Historical View of the Languages and Literature of the Slavic Nations Part 25

One he seized and tore, Tore the little dove, With his feather'd feet, Soft blue little dove; And he poured his blood Streaming down the tree.

Feathers too were strew'd Widely o'er the field; High away the down Floated in the air.

Ah! how wept and wept; Ah! how sobb'd and sobb'd The poor doveling then For her little dove.

"Weep not, weep not so, Tender little bird!"

Spake the light young hawk To the little dove.

"O'er the sea away.

O'er the far blue sea, I will drive to thee Flocks of other doves.

From them choose thee then.

Choose a soft and blue, With his feathered feet, Better little dove."

"Fly, thou villain, not, O'er the far blue sea Drive not here to me Flocks of other doves.

Ah! of all thy doves None can comfort me; Only he, the father Of my little ones."

P.

The following little elegy we translate from a Russian Annual; the editor of which, Baron Delvig, took it down from the lips of a peasant girl.

THE FAITHLESS LOVER.

Nightingale, O nightingale, Nightingale so full of song, Tell me, tell me, where thou fliest, Where to sing now in the night?

Will another maiden hear thee Like to me, poor me, all night Sleepless, restless, comfortless, Ever full of tears her eyes?

Fly, O fly, dear nightingale, Over hundred countries fly, Over the blue sea so far; Spy the distant countries through, Town and village, hill and dell, Whether thou find'st any one, Who so sad is, as I am?

O, I bore a necklace once, All of pearls like morning dew; And I bore a finger-ring, With a precious stone thereon;

And I bore deep in my heart Love, a love so warm and true.

When the sad, sad autumn came, Were the pearls no longer clear; And in winter burst my ring, On my finger, of itself![25]

Ah! and when the spring came on, Had forgotten me my love.

There is one trait in the Russian character, which we recognize distinctly in their poetry, namely, their peculiar and almost Oriental veneration for their sovereign, and a blind submission to his will.

There is indeed somewhat of a religious mixture in this feeling; for the Tzar is not only the sovereign lord of the country and master of their lives, but he is also the head of the orthodox church. The _orthodox_ Tzar is one of his standing epithets. The following ballad, which we consider as one of the most perfect among Russian popular narrative ballads, exhibits very affectingly the complete resignation with which the Russian meets death, when decreed by his Tzar. In its other features, also, it is throughout natural. Its historical foundation is unknown. There are several versions of it extant, slightly differing from each other; which seems to prove that it has been for a long time handled by the people.

THE BOYAR'S EXECUTION.

"Thou, my head, alas! my head, Long hast served me, and well, my head; Full three-and-thirty summers long; Ever astride of my gallant steed, Never my foot from its stirrup drawn.

But alas! thou hast gained, my head, Nothing of joy or other good; Nothing of honours or even thanks."

Yonder along the Butcher's street, Out to the fields through the Butcher's gate,[26]

They are leading a prince and peer.

Priests and deacons are walking before, In their hands a great book open; Then there follows a soldier troop, With their drawn sabres flas.h.i.+ng bright.

At his right, the headsman goes, Holds in his hand the keen-edged sword; At his left goes his sister dear, And she weeps as the torrent pours, And she sobs as the fountains gush.

Comforting speaks her brother to her: "Weep not, weep not, my sister dear!

Weep not away thy eyes so clear, Dim not, O dim not thy face so fair, Make not heavy thy joyous heart!

Say, for what is it thou weepest so?

Is 't for my goods, my inheritance?

Is 't for my lands, so rich and wide?

Is 't for my silver, or is 't for my gold?

Or dost thou weep for my life alone?"

"Ah, thou, my light, my brother dear, Not for thy goods or inheritance, Not for thy lands, so rich and wide, Is 't that my eyes are weeping so; Not for thy silver and not for thy gold, 'Tis for thy life, I am weeping so."

"Ah, thou, my light, my sister sweet!

Thou mayest weep, but it won't avail; Thou mayest beg, but 't is all in vain; Pray to the Tzar, but he will not yield.

Merciful truly was G.o.d to me, Truly gracious to me the Tzar, So he commanded my traitor head Off should be hewn from my shoulders strong."

Now the scaffold the prince ascends.

Calmly mounts to the place of death; Prays to his Great Redeemer there, Humbly salutes the crowd around; "Farewell world, and thou people of G.o.d; Pray for my sins that burden me sore!"

Scarce had the people ventured then On him to look, when his traitor head Off was hewn from his shoulders strong.[27]

P.

We add another more modern heroic ballad, composed, perhaps, by one of the soldiers, who was present at the exploit. The first siege of Azof took place in 1695. The fortress was, however, not taken by storm, although repeated a.s.saults were made; but the garrison capitulated in the following year. The great white Tzar is of course Peter I.[28]

THE STORMING OF AZOF.

The poor soldiers have no rest, Neither night nor day!

Late at evening the word was given To the soldiers gay; All night long their weapons cleaning, Were the soldiers good, Ready in the morning dawn, All in ranks they stood.

Not a golden trumpet is it, That now sounds so clear; Nor the silver flute's tone is it, That thou now dost hear.

'Tis the great white Tzar who speaketh, 'Tis our father dear.

Come, my princes, my Boyars, n.o.bles, great and small!

Now consider and invent Good advice, ye all!

How the soonest, how the quickest, Fort Azof may fall?

