54

EARLY SLAVONIC LITERATURE.

Their captain was Asbashka, the son of Lavrentii.
They planned a little plan.
The summer, the warm summer, is going,
And cold winter approaches, my brothers.
Where, brothers, shall we spend the winter?
If we go to the Yaik, it is a terrible passage;
If we go to the Volga, we shall all be considered robbers;
If we go to the city of Kazan, there is the Tzar—
The Tzar Ivan Vasilievich, the terrible.
There he has great forces,
There, Yermak, thou wilt be hanged,
And we Cossacks shall be captured
And shut up in strong prisons.
Yermak, the son of Timofei, takes up his speech,—
Pay attention, brothers, pay attention,
And listen to me—Yermak.
Let us spend the winter in Astrakhan;
And when the fair spring reveals herself,
Then, brothers, let us go on a foray;
Let us earn our wine before the terrible Tzar.

Accordingly, when the winter was over, and the
warm summer had come, Yermak again addresses
his companions :—

Ha, brothers! my brave Hetmans !
Make for yourselves boats,
Make the rowlocks of fir,
Make the oars of pine !
By the help of God we will go, brothers ;
Let us pass the steep mountains,
Let us reach the infidel kingdom,
Let us conquer the Siberian kingdom,
That will please the Tzar our master.
I will myself go to the White Tzar,
I shall put on a sable cloak,
I shall make my submission to the White Tzar.
Oh! thou art our hope, orthodox Tzar,

EARLY RUSSIAN LITERATURE.

55

Do not order me to be executed, but bid me say my say,
Since I am Yermak, the son of Timofei,
I am the robber Hetman of the Don;
'Twas I went over the blue sea,
Over the blue sea, the Caspian;
And I it was who destroyed the ships;
And now, our hope, our orthodox Tzar,
I bring you my traitorous head,
And with it I bring the empire of Siberia.
And the orthodox Tzar spoke;
He spoke—the Terrible Ivan Vasilievich:
Ha! thou art Yermak, the son of Timofei,
Thou art the hetman of the warriors of the Don.
I pardon you and your band,
I pardon you for your trusty service,
And I give you the glorious gentle Don as an inheritance.

The conquest of Siberia was effected by the brigand
Yermak at the head of 850 men, Russians, Cossacks,
Tatars, and Polish and German prisoners; he defeated
the Khan Kouchoum, and took possession of his
capital, Sibir. This Slavonic representative of Pizarro
and Cortez, as M. Rambaud calls him,¹ did not long
survive his imperial master; while trying to swim
across the river Irtîsh he was drowned by the weight
of his armour in the year 1584.

The following lines on the burial of Ivan the
Terrible are curious :—

Why, bright moon, father moon,
Why dost thou not shine as of old time,
Not as of old time as before?
It happened to us in Holy Russia,
In stone-built Moscow, in the golden Kremlin,

¹ “Histoire de Russie,” p. 240.

56

EARLY SLAVONIC LITERATURE.

In the Ouspenski Cathedral
Of Michael the Archangel,
They beat upon the great bell,
The sound echoed over the whole damp mother earth.
All the princes and boyars came together,
All the warrior-people assembled
To pray to God in the Ouspenski Cathedral.
There stood a new-made coffin of cypress-wood.
In the coffin lies the orthodox Tzar—
The orthodox Tzar, Ivan Vasilievich the Terrible.
The life-giving cross stands at its head;
By the cross lies the imperial crown;
At his feet his terrible sword.
Every one prays to the life-giving cross;
Every one bows to the golden diadem;
Every one looks with trembling at the terrible sword.
Around the coffin the wax-lights burn;
Before the coffin stand all the priests and patriarchs;
They read and sing the valedictory hymn;
They sing farewell to our orthodox Tzar—
Our Terrible Tzar—Ivan Vasilievich.

The bilini are carried on through the times of Boris Godunov and the False Demetrius to the days of Peter the Great, when they seem to have gained fresh vigour, being inspired by the glories of the great regenerator of his country. Want of space alone prevents me from giving in extenso the very spirited ballad of the good boyar Nikita Romanovich and Maliouta Skourlatovich, infamous in Russian history. There is a great repetition of lines and epithets, as in all Russian ballad poetry. Nikita demands the death of the infamous favourite.

Ah! 'tis thou art our Lord, Tzar Ivan Vasilievich
I do not want thy trusty steed,

58

EARLY SLAVONIC LITERATURE.

Rose the bright clear moon thereafter,
Rose the dawn and forth they ventured
To the city, Azov glorious.
To the walls of white stone shimmering.
From the rocks no stones were rolling,
They were foes that swift descended;
But upon the fields no snow-flakes:
Corpses there of foemen slaughtered.
'Twas not rain that swelled the torrent,
'Twas the blood of Turkish foemen.

A favourite hero in many of these ballads is the
robber, Stenko Razin, who was executed at Moscow
in 1671. He is spoken of with great admiration :—

The glorious quiet Don is troubled
From Cherkask to the Black Sea.
All the circle of the Cossacks is disturbed,
We have no longer a hetman;
No longer Stepan Timofeiievich,
Called Stenko Razin.
They have taken the good youth,
They have bound his white hands,¹
They have taken him to stone-built Moscow,
And on the glorious Red Square
They have cut off his rebellious head!

So, also, in another poem :—

Come forth! come forth! thou bright sun!
Come forth over the lofty mountain;
Over the green oak-grove;
Over the dwelling of the good hero, Stephen Timofeiievich,
Called Stenka Razin!

¹ “White” is here merely a conventional epithet, and constantly occurs in the Russian ballads.

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EARLY SLAVONIC LITERATURE.

Can help the sinful soul,
Only tears and repentance
Can help the sinful soul;...
Only prayers in the midnight,
Soft deeds of mercy.
By these the sinful soul delivers itself
From terrible, eternal agony.
By these does the sinful soul gain
The heavenly kingdom.
Great is the name of the Lord on the earth.

Or the following lines from a poem on the day of judgment:—

Now is it time for the soul to rest,
Now is it time for the soul to return,
Now is it time for the soul to weep,
Before the coming of the angels;
Then the earth will tremble,
And the stone-built cities will be thrown into ruins,
And the fountains and streams flow forth;
Through the skies the seas will be thrown into commotion,
And the moon turned into blood,
And the sun and the moon grow dim,
And the stars shall fall from the heavens upon the earth.
Then the angels and archangels shall be afraid,
The cherubim and seraphim shall tremble,
And all the powers of the heaven shall be shaken.

And so on; but the piece is in reality little more
than a version of the very words of Scripture. The
following, however, has more originality:—

THE SOUL'S FAREWELL TO THE BODY.

The sun is about to set;
The red sun has set.
The soul has departed from the body;
Departing, she thus addresses it:—

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EARLY SLAVONIC LITERATURE.

sung on these occasions are of great antiquity. Among the common people the want of a written literature has been partly supplied, as is so often the case, by the abundance of the oral and traditional. We will conclude our extracts from the Russian national songs with the following pretty little piece :—

I the trusty youth went
And took refuge by the gentle Don,
And I asked the ferrymen,
Take me to the other side;
I wish to see my father and mother,
To give my blessing to my little children, the orphans;
To tell my dear wife that she must wed another, or live as a
widow,
For I am sick and weary.
My beating heart ails;
Death will soon come to me,
And then I shall say,
Bury me where three roads meet—
To Petersburg, Moscow, and glorious Kiev;
Put at my head a golden cross,
At my feet a green pine.¹

Here also must be included the Koliadki, or songs sung at Christmas-time. The derivation of this word has been a great puzzle to scholars. Some connect it with kolo, a ring. It is, however, more probably to be derived from the Latin Kalendæ, which perhaps came into the Russian language through the Greek ritual, just as *pogan* (paganus) and other similar words have been introduced. If I were to quote

¹ I have been compelled to cut down some of the lines and redundant epithets of this little song, but nothing has been added.

EARLY RUSSIAN LITERATURE.

63

some of the surmises of the Slavonic scholars about
this word, it would reflect but little credit on their
philological skill. The number of Latin and German
words (especially relating to religious matters) to be
found in the Old Slavonic is cited by Kopitar as evi-
dence to support his theory that the home of the Old
Slavonic was Pannonia; thus tserkov, German kirche,
oltar, altar, post, fast, pop, pfaff, pekl and peklo from
pech, a word used by the Germans of the eleventh
century for hell; srieda, the middle, used for Wed-
nesday, exactly as the Germans call it Mittwoch;
tsesar, Cæsar, the Frankish pronunciation of the
Middle Ages, whence the modern Tzar, incorrectly
written Czar, and finally otzet, vinegar, from the
Latin acetum. Moreover, the influence of Gothic or
Germanic words may be traced in penaz, from the
mediæval German pfenning, knaz from chuning, and
ouseraz from the Gothic ausahrings, which has become
in modern German ohrring. A very curious word is
the old Slavonic velblad, which is taken from the
Gothic ulbandus, which is, again, corrupted from the
Greek ἐλέφας. In Slavonic, however, by some con-
fusion, the word has come to mean camel. So also
the Slavonic steklo, glass, must have been adopted
from the Gothic stikls. These words, as well as those
relating to the Church, are supposed by Schafarik
and Thomsen to have been borrowed from the
Goths, when the Slavs dwelt near them east of
the Vistula, and on the shores of the Black Sea.¹

¹ See Thomsen, quoted *supra*, p. 26.

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EARLY SLAVONIC LITERATURE.

The common word in the Slavonic languages for king, *korol, kral*, has a curious derivation, viz., from the name of Karl the Great (Charlemagne). The primitive Slavs, living in their communes, forming a democratic agricultural society, knew nothing of a king, but took the word from the great monarch who impressed his individuality so vigorously upon them by his severities. The word knout, which has become among us a very symbol of the so-called Tatar barbarism, is, no doubt, an Indo-European word, the same as our knot, old Norse *knutr*; and perhaps the common Slavonic *kniga*, book, is connected with the old Norse *kenning*, learning, our ken, cunning. Many other interesting instances are given in Tamm's "Slaviska Lå-nord från Nordiska Språk" ("Slavonic Loan-words from Northern Languages"), Upsala. The great importance of the study of the Slavonic languages for comparative philology was fully recognised by Bopp and Schleicher. Their position in the Indo-European family may be clearly seen by the table given in Schleicher's "Compendium," p. 9. The "Comparative Grammar of the Slavonic Languages," by Professor Miklovich of Vienna, is the monumental work in which the relation of each of the Slavonic languages to the others can be traced.

But to return to the Russian ballad-stores. Mention must also be made of the *podbloudnîa piesni*, literally, songs relating to the dish, sung to a favourite mode of divination among peasant girls by means of objects concealed in a dish. This forms an

EARLY RUSSIAN LITERATURE.

65

amusement of the winter evenings from Christmas till
Twelfth Night. On New Year's Eve is sung the song
of Ovsen, a sort of god of the New Year, who brings
fruitfulness with him. As the young men who go about
on this occasion scatter oats, the whole ceremony pro-
bably derives its name from the custom, as oves (pro-
nounced avyos) is equivalent to oats. There are also
Khorovods, or songs accompanied by dancing. Many
specimens of the refrains chanted on these occasions
may be found in the common Russian song-books.
They are frequently pretty, and not merely quaint,
and must astonish those who are prepared to find
only barbarism among the lower classes of Russia.

The Russian peasant is surrounded with ceremonies
and superstitions from his very cradle. Among no
people in Europe have customs and traditions lin-
gered so much: hence the rich field which Slavonic
nations offer in folk-lore and folk-song.¹

And here a few words may be introduced on the
subject of Slavonic mythology, which, even up to
the present time, is in a somewhat confused state.
A very good summary of what is known of it, written
in a sober fashion, will be found in the little work
of M. Louis Leger, "Esquisse Sommaire de la
Mythologie Slave," Paris, 1882.² The two most

¹ For much curious information on Russian superstitions and songs the reader must be referred to the valuable work of Mr. Ralston, "The Songs of the Russian People."

