the tributaries of the Dniépr, delineating the manners and customs of the different Slavonic tribes, and bringing the narrative down to the year 1110, in the form of brief, complete stories. The style of the Chronicle is simple and direct. ”

“ The Slavonians were in the rear of the Teutonic tribes, pressing them on even as the Celts in front were struggling to resist their advance. These peoples, progressing but little beyond the pastoral state before the Modern Age, will play only an obscure part in the events of the mediæval era, but in the course of the modern period will assume a most commanding position among the European nations. ”

“ The Slavonians do not remember the date of their arrival in Europe. Tradition says that they first dwelt, after this arrival, along the Danube, whence a hostile force compelled them to emigrate to the northeast. At last Nóvgorod and Kíeff were built; and the Russians, the descendants of these eastern Slavonians, naturally inherited the religion which must at one time, like the language, have been common to all the Slavonic races. This religion, like that of all Aryan races, was founded on reverence paid to the forces of nature and to the spirits of the dead. ”

“ The Slavonians disdained to obey a despot, a prince, or even a magistrate; but their experience was too narrow, their passions too headstrong, to compose a system of equal law or general defence. Some voluntary respect was yielded to age and valour; but each tribe or village existed as a separate republic, and all must be persuaded where none could be compelled. They fought on foot, almost naked, and, except an unwieldy shield, without any defensive armour ”

“ The most numerous of all the races spread over the territories subject to Austria is the Slavonian, now but little known by this generic name, on account of the immense extent of country which it inhabits. Interesting for more than one reason, the Slavonians are worthy alike of the meditation of the philosopher and the researches of the historian, as well on account of the vast space they occupy, as the uniformity of manners which they have preserved in all ages, notwithstanding the vicissitudes experienced by the governments to which they were subject. ”

“ The stories of most European races have been laid under contribution, but those of the Slavonians have, as yet, been only partially examined. Circumstances have enabled me to make a considerable addition to what is as yet known of Slavonic Folklore, although I cannot make any pretence to having exhausted the mine, or, rather, the many mines, which the various Slavonic races and tribes possess, and which still, more or less, await the advent of competent explorers. ”

“ Gratitude, breakfast, cordiality, friendship, overflowing of Slavonic feelings, and a chat which after a time passed into a political discussion. 'There is not,' says the dignitary, 'harmony amidst brothers. And what a pity! Religion and tongue divide their languages. But what is religion, if not only an outward form? God is one. It is the same to Him whether He is glorified in the Latin or the Slavonic language. Why, for Slavonians it is more seemly if in the Slavonic. ”

“ No one peasant has proceeded in the arts of life and civilization a step farther than his neighbour. When you have seen one you have seen all. From the same little hat, covered with oil, falls the same matted long black hair, negligently plaited or tied in knots; and over the same dirty jacket and trowsers is wrapped on each a cloak of coarse woollen cloth or sheep-skin still retaining its wool. Whether it be winter or summer, week-day or sabbath, the Slavonian of this district never lays aside his cloak or is seen but in heavy boots. ”

“ Ages cannot back restore."
If there had been a Bohemian people, preserving a real vital tendency, the Battle of the White Mountain would have resulted differently, even had it been a defeat.
Other patriots, cultivated enough to be Panslavists, indulge a more cheerful vein. They see a good time coming, and raise the cry of Hej Slované!
"Hey, Slavonians! our Slavonic language still is living,
Long as our true loyal heart is for our nation striving;
Lives, lives the Slavonic spirit, and 't will live forever:
Hell and thunder! vain against us all your rage shall shiver." ”

“ The Bohemians and Croatians called, then, a general Slavonic Congress at Prague, for the preparation of the universal Slavonian Alliance. This Congress would have proved a decided failure even without the interference of the Austrian military. The several Slavonic languages differ quite as much as the English, the German, and the Swedish, and when the proceedings opened, there was no common Slavonic tongue by which the speakers could make themselves understood. ”

