SECTION III.
LANGUAGE AND LITERATURE OF THE VINDES OR SLOVENZI.
The Slavic inhabitants of the Austrian provinces Carinthia, Carniola, and Stiria, extending from thence in scattered villages into Udine once the territory of Venice, and of the Hungarian counties Eisenburg and Szala, about a million in number, call themselves Slovenzi. By foreign writers they have generally been called Windes or Vindes; a name, however, less definite and less correct; inasmuch as the term Vindes or Vendes served in ancient times among the Germans as a general name for all Slavic nations. The Slavic settlements in Carniola took place at a very early period, certainly not later than the fifth century. In the course of the following centuries their number was increased by new emigrations from the southeast; and they extended themselves into the lower parts of Stiria and Carinthia, and the western counties of Hungary.[[145]]
In regard to the language of this people, it was formerly considered a matter of certainty, that it had never been a written language before the time of the Reformation. But the investigations of modern philologians have proved, on the contrary, that this portion of the Slavic race was earlier acquainted with the art of writing than were any of the other branches; probably even before the time of Cyril; and since the discovery of several very old manuscripts in the library of Munich, every doubt of this fact has been silenced. According to Kopitar,[[146]] the true home of the Old Slavic Church language is to be found among[pg.139] the Pannonian and Carinthian Slavi; and it was for them that the Old Slavonic Bible was translated. The liturgy of Methodius was, however, soon supplanted by the Latin worship; which at any rate must have been earlier established in this part of the country; since Christianity appears to have been introduced about the middle of the eighth century, by German priests.
Be this as it may, the definite history of the language begins only with the Reformation; and it is principally to the exertions of one distinguished individual, that it owes its introduction into the circle of literature. There is nothing more pleasing in the moral world, than to behold the whole life of a man devoted to one great cause, his thoughts all bent on one great object, his exertions all aiming at one great purpose; and so much the more, if that object has respect to the holiest interests of mankind. Such was the case with the primus Truber, who may be called the apostle of the Vindes and Croatians. The direct results of his labours long ago perished in the lapse of time; but this does not render them less deserving, although it diminishes his fame. Truber, born A.D. 1508, canon and curate at several places in Carniola and Carinthia, seems to have been early in life impressed with the truth of the new doctrines of the Reformation. His sound judgment taught him, that the surest way of enabling his flock, and the common people in general, to receive the new light in a proper spirit, would be the diffusion of useful knowledge among them. And as the German, which at the present day is almost exclusively the language of the cities of Stiria, Carniola, and Carinthia, was at that time far less generally understood, he ventured to commit to paper a dialect apparently never before written. In the second edition of his New Testament, A.D. 1582, he states expressly: "Thirty-four years ago, there was not a letter, not a register, still less a book, to be found in our language; people regarded the Vindish[pg.140] and Hungarian idioms as too coarse and barbarous to be written or read."
Truber and his assistants in this great work of reformation and instruction, among whom we mention only Ungnad von Sonnegg and Dalmatin, met every where with opposition and persecution; but their activity and zeal conquered all obstacles, and succeeded in at least partially performing that at which they aimed. Meantime, Christopher, duke of Würtemburg, a truly evangelical prince, had opened in his dominions an asylum for all those who had to suffer elsewhere on account of their faith. The translation of the Scriptures every where into the language of the common people, was regarded by this prince as a holy duty; and this led him to cause even Slavic printing-offices to be established in his dominions, Thither Truber went; and after printing several books for religious instruction, he published the Gospel of Matthew in a Vindish translation, Tübingen 1555; and two years later the whole New Testament. As Truber did not understand the Greek original, his translation was made from the Latin, German, and Italian versions. At the same time a translation for the Dalmatic-Croatians was planned; and several works for their instruction printed and distributed. Truber, thus an exile from his own country, died in 1586 as curate in the duchy of Würtemburg, engaged in a translation of Luther's House-postillæ.