The Boyars, they stood in silence.-- And our father dear, He again began to speak In his eye a tear: Come, my children, good dragoons, And my soldiers all, Now consider and invent Brave advice, ye all, How the soonest, how the quickest, Fort Azof may fall?

Like a humming swarm of bees, So the soldiers spake, With one voice at once they spake: "Father, dear, great Tzar!

Fall it must! and all our lives Thereon we gladly stake."

Set already was the moon, Nearly past the night; To the storming on they marched, With the morning light; To the fort with bulwark'd towers And walls so strong and white.

Not great rocks they were, which rolled From the mountains steep; From the high, high walls there rolled Foes into the deep.

No white snow s.h.i.+nes on the fields, All so white and bright; But the corpses of our foes s.h.i.+ne so bright and white.

Not up-swollen by heavy rains Left the sea its bed; No! in rills and rivers streams Turkish blood so red!

Different dialects are spoken, and different ballads are sung by the population of Malo-Russia[29] and of those Polish-Russian and Polish-Austrian provinces, where the peasantry is of the Ruthenian race. The musical element is still more prevalent among them; and their ditties are rhymed. The few very ancient ones, which are still extant, alone make an exception.

These have the form and the spirit of the ballads of the Great Russians, and can in no way be discerned from them; while the great ma.s.s has a different character. Indeed, such an immense number of ballads have originated in the rich and fertile steppes of the Ukraine, that it would seem as if each bough of their forest trees must harbour a singer, and each blade of gra.s.s on these endless blooming plains whisper the echo of a song.[30] The pensive character of the Great Russian popular poetry becomes, in that of the Malo-Russian and Ruthenian, a deep melancholy, that finds vent in a great variety of sweet, elegiac, melodies. According to the author of a little collection of their popular songs, published first in a German translation, "these are the after-pains of whole generations; these are the sorrows of whole centuries, which are blended in one everlasting sigh!" [31] If we look back to the history of these regions, we cannot doubt that it is the spirit of their past, that breathes out of these mournful strains. The cradle of the Kozak stood in blood; he was rocked to the music of the clas.h.i.+ng of swords. For centuries the country on both banks of the Dnieper as far as to the northwestern branch of the Carpathian mountains, the seat of this race, was the theatre of constant warfare and aggression; there was no time for the blessings of a peaceful development. Their narrative ballads have, therefore, few other subjects than the feuds with Poles and Tartars; the Kozak's parting with his beloved one; or his lonely death on the border, or on the b.l.o.o.d.y battle field! No wonder that their little lyric effusions have imbibed the same melancholy spirit.

These vast level regions were the princ.i.p.al thoroughfares of the hordes of Mongols and Tartars, who from the thirteenth to the fifteenth century overspread Russia, and penetrated as far as Silesia.

In Northern Russia, at least, a shade of the old forms and const.i.tutions was preserved; and native princes reigned under Mongol dominion; but in the South every thing was broken up, and the country laid completely waste. Fugitives, reduced to a life of plunder and booty, congregated here and there; the country on the Lower Don, near the entrance of this river into the sea of Azof, was one of their strongholds; another portion found refuge on the islands of the Dnieper, just below the present site of Yekatrinoslav. Here they fortified themselves in little rude castles; while, after all, their situation out of the track of the wild barbarians was their best shelter.

The first named region was princ.i.p.ally the asylum for fugitives from Great Russia; deserters and exiles from other parts of the country joined them; and the Tartar population, which they found on the spot, and the neighbouring Kalmuk tribes, mingled with them. These are the Kozaks of the Don; of whom the Kozaks of Grebensk, of Yaitzk, and of the Ural, are branches. They are Russians, and sing the songs of their brethren, the Russians. The river Don, or, as it is familiarly and at the same time respectfully called, _Don Ivanovitch_[32] plays a prominent part in their ballads. They have a touching childlike love for that n.o.ble river, so majestic and yet so gentle, that once gave shelter on its banks to their forefathers. Father Don, the stilly (_tikho_) Don, Don Ivanovitch, are its constant epithets. The scene of a considerable number of their ballads is in the vessels which glide upon the 'stilly' Don.

The fugitives who had congregated on the Dnieper were also Russians; but the mixture of other nations, which they received, would appear to have come princ.i.p.ally from the Circa.s.sians of the Caucasus, as the still beautiful shape and countenance of the Tshernomorski seem to indicate;[33] and also in part from the Ruthenian tribes of the Carpathian mountains, as their language proves. These are the Zaporoguean Kozaks; so called from having their princ.i.p.al seats beyond the _porogues_, or water-falls of the Dnieper. Both sections of the Kozaks founded a kind of military democratic government; and tried to shelter themselves against their enemies in those rude castles called _Sicza_, best protected by thick woods and the surrounding water. They soon began to spread out in the small towns called _Groazisko_, fortified also indeed, but built so slightly that they were almost as soon erected as destroyed. The Kozaks of the Don, after the deliverance of Russia in the second half of the fifteenth century, acknowledged in some degree the sovereignty of the Russian Tzar; and aided Ivan II to conquer Siberia. They were used by his successors as border guardians against the wild Asiatic hordes; whom they partly chased from their homes in the Ural mountains, and settled there in their stead. Thus they spread all over Siberia; always looking back with a pensive and languis.h.i.+ng feeling to their "dear fatherling,"