² A more elaborate work, but full of wild theories, is "Wissenschaft des Slawischen Mythus," Lemberg, 1842, by Hanus. There is also another by Schwenk.

F

66

EARLY SLAVONIC LITERATURE.

important sources of information on the deities of the Slavs are Procopius and Helmold. The former says, "They believe in one god only, the fabricator of lightning, and think that he rules everything (*Perun*), and they offer to him oxen and all kinds of sacrifices. They know nothing about fate, nor do they think it has any influence in human affairs. But when death is at hand, or they are seized by illness, or are getting ready for war, they promise that they will offer a sacrifice to the god as a thank-offering for their lives if they escape. And if they do escape they carry out the promised sacrifice, and think that they purchased their preservation at this price. They worship rivers and nymphs and certain other deities, and sacrifice to all of them, and draw their divinations from these sacrifices."¹

In all Sclavonic languages the name of God is Bog, which is thus explained by Miklosich: ²—"*Bog* is identical with the Sanskrit *bhaga*, master,—properly, distributor. It is an epithet of God, and the proper name of a Vedic divinity; old Persian, *boga*, old Bactrian, *bagha*, God; the Indian *bhaga* signifies also prosperity, happiness. It is not easy to determine if it is the first or the second sense which has served for the point of departure of the Slavonic word; the words *bogati*, rich, and *oubogi*, poor, can be cited in support of the second meaning." Besides the Greek and Latin author previously mentioned

¹ Procopius, as quoted in Schafarik, "Slawische Alterthümer," vol. ii., p. 661.

² As quoted by M. Leger, p. 9.

EARLY RUSSIAN LITERATURE.

67

for the gods of the Slavs of Novgorod and Kiev we
have the Russian chroniclers as authorities. For
Poland, Bohemia, Servia, Croatia, and Bulgaria,
there are no early documents, except, perhaps, occa-
sional fragments of songs containing allusions to
heathen deities and their worship. Traces are to be
found of the *cultus* of the sun under the name of
Dazhbog, son of Svarog, the god of the sky; and
Cyril, of Tourov, alludes to the time when the Slavs
worshipped the elements.¹ The fabricator of light-
ning or thunder, spoken of by Procopius, may, without
doubt, be identified with Peroun, who is known to
have had a statue at Novgorod by Lake Ilmen, and
also at Kiev. In the treaties concluded in the tenth
century between the Russians and the Byzantine
Greeks, the Russians are found swearing by Peroun,
and Veles, the god of flocks, according to Nestor.
Although the idol of Peroun was destroyed by Vla-
dimir, the hero of the bîlini, when Christianity was
introduced in 988, yet the god was transmuted into
the saint Ilya (Elijah), who has become the saint of
thunder, and perhaps is in some way connected with
the tradition of Ilya Murometz, of whom I have
already spoken.

It is Ilya who produces the thunder as he rolls
through the skies in his chariot of fire. Veles, the
god of flocks, has become St. Basil, and the festival
of Koupalo, the god of the summer solstice, has been
naturally changed into that of St. John. A kind of

¹ Cited by Leger, p. 13.

F 2

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EARLY SLAVONIC LITERATURE.

god of the winds was Stribog, whose name has been
preserved by the chronicler Nestor, and the author of
the prose-poem on the expedition of Igor, to be
spoken of afterwards. There is also a goddess Lada,
said to have been a Slavonic Venus, whose name is
occasionally met with in the refrains of songs. The
great god of the Baltic Slavs was Svantovit, who was
worshipped in the island of Rügen, once Slavonic
territory. Besides these are Triglav, the three-headed
god, Radigost, and others.

Among the more picturesque of these Russian
superstitions may be mentioned the *lieshie*, or
wood-demons; the *vodiani*, or water-sponges; and
*rousalki*, or naiads, corresponding in some particu-
lars to the Servian *vilas*. There is also the *domovoi*,
or house-spirit, a kind of Robin Goodfellow, who
is represented as a dwarf, and has his habitation
in the stove. The Eastern Slavs are richer in
all these beliefs than the Western, as might have
been expected from their comparative remoteness
from the great European centres. The ignorance
of the peasantry and the scantiness of printed litera-
ture explain the abundance of popular song. We
find that condition among Slavonic peoples in which
popular poetry (in its strictest sense) is possible.
Every member of the family, down to the humble
Lusatian Wend, almost smothered by his German
neighbours, can boast a fine flower-show both of
lays and legend. It was beautifully and truthfully
said by Schafarik, that wherever there is a Slavonic
woman there also is a song.

EARLY RUSSIAN LITERATURE.

69

So much then for the Russian bilini or legendary
poems, which were treated with contempt by scholars
till within the last fifty years. The attention paid to
popular literature throughout Europe awoke also the
curiosity of the Russians, who were ignorant of the
great treasures which they possessed. Ample justice
has, however, now been done to them in the collections
of Ribnikov, Kirievski, Hilferding, Barsov, Bezsonov,
and others. Of the Skazki, or National Tales, there
are good collections by Sakharov, Afanasiev, and
others. In the old-fashioned days the ladies were
lulled to sleep by their female serfs who narrated to
them these quaint legends. The stories told to
Poushkin by his nurse, Arina Rodiovna, are said to
have quickened his genius, and Lermontov has
recorded his regret that he had not more often kindled
his torch at the same light. In his piece entitled
"Song about the Tzar Ivan Vasilievich, the Young
Oprichnik, and the Bold Merchant Kalashnikov," he
has given us an excellent imitation of a bilina.¹

II. We now come to our second division, viz., the
written literature, which I shall carry as far as the
period of the reforms introduced by Peter the Great
at the close of the seventeenth century.

The celebrated Ostromir Codex (1056-1057), the
earliest monument of Slavonic literature of which the
date is known, is a Russian recension of an old
Bulgarian original, and had therefore better be left

¹ For a more detailed account of the Russian Skazki, see
the excellent work of Mr. Ralston, "Russian Folk-Tales,"
London, 1873.

70

EARLY SLAVONIC LITERATURE.

till we come to consider the old Bulgarian or
Palæoslavonic literature. Belonging to the year
1073, we have the Izbornik Sviatoslavov, or Mis-
cellany of Sviatoslav. This manuscript is preserved
in the Synodal Library of Moscow. It was written
by John the Deacon for Prince Sviatoslav, and is a
translation from the Greek. The contents of this
curious collection are not merely theological,—
philosophy, rhetoric, and other branches of learning
are also handled in it, and it is styled by Bouslaev¹
a kind of Russian encyclopedia. We must remember
that it was from Constantinople that early Russia
drew its civilisation. The next important monument
of the language is the "Discourse concerning the Old
and New Testament" by Ilarion, Metropolitan of
Kiev. This curious treatise is based on a parallel
between the Old and New Testament under the
names of Hagar and Sarah. It has an historical
interest inasmuch as it contains an elaborate pane-
gyric of Prince Vladimir of Kiev,the hero, let us re-
member, of one of the cycles of bîlini, who in the tenth
century introduced Christianity into Russia. Another
interesting sermon or discourse of the same kind is
that by Theodosius, a monk of the Pestcherski cloister
of Kiev on the Latin or Varangian Faith. In this,
as Bouslaev says, we may see what the early Russians

¹ Rousskaia Khristomatia (Russian Chrestomathy), 2nd edition. Moscow, 1877. This valuable work is entirely devoted to the early memorials of the language, which are chronologically arranged. Bouslaev also published an Historical Grammar.

EARLY RUSSIAN LITERATURE.

71

thought of the Roman Catholic religion. A few
words may here be said about Kiev, which is one
of the sacred places of Russia. This ancient city
was visited, according to Nestor, by St. Andrew and
on the spot where he fixed the cross, a magnificent
cathedral now stands dedicated to him. The Pestchers-
kaia Lavra, that is, the Monastery of the Catacombs,
contains the bodies of many of the Russian Saints and
other historical persons including Nestor himself. Kiev
is a great place for pilgrimages, and is visited annually
by about 300,000 persons. Besides the work above
mentioned, Theodosius wrote some other Pouchenia, or
Instructions, characterised by their simplicity of style
and practical nature, among others one on drunken-
ness. Another writer was Luke Zhidiata, appointed
bishop of Novgorod in 1036, who has left a short but
very interesting "Discourse to the Brethren."

With Nestor, a monk of Kiev (born about
the year 1056, died about 1114), begins the series
of Russian chronicles. He appears to have been
well acquainted with the Byzantine historians. We
find many legends mixed up with his work; the style
is frequently highly coloured and poetical so that
we cannot help suspecting that he has incorporated
bîlini which had been lost, just as the Polish historians,
Gallus, Kadlubek, and Dlugosz, did. Prosaic details
alternate with such passages; historical events are
mixed up in some of the Russian chronicles with
details of the weather and the narration of portents.
We are thus reminded of our own Anglo-Saxon
chronicle. As a specimen of the style of Nestor let

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EARLY SLAVONIC LITERATURE.

us take his quaint account of the death of Oleg,
which has formed the subject of a spirited ballad by
the Russian poet, Poushkin :—

“And Oleg lived, having peace on all sides, ruling
in Kiev. And Oleg remembered his horse, whom he
had entrusted to others to feed, himself never seeing
him. For a long time ago he had asked the wizards
and magicians, ‘From whom it is fated that I should
die?’ And one of the magicians said to him: ‘Prince,
the horse which thou lovest and upon which thou
ridest shall be the cause of thy death.’ Oleg receiving
this into his mind said, ‘I will never ride the horse
nor see him any more.’ And he ordered them to
take care of the horse, but never to bring it to him
again; and several years passed, and he rode him no
more, and he went among the Greeks. And he
returned to Kiev, and stayed there four years, and in
the fifth he remembered his horse, by whom the
soothsayers had predicted that Oleg would die, and,
having called the oldest of his grooms, he said:
‘Where is my horse, which I enjoined you to feed
and take care of?’ And they said: ‘He is dead.’
And Oleg smiled and found fault with the soothsayer
and said: ‘The wizard spoke falsely and it is all a
lie; the horse is dead and I am alive.’ And he
ordered them to saddle his steed for he wished to see
the bones of the horse. And he came to the place,
where the bones and the skull lay unburied. And
he leaped from his steed, and said with a smile: ‘How
can a skull be the cause of my death?’ And he
planted his foot on the skull, and out darted a snake

EARLY RUSSIAN LITERATURE.

73

and bit him on the foot, and from the wound he fell
sick and died. And all the people lamented with
great lamentation and carried him and buried him
on the mountain, called Stchekovitza. There is his
grave to this day, and it is called 'the grave of Oleg.'
And all the years of his reigning were thirty-three."
This curious story is found in other parts of Europe,
besides Russia; it belongs to the common stock of
Aryan mythology. As an eye-witness Nestor could
only describe the reigns of Vsevolod and Sviatopolk
(1078-1112); but he gathered many interesting details
from the lips of aged men, two of whom he especially
mentions, Giorata Rogovich, an inhabitant of Nov-
gorod, probably a merchant, who furnished him with
information concerning the extreme north of Russia,
Pechora, and other places; and, secondly, Jan, an old
man ninety years of age, who deceased in 1106,
and was son of a certain Vishata, the voievode of
Yaroslav, and grandson of Ostromir, the Posadnik,
for whom the celebrated Codex was written.

