Historical View of the Languages and Literature of the Slavic Nations Part 3

1. From Cyril, or from the ninth century, to the thirteenth century.

This is the _ancient_ genuine Slavonic; as appears from the ma.n.u.scripts of that period.

2. From the thirteenth to the sixteenth century. This is the _middle_ age of the Slavonic, as altered gradually by Russian copyists, and full of Russisms.

3. From the sixteenth century to the present time. This comprises the _modern_ Slavonic of the church books printed in Russia and Poland; especially after the _Improvement_ of those writings, so called.

The most ancient doc.u.ments of the Old Slavic language, are not older than the middle of the eleventh century. There has been indeed recently discovered a ma.n.u.script of the translation of John of Damascus, written by John, exarch of Bulgaria, in the ninth century.

Vostokof however proves on philological grounds, that it cannot be the original, but is a later copy. The above-mentioned Evangelium of Ostromir (1056) is the earliest monument of the language, as to the age of which no doubt exists. It is preserved in the imperial library at St. Petersburg.[18] According to Vostokof, this is the third, or perhaps the fourth, copy of Cyril's own translation. This latter is irretrievably lost, as well as the copy which was made for Vladimir the Great, a hundred years afterwards.

Only a few years younger is a _Sbornik_, A.D. 1073, or a collection of ecclesiastical writings, discovered in the year 1817, and a similar _Sbornik_ of 1076; the former in a convent near Moscow, the other now in the library of the imperial Hermitage of St. Petersburg. Further, the _Evangelium of Mistislav_, written before the year 1225, for the prince Mistislav Vladimirowitch; and another _Evangelium_ of the year 1143, both at present in ecclesiastical libraries at Moscow.

Besides these venerable doc.u.ments, there are several inscriptions on stones, crosses, and monuments, of equal antiquity; and a whole series of political doc.u.ments, contracts, ordinances, and similar writings; among which one of the most remarkable is the oldest ma.n.u.script of the _Pravda Russkaya_[19] a collection of the laws of Jaroslav, A.D. 1280.

The libraries of the Russian convents possess a large number of ma.n.u.scripts; some of which proved to be of great value, when examined about twenty years since by a Commission of scholars, appointed expressly for that purpose by the Academy of Sciences.[20] The spirit of critical-historical investigation, which took its rise in Germany within our own century, has penetrated also the Russian scholars; and their zeal is favoured by their government in a manner at once honourable and liberal. The task was not small. The Synodal library of Moscow alone has a treasure of 700 Old Slavic Codices; the Academy of Sciences in St. Petersburg possesses likewise numerous Slavic ma.n.u.scripts. Among the libraries of other countries, there is hardly one of any importance, which has not like Codices of more or less value to exhibit. Those of Vienna and the Vatican are in this department especially rich. These two were thoroughly searched by a like Commission.[21] Of the great activity, and the critical spirit which the Russian historians of our day have shown in respect to their own past, more will be said in our sketch of the Russian literature.

The number of the monuments of the Old Slavic increases considerably in the _second_ period; and we find ourselves the more obliged to be satisfied with mentioning only the most important among them. At the head of these, stands the _Laurentian Codex_, the oldest existing copy of Nestor's Annals, A.D. 1377, now in the imperial library at St.

Petersburg. Nestor, a monk in a convent near Kief, born A.D. 1096, was the father of Russian history. He wrote Annals in the Old Slavic language, which form the basis of Slavic history, and are not without importance for the whole history of the middle ages. They were first printed in A.D. 1767, and subsequently in four editions, the last in 1796. Schlozer, the great German historian, who published them anew in 1802-9, with a translation, added considerably to their intrinsic value by a critical and historical commentary upon them. But even his edition could not satisfy the more critical spirit of our days. A new one has been published in the course of the last seven years; for which, not less than fifty-three ma.n.u.scripts were carefully compared.

The merit of it belongs to the Archaeographical Commission of the Academy.

The _third_ period begins with the sixteenth century. In the course of time, and after pa.s.sing through the hands of so many ignorant copyists, the holy books had of course undergone a change; nay, were in some parts grown unintelligible. The necessity of a revision was therefore very strongly felt. In A.D. 1512, the Patriarch of Constantinople, at the request of the Tzar Basilius Ivanovitch, sent a learned Greek (a monk of Mount Athos) to Moscow, to revise the church books, and to correct them according to the Greek originals. As this person some years afterwards fell into disgrace and could not accomplish the work, it was taken up repeatedly in the course of the same and the following century, until the revision of the liturgical books was p.r.o.nounced to be finished in A.D. 1667; but that of the Bible not before A.D. 1751. The principles on which this revision, or, as it was called, _Improvement_, was made, were in direct conflict with the reverence due to the genius of the Slavic language. The revisers, in their unphilosophical mode of proceeding, tried only to imitate the Greek original, and to a.s.similate the grammatical part of the language, as much as possible, to the Russian of their own times.

