LITMIR.BIZ

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third period extends from Lomonosof, the creator of Russian prose, to Karamzin, the reformer of it, who was born in 1765.

      The fourth period covers the interval from Karamzin to the accession of the emperor Nicholas in 1825.

      The fifth period begins with the accession of Nicholas in 1825, and continues to the present time.

      Before however we begin our historical notices, a few words relating to the characteristic features of the Russian language, may find a place here. Three principal dialects are to be distinguished, viz.

      1. The Russian proper, the true literary language of the whole Russian nation, and spoken in Moscow and all the central and northern part of the European Russian empire. And here we [pg.50]will mention the remarkable fact, that the peasant on the Wolga, on the Oka, and on the Moskwa, speaks the same pure Russian which is heard in the parlour and from the pulpit. Vulgar and corrupted branches of this dialect, are those of Suzdal and Olonetzk, the last of which is mixed with Finnish words.

      2. The Malo-Russian, the language of the south of Russia, especially towards the east. The principal difference between this dialect and the Russian proper, consists partly in the pronunciation of several letters; e.g. in that of the consonant [Cyrillic: character ghe], which sounds in the latter like g hard, but in the former like h, as hospodin instead of gospodin, master, lord; partly in many obsolete forms of expression, which seem to give to the Malo-Russian a nearer relationship to the Old Slavic, in which similar idioms are to be found. The influence of the Poles, who for nearly two centuries were rulers of this part of the country, is also still perceptible in the language, This dialect is especially rich in national songs. Many of them are of peculiar beauty, touching naiveté; and a poetical truth which far outshines all artificial decorations. The greater part of these songs have an elegiac character; as is the case indeed with most productions of the common people.^[60] The dialect itself, however, is far from being less adapted to the expression of the comic. There exists in it a travesty of the AEneid, written by J. Kotliarevski, a Kozak, which has found great favour throughout all Russia, although a foreigner is less able to appreciate its peculiarities and beauties; since indeed all poetic excellence of a comic description can be felt only by those who are familiar not only with the poetic language, but also with all those minute local and historical circumstances, the allusions to which contribute so frequently to augment the ludicrous.[pg.51]

      Essentially the same with the Malo-Russian is the idiom of the Russniaks in Red Russia, in the eastern part of Galicia, and the north-eastern districts of Hungary; and the few variations which occur in it have not yet been sufficiently investigated. Comparatively little attention has been paid to this branch of the Slavic race; and their beautiful national songs, scattered among a widely extended people, have only recently become the object of curiosity and examination.

      3. The White-Russian is the dialect spoken in Lithuania and a portion of White Russia, especially Volhynia. The situation of these provinces sufficiently accounts for its being full of Polisms. All the historical documents of Lithuania are written in this dialect; and several Russian writers in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries employed it in preference to the Old Slavonic. The first Russian translation of the Bible was written in it. It is the youngest of the Russian dialects.

      What first strikes us in considering the Russian language as a whole, is its immense copiousness. The early influence of foreign nations appears here as a decided advantage. The German, in the highest degree susceptible for foreign ideas and forms of thought, repels nevertheless all foreign words and forms of expression as unnatural excrescences. It is evidently disfigured by the adoption of foreign words, and can preserve its beauty only by adhering to its own national and inexhaustible sources. The Russian, having been in early times successively subjected to the influence of the Scandinavian, Mongolian, Tartar, and Polish languages, is in this respect to be compared, in a certain measure, with the English, in which the ancient British, the Latin, the Saxon, the Danish, and the French, amalgamated in the same proportion as the ideas of these different nations were adopted. Hence nothing that ever contributed to the singular composition of this rich language, appears to be borrowed; but all belongs to it as its lawful property. But the great[pg.52] pre-eminence of the Russian appears in the use which it made of these adopted treasures. Its greater flexibility made it capable of employing foreign words merely as roots, from which it raised stems and branches by means of its own native resources. It is this copiousness and variety of radical syllables, which gives to the Russian in certain respects a claim over all other Slavic languages.

      Another excellence is the great freedom of construction which it allows, without any danger of becoming unintelligible or even ambiguous. It resembles in this point the classic languages; from which however its small number of conjunctions decidedly distinguishes it. This want of conjunctions has been objected to the language as a defect; it seems however to be one of the causes, why it is so remarkably clear and distinct; since it can only admit of comparatively short phrases. In spite of this clearness, its adaptedness for poetry is undeniable; and in this branch the incomparable national songs extant in it would afford a most noble foundation even in respect to forms, if nature could ever obtain a complete victory over the perverted taste of fashion. Whether this language is really capable of entirely imitating the classic metres, is still a matter of dispute among distinguished Slavic philologians.^[61] As to its euphony, what has been said above in respect to the Slavic languages in general, may be applied particularly to the Russian. Here however the ear of the unprejudiced listener alone can decide.

      FIRST PERIOD.

      To the coming of age of Peter the Great, 1689.

      The influence of the Varegians in respect to the language, appears to have been inconsiderable; their own idiom on the[pg.53] contrary being soon absorbed by that of the natives. Rurik's grandsons had already Slavic names.^[62] The principal event in those ancient times, and one which manifested its beneficent consequences in respect to civilization here, as every where, was the introduction of Christianity, towards the end of the tenth century. Vladimir the Great, the first Christian monarch, founded the first schools; Greek artists were called from Constantinople to embellish the newly erected churches at Kief; and poetry found a patron and at the same time her hero in Vladimir. Vladimir and his knights are the Russian Charlemagne and his peers, king Arthur and his Round table. Their deeds and exploits have proved a rich source for the popular tales and songs of posterity; and serve even now to give to the earlier age of Russian history a tinge of that romantic charm, of which the history of the middle ages is in general so utterly void. The establishment of Christianity was followed by the introduction of Cyril's translation of the Scriptures and the liturgical books. The kindred language of these writings was intelligible to them; but was still distinct enough from the old Russian to permit them to exist side by side as two different languages; the one fixed and immovable, the voice of the Scriptures, the priests, and the laws; the other varying, advancing, extending, adapting itself to the progress of time.

      That this latter, the genuine old Russian, had its poets, was, until the close of the last century, only known by historical tradition; no monument of them seemed to be left. But at that time, A.D. 1794, a Russian nobleman, Count Mussin-Pushkin, discovered the manuscript of an epic poem, 'Igor's Expedition against the Polovtzi,' apparently not older than the twelfth century. It is a piece of national poetry of no common beauty, united with an equal share of power and gracefulness. But what strikes us even more than this, is, that we find in it no trace of that rudeness, [pg.54] which would naturally be expected in the production of a period when darkness still covered all eastern Europe, and of a poet belonging to a nation, which we have hardly longer than a century ceased to consider as barbarians! There hovers a spirit of meekness over the whole, which sometimes even seems to endanger the energy of the representation.

      The genuineness of this poem has, so far as we know, never been questioned; but it is indeed a very surprising feature, that during the recent diligent search through all the libraries in the country after old manuscripts, not a single production has been discovered, which could in any way be compared with it. This remarkable poem stands in the history of

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