The chain of the chronicles extends in almost un-
broken continuity to the days of Alexis Mikhailovich,
the father of Peter the Great. Of the two breaks
which occur the first is in the time of Vasilii, or Basil,
son of Dmitri Donskoi, and the second in the days
of Ivan the Terrible (1534-84). In a note to the
first volume of his history (St. Petersburg, 1818,
p. xxxii.), Karamzin tells us that there are upwards of
a thousand of these annalists preserved in Russia, to
say nothing of short compendiums. Every town of
the least importance had its annalist, and Novgorod,

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EARLY SLAVONIC LITERATURE.

the great, boasted of several. A good edition of these chronicles was published at St. Petersburg in 1846, including Nestor, who has been translated into Polish, Czech, German, and French,¹ but not into our own language. It is necessary to study them in order to understand Russian history, and we can see by his notes what extensive use has been made of them by Karamzin. But to return to Nestor, there are several manuscripts of this interesting work; the oldest which has been preserved (the Lavrentievski) dates from the year 1377. Thus, unfortunately, we have none that are contemporary. Besides writing this chronicle, he compiled lives of the Russian Saints, Boris and Gleb, and the Igoumen Theodosius. A certain school of Russian critics, headed by Professor Ilovaiski, has attempted to throw doubt on the genuineness of this important work, but he has been completely refuted by Pogodine. Among the continuators of Nestor were monks of Kiev, Volînia, Pskov, Novgorod, and Souzdal. The annals of Pskov are full of the quarrels of the people with the neighbouring Germans, and their proud mother-city, Novgorod. In the year 1510 the independence of the former city was annihilated by Basil, the father of Ivan the Terrible, and it is in the following manner that the writer of the chronicle laments his downfall :—

> "Then disappeared the glory of Pskov and our city was captured not by those of another faith, but by those of our own faith. Who would not weep and groan

¹ A new translation is promised by M. Leger.

EARLY RUSSIAN LITERATURE.

75

about this? O glorious and great city of Pskov, for
what dost thou lament and weep? And the beautiful
city of Pskov answered, How can I help weeping and
grievingly about the desolation which has befallen me.
A many-winged eagle has flown to me with lion's claws
and has taken from me all my beauty and wealth and
carried off my children." Of the same kind are the
Imperial Book (Tzarstvennaïa Kniga) and the Genea-
logical Book (Stepennaïa Kniga) so called because it
gives the seventeen degrees of the generations of the
imperial family from the time of Vladimir I. We
can thus see that there is plenty of material for Russian
history, only these compilations want sifting and
reducing to shape.

The early Russian travellers are worthy of some
attention. First of these must be mentioned the
Igoumen Daniel, who visited the Holy Land in the
time of the Grand Duke Sviatopolk Mikhail (1093-
1113). The Byzantine Emperor at the time was
Baldwin I. Daniel was probably a monk from the
government of Chernigov, as may be inferred from
his comparing the Jordan with the Snov, which flows
through that province. A later traveller was Athanasius
Nikítin, a merchant of Tver, who visited Golkonda
and the Dekkan in 1470, and left an account of his
journey.¹ Anastasius writes as follows:—"I started

¹ "Travels of Athanasius Nikítin," translated by Count Vielhorski, and edited for the Hakluyt Society by R. Major, in "India in the Fifteenth Century." There is also a valuable monograph on the subject by Sreznevski.

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from the church of our Holy Saviour of Zlatoverkh,
with the kind permission of the Grand Duke Michael
Borisovich and the Bishop Gennadius of Tver, went
down the Volga, came to the convent of the holy
life-giving Trinity, and the holy shrines of Boris and
Gleb, the martyrs, and received the blessing of the
Igumen Macarius, and his brethren. From Koliazin
I went to Ouglich, thence to Kostroma, to the Knez
Alexander with an epistle." He took a horse with him
through all his travels, and when in India he says :
"At Joneer the Khan took away my horse, and
having heard that I was no Mahometan, but a Russian,
said, 'I will give thee the horse, and a thousand
pieces of gold, if thou wilt embrace our faith, the
Mahometan faith; and if thou dost refuse I shall
keep the horse and take a thousand pieces of gold
upon thy head.' He gave me four days to consider,
and all this occurred during the Fast of the Assump-
tion of Our Lady, on the Eve of Our Saviour's Day
(Aug. 18th). And the Lord took pity on me because
of His holy festival, and did not withdraw His mercy
from me, His sinful servant, and allowed me not to
perish at Joneer among the infidels. On the eve of
Our Saviour's Day there came a man from Khorassan,
Khozaiécha Mahomet, and I implored him to pity
me. He repaired to the Khan in the town, and
praying him, delivered me from being converted and
took from him my horse. Such was the Lord's
wonderful mercy on the Saviour's day."

He also makes the following pious reflections at
Dabul: "And there it was that I, Athanasius, the

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77

sinful servant of God, bethought myself of the
Christian religion, of the Lent fastings ordained by the
holy fathers, of the baptism of Christ, and of the
precepts of the apostles, and I made up my mind to
go to Russia. May God preserve the Russian land.
God preserve this world and more especially from
hell; may He bestow His blessings on the dominions
of Russia and the Russian nobility, and may the
Russian rule increase."

There is also a narrative of the adventures of
two merchants sent by Ivan the Terrible, viz., Koro-
beinikov and Grekov, with a present of 77,000
florins to the patriarchs of Constantinople and Alex-
andria, and to the monks who guarded the Holy
Sepulchre, desiring them to pray without ceasing
for the soul of his son, whom he had killed with his
iron staff in a state of ungovernable fury. A moder-
nised version of this narrative was published at
Moscow in 1830, by Ivan Mikhailov. Vladimir
Monomakh, who was Grand Duke from 1053 to 1125,
composed, after the Byzantine fashion, an "Instruc-
tion" (*Pouchenie*) for his sons, which is curious for
the picture of the manners of the times which it
presents.¹ The following extract will give an idea of
the piece: "In war be vigilant; be an example to
your boyars. Never retire to rest till you have posted
your guards. When you travel through your provinces,
do not allow your attendants to do injury to the

¹ This interesting memorial of the ancient Slavs is printed
in extenso in Bielowski, "Monumenta Poloniæ Historica," i.,
854.

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EARLY SLAVONIC LITERATURE.

inhabitants. If you find yourself afflicted by any illness, make three prostrations to the ground before the Lord; and never let the sun find you in bed.” “At the dawn of day my father and all the good men did thus, they glorified the Lord. They then seated themselves to deliberate, or to administer justice to the people, or they went to the chase, and in the middle of the day they slept, which God permits to man as well as to the beasts and birds. As for me, I accustomed myself to do everything that I might have ordered my servants to do. Night and day, in the summer heat and winter cold I knew no rest. I wished to see everything with my own eyes. Never did I abandon the poor or the widows to the insolence of the powerful. I made it my duty to see the churches and the sacred ceremonies of religion, as well as the management of my household, my stables, and the hawks and falcons, with which I hunted.” He afterwards recounts his various expeditions against the enemy, and the perils he had undergone in the chase. It is interesting to us Englishmen to know that Vladimir married Gyda, a daughter of Harold, who fell at Senlac. Passing by the writings of Cyril, the bishop of Tourov, we come to the well-known “Story of the expedition of Prince Igor” (Slovo o polkou Igoreve), which is a kind of prose bîlina (some modern scholars have attempted to construct it in rhythmical form), which narrates an expedition of the year 1185. The manuscript volume, which contained this production, came originally from the

EARLY RUSSIAN LITERATURE.

79

monastery of the Saviour at Yaroslavl, but was un-
fortunately burned in the conflagration, which took
place at Moscow in the year 1812. Luckily the piece
had been printed, but very carelessly, by Count
Mousin-Poushkin, and a transcription was also found
among the papers of the Empress Catherine II. Con-
cerning the authenticity of this prose-poem, there has
been a controversy, which would occupy too much
space to be discussed here. The chief difficulties
have been the prose-poetical style, and the many
expressions which seem to show that the author was
acquainted with the classical writers and poems of
chivalry. Moreover, there is a strange mixture of
heathen and classical allusions. This M. Courrière
in his "Histoire de la Littérature contemporaine
en Russie," explains in the following fashion. He
supposes that the song of Igor was composed by
a bard, who formed part of the drouzhina of the
Grand Duke. "This militia, by reason of its origin
and warlike character, was but little under religious
influence. Like the people it had faithfully preserved
the antique traditions of the ancient bohatíri: it
modelled its *piesni* on the old legends." Something
like the same mixture is found in the "Discourse of
a Lover of Christ, and Advocate of the True Faith,"
printed by Bouslaev in his Chrestomathy.

A few extracts from the "Slovo" will give some idea
of its style. The expedition of Igor, prince of Nov-
gorod Severski in Chernigov, is undertaken against the
Polovtzes, a Tartar tribe in the south of Russia. He
thus addresses his troops, "I wish to break my lance

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in their remote steppes, to lay my head there or to
drink up the Don from my helmet." The numerous
army assembles: "The horses neigh on the Soula, the
thunder of glory resounds in Kiev, in Novgorod are
heard the trumpets, the standards wave in Poutivl:
Igor awaits his dear brother Vsevolod." Vsevolod
describes his warriors in the following florid manner,
for the whole piece is full of oriental hyperbole:
"Their bows are strung, their quivers are open, their
swords are sharpened, they bear themselves in the
field like grey wolves, they seek honours for them-
selves and glory for their prince." Igor hastens to
assist his brother. We are told that the earth was
deluged with blood and strewn with carcasses: there
was no more supply of the *wine of blood*. In fact,
there is a profusion of the grim metaphors which give
such ghastliness to some of the Anglo-Saxon poems.
The wife of Igor, Yaroslavna, the daughter of Yaroslav,
is represented as weeping and anxious at Poutivl:
"I will fly like a cuckoo over the Danube. I will
dip my gloves of beaver skin in the river Kayala: in
the morning I will wash the bleeding wounds on the
brave body of my prince. . . . O glorious Dnieper,
thou forcest thy way by the rocks through the territory
of the Polovtzes. Thou didst bear on thy waves the
barks of Sviatoslav against the host of Kobiak,¹
bring, lord, my beloved one to me so that I may not
any more send him early my tears by the sea. . . . .
O bright, very bright sun! to all thou art warm and

¹ Alluding to a previous expedition of Igor against Kobiak, prince of the Polovtzes, in 1171.

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81

beautiful; why, lord, hast thou darted thy burning
rays on the beloved warriors? Why in the desert
without water, in their thirst dost thou direct on
them thy rays? why dost thou make their quivers
useless, through their sufferings? Wherefore, O
powerful wind, with thy light wings, didst thou
waft the arrows of the Khan against the warriors
of my love? Was it not enough for thee to make
the blue sea swell and to float the vessels by its
undulations?" As Igor is coming back sailing on the
river Donetz, the author invests the river with life
and makes it address the hero, "There is no little
glory for thee, Igor, and vexation to the Khan, and
rejoicing to the Russian land." The prince answers,
"It is no little boast to thee, Donetz, when thou
floatest Igor on thy waters." The rhapsodist winds
up in the following way, "It is bad for the head to be
without the shoulders, and bad for the shoulders
without the head. Happy is the land and many the
people triumphing in the rescue of Igor. Glory to
the Princes and their Host." So ends this strange
production, which in many places resembles the Irish
prose-poems, such as the description of the Battle of
Clontarf, in "The War of the Gaedhill with the
Gaill," and "The Battle of Magh Rath."

I am compelled to pass over several lives of saints
and religious discourses, and the legendary stories of
the "Tzar Solomon," drawn from Byzantine sources, to
come to the Zadonstchina, a prose-poem, very much
in the style of the "Story of the Expedition of Igor."
The former piece celebrates the great victory gained

G

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EARLY SLAVONIC LITERATURE.

by Dmitri Donski over the Tartars at the Battle of
“Koulikovo Pole,”—the field of woodcocks. It was
first published by Undolski in 1852. It is said to
have been composed by a monk named Sophronius.