Two different systems of orthography had been adopted by Truber and Dalmatin. For this reason, when in 1580 the whole Vindish Bible was to be printed at Wittemberg, it seemed necessary to fix the orthography according to acknowledged rules. This led also to grammatical investigations. In the year 1584, a Vindish grammar was printed at Wittemberg, the author of which, A. Bohorizh of Laibach, was a pupil of Melancthon, and a scholar of that true philosophical spirit, without which no one should undertake to write a grammar, even where[pg.141] he has only to follow a beaten path; much less when he has to open for himself a new one. Thus the Vindish written language, almost in its birth, acquired a correctness and consistency, to which other languages hardly attain after centuries of experiments, innovations, and literary contests. According to the judgment of those who are best acquainted with it, the Vindish language has undergone no change since the time of Bohorizh,—a fact indeed scarcely credible; and the less so, because during that whole interval it has been maintained almost exclusively as a spoken language. About thirty years after the publication of this grammar, the Roman Catholics, sheltered by the despotic measures of the archduke Ferdinand, afterwards the emperor Ferdinand II, gained a complete victory. All evangelical preachers, and all Protestants who faithfully adhered to their religion, were exiled; their goods confiscated; and, more than all, their books burned, and their printing-office in Laibach destroyed.[[147]] Fragments of the Gospels and of the Epistles were however printed at Grätz, in 1612, for the Slavic Catholics, in their own language.
A whole century passed, and the Vindish language seemed to be entirely lost for literature and science. Towards the close of the seventeenth century, an academy was founded by some learned men of Carniola, on the plan of the Italian Academy; and some attention was again paid to the language of their forefathers. In A.D. 1715 a new edition of Bohorizh's work, with several alterations and without mentioning the true author, was printed by a capuchin, P. Hippolitus; who left also in manuscript a Vindish dictionary, the first in that language.[pg.142]
Fifty-three years later, another grammar was published by the monk Marcus Pochlin; a work in itself, according to the best authorities, utterly devoid of merit, but which from the necessity of the case, and for the want of a better, met with success, was reprinted in 1783, and remained in common use until the appearance of Kopitar's grammar. This last work,[[148]] written by one of the most eminent Slavists of the age, made a decided epoch; not only in the history of the Vindish language, but also, by its learned preface and comments, in the Slavic literature at large. Several grammatical works, not without merit, and for the most part founded on Kopitar's grammar, have since been published;[[149]] and since scholars like these are now occupied with the cultivation of the Vindish language, there exist for it and for its kindred dialects the happiest prospects.
That this Slavic branch, a mountain people, had its treasures of popular poetry, has always been supposed; and many single pieces, not without beauty, have been communicated to the public in German translations. A collection of these flowers, which fade rapidly away in this German neighbourhood, was ten years ago made by Achazel and Korytko.[[150]]
The literature of a people, among whom every individual of any education may call another highly cultivated language in the fullest sense his own,—as is the case with the Bohemians and Slovenzi in respect to the German,—cannot be very extensive. There have, however, in modern times, been published several works of poetry and prose in the Vindish language; among the[pg.143] writers of which we can mention only the most distinguished. Such are, V. Vodnik, author of some collections of poems; Kavnikar, author of a biblical history of the Old and New Testament, and several works for religious edification; Farnik, Kumerdcy, Popovich, etc.
But the most important work, both in a philological and moral point of view, is the translation of the whole Bible, set on foot by G. Japel, and executed by a society of learned men. This version being intended for Catholics, was made from the Vulgate, and was published at Laibach 1800, in five volumes; the New Testament appeared also separately, in two volumes, Laib. 1804. A Slavic pulpit, which was established ten years ago at the same place, has also been of great service to the language.
The inhabitants of the provincial counties Agram, Kreutz, Varasdin, and the neighbouring districts, called Provincial Croatia, who speak a somewhat different dialect of the Vindish language, but are able to read that version of the Bible, have nevertheless several translations in their own dialect, lying in manuscript, and only waiting for some Maecenas, or for some favourable conjuncture, in order to make their appearance.
The only portion of the Vindish race among whom the Protestant religion has been kept alive, are about 15,000 Slovenzi in Hungary. Their dialect approaches in a like measure to that of the Slovaks; and hence serves as the connecting link between the languages of the Eastern and Western Slavic stems. For them the New Testament exists in a translation by Stephen Kuznico; Halle 1771; reprinted at St. Petersburg, 1818.[pg.144]