The vicinity of Greece and Italy modified and mellowed the language of Servia, which is, in fact, the Russian hellenized, deprived of its hardiness and its consonant terminations, and softened down into a perfect instrument for poetry and music. [0f] Of the descendants from the ancient Slavonic, it is more closely allied to the Russian and Windish idioms, than to the Bohemian or Polish. Vuk Karadjich divides it into three distinct dialects, the Herzegovinian, or that spoken in Bosnia, Montenegro, Dalmatia, and Croatia; the Sirmian, which is used in Sirmia and Slavonian and the Resavian. No doubt the Servian language has been considerably influenced by the Turkish, but though it has been enriched by oriental words, it has not adopted an oriental construction. Schaffarik, in describing the different Slavonic tongues, says, fancifully but truly, that “Servian song resembles the tune of the violin; Old Slavonian, that of the organ; Polish, that of the guitar. The Old Slavonian in its psalms, sounds like the loud rush of the mountain stream; the Polish, like the bubbling and sparkling of a fountain; and the Servian like the quiet murmuring of a streamlet in the valley.”
The Servian alphabet consists of only twenty-eight letters, which is twenty less than the old Slavonic, and seven less than the Russian. The letters Ъ (dj), Ђ (tj), and Џ the soft g of the Italians, are unknown to the Russians, and the Servians have added two letters to their alphabet, by combining the Ь of the Russians with А and Н, making Љ and Њ, which are equivalent to the Italian gl and gn, the Spanish ll and ñ, and the Portuguese lh and nh. They have wholly dismissed the Б, which so constantly and so uselessly occurs in the church Slavonic and Russian.
No traces of Servian literature go beyond the thirteenth century. [0g] The Hexaemeron of Basil, the Bulgarian exarch, written in 1263, and the Epistle of Damian, in 1324, are both in the old church Slavonian tongue. The first Servian literary record is the Rodoslov of Daniel, archbishop of Servia, which is a chronicle of the four kings who were his contemporaries (from 1272 to 1336), beginning with Urosh. This book is a valuable register of the laws enacted during his life, and throws much light on early Servian history. An almanack, entitled Ljetopis, of this period, also exists; and of a somewhat later period, the Tzarostavnik, or Register of Princes, by an unknown author. Dushan, with whose name the Servians associate all that is glorious, caused a book of laws to be written for the use of his kingdom, which breathe a milder and kinder spirit than would be expected in an age and among a people so little instructed. They contain some remarkable provisions in favour of travellers and strangers; and not only compel hospitality, but protect property, by making the host responsible for its security. The battle of Kosova introduced a long night of darkness and desolation into Servia; and though a few religious books were published soon after the invention of printing, no one work of the slightest interest appeared till the end of the 17th century, when George Brankovich, [0h] the last of the Servian despots, wrote a history of Servia, bringing it down to the time of Leopold the First. In 1758, Demetrius Theodosijev established a Servian press. In 1796, the Austrian government granted a monopoly of all Servian literature to the university of Ofen, by suppressing all printing-presses elsewhere.
Though it is not my intention to write a general history of the literature of Servia, in introducing one interesting branch of it to the English reader, I cannot but slightly refer to the essential services it has received from a few distinguished writers.
John Raich was born in Karlovitz in 1726, and died in 1801. He received his elementary education from the Jesuits in Komorn, removed to the evangelical school at Oedenburg, and completed his studies at Kiev. He afterwards visited the famous convent of Chilendar (on Mount Athos), which was built and endowed by Shupan Nemana, who died there as a monk, having taken the name of Simeon. Raich was ultimately chosen archimandrite of the convent of Kovil, in Chaskisten bataillon. His principal work, printed at Vienna (1792–5), is his history of the Slavonian people. [0i] He also wrote a history of Servia, Rasza, Bosnia, and Rama (Vienna, 1793); a tragedy on the death of the Tzar Urosh (Ofen, 1798); and many theological treatises. He uses the church Slavonian dialect, but his style is full of Servian and Russian phraseology, which he perhaps adopted as likely to recommend his productions.