The story of Drakoula (Poviest o Drakoulé) is a
collection of anecdotes concerning a very cruel prince
of Moldavia, who lived in the beginning of the fif-
teenth century. According to Bouslaev the work
became more popular in Russia during the reign of
Ivan the Terrible on account of the parallel which
could be drawn by the Russians between his atrocities
and those of the Moldavian prince. Here we first
find the following highly dramatic story. "On one
occasion some ambassadors came to him from the
Turkish Tzar. They entered and bowed before him,
but, according to custom, did not take their hats
from their heads. Whereupon he asked of them.
'Wherefore act ye thus? Do ye come to a great
prince and act so shamefully?' But they answered
and said, 'The laws of our land hold this custom.'
But he replied, 'I also have a mind to make stronger
your custom, and do ye stand firmly to it.' And he
ordered his attendants to take iron nails and nail their
hats to their heads." This tale is told by Collins, the
English physician to Alexis Mikhailovich, in his in-
teresting book on Russia, of the Tzar Ivan the Terrible,
and he is said to have acted in this way to a French
ambassador. But there is an earlier authority. Hey-
lyn, in his Microcosmos, Oxford, 1629, says (p. 346),
"And truly there is no nation so kindly entertained
amongst the Russians, both prince and people, as the

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83

English, who have many immunities not granted to other nations. The cause I cannot but attribute to the never-dying fame of our late Queene, admired and loved of the Barbarians; and also to the conformable behauiour of the English in generall, which hath been so plausible, that when Wasiliwich or Basiliades nayl'd the hat of another forraine ambassador to his head, for his peremptorinesse, he at the same time vsed our S. Thomas Smith with all curtesie imaginable."

And here, perhaps, would be a fitting place to say a few words about the various codifications of the Russian laws.

(1) The Rousskaia Pravda of Yaroslav, which is preserved in the Chronicle of Novgorod.¹ In this we see that the early Slavs, before they had undergone the evil influence of the Tatars, had very much the same institutions as those prevalent among other European nations at the time: for instance, the trial by wager of battle, trial by ordeal, and circuit of judges.

The following enactments of this early code are worth our attention :—

If a man were murdered, his relations might take the life of the murderer; if there were no relations, atonement must be made by payment of a sum of money into the treasury. There is a graduated list of penalties, varying, of course, according to the rank of the person slain. The penalty for murdering a woman is only half of that for the death of a man.

¹ "Das älteste Recht der Russen," von Joh. Ewers. Dorpat, 1826.

G 2

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EARLY SLAVONIC LITERATURE.

Nothing need be paid for killing a slave, if he gave provocation; if he were slain without any reasonable pretext,—a point which was no doubt very arbitrarily settled,—compensation for his loss must be made to the master. According to the scale of fines settled in these laws, we can form an accurate idea of the gradations of ranks then existing in the Russian principalities. First came the Boyars; in the second rank soldiers, persons attached to the court, landowners, and merchants; in the third, slaves belonging to the Grand Dukes, the Boyars, and the Monasteries. These slaves were originally, in most instances, captives in war and their descendants, but there were many other ways in which a man might become a slave,—e.g. insolvent debtors, and those who, being free, married slaves. If the murdered could not be found, the district in which the crime was committed was assessed. Injury to limbs was also atoned for by pecuniary compensation, heavy damages being laid for pulling the hair out of a man's beard. A regular scale of fines was also imposed for blows. If, after having struck a freeman, a slave conceals himself, and his master does not deliver him up, the latter must pay twelve grivnas to the person injured, who has the right of putting to death the slave who has committed the offence, wherever he shall find him. A burglar caught at night, *flagrante delicto*, might be slain by the master of the house.

Whoever stole a horse forfeited his liberty. "So important," adds Karamzin, "was this animal, the true servant of man in war, in agriculture, and in

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85

travel." The penalty, however, for stealing an ox was only a fine. One curious enactment is another proof of the jealousy with which the possession of a horse was guarded. If any one rides another man's horse without having obtained its owner's leave, he shall pay a penalty of three grivnas. According to Karamzin a similar law prevailed among the Low Germans of Jutland. The law of succession is not very clearly stated in this code. Males appear to have been preferred to females, and the youngest son was always to take the father's house, as being less able to provide himself with a livelihood.

(2) The Laws of Ivan III.

(3) The Laws of Ivan IV. the Terrible.—The Stoglav and Soudebnik.

(4) The Ordinance (oulozhenie) of the Tzar Alexis Mikhailovich, father of Peter the Great. The three first of these codes are printed at full length in the very convenient work, edited in Bohemian, at Prague, by Dr. Hermenegild Jirecek, and entitled "Svod Zákunuv Slovanskych" (Collection of Slavonic Laws). The law-book, or Soudebnik, of the Tzar Ivan III. was published in 1497. When Herberstein, the ambassador from the emperor of Germany to Muscovy, visited the country in 1517, he was made acquainted with some of the enactments of this code, and has given a translation in his very interesting work, "Rerum Muscovitarum Commentarii," of which so many editions appeared during the sixteenth century. Herberstein was one of the earliest and one of the most intelligent travellers in Russia.

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EARLY SLAVONIC LITERATURE.

The second work of importance is that of Giles Fletcher, "Of the Russe Commonwealth," Lond., 1591. This, the first edition, has now become very scarce, as by order of Elizabeth it was suppressed owing to the candid and severe remarks made upon the emperor and the country by the author. Elizabeth at that time was very anxious to be on good terms with Ivan on account of the advantages of the Russian trade, of which the English had for many years the monopoly.¹

The Soudebnik of Ivan IV. is founded upon that of his grandfather. The ordinance of the Emperor Alexis is a much more copious document. The original manuscript of this code is still preserved at the Kremlin, written upon a series of rolls, as is frequently the case with Slavonic manuscripts, and preserved in a casket, in which it was placed by order of the empress, Catherine II.

In the year 1553 a printing-press was set up in Moscow, and here was printed, in 1564, the first book, —an Apostol, as it is called by the Slavs, —i.e., a book containing the Acts of the Apostles and the Epistles. The chief printers were Ivan Fedorov and Peter Mstislavetz. In other Slavonic countries the art of printing had been introduced much earlier. Thus we have Bohemian books printed in Gothic letters at Pilsen in 1468 and 1475, and in Cyrillic by Sveipolt Fiol at Cracow in 1491. About the year 1525 there was a

¹ See the interesting work, "England and Russia, 1553-1593," published at St. Petersburg in 1875, both in Russian and English, by Youri Tolstoi.

EARLY RUSSIAN LITERATURE.

87

press at Vilna, and as early as 1548 Ivan the Terrible had invited printers from Germany, but did not succeed in securing their services.

The labours of Fedorov and his companion were destined to be of but short duration. The efforts of those who earned a living by copying books, and the prejudices of the superstitious, prevailed. The printers were driven out of Russia, and found a refuge in Lithuania, having lost their protector, Macarius, the Metropolitan of Moscow, who died in 1564. Ivan Federov was warmly received by Sigismund III. of Poland, and printed several books in that country, among others the well-known Bible of Ostrog in 1581. A copy of this rare book is preserved in the British Museum, and actually came from the library of Ivan. It was brought from Russia by Sir Jerome Horsey. On the fly-leaf is the following memorandum in Horsey's own hand :—"This Bibell in the Slavonian tonge had owt of the Emperor's librari."

Some very interesting details about the progress of the art of printing in Slavonic countries are given by Pîpin in his often-cited history. He shows us (as might have been expected) how much more active the presses were in the western and southern Slavonic countries than in the principality of Moscow. Up to the year 1600 only sixteen books had been issued by the Moscow press, but in the west and south, 67; up to 1625, by the Moscow press, 65; and by the western and southern, 147. In Great Russia, or, as it was then called, Muscovy, there was only one press at the capital, whereas in the other countries they were

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frequently to be found in small towns and even at
monasteries. Besides the presses already mentioned,
at Lemberg a book was printed in 1574, at Kiev in
1614, and at Chernigov in 1646.

As the early-printed Slavonic books are great
rarities, the following facts may interest the curious :—
The first primer was printed at Vilna in 1596;
afterwards, at Moscow, two by Bourtzov in 1634
and 1637, and a Slavonic Greek and Latin Primer
by Polikarpov in 1701. The first Greek Slavonic
grammar, called Αὐελφότης, was printed at Lemberg
in 1591; the second, the Slavonic grammar of Lav-
rentii Zizanii, at Vilna, in 1596; the grammar of
Smotritzki followed this. The first Palæoslavonic
and Russian grammar was published by Berînda, at
Kiev, in 1627. The first grammar of the Russian
language appeared at Oxford in the year 1696 by
Henry Ludolf, brother of the author of the "History
of Ethiopia." It was written, no doubt, on account
of the great curiosity excited everywhere by the
adventures of Peter the Great, the most conspicuous
lion of the time. The types with which this book
was printed are still in the possession of the Clarendon
Press; they are, however, very far removed from
the elegance to which Cyrillic printing has been
brought in Russia and some other countries.

One of the most curious books of the period of Ivan
the Terrible is the Domostroi, or Book of Household
Management, said to have been written by the Monk
Sylvester, although this has been contradicted. This
ecclesiastic—if he were the author—was at one time

EARLY RUSSIAN LITERATURE.

89

in great favour with Ivan, but having offended him,
was banished by the tyrant to the Solovetzki monas-
tery, where he died. The work was primarily ad-
dressed by the priest to his son Anthemus and his
daughter-in-law Pelagia, but as the greater part of it
was of a general character, it soon became used in all
households. This father of the Church is most com-
prehensive in his details; he discusses religious duties
and descends even to the details of the kitchen and
the mysteries of cookery. We get many glimpses into
social life among the early Russians in this book, and
see the humiliating position in which women and
children were placed in the family. The wife is to
be constantly weaving and making clothes, with the
assistance of her domestics. But even in her manage-
ment of them she can hardly move a step without the
directions of her husband. Her greatest honour con-
sisted in attending to his wants: in fact, she was under
an Oriental despotism. Personal chastisement might
be inflicted upon her for her faults. Sylvester, if we
are to trust the account of himself, must have been a
benevolent man. He thus writes to his son: "I have
freed all my slaves; they now live in their own houses
and are full of good wishes for us. Many orphans
and poor people I have nourished from their child-
hood, both at Moscow and Novgorod. I have taught
them to write, to paint icons (sacred pictures), to copy
books, or to earn their living by some other trade; and
thy mother has brought up poor girls, has taught them
to work, trained them for the duties of a household,
and having prepared them has settled them in mar-

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riage. Many of these we have trained are now priests, or clerks, or work in shops." The seclusion of women was to be broken through by Peter the Great when he established his assemblies after the manner of the French. Sylvester appears in his work as a rigorous conservative, and an opponent of all foreign innovations.

About this time, Macarius, the metropolitan of Moscow, composed the Chetii-Minei, or Monthly Readings, a book which contains extracts from the Greek Fathers' arranged for every day of the week. The compilation of this work is said to have occupied him twelve years.

An important writer of the time of Ivan the Terrible was Prince Kourbski. Andrew Mikhailovich Kourbski, descended from the princes of Yaroslavl, was born about the year 1528. In his younger days he distinguished himself as a soldier, and fought at Kazan and with the Livonian knights. But, having quarrelled with Ivan, he fled to Poland, where he was well received by Sigismund Augustus. He died in 1587 or 1588. Immediately on his flight from the country he commenced an angry correspondence with Ivan, reproaching him for his many cruelties. The story is well known how he deputed his faithful servant, Ivan Shibanov, to convey one of these epistles to Ivan, who, while he read it, kept striking the feet of the unfortunate messenger with his iron staff till they streamed with blood.¹

¹ This occurrence has formed the subject of a ballad by Count A. Tolstoi.

EARLY RUSSIAN LITERATURE.

91

Many of the compositions of the tyrant himself have been preserved, not the least curious of which is the letter which he wrote to Cosmas and the Brotherhood of the Cyrillian Monastery on the White Lake (Bieloe Ozero).

