Historical View of the Languages and Literature of the Slavic Nations Part 7

[Footnote 9: The Mongols and Tartars have been frequently confounded by historical writers; they are however two races perfectly distinct from each other, the first a North-Eastern, the second a South-Western Asiatic nation. The Mongols, however, between the thirteenth and fifteenth centuries, conquerors of the Tartars as well as of half Asia, and of Europe as far as Silesia, and comparatively not numerous, amalgamated gradually with the subjugated Tartars among whom they settled. The present Mongols are partly under the sovereignty of China in the ancient Mongolia, the country whence Jenghis Khan came; partly Russian subjects, scattered through the government of Irkutzk, and mixed with Kalmucks and other Asiatic tribes.]

[Footnote 10: Also called Ivan II, and Ivan the Cruel; by modern historians the Russian Nero.]

[Footnote 11: See above, p. 51.]

[Footnote 12: Most of these dramas are extant in ma.n.u.script in the synodal library at Moscow. A selection has been printed in the _Drewn.

Rossisk. Bibliotheka_, i.e. Old Russian Library, Moscow 1818.]

[Footnote 13: The above mentioned chronicles, and another series of annals of a genealogical character, known under the t.i.tle _Stepennaja Knigi_, mutually supply each other. Simon of Suzdal, the metropolitan Cyprian a Servian by birth, and Macarius metropolitan of Moscow a clergyman of great merits, are to be named here. Another old chronicle called _Sofiiskii Wremenik_ was first published in 1820 by Stroyef. A chronicle of Novogorod referring to the sixteenth century was found by the same scholar in the library at Paris.]

[Footnote 14: There is, however, in the style of Nestor and his immediate successors, a certain effort towards animation. Speeches and dialogues are introduced, and pious reflections and biblical sentences are scattered through the whole.]

[Footnote 15: Known under the t.i.tle _Nikonov spisok_, published St.

Petersburg 1767-92, 8 vols. For the _Improvement_ of the Slavonic Bible, Nikon alone, by applying to the Patriarch of Constantinople and other Greek dignitaries, obtained 500 Greek MSS. of the whole or portions of the N. Test. Some of them contained also the Septuagint.

These were mostly from Mount Athos, and are now the celebrated Moscow MSS. collated by Matthaei. See Henderson, p. 52, 53.]

[Footnote 16: Joseph Sanin, a monk, wrote a history of the Jewish heresy, so called, in the fifteenth century, and a series of sermons against it. This last was also done by the bishop of Novogorod, Gennadius]

[Footnote 17: A part of the O.T. Prague 1517-19; the Acts and Epistles, Vilna 1525. Skorina, in one of his prefaces, found it necessary to excuse his meddling with holy things by the example of St. Luke, who, he says, was of the same profession. The dialect of this translation is the White Russian; and the book of Job contains the first specimen of Russian _rhymed_ poetry.]

[Footnote 18: The Russians, however, out of the forty-six characters of the Slavonic alphabet, could make use only of thirty-five; the Servians, according to Vuk Stephnanovitch, only of twenty-eight.]

[Footnote 19: Or _Kopiyevitch_, the same whom we have mentioned as having improved the appearance of the alphabet.]

[Footnote 20: The same Gluck had translated the Gospels into Lettonian, and made also an attempt to furnish the Russians with a version of the Scriptures in their vulgar tongue. The detail may be read in Henderson's Researches, p. 111. The Russian church had a zealous advocate in the archbishop Lazar Baranovitch, ob. 1693.]

[Footnote 21: Kirsha Danilof's work was first published at Moscow, 1804, with the t.i.tle _Drevniya Ruskiya Stichotvoreniya_, Old Russian Poems. A more complete edition, by Kaloidovitch, appeared in 1818.--A valuable little work in German by C.v. Busse, _Furst Vladimir und seine Tafelrunde_, Leipzig 1819, was probably founded on that of Danilof.]

[Footnote 22: As a characteristic of this poet, we mention only that the empress Catharine, in her social parties, used to inflict as a punishment for the little sins against propriety committed there, e.g.

ill humour, pa.s.sionate disputing, etc. the task of learning by heart and reciting a number of Trediakofsky's verses.]