Dosithei Obradovich, who was born in 1739, and died in 1811, was the first who ventured to apply the popular language to the purposes of literature. His birth-place was Chakovo in the Banat of Temeshvar, and at the age of fourteen he became a monk in the Opovo convent. Here he was too restless to remain, and having determined to see foreign countries, he travelled for a quarter of a century, and visited Greece, Albania, Italy, Turkey, Russia, Germany, France, and England. The love of home had mastered the desire of change, and he returned to Servia, when he was made a senator at Belgrad, and appointed to superintend the education of the children of Tzerny George. He published at Leipzig, in 1783, an auto-biography, entitled “Tzivot i prikliuchenjia D. Obranovicza,” besides sundry poems and fables, and moral treatises.
Demetrius Davidovich has greatly assisted in elevating the language of the Servian people to the best purposes of literary instruction. He is (I believe at this time) the secretary to Milosh, the hospodar of Servia. For many years he edited a Servian newspaper at Vienna, and has annually published a Servian almanack (Zabavnik), in which are many interesting particulars respecting the literary and political history of his country. The indisposition on the part of the superintendents of schools in Servia, to employ the popular tongue as the instrument of education, has been long the ban of civilization, and the barrier to national improvement. But of late the influence of those who have endeavoured to make literature subserve the interests and the happiness of the many rather than the few, has led to the dismissal of Slavonian, and the substitution of Servian books. A controversy, with much controversial bitterness, is at the present moment carried on in Servia (where, as elsewhere, to be dignified is by some thought better than to be useful, and to please a few pedants is deemed more worthy of ambition than to instruct a whole people), between the advocates of the antiquated Slavonic, and those whose simple and intelligible maxim is, “write as you speak, if you would be understood;” and of the latter every year adds greatly to the numbers.
But of all the writers of Servia, he from whom the volumes emanate whence these translations are taken, is beyond comparison the most attractive and the most popular.
Stephanovich Karadjich Vuk was born on the 26th October, O. S., in the year 1787, at Trshich, an obscure village in Turkish Servia (Iadar), near the town of Losnitza and the river Drina, at a short distance from the Austrian and Hungarian frontier, where, however, the Servian language is spoken with far more purity than in the larger towns. In his early youth he passed the borders, and received his education at the Gymnasium of the dissidents from the Greek church at Karlovitz. There his school instruction began and ended; but having visited Vienna, intercourse there with intelligent and instructed men led to the development of the natural powers of his mind, and directed his inquiries to the hidden stores of popular literature which his country possessed. A feeble and crippled frame unfitted him for bodily labour, and all his thoughts and all his ardour attached themselves to intellectual exertions. He began his literary career at Vienna, and published in 1814 his Servian Grammar, and a century of Servian songs; but the embarrassments of the censorship induced him to seek a freer field for the publication of his works, and he removed to Leipzig, where the edition, in three volumes, of his popular Servian poetry, appeared in 1823–4. He soon obtained high reputation there, and received the diploma of doctor in philosophy, and was elected to many literary distinctions. The emperor Nicholas, in that spirit so honourable to many of the autocrats of Russia, has conferred on him a yearly pension of 100 ducats; and he now pursues his interesting inquiries, and from time to time exerts that creating and regenerating power which has called the poetry of Servia into existence, and established for it a permanent reputation. [0j]
The Servians must be reckoned among those races who vibrated between the north and the east; possessing to-day, dispossessed to-morrow; now fixed, and now wandering: having their head-quarters in Sarmatia for many generations, in Macedonia for following ones, and settling in Servia at last. But to trace their history, as to trace their course, is impossible. At last the eye fixes them between the Sava and the Danube, and Belgrade grows up as the central point round which the power of Servia gathers itself together, and stretches itself along the right bank of the former river, southwards to the range of mountains which spread to the Adriatic and to the verge of Montengro. Looking yet closer, we observe the influence of the Venetians and the Hungarians on the character and the literature of the Servians. We track their connexion now as allies, and now as masters; once the receivers of tribute from, and anon as tributaries to, the Grecian empire; and in more modern times the slaves of the Turkish yoke. Every species of vicissitude marks the Servian annals,—annals represented only by those poetical productions of which these are specimens. The question of their veracity is a far more interesting one than that of their antiquity. Few of them narrate events previous to the invasion of Europe by the Turks in 1355, but some refer to facts coeval with the Mussulman empire in Adrianople. More numerous are the records of the struggle between the Moslem and the Christian parties at a later period; and last of all, they represent the quiet and friendly intercourse between the two religions, if not blended in social affections, at least associated in constant communion. [0k]