A very interesting work is the chronograph, as he styles it, of Sergius Koubasov, the son of a boyar of Tobolsk. In the first quarter of the seventeenth century he compiled this record, which extends from the foundation of the world to the election of Mikhail Romanov. The early part is taken from the Byzantine chroniclers, but the most valuable is that which commences with the reign of Ivan the Terrible, because the author then writes from his own personal knowledge. Not the least curious part of his book is where he gives us descriptions of the appearance of the Tzar and members of the Imperial family. Thus he tells us that Ivan the Terrible was tall and ugly, with a long flat nose and grey eyes; lean, but with broad shoulders.¹ A more lovely picture is given of the unfortunate Xenia, daughter of Boris Godunov, who was cruelly thrust into a monastery by the conqueror, the false Demetrius. Thus we are told that she was a girl of wonderful sense; of a fresh healthy complexion; large dark eyes, very bright, but especially so when she shed tears. This is altogether a most curious book, and must make us regret that the chronicle of Prince Mstislavski, which he

¹ A more favourable description, however, is given of Ivan by Sir Jerome Horsey, in his "Diary," preserved in the British Museum.

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EARLY SLAVONIC LITERATURE.

showed to Horsey, according to the diary of the
latter, and which contained his account of contem-
porary events, has been lost.

A very important work is the sketch of the Russian
Government and the habits of the people, written by
one Koshikhin (or Kotoshikhin, for the name is
found in both forms), a renegade *diak*, or secretary,
which, after having lain for a long time in manuscript
in the library of Upsala, in Sweden, was edited in
1840 by the historian Soloviev. Owing to some
political intrigues, Kotoshikhin was compelled to
leave his country. He was executed at Stockholm
about 1669 for the murder of his master. His book
is of great value as a picture of the manners of the
time; it is also important as a good piece of early
Russian prose-writing. According to Soloviev, the
work of Kotoshikhin circulated extensively in Sweden
in a Swedish translation. He is thus spoken of by the
author of this version: "Fuit profecto solers animo
atque etiam ingeniosissimus inter suos coæquales et
conterraneos." It appears that during his residence
in Sweden he went by the name of Ivan Selitzki.
I take him altogether to have been a remarkable
man for his time. The picture of his native
country drawn by Kotishikhin is not a very favour-
able one. He tells us of the frequency with which
the torture was applied, and how in its agonies the
wretched victims accused all kinds of persons, who
were themselves in turn visited with it. The boyars,
he says, are all ignorant men, and even in the Tzar's
*douma*, or council, "sit silently stroking their beards,

EARLY RUSSIAN LITERATURE.

93

and make no reply when there is need of their advice." In the details of domestic life we see many Asiatic customs; at the long banquets and receptions of guests there were endless ceremonies: the richly-embroidered Oriental robes which were worn were without any real elegance. Corpulence and a thick beard were universally admired. The women lived apart, and never made their appearance in the men's assemblies, nor were they ever seen by any one except their nearest relations. Marriages were arranged by the parents as a commercial speculation, and the bridegroom had no opportunity of becoming personally acquainted with his bride. She was only shown to his mother, or some near female relation, and on these occasions they sometimes put a stool under her feet to make her appear taller, or instead of her they brought a handsome female slave; and in the same way they married to the bridegroom an elder sister instead of a younger, who was more handsome. "Nowhere," says Kotoshikhin, "are such deceptions played with regard to young women as in the Empire of Muscovy." The disappointed husband would frequently persecute his wife till she retired into a monastery. On this account law-suits sometimes occurred between relations, and there were disputes about the marriage portion. As might be expected, Kotoshikhin has but little to tell us about the lower orders. The wretched peasantry, with the outrages heaped upon them for centuries, are merely silent figures in these panoramas of the old Russian life; we learn more about them from

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such books as Giles Fletcher's, in the time of Ivan
the Terrible. Nor has he much to say about the
Church, which, recruited mainly from the lower orders,
has never shown a bold and independent front in
Russia. His talk is of the nobles, of their ignorance
and corruption, and he recommends education as the
great remedy, and education by sending the sons of
leading men to be trained in foreign countries.
During his short reign (1598-1605), Boris Godunov,
a far-seeing, and for his time enlightened, man, sent
eighteen students to be educated out of Russia.
Some of these went to France, others to Lübeck
and England. Of the fate of those who went to
France nothing appears to have been heard, but it
is supposed that they never returned, and the same
remark applies to the students at Lübeck. The reign
of Boris was followed by the episode of the troubled
rule of the false Demetrius. Russia was in all the
agonies of internecine war. But after Vasilii Shouiski
had ascended the throne, application was made to
the burgomaster of Lübeck to send them back. There
is no reason, however, to believe that they ever re-
turned. I now come to those sent to England, four
in number. These were committed to the charge of
John Meyrick, a member of the English factory at
Moscow, and were named respectively, Grigoriev,
Koshoukhov, Davîdov, and Kostomarov. When
they were sent for after the Russian troubles, Elizabeth
had been succeeded by James I. In 1613, an em-
bassy came from Mikhail Romanov, the new emperor,
one of the objects of which was to bring the students

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95

back; but they refused to go, and the English Govern-
ment does not appear to have made any effort to
compel them. Nor was another attempt, eight years
afterwards, more successful. Of their subsequent fate
little is known, but that they remained English
subjects, and one of them, Nicephorus Grigoriev,
was ordained a clergyman of the Church of England.¹
Professor Brückner has added further details, for
which we are indebted to his interesting " History
of Peter the Great," now in course of publication in
Russia. He tells us that another of these Russian
"children" served in Ireland as secretary to the
Government, and a third busied himself with com-
mercial pursuits in India, the trade of which was just
beginning to be opened to the English. The Russian
who became an ecclesiastic seems to have shown
repugnance to his native country; we are told that
he thanked God on account of the English who had
taken him out of Russia, and uttered many abusive
expressions about the orthodox faith. The descen-
dants of these Russians are probably still living among
us. But, for a long time, any Russian who praised
foreign countries, or wished to visit them, was regarded
as a traitor. In the time of Michael Romanov, Prince
Khvorostin was accused of heresy and treason because
he desired to visit foreign countries, and made the

¹ I have thought these facts so curious for us Englishmen as to warrant this digression. They are taken from an article, "The First Russian Students" (Pervіe Rousskie Stoudenti), by A. Arseniev in the excellent review, *Historical Messenger*, July, 1881.

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EARLY SLAVONIC LITERATURE.

remark that "everybody at Moscow was a fool."
The false Demetrius, whose short reign terminated
in such a sanguinary fashion, gave great offence by
ridiculing the ignorance of the boyars, and promising
to let them visit foreign countries so that they might
get themselves educated. In the times of the Tzars
Michael and Alexis, the wise views of Boris and
Demetrius were ignored. Olearius tells us, that when
a certain merchant of Novgorod wished to send his
son into foreign countries to get him educated, the
Tzar (Alexis) and the Patriarch forbade him.¹ A
hundred years after Boris, the great introducer of
Western culture into Russia, Peter, attempted the
same thing with more successful results.

But already, even during the reign of Alexis, the
father of Peter the Great, there were signs of the
empire being brought under European influence.
Many foreigners entered the Russian service, and
in 1649 the *oulozhenic*, or great code of laws, was
promulgated, which is divided into twenty-five chap-
ters, and was based partly upon the earlier codes of
Ivan III. and IV., and partly upon the laws of the
Byzantine emperors.

A curious work which has come down is the
“Directions for Falconry” (*Ouriadnik Sokolnichia
Pouti*),—always a favourite amusement with the
Russians,—compiled by order of the Tzar Alexis Mik-
hailovich. To this period also belong the works of
the first Panslavist, Youri Krizhanich, who, although

¹ “Istoria Petra Velikago,” A. Briknera, p. 201.

EARLY RUSSIAN LITERATURE.

97

a Serb by birth, wrote in Russian. His "Critical Servian Grammar" (with comparison of the Russian, Polish, Croatian, and White Russian) is still preserved in manuscript at Moscow. Very little is known of the life of Krizhanich. He was a Roman Catholic priest, who, upon some accusation which has not been ascertained, was banished to Tobolsk, in Siberia, where he finished this laborious work. He himself has placed at the end of the manuscript "pisano v Sibiri" (written in Siberia). This obscure and unrecognised philologist showed a great deal of insight into his subject, and anticipated many of the views of Vouk Stephanovich. His curious work on the "Russian Empire," which constitutes his claim to be called the earliest advocate of Pan-Slavistic doctrine, was edited by Bezsonov at Moscow, in 1860.¹ The picture drawn by the learned Serb of the condition of Russia is by no means a flattering one. Soloviev speaks of it as exhibiting a "national bankruptcy in an economical and moral sense." So gloomy is the description, that were not the pages of the book glowing with love for Russia, we might well believe that the author wrote under the influence of national animosity. Such is, however, very far from being the case. The great remedy suggested for the country by Krizhanich is education and adopting the improvements of the West. "The other nations, not in one day or year, but little by little, derived

¹ In the present century, the idea of panslavism, the *bête noire* of so many of our Western statesmen, was revived by the Bohemian poet, Jan Kollar.

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instruction from each other, and so we may also learn
if we persevere." These words came at a good time;
for one of the great characteristics of the reign of the
Emperor Alexis was the tendency shown by Russia
to look towards the West: the ice of barbarism was
gradually melting away, and everything was to be
ready for the great reformer, Peter.

Other works which may be mentioned are the "Ac-
count of the Siege of the Monastery of the Troitza,"
near Moscow, by the Poles, and "The Life of the
Patriarch Nicon," by Shousherin. Nicon, as my
readers will doubtless remember, was the indefatig-
able advocate of Church authority in the reign of
Alexis Mikhailovich, and the head of the commission
for correcting the Slavonic version of the Scriptures,
the alterations in which led to the sect of Staro-
obriadtzi, now very numerous in Russia. He
was born at Nizhni Novgorod in 1605, the son of
humble parents. After having been for some time
a monk in the Solovetzki Monastery on an island
in the White Sea, he visited Moscow in 1646, and
by his learning attracted the notice of the Tzar
Alexis. In 1648 he was made Metropolitan of
Novgorod, and in 1652 Patriarch of Moscow. He
now set himself about his great task of correcting
the Slavonic version of the Scriptures. In order to
procure a good collection of manuscripts, he de-
spatched the hieromonach Arsenii Soukhanov to
Mount Athos and the East. This emissary brought
back about 500 manuscripts, which formed the
nucleus of the now celebrated Synodal Library. In

EARLY RUSSIAN LITERATURE.

99

1655 and 1656 he summoned two councils of the Church, at which the newly-translated service-books were promulgated, and the old ones called in. This led to the great schism of the Staro-obriadtzi (viz., followers of the old ritual), which has lasted till the present time, a large section of the community refusing to accept the corrected books. Nicon afterwards fell into disgrace, and was degraded by the Tzar to the position of a common monk. He died at Yaroslavl, in 1681. Besides his labours with the sacred books he also edited a series of Russian chronicles.

I shall close my account of early Russian literature with some mention of Simeon Polotzki (1628-80), tutor to the Tzar Feodor, son of Alexis, who was an indefatigable writer of religious and educational works; but his productions can now only be of antiquarian interest. He is of some importance as having been one of the first to introduce the Russians to the culture of the West, which he had gained by his studies in the University of Kiev, then a part of Polish territory. He appears to have come to Moscow about the year 1664. He wrote several theological works, such as the "Garland of Faith" (Vienetz Vieri), and composed poems and religious dramas (e.g. "The Prodigal Son, Nebuchadnezzar," &c.). Perhaps the most amusing are his quaint verses on the new palace built by the Tzar Alexis at Kolomenskoe. He also executed a poetical version of the Psalms. Polotzki seems to have had great educational influence among the Russians, and it was in this

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100

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sphere that his work principally lay. Professor Zabielin in his interesting work on "The Domestic Lives of the Early Russian Tzars," has told us of the system of education observed in the imperial families and among the boyars, but his accounts are so minute that probably no one but a reader taking deep interest in Slavonic subjects would have patience to wade through them. With Polotzki closes the old period of Russian literature: with the reforms of Peter the Great, Western influence began and the new era was inaugurated by Lomonosov.