[Footnote 23: Lomonosof's works were first collected and published by the Academy of Sciences of St. Petersburg, 1803, 6 vols. in several editions.]

[Footnote 24: His masterpiece, _Nedorosl_, "Mama's Darling," literally _the Minor_, published 1787, presents an incomparable picture of the manners, habits, etc. of the Russian country gentry. Potemkin, who was Von Wisin's patron, felt so enchanted once after a theatrical representation of this comedy, that he advised the author to die now.

"Die, Denis!" he cried, "thou canst not write any thing better! do not survive thy glory." A posthumous drama by the same author has recently been found and printed.]

[Footnote 25: Also into j.a.panese, according to Golovnin's account, and suspended in like manner in the temple of Jeddo. See Bowring's Russian Anthol. I. p. 3.]

[Footnote 26: This was a monthly periodical, first published 1755. The list of Germans whose labours have proved of the highest importance to Russia is very long; among them are those of Pallas, Schlozer, Frahn, Krug, etc. The department of statistics has been exclusively cultivated by Germans, Livonians, etc. and all that the Russians have done in the philological and historical departments, rests on the preceding solid and profound labours of German scholars.]

[Footnote 27: To the honour of the Russians it must be said, that it is still so. Dershavin and Dmitrief were ministers of state; Griboyedof was an amba.s.sador; Karamzin occupied, and s.h.i.+shkof and Shukovski still occupy, high offices of the empire.]

[Footnote 28: His _Summary of Christian Divinity_ has been translated by Dr. Pinkerton, and published in his "Present state of the Greek Church in Russia."]

[Footnote 29: A survey of the number and general cla.s.sification of the universities and schools in Russia at this period, is to be found in the American Quarterly Observer for Jan. 1834, Vol. II. No. 1.]

[Footnote 30: On all that relates to the Russian Bible Society, Henderson's Biblical Researches contain most interesting details. The active part, however, which he ascribes to the Jesuits in effecting the suppression of the Society, is far from being historically ascertained.]

[Footnote 31: See Backmeister's _Russische Bibliothek_, Riga 1772-87.]

[Footnote 32: Of Karamzin's _Istorija Gosudarstva Rossissavo_, History of the Russian Empire, (extending only to the reign of the house of Romanof, A.D. 1613,) in eleven volumes, a second edition was published in 1818. His other works have been collected in nine volumes, of which a third edition was published in 1820. This great historical work has been translated twice into German, first by Hauenschild and Oertel, and later by Tappe; and twice into French, St. Pet. 1818, and by St.

Thomas and Jauffort, Paris 1820.]

[Footnote 33: The Foreign Quarterly Review contains under the head _Critical Sketches_, a review of Batjushkof's works and a Specimen of his poetry. Vol. IX. p.218.]

[Footnote 34: Executed as involved in the conspiracy of 1825.]

[Footnote 35: He was sent as Russian amba.s.sador to Persia; and was there slaughtered by a mob in 1829.]

[Footnote 36: _Bursak, Malorossiiskaja powiest_, Mosk. 1824.]

[Footnote 37: This venerable missionary, who resided at Pekin from 1807 to 1821, published after his return to his own country a series of valuable and instructive works, a catalogue of which, as they have met with general acknowledgment in foreign countries, will not be unacceptable to the American reader.--1. _Sapiski o Mongolii_, Account of Mongolia, St. Pet. 1828, 2 vols. It contains a part of his travels, a description of the country and people, and a translation of the Mongol code of laws.--2. _Opisanie Tibeta_, i.e. Description of Thibet in its present state, translated from the Chinese, with remarks and ill.u.s.trations, St. Pet. 1828. This work has been translated into French and published by Klaproth under the t.i.tle: _Description du Tubet partiellement du Chinois en Russe, par le P. Hyacinth b.i.t.c.hourin, et du Russe en Francois par M.... etc. Accompagnee de Notes par M. Klaproth_, Paris 1831.--3. Description of Dshongary and Eastern Turkestan, in 2 vols. under the t.i.tle: _Opisanie Dshongarii i vostotchnavo Turkestana_, etc. St. Pet. 1829.--4. _Istorija pervyck tchetyrech Chanov_, i.e. History of the first four Khans of the House of Jenghis, St. Pet. 1829. This and the preceding work are not properly translations, but original works drawn from _Chinese_ sources, all of which are specified. Besides these works, Hyacinth has published some of less importance, translations from the Chinese, etc.

etc.]

