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and had no doubt, that the first translation was made in Russia under Vladimir the Great, A.D. 988, in the language which was then spoken.

      Such other works in Old Slavic, as were the productions of this period, seem rather to belong to the history of the Russian and Servian literature. We have seen from the preceding, that[pg.43] the Old Slavic had altered considerably; nay, was in a certain measure amalgamated with those dialects. We shall see in the sequel, how it was gradually supplanted by them.^[52]

      The printing of works in the Old Slavic, at the present day, is almost exclusively limited to the Bible and to what is in immediate connection with it. The first printed Slavonic work was set in Glagolitic letters. This was a missal of A.D. 1483.^[53] The earliest Cyrillic printing office was founded about A.D. 1490, at Kracow, by Svaipold Feol. Nearly at the same time, 1492, they began in Servia and Herzegovina to print with Cyrillic types. In A.D. 1518, a Cyrillic-Slavonic printing office was established at Venice; and about the same time, a part of the Old Testament in the White-Russian dialect, printed with Cyrillic letters, was published at Prague in Bohemia.

      In Russia, now the principal seat of the eastern Slavic literature, printing was not introduced until after the middle of the sixteenth century. The first work was published in Moscow A.D. 1564, an edition of the Apostle, executed by the united skill of two printers. It would seem, however, that they did not succeed in Russia; for a few years after we find one of them in [pg.44]Lemberg, occupied in printing the same book; and the other at Wilna, in printing the Gospels. In Russia, the Gospels were printed for the first time in A.D. 1606. The first complete Slavonic Bible was published at Ostrog in Volhynia (Poland) A.D. 1581, fol. printed after the manuscript of 1499, which also was the first that comprehended the whole Bible.^[54] The second edition of the whole Slavonic Bible was printed eighty-two years later, at Moscow, A.D. 1663. An enumeration of all the subsequent editions, is given in the note below.^[55]

      The philological part of the church Slavonic language was not cultivated so early as would have been desirable. There exists however a grammar by Zizania, published A.D. 1596 in Warsaw. Twenty years afterwards another by M. Smotrisky appeared, Wilna 1618. This work, written like Zizania's grammar in the White-Russian dialect,^[56] was for a long time considered as of good authority; it reappeared in several editions, and served as the basis of most of the grammars written during the 17th and 18th centuries. M. Stroyeff found in the Paris library the manuscript of an Old Slavic grammar, written in[pg.45] Latin by John Uzewicz, a Student of Theology at the University of Paris in 1643. In the year 1822, Dobrovsky published his Institutiones Linguæ Slavicæ dialecti vcteris, a grammatical work which, like all the productions of this distinguished scholar, throws a new light upon the subject, and renders all former works of a similar character useless.

      The lexical part of this literature is more defective. Most of the existing dictionaries are merely short and unsatisfactory vocabularies. The most ancient is the work of P. Berynda, Lex. Slaveno-Russicum, Kief 1627. More in use at present are the Kratkoi Slowar Slavjanskoi, or 'Short Slavic Dictionary,' by Eugenius, St. Petersb. 1784; and the larger 'Church Dictionary' by Alexejef, 4th ed. St. Pet. 1817–19. A dictionary of this dialect for the special use of foreigners, does not yet exist.^[57]

      In modern times considerable attention has been devoted to the examination of the Old Slavic language and its relation to its kindred dialects. Antiquarian and paleographical researches have been happily combined with philological investigations; and the eminent names which are found among these diligent and philosophical inquirers, insure the best prospects to their cause.^[58][pg.46]

      [pg.47]

PART II.

       Table of Contents

EASTERN SLAVI.

       Table of Contents

CHAPTER I.

       Table of Contents

HISTORY OF THE RUSSIAN LANGUAGE AND LITERATURE.

       Table of Contents

      The name of Russia and the Russians is not older than the ninth or tenth century. The northern part of that vast empire, however, was long before inhabited by Slavic nations, who seem to have been divided into small states under chiefs chosen by themselves; to have been peaceable in their character, and most of them tributary to more powerful neighbours. About the middle of the ninth century, civil dissensions arose among the Slavi of Novogorod, at the election of a new head or posadnik. Troubled at the same time from without, by the conquering and enterprising spirit of the Varegians, a Scandinavian tribe, they no longer felt able to make resistance against them; and therefore, A.D. 862, they chose Rurik, the chief of the Varegians, for their own head. These Scandinavians were by the Finns called Ruotzi, an appellation which in their language signifies strangers. This name, in a somewhat altered form, passed over to the inhabitants of the acquired territory, with whom the conquerors[pg.48] soon amalgamated. Rurik founded thus the first Slavo-Russian state; and his followers, long accustomed to a warlike nomadic mode of life, settled down among the Slavic inhabitants of the country. The nationality of the strangers, comparatively few in number, was merged in that of the natives; but still, in one respect, it exercised a strong influence upon the latter, by infusing into them the warlike spirit of the former. It is only since that time, that we find the Slavi as conquerors. Their empire rapidly extended in the course of the following hundred and fifty years, and their power and external influence also rose; while at the same time the ancient civil institutions of the native Slavi were respected and improved.

      In the beginning of the eleventh century, Jaroslav, the son of Vladimir the Great, imitating his father's example, divided on his death-bed his empire among his sons, and thus sowed the seeds of dissension, anarchy, and bloody wars; a case repeated so often in ancient history, that it seems to be one of the few from which modern princes have derived a serious lesson. The Mongols broke into the country; easily subdued the Russians thus torn by internal dissensions; succeeded, A.D. 1237, in making them tributary; and kept them for two hundred years in the most dishonourable bondage. During this long period, every germ of literary cultivation perished. In the middle of the fifteenth century, Ivan Vasilievitch III,^[59] delivered his country from the Asiatic barbarians, then weakened by domestic dissensions; conquered his Russian rivals; and united Novogorod with his own princedom of Moscow. From that period the power and physical welfare of Russia have increased without interruption to the present time. The literary cultivation of its inhabitants has likewise advanced; at first indeed with stops hardly proportioned to the [pg.49]external progress of the empire; but now for more than a century, in consequence of the despotic activity of their sovereigns, with a wonderful rapidity.

      The history of Russian literature has five distinct periods. The first period comprises an interval of more than nine centuries, from the date of our first knowledge of the Russian Slavi, to the coming of age of Peter the Great. A.D. 1689. This period would easily admit of several subdivisions; and did we pretend in these pages to give the reader more than a sketch of literary history, we should perhaps find it advisable to adopt them. This long period, however, both in a comparative and an absolute sense, is so very poor, that, limited as we are, a few words will suffice to give a general survey of it; and so much the more, because the productions of this period are closely connected with the history of the Old Slavic language, and have mostly been already mentioned under that head.

      The second period extends from the coming of age of Peter the Great to the accession of Elizabeth his daughter, A.D. 1741, which was the commencement of Lomonosof's influence.

      The

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