EARLY SLAVONIC LITERATURE.

101

CHAPTER IV.

EARLY MALO-RUSSIAN AND WHITE RUSSIAN
LITERATURE.

It would be impossible in a little work like the present,
the scope of which is not philological, to go into the
vexed question of the origin of the Malo-Russian,
and whether we are to consider it to be a language or
a dialect. It will be sufficient here to quote the great
names of Miklosich and Schleicher in support of the
former opinion. The Little Russians subject to the
Tzar, together with the Rusniaks or Ruthenians, who
constitute the bulk of the Austrian province of
Gallicia, amount to 16,370,000. The authority over
this people in earlier times alternated between the
Russians and Poles. One of the earliest capitals of
Old Russia was Kiev, still an object of great reve-
rence. Its political glories lasted till it was devastated
by the Tatars. If this city had remained the capital
of Russia, Malo-Russian would undoubtedly have
become the national language. At the present time
its orthography is by no means fixed, which is
embarrassing to the student. In the books published
at Lemberg we find modifications of the Cyrillic
alphabet, so as to express some of the peculiar sounds
of the language. Its vocabulary is very curious and

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EARLY SLAVONIC LITERATURE.

quite a mine for the philologist, but up to the present
time its lexicography has been much neglected, and
the activity of the press of Kiev was checked in the
reign of the Emperor Alexander II., probably owing
to the revolutionist propaganda from Galicia. The
whole question is stated in "La Littérature oukrai-
nienne proscrite par le Gouvernement russe, Rapport
présenté au Congrès littéraire de Paris 1878," by
M. Dragomanov. Still writers in this language are
fairly active, and Lemberg is the centre of their
labours. The works of Shakspeare are now in course
of being translated into Little Russian. When the
Lithuanian princes conquered south-western Russia,
part was incorporated with their dominions, but in
1386 Lithuania was joined to Poland by the marriage
of its prince, Jagiello, with Hedwig, the Polish heiress,
who consented to the union on political grounds.

The Cossacks so often mentioned in connexion
with the Little Russians were at one time divided into
two great families, those of the Don and those of the
Dnieper. The former were incorporated with Russia
as early as the days of Ivan the Terrible; the latter,
long nominally subject to the Poles, broke out into
rebellion under Bogdan Khmelnitzki about the middle
of the seventeenth century, who finding that he could
not make head against the Polish generals, went over
with all his followers to Alexis Mikhailovich, the
father of Peter the Great. The Western Cossacks
established themselves on some island of the Dnieper
where they founded a military republic called the
Sech. Their numbers were recruited from renegade

EARLY MALO-RUSSIAN LITERATURE.

103

Poles, Little Russians, and Tatars, and their sub-
jection to Poland was little more than nominal. The
Cossacks of the Dnieper are frequently called Zapor-
ozhki, or Cossacks beyond the waterfalls. They are
first mentioned in Polish history in the year 1506, in
the time of Sigismund I.,¹ and their first hetman (a
corruption of the German *hauptman*) was Przeclaw
Lanckoronski.² In 1518, at the diet of Piotrkow, a
subsidy was granted them on condition of their
defending the Polish frontiers against the Turks.
Another hetman, Daszkiewicz, fashioned them into
something like a regular body of militia. But it was
King Stephen Batory, one of the bravest and most
efficient kings who ever reigned in Poland (1576-
1586), who thoroughly realised how useful they might
be made. By him their forces were divided into six
regiments of one thousand men each, and various
officers put over them. In the war waged by Batory
against Russia in 1586, they performed prodigies of
valour; at the same time as the king rewarded them
for their achievements, he took care that they were
kept in proper discipline. One of their hetmans,
Podkova (in Little Russian, Pidkova³), having dis-
obeyed his orders, he caused him to be seized and

¹ See "The Cossacks of the Ukraine," by Count H. Krasinski, London, 1848.

² This word was probably borrowed from a Low German
source. It has become Ataman in Russian.

³ He is said to have gained this name, which signifies, both in Russian and Polish, a horseshoe, on account of his extraordinary strength, he having repeatedly broken a horseshoe in two with his fingers.

EARLY SLAVONIC LITERATURE.

104

beheaded. Some of the *doumî*, or national songs,
relate to this chief. The great strongholds of these
sturdy freebooters were the islands of Khorchitza,
Sednev, and Kaniov; they fortified themselves by a
ring of chariots bound together with iron chains and a
deep trench, and they were always plentifully supplied
with ammunition. They elected their own hetman
amidst festivities, in which much drunkenness pre-
vailed. He had authority over them only in war,
and if he conducted a campaign badly or otherwise
displeased them they could put him to death. They
ate their food at public tables, like the Syssities of
the ancients, and no women under pain of death
were allowed in the *Sech*. Their corsair incursions
were performed in light vessels, called *chaiki*, which
could contain from thirty to sixty men, and were armed
with cannon; with these they committed devastations
up to the very walls of Constantinople. In these
respects they may be compared with the vikings of
an earlier period. In the time of Sigismund III.
dissensions began to arise between the Polish nobility
and the Cossacks. Moreover, Sigismund, who in
many respects resembled Ferdinand II. of Austria,
was a very zealous Roman Catholic, and made despe-
rate attempts to convert the Cossacks, who belonged
to the Greek Church. In 1596 they revolted in
*masse*, but were defeated by Zolkiewski, and their
chief, Nalivaiko, the subject of many a lay, was con-
demned to death and executed.¹ I have already

¹ The manner in which this was accomplished shall be left
in the Latin of a chronicler, not certainly of the most Ciceronian

105

alluded to the secession which took place in the
middle of the seventeenth century under Bogdan
Khmelnitzki.

While treating of the literatures of the Russian
dialects, it will be as well to include here the White
Russians in the governments of Mohilev, Minsk,
Vitebsk, and Grodno. The old literature of these
parts of the present Russian Empire is, as may be
imagined, somewhat scanty. Nor, indeed, is it very
easy to mark out in the early period what must be
considered strictly belonging to Great and what to
Little Russia. Thus, according to some, "The Story
of the Expedition of Igor," mentioned in the pre-
ceding chapter, is more properly Little Russian, and
Wiszniewski, taking his stand upon the fact that
Kiev and the southern part of Russia belonged in
the early period to the Poles, has even ventured to
include it in his "History of Polish Literature."
First, we have the Law Book (Soudebnik) of the year
1468, and the Lithuanian Statute compiled in the
years 1522-29. The White Russian Chronicles are
small and scanty, and are generally found in the
same collections as those which relate to Eastern
Russia.¹ A stimulus was given to Little Russian

elegance.—"Varsaviam adductus . . . neque permittebatur
somnum capere, sed si quando declinabat oculos in somnum,
peditibus ad id vigilantibus, obtusa parte securis monebatur
vigilantiæ. Tandem vero equo candenti impositus fuit ac
candenti corona coronatus."

¹ There are some valuable documents in the White Russian Archives (Bielorousskii Arkhiv), of which unfortunately only one volume appeared in 1824, edited by Grigorovich.

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EARLY SLAVONIC LITERATURE.

literature by the press, set up at Cracow by Sveipolt Fiol, where the first book was printed in Cyrillic letters in 1491. Little Russia, we must remember, belonged then to Poland. Fiol seems to have been born in Poland of German parents. His press was very active, but he fell at last under the censure of the bishop of Cracow, who suspected him of Hussitism or an inclination to the Greek Church, certainly heresy in some form, in consequence of which he afterwards retired to Hungary. Towards the end of the fifteenth or beginning of the sixteenth century we have a translation into Little Russian of the Song of Solomon, and about the years 1556-1561 a version of the four gospels was made, the so-called Peresopnitzki Translation.¹ The chief interest, however, in these dialects of the Russian language must be derived from their oral, and not their written, literature, at all events for the early period with which we have to do on the present occasion.

The Malo-Russian is very rich in *skazki* (National Tales) and in songs peculiar to this people is the "Douma," a narrative poem in most respects corresponding to the Russian *bîlina*. In 1819, Prince Tzertelev published a small volume of these under the title "Attempt at a Collection of Ancient Songs of Little Russia." This was followed by the editions of Maksimovich and Metlinski, but all these works, although showing considerable learning, have been thrown into the shade by the elaborate publication of

¹ See Pipin and Spasovich, "History of Slavonic Literature," i., 326.

107

MM. Antonovich and Dragomanov, of which, unfortunately, only one volume and a portion of the second has as yet appeared. Here the songs are arranged chronologically, and accompanied by copious notes.

To give some idea of the great quantity of these poems, I cannot do better than cite the divisions under which they are grouped by M. Dragomanov.

(1) Songs of the period of the *drouzhina* and the Princes. These relate to the early, independent days of the Little Russians, but towards the latter part of the period fresh elements begin to enter. The Malo-Russians had been partly amalgamated with the Lithuanian Principality, and, when that was united with Poland in the sixteenth century, they found themselves face to face with alien masters with whose government they felt no sympathy, and there must be added to this the appearance of the Turks and Tatars on their confines. Under these circumstances was developed the Cossack period (Kozachestvo), which represents one of continued struggles with the Polish *pans* and the Roman Catholic religion, in consequence of which we have the well-known revolt of Bogdan Khmelnitzki, and a large part of the Cossacks transfer their allegiance to the Emperor Alexis.

(2) The Cossack period of the National Songs is very rich. The *doumî* chiefly deal with the sufferings and imprisonment of Malo-Russians among the Turks and Tatars, as we see by such a title as the following: "Captivity and Blinding of Kovalenko by the Tatars." Raids of the description mentioned

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in this poem were very common. Thus Professor Dragomanov cites from an old chronicler an account of a fray in 1667 when "the horde carried off many, some of whom were ploughing and some sowing. They say that of heads of families alone, besides wives, children and servants, there were taken 8,064." The Polish chroniclers are full of accounts of these raids, and the sufferings of the miserable villagers. Some of the songs treat of the purchase of the slaves from captivity, and other ways in which they are rescued.

The Lays of the third period are classed under the heading of "Songs of the Days of the Haidamaks." This last word is said to be Turkish in origin, and to signify a robber. The Haidamak somewhat resembles the Bulgarian *heyduk* and the Greek *klepht*. He is a patriot who has joined bands of robbers as the only means of liberating his country. The Haidamaks form the national party in opposition to the Polish magnates and the Jews, who have always been so unpopular in these parts of Russia. Under this period comes the massacre of Human, when many Jewish children were slain by Gonta. Shevchenko, the chief poet of the Ukraine, who died in 1861, has made this the subject of a powerful *douma*. Vigorous it certainly is, but the details are too horrible to make an agreeable poem. The other two divisions of the Cossack songs given by Professor Dragomanov are too modern to be brought within the scope of my book. Peter the Great was very severe upon the Malo-Russians in consequence of the rebellion of

IIo

EARLY SLAVONIC LITERATURE.