[Footnote 38: The reputation of this clergyman rests however more on his publications in the department of bibliographical and literary history, than on his own theological works.]

[Footnote 39: The etymological tables, published since 1819 by s.h.i.+shkof, as a specimen of the labours of the Academy, are highly interesting. We see here the words reduced to the first elements of the language; and in some cases more than 3000 words springing from a single root.]

[Footnote 40: This view seems to have been taken by Count Adam Gurowski, now in this country, the author of the _European Pentarchy_, Leipzig 1839; a work in which a great deal of mental power and an admirable acuteness is employed to defend the despotic claims of Russia, and to shake the independence of Germany.]

[Footnote 41: _O mnimoi drewnosti etc._ i.e. On the pretended age, the original form, and the sources of our History; first printed in the periodical, "The Library," in 1835.]

[Footnote 42: _O Russkich Letopisiach, etc._ i.e. On the Russian Chronicles and their writers, Petersb. 1836.]

[Footnote 43: It appeared in a German translation as early as 1840.]

[Footnote 44: _Sto Literaturow, etc._, edited by Smirdin, Petersb.

1840, etc.]

[Footnote 45: See in Part IV.]

[Footnote 46: In connection with this work stands the Grammar by the same writer, written in French: _Elemens de la Langue Georgienne_, 1838.]

[Footnote 47: There are a few honourable exceptions. The work _Essais philosophiques sur l'homme, publies par De Jakob_, Halle 1818, although written in French, was the production of a Russian, the late writer Poletika, brother of the former Russian amba.s.sador of that name in this country.]

[Footnote 48: According to official reports, more than seven millions of volumes of Russian books were printed in the ten years from 1833 to 1843; and four and a half millions of foreign books were imported.

During the same ten years 784 new schools were established. In 1842, there were in the Russian empire 2166 schools of all kinds; among them _six_ universities.]

[Footnote 49: F. Otto, _History of Russian Literature, with a Lexicon of Russian Authors. Translated from the German by the late G. c.o.x_.

Oxford 1839.]

[Footnote 50: See above, p. 51.]

[Footnote 51: This was Ludolf's _Grammatica Russica et manuductio ad linguam Slavonicam_, Oxon. 1696.--ENGLISH Russian Grammars are, _Novaya ross. Gram. dlja Anglitshani_, 'Russian Grammar for Englishmen,' St. Petersburg, 1822. Heard's _Practical Grammar of the Russian Language_, St. Pet. 1827. 2 vols. 8vo.--GERMAN Russian Grammars are: Heym's _Russ. Sprachlehre fur Deutsche_, Riga, 1789, 1794, 1804. Vater's _Prakt. Gramm. der russ. Sprache_, Leipz. 1808, 1814. Tappe's _Neue russ. Sprachlehre fur Deutsche_, St. Pet. 1810, 1814, 1820. Schmidt's _Prakt. russ. Grammattk_, Leipz. 1813.

Puchmayer's _Lehrgebaude der russ. Sprache_, last edit. Prague 1843.

Gretsch, _Grundregeln der russ. Sprache_, from the Russian by Oldekop, 1828. The newest German-Russian Grammars are: J.E. Schmidt's _Russische Sprachlehre, und Leitfaden zur Erlernung, etc._ Leipz.

1831. _Noakovski Grammatica Rossiiskaya_, Lipsk. 1836. A Malo-Russian Grammar, _Mala-Ross. Grammatica_, was published by Pawlofski, St. Pet.

1818.--FRENCH Russian Grammars are: Maudru's _Elemens raisonnes de la langue Russe_, Paris 1802. Langan's _Manual de la langue Russe_, St.

Pet. 1825. Charpentier's _Elemens de la langue Russe_, St. Pet. 1768 to 1805, five editions. Gretsch, _Grammaire raisonnee de la langue Russe_, par Reiff, St. Pet. 1828.