They all acted in the conviction, that the language of the Bible and liturgical books was merely _obsolete Russian_. Even the latest revisers of the Bible, in 1751, knew nothing of Cyril or Methodius; and had no doubt, that the first translation was made in Russia under Vladimir the Great, A.D. 988, in the language which was then spoken.

Such other works in Old Slavic, as were the productions of this period, seem rather to belong to the history of the Russian and Servian literature. We have seen from the preceding, that the Old Slavic had altered considerably; nay, was in a certain measure amalgamated with those dialects. We shall see in the sequel, how it was gradually supplanted by them.[22]

The printing of works in the Old Slavic, at the present day, is almost exclusively limited to the Bible and to what is in immediate connection with it. The first printed Slavonic work was set in Glagolitic letters. This was a missal of A.D. 1483.[23] The earliest Cyrillic printing office was founded about A.D. 1490, at Kracow, by Svaipold Feol. Nearly at the same time, 1492, they began in Servia and Herzegovina to print with Cyrillic types. In A.D. 1518, a Cyrillic-Slavonic printing office was established at Venice; and about the same time, a part of the Old Testament in the White-Russian dialect, printed with Cyrillic letters, was published at Prague in Bohemia.

In Russia, now the princ.i.p.al seat of the eastern Slavic literature, printing was not introduced until after the middle of the sixteenth century. The first work was published in Moscow A.D. 1564, an edition of the _Apostle_, executed by the united skill of two printers. It would seem, however, that they did not succeed in Russia; for a few years after we find one of them in Lemberg, occupied in printing the same book; and the other at Wilna, in printing the Gospels. In Russia, the Gospels were printed for the first time in A.D. 1606. The first complete Slavonic Bible was published at Ostrog in Volhynia (Poland) A.D. 1581, fol. printed after the ma.n.u.script of 1499, which also was the first that comprehended the whole Bible.[24] The second edition of the whole Slavonic Bible was printed eighty-two years later, at Moscow, A.D. 1663. An enumeration of all the subsequent editions, is given in the note below.[25]

The philological part of the church Slavonic language was not cultivated so early as would have been desirable. There exists however a grammar by Zizania, published A.D. 1596 in Warsaw. Twenty years afterwards another by M. Smotrisky appeared, Wilna 1618. This work, written like Zizania's grammar in the White-Russian dialect,[26] was for a long time considered as of good authority; it reappeared in several editions, and served as the basis of most of the grammars written during the 17th and 18th centuries. M. Stroyeff found in the Paris library the ma.n.u.script of an Old Slavic grammar, written in Latin by John Uzewicz, a Student of Theology at the University of Paris in 1643. In the year 1822, Dobrovsky published his _Inst.i.tutiones Linguae Slavicae dialecti vcteris_, a grammatical work which, like all the productions of this distinguished scholar, throws a new light upon the subject, and renders all former works of a similar character useless.

The lexical part of this literature is more defective. Most of the existing dictionaries are merely short and unsatisfactory vocabularies. The most ancient is the work of P. Berynda, _Lex.

Slaveno-Russic.u.m_, Kief 1627. More in use at present are the _Kratkoi Slowar Slavjanskoi_, or 'Short Slavic Dictionary,' by Eugenius, St.

Petersb. 1784; and the larger 'Church Dictionary' by Alexejef, 4th ed.

St. Pet. 1817-19. A dictionary of this dialect for the special use of foreigners, does not yet exist.[27]

In modern times considerable attention has been devoted to the examination of the Old Slavic language and its relation to its kindred dialects. Antiquarian and paleographical researches have been happily combined with philological investigations; and the eminent names which are found among these diligent and philosophical inquirers, insure the best prospects to their cause.[28]

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 1: See below in the History of the Russian Language, and the so called _Improvement_ of the Bible and church books.]

[Footnote 2: In modern times this view has been defended princ.i.p.ally by Russian philologists, the Metropolitan Eugene, Kalajdovitch, etc.]

[Footnote 3: See his _Kyrill und Method_, Prague, 1823. Schlozer considers likewise the Old Slavic as a Bulgarian dialect of the ninth century. See his Northern History, p. 330. In another place he calls it the mother of the other Slavic languages; see his Nestor, I. p.

46.]

[Footnote 4: In his Grammar of the Slavic Language in Carniola, Carinthia, and Stiria.]

[Footnote 5: _Jahrbucher der Literatur_, Vienna, 1822, Vol. XVII.

Grimm is of the same opinion; see the Preface to his translation of Vuk Stephanovitch's Servian Grammar.]

[Footnote 6: See above, p. 11.]

[Footnote 7: This view Schaffarik takes in his work on _Slavic Antiquities_, and in his _Slavic Ethnography_. Palacky, a distinguished Bohemian scholar, adopted the same opinion in his _History of Bohemia_, Prague 1836. Both were combatted in a furious review by Kopitar, in Chmel's _Oestr. Geschichtsforscher_, III. 1838; printed separately under the t.i.tle: _Der Pannonische Ursprung der Slavischen Liturgie_. etc.]