Ah! the Turks know me well,
They will not catch me.
If they take my horse—I shall get another,
But if they take thee, I shall find no other.¹

Interesting collections of the national legends have
been published by Koulish and Roudchenko, and
are very interesting for the study of comparative
mythology. The songs of the Choumaki, or wandering
pedlars, have also been committed to writing. In
Little Russia the itinerant minstrel or *Kobzar* (so
called from the *Kobza*, a rude kind of guitar, which he
carries, very much resembling the Servian *gousla*) is
still to be met with, although unfortunately becoming
daily rarer. At the congress of *literati*, which met a
few years ago at Kiev, Ostap (Little Russian for
Eustathius) Veresai, a wandering minstrel, performed
before the assembled guests. To the reader un-
acquainted with the Slavonic languages, the work
entitled "Les Chants historiques de l'Ukraine," by
Professor A. Chozdko, may be recommended. It is
only recently that the Russians have realised the
value of their popular poetry, and now collection after
collection appears. Had they waited a little longer
it would have been too late. There is much tenderness
and delicacy of expression in these pieces, and they
ought to be better known to Western readers. The
territory of Little Russia, which, till recently, was almost
a terra incognita to the Russians themselves, has been
made more familiar by the writings of Gogol and
Shevchenko. The former has published many tales

¹ "Dragománov," i., 141.

III

illustrating Little Russian life; he uses, however, the
Great Russian language. Tales have also been
written by Kvitka and Grebenko, and by a lady
(Mme. Markovich) who writes under the *nom de
guerre* of Marko Vovchok. How rich the whole
country is in legends and folk-lore may be seen by
the work of M. Dragomanov, "Little Russian Popular
Traditions and Tales" (*Malorousskia Narodnîa pre-
dania i Rasskazî*).

Professor Bodenstedt, who has translated many of
the Little Russian *doumî* into German, thus expresses
himself on the general character of these composi-
tions:—"In most Little Russian songs a strange,
fascinating melancholy prevails: the mother takes
a sorrowful leave of her beloved son, who is going
into the field, from which she does not expect to see
him return; the deserted sister weeps over her fallen
brother, who was her former protector, nurtured and
comforted her, and now, like a lonely orphan, she
laments among strangers; the old Cossack bewails
the loss of his youth, when he went to the war in goodly
array, and fought with wild Tatars, and was beloved
by gentle maidens. The influence of woman is seen
everywhere; as in the history of the Oukraine we find
many other features of the knighthood of the Middle
Ages. The Little Russian lives in the closest com-
munion with nature; from her the beautiful similes
which we find in his songs are borrowed. Has
the Cossack fallen on the field, the eagles, his bro-
thers, fly to him and speak comfort to the dying hero;
are his eyes closed, the cuckoo sings his grave-song

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EARLY SLAVONIC LITERATURE.

from the flowering elder-tree. Every brave warrior
is a 'noble falcon'; he follows the enemy as a bird
chases its prey through the air. From the blowing
of the wind and the murmur of the waves, from the
neighing of his horse and the beating of its hoofs, he
can foretell the future." This picture, as drawn by
the worthy professor, may seem to some a little
idealised, but we must remember that the habits
of the Little Russians were very different from those
of the Great Russians, who have absorbed them.
No doubt, time has destroyed many of these charac-
teristics, but to go no further back than to the days
of Clarke—the traveller at the beginning of the pre-
sent century,—we find more of the spirit of chivalry
among the Little Russians than among the Musco-
vites. Clarke, who labours under the most aggra-
vated Russophobia, superinduced by the ill-treatment
which he received at the hands of the Emperor
Paul, has nothing but praise for the Cossacks of the
Oukraine. Their hospitality, simplicity, and honesty
are his constant themes.

The literature of the White Russians is but scanty
and almost entirely oral. Collections of their songs
have been published by Sheïn, Bezsonov, and others.
In 1844 a small volume of Rural Poems (*Piosnki
Wiesnacze*) was printed at Vilna, in Latin letters in
what was called the "Slavono-Krevitchian" dialect.
This, however, is none other than White Russian.
The Krivitches (mentioned by Nestor) were an ancient
tribe inhabiting these regions. There is a good
dictionary by Nosovich, and the dialect is gradually

113

being brought under proper philological treatment. As regards the country of the White Russians, it is certainly one of the least interesting parts of Russia, both on account of the dulness and monotony of the scenery and the poverty of the inhabitants.

It is often very difficult for the philologist when examining the few religious books and others published in early times in the White Russian territory to say exactly what the dialect is. As is always the case where a language is but little cultivated, we get a great many forms. Thus the foundation of the language of most of these books is Palæoslavonic, but Polonisms abound. The Lithuanian Principality, which attained a considerable degree of political importance before its union with Poland, employed the White Russian dialect for diplomatic purposes. No document whatsoever has come down to us in Lithuanian, as Professor Nil Popov informs us in an article in the Russian *Critical Review*. In the White Russian dialect, mixed with much Palæoslavonic, Francis Skorina translated some of the Old Testament, which he published at Prague between the years 1517-19, and the Acts and Epistles at Vilna in 1525.

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114

EARLY SLAVONIC LITERATURE.

CHAPTER V.

EARLY BULGARIAN LITERATURE.

IN a previous part of my work, I have alluded to the
various theories on the subject of the Old Slavonic
language. As the view taken here will be that the
Old Slavonic is identical with Old Bulgarian,¹ I shall
now treat of the earliest codices in this language, and
the Glagolitic will be taken first.

1. The Codex of Assemani, so called from the
monk who brought it from a Greek monastery on
Mount Libanon. It is now in the Vatican. It has
been edited by Racki, a distinguished Slavonic scholar.
It contains extracts from the Gospels for each day of
the year; by some it is considered to belong to the
eleventh, by others to the thirteenth century.

2. The Codex called Glagolita Clozianus, because
it originally belonged to Count Cloz of Trent. It
contains homilies by SS. John Chrysostom, Athanasius,
and Epiphanius. It was edited by Kopitar at Vienna

¹ I am prevented by the scope of this work from giving here
the reasons which seem to me to justify this opinion. The
reader who cares to pursue the subject further must consult
Scheicher, "Die Formenlehre der Kirchenslawischen Sprache,"
pp. 28, 29; or Miklosich, "Altslovenische Formenlehre in
Paradigmen, Einleitung."

EARLY BULGARIAN LITERATURE.

115

in 1836. It was supposed by him to be of the
eleventh century.

3. The Four Gospels, found by Grigorovich in a
monastery on Mount Athos, of the eleventh century.
This is a quarto manuscript containing 172 parchment
leaves. The beginning and the end are wanting;
leaf 134, on which the Gospel of St. John begins, is
written in Cyrillic.

4. Another Codex of the Gospels found in the
Monastery Zographus on Mount Athos. According
to Grigorovich, it belongs to the twelfth century.
This manuscript has been edited with great care by
Professor Jagić, of St. Petersburg, one of the most
eminent of modern Slavists.

5. A fragment of the gospels belonging to M.
Mihanovich, a manuscript in quarto, containing two
leaves of parchment, with notes in Cyrillic.

6. The Palimpsest of *Boyana*, discovered by Grigorovich in the town of that name, near Sophia, a quarto manuscript containing a hundred and nine parchment leaves; it includes the gospel of Saint Mark, written in Cyrillic, according to M. Courrière, with occasional traces of Glagolitic. It would be impossible in a work like the present to give a complete list of the Glagolitic Codices. I have therefore chosen the most important.

The most ancient manuscript in the Cyrillic
character is the Ostromir Codex, already alluded
to; it was written by the Diak Gregory according to
the order of Ostromir, the *posadnik*, or governor,
of Novgorod. This valuable manuscript was ori-

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EARLY SLAVONIC LITERATURE.

ginally preserved in the cathedral of St. Sophia, at Novgorod, but was found at the close of the last century in a room of one of the imperial palaces by Yakov A. Drouzhinin, where it had lain for some time, having been probably brought for the inspection of the Empress Catherine. By him it was taken to Alexander I., by whose orders it was preserved in the Public Library at St. Petersburg. It has been edited by the well-known Slavonic scholar, Vostokov. This fine manuscript is written in large uncial characters, with the headings of the chapters in golden letters; it also has ornamental capitals and portraits of the four Evangelists.

7. Some Legends and Homilies, which have been edited by Miklosich under the following title "Monumenta linguæ Palæoslovenicæ e codice Suprasliensi," Vienna, 1851. The manuscript is assigned by the learned professor to the eleventh century. It is called the "Codex Suprasliensis" because it was formerly preserved in the abbey of the Basilian monks at Suprasl, near Bialystok, in Poland. It is a manuscript of the highest importance on account of the purity of the language. It is to be regretted that some of the leaves have been lost; but before this misfortune befel it a transcript of the whole manuscript was made by the indefatigable Kopitar, and this is luckily preserved.

The question is a very interesting one, but perhaps hardly to be solved exactly:—How much of the Scriptures did the Slavonic apostles translate? It seems probable that the whole of the gospels were

EARLY BULGARIAN LITERATURE.

117

rendered into Slavonic. Some have asserted that the Old Testament was also translated, but this appears unlikely, since no ancient codex of it exists or has ever been proved to have existed,¹ and as to the New Testament, the Apocalypse must certainly be excepted. In the time of Nestor, the Proverbs of Solomon certainly existed in a Slavonic translation. The book of Wisdom, Ecclesiastes, the Prophets, and Job were translated in Servia in the thirteenth or fourteenth century; the Pentateuch in Russia or Poland somewhere about 1400. It is certain, that towards the close of the fifteenth century the whole Bible was already translated into Palæoslavonic. According to Dobrovsky, the different parts of it were not collected till after 1488, when the Bohemian Bible of Prague was printed. The Slavonic Bible was arranged on the model of this, and what was wanting was at that time supplied. There is at Moscow a complete codex of the whole Bible of the date of 1499. The text of the translation was not disturbed till the celebrated recension of Nicon, in the time of the Emperor Alexis, of which I shall shortly speak.

Mention may also be made of the Psalter of Bologna, which is assigned to the twelfth century. The Book of the Gospels of Rheims, called in French the "Texte du Sacre," has had a very curious history. It was upon this book that the kings of France were accustomed to take the oath at their coronation at Rheims before the Revolution. The

¹ "Historical View of the Slavic Language" (sic), by Mrs. Robinson (Talvj), Andover, U.S., 1834, p. 28.

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manuscript was magnificently bound in a cover of plates of gold, ornamented with precious stones. When in 1717 Peter the Great visited Rheims, it was exhibited to him among the other curiosities of the place, and he recognised that it was written in some Slavonic language. In 1789 an Englishman, Thomas Ford Hill, having been shown some Glagolitic manuscripts in the Imperial Library at Vienna, at once declared that they were written in the same characters as the mysterious book of Rheims.

The matter would soon have been sifted, as the curiosity of Slavonic scholars had been excited, when the Revolution broke out in all its fury. The wonderful book disappeared, carried off, no doubt, on account of its precious exterior. Nor could any trace of it be found, and its loss was naturally deplored by Slavonic scholars, as they imagined that it might have contained leaves of the highest antiquity and of priceless value. Sylvestre de Sacy and Kopitar made all possible search for it, but without success. How it ultimately turned up I am unable to state, but it was recognised by the philologist Stroiev, of course stripped of its gorgeous environment. The book was found by Paplonski to consist of two parts—1st, Cyrillian in a Serbo-Russian dialect, written, according to the inscription at the end, by St. Procopius at Prague in 1032; but this statement is a mere fabrication, and must have been added by a later hand. 2nd, Glagolitic of Czech origin, and dating no further back than 1325. Kopitar seems to have made out the history of the volume in the "Slavische Bibliothek" very satis-

EARLY BULGARIAN LITERATURE.

119

factorily. He thinks that it was purchased by the
German Emperor, Charles IV., under the impression
that it was really written by St. Procopius; about
1451 it seems to have got to Constantinople, and to
have been bought there by a French cardinal, who
presented it to the cathedral at Rheims. The theory
of Zherebtzov that it was taken to France by Anne,
daughter of Yaroslav, who married Henry I., is
groundless.