“ Without being in the least infected by Mussulmanic taciturnity, the Slavonians have learned from it a defiant reserve on all subjects which touch the intimate chords of the heart. One may be almost certain that, in speaking of themselves, they maintain with regard to their interlocutor some reticence which assures them over him an advantage of intelligence or of feeling, leaving him in ignorance of some circumstance or some secret motive by which they would be the most admired or the least esteemed ”

“ The various idioms of the Slavonian language may, without exception, be traced up to one single stem, the old or church p. xviiSlavonic. From this one source, two great streams flow forth; the northern, comprehending the Bohemian, Polish, and Russian; and the southern, composed of the Hungarian, Bulgarian, and Servian tongues. The latter branches were much less extensively employed than the former. About a million and a half of men speak the Hungarian; not more than half a million the Bulgarian, which in Macedonia has been superseded by the Romaic, the Albanian, and the Turkish ”

“ The Slavonians, and more especially those belonging to the southern regions, such as the Dalmatians and Montenegrins, are, as a general rule, very passionate; ardent in their affections, they are likewise given to anger, resentment, and hatred, the generic sister passion of love. ”

“ The analogy between the Slavic and the Sanskrit languages indicates the Oriental origin of the Slavonians, which appears also from their mythology. The antithesis of a good and evil principle is met with among most of the Slavic tribes; and even at the present time, in some of their dialects, everything good and beautiful is to them synonymous with the purity of the white color; they call the good spirit the White God, and the evil spirit the Black God. ”

“ Upon the early exclusion of the Slavonians a great deal depends; a great deal affecting not only the ethnology of Russia itself, but that of the whole area, real or imaginary, of the Slavonic stock; that of the parts west of the Elbe, that of Bohemia and Dalmatia, that of Wallachia and Hungary, that of Northern Greece, that of North-eastern Italy, that of even the Tyrol, Bavaria, and Switzerland. And the original extent of the Lithuanic area is more important still. Armenian, Persian, and Indian archæology are involved in it. ”

“ It is generally held now that the Slavs gave themselves the name as being 'the intelligible,' or 'the intelligibly speaking' people; as in the case of many other races, they regarded their strange-speaking neighbours as 'barbarian,' that is 'stammering,' or even as 'dumb.' So the Russians call their neighbours the Germans njemets, connected with njemo, indistinct. The old name Slovene, Slavonians, is probably a derivative from the substantive which appears in Church Slavonic in the form slovo, a word ”

“ All the great plains to the east of the Carpathians are inhabited by Slavs, either pure or mixed with Tartars and Mongols. To the west and south of the mountains the race is split up into numerous small nations, and in the valley of the Danube these come into contact with Rumanians, as well as with Turks and Magyars, the two latter being of Asiatic origin, and these separate the Slavonians of the north from the Slavonians of the south. ”

“ Section II.—Slavonian Mythology. The Slavonians had a polytheistic religion, answering, in spirit, to that of the other Indo-European nations; but as they had no mythic literature, like Greece and Scandinavia, we are dependent for information upon popular ballads and superstitions, eked out by the notices of missionaries and statements of conquerors; and it is not easy to perceive whether their myths were an independent branch of the general stock, or only the Teutonic religion under another dress.
The divine word, in all the various nations, is Bog. ”

“ The Jews in the land of the Slavonians were fortunate in being regarded as aliens in a country which, as we have seen, they inhabited long before those who claimed to be its possessors by divine right of conquest. ”

“ Beginning with the south-western frontier of the present Slavonians, let us ask what are the reasons against supposing the population of Bohemia to have been in the time of Cæsar other than what it is now, i. e. Slavonic.
In the first place, if it were not so, it must have changed within the historical period. If so, when? No writer has ever grappled with the details of the question. It could scarcely have been subsequent to the development of the Germanic power on the Danube, since this would be within the period of annalists and historians, who would have mentioned it. ”