The latter first appear in history with the dynasty of the Piasts, about 860. The Slovachians, who extend to the north-west of Hungary as far as Austrian Galicia, belong, as well as the Tchecks, to this same Polish branch. The Ruthenians, settled to the north of Transylvania, proceeded from the mixture of the first Slavonians established in this country with the Poles who emigrated in the twelfth century from Galicia or Red Russia.
Such is the vast collection of populations united under the name of the Slavonian family.
It is difficult to analyze the habits of a race, which, for centuries, has been divided between oppression and slavery. We will, however, endeavour to do so, and shall commence with the Northern Slavonians.
The Northern Slavonian is, in general, gentle and patient. His sweet toned language caresses the ear and the mind with expressions full of tenderness. He treats his wife and children with the greatest kindness. Like the Arab, he loves a life of wandering and adventure beneath the open sky, and, like the Arab, he can bear the greatest fatigue. On horseback he crosses plains covered with snow, as the Arab crosses the burning sands of the desert. Music has a very moving effect on the Slavonian. It forms a means of translating his tenderness and his melancholy; it responds to the vague and cloudy impressions, to the yearnings, of his swelling heart. The Slavonian peasants cultivate the voice, and men, rough and coarse in many other respects, compose melodies full of sentiment. The auditors press around the singer, like the shepherds of ancient Arcadia, and tears of emotion and pleasure are seen rolling down the unkempt beards of these poor Danubians.
The Slavonians are less sensible to linear than to musical harmony. Thus it is that Russian architecture can do no more than imitate the monuments of France and Italy. On the other hand, the taste for colour attains with them a considerable development, a fact which is evidenced by the colours of their materials and furniture, and the decoration of their apartments. The sense of ornament is to be met with in the lowest villages of Russia, and the peasant who constructs his house with the rough-hewn trunks of trees, does not omit to paint and carve his door, window, and roof.
This explains how the serf, when taken from his plough, is able, after a very short apprenticeship, to reproduce the delicate and artistic work of the Parisian jeweller.
We see, therefore, that the artistic aptitudes of the Slavonian are well developed, and that this race, in order to arrive at excellence in art, only requires the conditions of political liberty and individual independence.
From a moral aspect, the Northern Slavonian obeys, above all, the inclination of his heart, rather than of his reason. Nor must the Russian be looked to for personal initiative, or philosophical or social innovations. He does not possess the instinct of liberty, but he has, in a high degree, sympathy, collective action, and the equalizing tendencies which are its consequences.
This sentimental supremacy is manifested in the Orthodox religion which prevails in Russia, which imposes with authority its decisions, and the precepts of which are addressed less to the reason than to blind faith.