Joseph Jungmann, besides a translation of Chauteaubriand's Atala and of Milton's Paradise Lost, which Bowring calls "the most admirable among the many admirable versions of that renowned and glorious heroic," [[194]] has written many important essays scattered in periodicals; and also published in 1820 a Bohemian chrestomathy, in 1825 a history of Bohemian literature, and in 1830-31 a complete dictionary of that language.
W. Hanka. librarian at Prague, has made himself particularly known by critical editions of valuable writings out of the golden[pg.204] age of Bohemian literature. In 1817 he was so fortunate as to discover a manuscript of high importance, as well in a philological respect, as for its intrinsic poetical value; which he published in 1819 with a modern Bohemian translation, and also a German translation by Swoboda.[[195]] He has written several works, and also essays in periodicals, of a bibliographical and antiquarian character.
Joseph Dobrovsky, born 1753 in Hungary, but of Bohemian parents, ob. 1829, is called the patriarch of modern Slavic literature, and was one of the profoundest scholars of the age. His merits in regard to Slavic philology and history are so generally acknowledged, and we have so often had occasion to cite his name in these pages, and to refer the reader to his authority, that without attempting to present a critical view of one, or an analysis of another of his works, we are contented to give in a note the title of his principal works. We are the more willing to adopt this course, because the most of his works form in a certain measure one great whole, and mutually supply each other; and because too, the author having in part first explored unknown regions, and having of course sometimes found it necessary to retract hypotheses started in his earlier writings, his works cannot well be separated. He wrote mostly in German; sometimes in Latin; while comparatively very few of his numerous books are in the Bohemian language. In this way only could they gain that kind of universality, which the subject required; and which has so much contributed to promote the cause of Slavic literature in general.[[196]][pg.205]
There were also some scholars among the Slovaks, who aided the same cause with diligence and talent. Leska, ob. 1818, published from 1785 onward the first Slovakian newspaper, and was a diligent and judicious compiler in respect to Slavic lexicography. Palkowicz published a Bohemian dictionary, and prepared in 1808 a more correct edition of the Bible. Plachy, besides many volumes of prose and poetry, published a valuable periodical; Schramko wrote some philological works; Schaffarik and Kollar, of whom more will be said in the sequel, were also Slovaks.
After the collection of poetry by Puchmayer above alluded to, several others of a miscellaneous kind appeared; poetry having been hitherto limited almost exclusively to religious purposes. Kamaryt, Palacky, Chmelensky, Zdirad Polak, Czelakowsky, Snaidr, Hnewkowsky, Turinsky, Stulcz,[[197]] Jablonsky, Tupi, Sabin, are favourably known as poets. A. Marek has translated several dramas of Shakspeare; Machaczek several from Goethe; Kliczpera, Stepanek, and Sychra, are esteemed dramatic writers. Among the Slovaks, Holli translated the Latin and Greek elegiac poets; Roshnay, Anaereon.
As historical writers Tomek and Jordan must be honourably mentioned. An excellent work on Bohemian Antiquities, written in German by J.E. Wocel, ought also to be noticed.[[198]][pg.206]
In the department of natural science are to be mentioned, Presl, count Berchtold, Strnad, Sedlaczek, Wydra, Smetana, etc. Others, Bohemians by birth, have written in German, e.g. Haenke, Sieber, etc. etc. Count Buquoy also is of Bohemian origin.—Writers of merit on moral and religious subjects are, Rautenkranz, Zahradnik, Parizek, and others. The Slovak Bartholomaeides, a distinguished scholar, has written several useful works on various topics.—Periodicals full of learned researches and variety of interest were edited, Dobraslaw by Hromadko and Ziegler, Krok by Presl, etc. Modern journals of a more general tendency are Wlastimil (the Patriot), Dennica, etc. Among the highest nobility the national language found powerful patrons; and in the establishment of a national Museum, a Bohemian Academy of Sciences, and similar patriotic institutions, the national literature received great encouragement. One of the principal objects of this institution was to publish old works and to patronize new ones. Its first publication was an old treatise on Bohemian law.[[199]] The names of the counts K. Sternberg and Kolowrath-Liebsteinsky must be mentioned here; to which, in our days, may be added those of the counts J.M. and Leo Thun.
The leading poet of the present day in the Bohemian language is J. Kollar, born 1793 at Thurocz in Hungary. In 1821 he published a volume of poems; and some years later a larger beautiful poem in two cantos, called Slawy dzery, the Daughter of Glory, by which he meant Slavina, or the Slavic nations personified; for Slava means glory. With talents of the first order, and at the same time purely national, he imitates Petrarch in some measure; making his nation his Laura, praising her beauty, and prophesying her ultimate triumph.[[200]][pg.207]
The patriotic zeal which in our days has instigated the Slavic scholars to follow out the traces of their language and history into the remotest past, in order to clear up more satisfactorily the origin and primitive connection between the different members of the great Slavic family, and their relative position to the Germans, has nowhere been exhibited in a more energetic and disinterested way than in Bohemia. The idea of Panslavism was here first worked out systematically.[[201]] If we are not entirely mistaken, it was the same Kollar, the Czekho-Slovakian poet, who first conceived, or at least expressed, that idea. In a Slavic periodical, published in Hungary, entitled Hronka, he came out with an address to his Slavic brethren, which he himself translated into German. He urged the Slavi to drop their numerous intellectual family feuds; to consider themselves as one great nation; their mutual languages essentially as one; their respective interests as one. He prophesied power and predominance to the Slavi united as a whole. The idea was seized with eagerness; especially by the Bohemian scholars, in whom a certain irritation against the Germans, the oppressors of their nation for centuries, was far from being unnatural. At the head of this movement, so far as it respects philological investigations, was P.J. Schaffarik; in respect to historical researches, Fr. Palacky; the first a Slovak, the second a Moravian by birth; and both of them highly esteemed as scholars of great learning, uncommon acuteness, and indefatigable research; but both also, from a very laudable national partiality, inclined to favour those results of their researches, which should serve to support their own patriotic or Panslavic views. It will therefore not be found surprising, that they should have met with a strong, nay passionate opposition.
Schaffarik, whose valuable work on the Slavic languages and[pg.208] their history we have chiefly consulted in our present sketch, (not however without due regard to his own altered and corrected views, as given to the public in his later works,) was born in 1795 at Kbeljarowo in Northern Hungary. He received a German education; and, following the example of other leading Slavic scholars, like Dobrovsky and Kopitar, notwithstanding his partiality for all that is Slavic, he wrote most of his earlier works in German. His "History of the Slavic Language and Literature," although a production of his youth, and written before the full maturity of the author's views, has perhaps contributed more than any other work to a knowledge of the Slavic literature in general, and of the classification and mutual relation of the Slavic languages. After further researches, he prepared a "History of the Southern Slavi;" which however, so far as we are informed, has never been printed. Instead of it he published a work on "Slavic Antiquities" in the Bohemian language. It was patriotism which induced him not only to choose this language in preference to the German, and thus give up a far greater field of influence; but he also declined a well endowed Slavic professorship in the university of Berlin, from the same generous and patriotic motive, and settled in Prague. Here he undertook the editorship of a periodical founded by Palacky; and operated in connection with him and other Slavic scholars for the promotion of Slavic, and principally Bohemian, literature. For this end a society was founded among the Bohemian and Slovakian scholars and gentry, called the Stalci, the Constant. They bound themselves to buy every respectable book, which should be printed in the Bohemian language. In 1842 Schaffarik published a "Slavic Ethnography," a small introductory work, but founded on extensive studies. Of this he himself prepared a German translation.[[202]][pg.209]