[Footnote 8: Dobrovsky's _Entwurf zu einer allgemeinen Slavischen Etymologie_, Prague 1812. See also the _Slovanka_ of this celebrated scholar.]

[Footnote 9: Schlozer's Nestor, III. p. 224.]

[Footnote 10: Rakoviecky, in his edition of the _Pravda Russka_, Warsaw 1820-22. Katancsich, _Specimen Philologiae et Geographiae_, etc.

1795. See also Frahn's publication, "Ueber die alteste Schrift der Russen," St. Petersb. 1835; where a specimen is given of the form of writing which the Arabian author Ibn Abi Jakub el Nedim ascribes to the Russians. This writer lived at the close of the tenth century. He quotes as his authority an envoy sent from some Caucasian prince to the king of the Russians.]

[Footnote 11: As in modern Greek; see also Bullmann's Gram. -- 3. 2.]

[Footnote 12: See Rees' Cyclopedia, art. _Khazares_; where however it is incorrectly said, that they were a Turkish tribe.]

[Footnote 13: _Posadnik_ is about the same as _mayor_.]

[Footnote 14: In the Slavic version of the Chronicle of Dalmatia, the Epistles instead of the Palter are named.]

[Footnote 15: That the Glagolitic alphabet, as has been affirmed, was the one invented by Cyril, and was gradually changed into that afterwards known as the Cyrillic, is an untenable position; partly, because no form of writing _could_ change in such a degree in one or two centuries; and partly, because in some early ma.n.u.scripts both alphabets appear _mixed_, or rather are used alternately.]

[Footnote 16: _Glagolita Clozia.n.u.s_, Vindeb. 1836.]

[Footnote 17: In his essay _On the Old Slavic Language_. See the Russian periodical: _Treatises of a Society of Friends of Russian Literature_, No. XVII. Mosc. 1820.]

[Footnote 18: Extracts from it may be seen in the valuable collection of Doc.u.ments prepared by P. von Koppen: _Sobranie Slovenzki Pamjatnikov_, St. Petersburg 1827. See also Hanka's Edition of Dobrovsky's _Slavia_, Prague 1834.]

[Footnote 19: This remarkable ma.n.u.script was not known until 1738, when it was discovered in the chronicles of Novogorod. It has since been published in six different editions, the first prepared by Schlozer, 1767; the last by the Polish scholar Rakowiecky, enriched with remarks and ill.u.s.trations. See note 10, above.]

[Footnote 20: _Aktu Sobrannyje etc._ i.e. Collection of Acts and Doc.u.ments found in the Libraries and Archives of the Russian Empire, by the Archaeographical Commission of the Academy, etc. 4 vols. St.

Petersburg, 1836, 1837. The oldest of these doc.u.ments does not go farther back than A.D. 1294.]

[Footnote 21: On the remarkable Slavic ma.n.u.script called "Texte du Sacre," which was first re-discovered on this expedition, see _Glagolitic Literature_, in Part II. Chap. II.]

[Footnote 22: According to Vostokof, the dialects of all the Slavic nations deviated not only much less from each other at the time of Cyril's translation than they now do; but were even in the middle of the eleventh century still so similar, that the different nations were able to understand each other, about as well as the present inhabitants of the different provinces of Russia understand each other. The difference of the Slavic dialects was then almost exclusively limited to the lexical part of the language; the grammatical varieties, which exist among them at the present day, had not then arisen. The princ.i.p.al features which distinguish the Russian of the present day from the Old Slavic, are exhibited in an article _on Russian Literature_ in the Foreign Quarterly Review, Vol. I. p.

602.]

[Footnote 23: We learn that P. von Koppen several years ago discovered a Slavic work printed in 1475; but being unacquainted with the details, we are unable to give a particular notice of it.]

[Footnote 24: See above p. 36.]

[Footnote 25: The first two editions are described above. The _third_ edition did not appear till nearly a century later, after the revision of the text had been completed, Moscow 1751, fol. Subsequent editions are as follows: Moscow 1756, fol. ib. 1757, fol. St. Petersb. 1756, fol. Kief 1758, fol. St. Petersb. 1759, fol. Moscow 1759, 3 vols. 8vo.

ib. 1762, fol. ib. 1766, fol. ib. 1778, 5 vols. 8vo. Kief 1779, fol.

Mosc. 1784, fol. Kief 1788, 5 vols. 8vo. Mosc. 1790, fol. ib. 1797, fol. ib. 1802, fol. Ofen (Buda) 1804, 5 vols. 8vo. Mosc. 1806, 4 vols.

8vo. ib. 1810, fol. ib. 1813, 5 vols. 8vo. ib. 1815, 8vo. St. Petersb.

1816, 8vo. stereotype edition, issued sixteen times up to 1824. Also in 4to, stereotype edition, issued five times from 1819 to 1821.]

[Footnote 26: In the work of J. Lewicky, _Grammatik der ruthenischen oder kleinrussischen Sprache in Galizien_, Przinysl 1836, to which is annexed a short history of the Ruthenian Literature, the Russinian and White-Russian dialects seem to be wholly confounded.]