As the copyists of the various old Slavonic manu-
scripts were Bulgarians, Servians, or Russians, they in-
troduced forms from their own languages. This makes
it difficult to classify thoroughly the Palæoslavonic
texts. But, according to their characteristics, I have
for the most part spoken of them under their several
languages. The disciples of Cyril and Methodius
appearing in Bulgaria in the reign of the Tzar
Simeon (892-927), which has been called the golden
age of Bulgarian literature, soon busied themselves
with the spread of the Christian religion and the
production of books. The Tzar Simeon himself
appears as a literary man. To him is assigned the
translation of 135 sermons of St. John Chrysostom,
under the title of "Zlatostrui," the oldest manuscript
of which dates from the twelfth century.

Among writers of Old Bulgarian literature may be
mentioned Clement, John the Exarch of Bulgaria,
and the translator of John Malala. Clement, who
is styled, in the titles of his works, the Slavonic
Apostle, has left a great many works, chiefly ser-
mons and panegyrics of saints. He died in the

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EARLY SLAVONIC LITERATURE

year 916. To a monk, named Gorazd, is assigned
a "Life of St. Methodius." A very fertile writer of
the time of Simeon was John, called the Exarch
of Bulgaria; among his works may be mentioned
the "Shestodnev" (Book of Six Days), containing
a commentary on the early chapters of Genesis,
which treat of the Creation; a translation of the
Greek grammar of Damascenus, also of the dia-
lectics and philosophy of the same author. The
"Shestodnev" is compiled from the writings of Basil
the Great, John Chrysostom, and others; but the
Exarch shows himself to be well acquainted with
Greek philosophy, and quotes Plato, Aristotle, and
others. Wherever he does so it is to oppose their
false heathen opinions. In the prologue to his work,
John the Exarch alludes to the Tzar Simeon; in the
beginning of the sixth discourse he describes the
grandeur of the royal palaces, the temples, and the
greatness of the tzar himself.¹ At this time Ochrida
was the capital of the Bulgarian kingdom. Mention
must also be made of Bishop Constantine, said to
have been one of the disciples of Cyril and Me-
thodius, who translated many of the discourses of
Athanasius and St. John Chrysostom. Among his
writings is a prayer in rhyme, in which he speaks of
the baptism of the Slavonic race throughout the
world. According to Pipin, this is the first known
piece of Slavonic poetry composed by a literary man
—in contradistinction to the popular and oral verse

¹ Pipin and Spasovich, 55.

EARLY BULGARIAN LITERATURE.

121

so much in vogue among Slavonic peoples. Especially
important is the notice of the monk Khrabr, which
has been alluded to in the first chapter of this work.
Here we have some interesting information on the
origin of the Slavonic alphabet as invented by Cyril,
and allusions to the earlier forms of writing in use
among the Slavs. Khrabr wrote, as he says, at a
time when men were still living, who had seen Cyril
and Methodius, and therefore he himself must have
flourished in the tenth century.

It would be impossible, in a short work like the
present, to enumerate all the translations of Byzant-
tine authors. Certainly, if the Old Slavonic literature
was not very original,—and we must remember that
very little of our own in the Middle Ages is,—it was
very active. The "Sbornik," or Miscellany, alluded
to under the head of Russian literature as that of
Sviatoslav, because copied out for him in 1073, was
compiled in the time of Simeon. This is almost an
encyclopædia, and contains a great deal of multi-
farious learning mixed with extracts from the fathers.
It fully partakes of the nature of the Byzantine
literature of the time,—a literature of extracts and
anthologies.

Of the chroniclers more minute mention seems to
be necessary. The Greek author, John Malala, exists
in a Slavonic version, which in many respects exhibits
the characteristics of a paraphrase, as there are fre-
quent additions from other sources. The translator
is supposed to have been the Presbyter Gregory, and
his period the golden age of the Tzar Simeon. In

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EARLY SLAVONIC LITERATURE.

the twelfth century it was already made use of by the
Russian historical writers. There is also the chronicle
of George Armatolus, of which two Slavonic versions
exist, one of which was used very much by Nestor.
There is even an opinion that one of these versions
was executed in Russia. Besides these we have the
Chronicles of Constantine Manassias and Simeon
Metaphrastes in Slavonic versions.

The apocryphal books already mentioned form a
curious feature of the old Slavonic literature. They
are chiefly assigned to the sect of the Bogomiles,
founded by the priest Bogomile, who lived in the
time of the Bulgarian Tzar Peter, and to the
priest Jeremiah, who, perhaps, was only the col-
lector of them. These apocryphal pieces contain
strange mixtures of Christian belief and heathenism,
on such subjects as the following: "The Tree of the
Cross," "How Christ Ploughed," &c. M. Léger
cites the eminent Orientalist, Joseph Derembourg, as
his authority for the statement, that the originals of
most of these legends must be sought in the Midrasch
of the Talmud.

Professor Jagić has shown how, in one of these
stories, the name of Virgil has been introduced in
his mediæval character of a magician. The word
occurs in such a corrupt form, that it had quite
escaped the notice of scholars, just as it lies hidden in
the Welsh word for alchymy and chemistry,—namely,
*fferylliaeth* or *fferylltiaeth*.¹

¹ See "Lectures on Welsh Philology," by Professor Rhys
(p. 205).

EARLY BULGARIAN LITERATURE.

123

Besides the lives of the saints and translations of the fathers of the Greek Church, there are legendary stories of Alexander the Great and the Trojan War, the stories of Barlaam and Yoasaf, of Stefanit and Ikhilat, and the fantastic tale of the Tzar Solomon and Kitovras. Many of these, including the previously mentioned apocryphal books (*lozhnia knigi*) have been recently edited for the "Early Russian Text Society."

However little original merit these works may boast of, they must always be interesting to the antiquarian and philologist,—and, if we except some great names, such works formed the staple of all European literature during the Middle Ages.

Unlike the Russians and Serbs, no specimens of Bulgarian laws have come down to us, although Suidas has preserved some fragments¹ in a Greek translation. We get, however, a very interesting glimpse into the customs and institutions of the Bulgarians in an indirect way. They received Christianity in the time of Boris, called by the Byzantines Bogoris, who was baptised under the name of Michael, A.D. 864. A great instrument in his conversion is said to have been his sister, who had been thirty-eight years a captive at Constantinople. He extirpated idolatry among his subjects with much cruelty, and as soon as he had accepted Christianity, seems to have been anxious to enter into relations with the Latin

¹ See the quotation in "Written Laws of the Southern Slavs" ("Pisani Zakoni na Slovenskom Jugu") of Professor Bogisic, Agram, 1872.

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EARLY SLAVONIC LITERATURE.

church, led probably to do so by the hereditary
antipathies existing between the Bulgarians and
Greeks. He accordingly sent his brother to Rome,
and submitted one hundred and six points to the pope,
embracing every question of discipline, ceremony, and
morals.¹ We can see from these questions, that
among the Slavonised Bulgarians many customs
prevailed (e.g., polygamy) unknown to the Slavs, who
were of a purer stock. Under Krumus or Kroum, a
subsequent prince, the Greek Emperor Nicephorus
undertook three expeditions against the Bulgarians,
in the last of which he was slain (811). His head
was carried triumphantly on the point of a spear, and
the skull, enchased with gold, became a favourite
drinking vessel at the Bulgarian feasts. The Tzar
Simeon, previously alluded to, had been educated at
Constantinople and attained such proficiency in the
learning taught there that he ordinarily went by
the name of the Half Greek (Γμίαργος). Gibbon
acknowledges that during his long reign of more than
forty years Bulgaria assumed a rank among the
civilised powers of the earth. Simeon frequently
defeated the Byzantines and twice took Adrianople.
His victories were, however, tarnished with great
cruelty, for we are told that he ordered the noses of
all the prisoners to be cut off, and sent the Byzantine
soldiers thus mutilated to Constantinople.² In 921

¹ See Milman's "Latin Christianity," vol. iii., p. 250., ed. 1867. The answers of Nicholas (who occupied the papal chair from 858 to 867) are exceedingly curious.

² Finlay, "History of Byzantine Empire."

EARLY BULGARIAN LITERATURE.

125

Simeon advanced to the very walls of the imperial
city: the palaces and many villas around were burned,
and the Bulgarian monarch retired laden with plunder.
He made his appearance again two years afterwards,
and the Byzantine emperor, Romanus I, now
thoroughly humbled, was compelled to consent to an
interview outside the walls and had the mortification
of listening to the triumphant shouts of his Slavonic
enemies and witnessing the pomp of their sovereign.
According to Finlay, Simeon retired to his own
kingdom laden with the plunder of the provinces
and the gold of the Emperor.

With the subjugation of the Bulgarians by the
Turkish Sultan, Amurath or Murad (1360-1389), the
Old Bulgarian literature, in the restricted sense of the
term, ceased. We now come to their oral literature.
I know of no earlier collection than that of Bogoev,¹
published at Pesth in 1842, a work which I have not
seen, but have found mentioned in the "Chansons
Populaires Bulgares Inédites" of Dozon. Its pub-
lication was probably owing to the great interest
aroused throughout Europe by the Servian ballads
collected by Vouk Stephanovich.

A volume of Bulgarian National Songs, collected by
the Brothers Miladinov, Demetrius and Constantine,

¹ “Bulgarski Narodni Pesni i Poslovitzi” (Bulgarian Nationa
Songs and Proverbs). See also an article in the “Bohemian
Magazine” (*Casopis Ceského Musea*) for 1847, where we find
that this Bogoev published other works at Odessa. He would
appear to be the same as Ivan Bogorov who has published a
Bulgarian-French Dictionary.

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EARLY SLAVONIC LITERATURE.

was published by Constantine at Agram in 1861. This is the work issued under the auspices of Bishop Strossmayer, who has done so much for Slavonic literature. In his preface Constantine Miladinov speaks of the great wealth of popular song among his countrymen. He tells us that from one young girl alone, at Struga, he collected 150 beautiful songs. The fate of these brothers was very melancholy, and is curious as helping us to form an idea of the system of the Turkish Government. After the publication of the ballads at Agram in 1861, Constantine Miladinov returned to Bulgaria. He joined his brother Demetrius at Struga, in Macedonia, on the Albanian frontier, where the latter was exercising the profession of a tutor. Soon afterwards an order came from the Turkish Government that they were to be sent to Saloniki (Thessalonica), and thence to Constantinople. Here they were accused of treason, information having been laid against them by some of the Greek priests, who are in perpetual collision with the Bulgarians on theological grounds, because some of the poems in their collection contained satirical allusions and attacks upon the Turks and Greeks. One of the pieces which especially gave offence is to be found on page 113 of the book, entitled "Stoyan and Patrik"; it recites the achievements of a certain Bulgarian hero, named Stoyan, against the Turks and Greeks.¹ In consequence of

¹ For much of my information on the Brothers Miladinov I have been indebted to some interesting articles which appeared in the "Bohemian Literary Journal" (Casopis Ceskeho Musea),

EARLY BULGARIAN LITERATURE.

127

these charges the brothers were condemned to im-
prisonment for life. When the news of their de-
tention reached foreign countries, the patriotic Bishop
Strossmayer exerted himself for their liberation by
means of the Austrian consul at Constantinople, and
the Russian Government also assisted in the demand.
The Ottoman authorities were at length compelled
to send an order for their release, but when the
decree sanctioning their liberation reached the prison
they were found dead. They had been secretly
murdered; it was in this way that the Turks evaded
the pressure put upon them. Constantine had not
reached the age of thirty years, Demetrius was a
little older, and left a wife and two children in great
poverty.

I may here mention "National Songs of the Mace-
donian Bulgarians," collected by Stephen J. Verkovich.
Of this one volume was published at Belgrade in 1860.
The book is edited in Servian, and a Bulgaro-Servian
vocabulary is added. In his preface, Verkovich tells
us that 270 of the songs were written down from
the recitation of a woman, named Dafina, at Seres,
in Macedonia. This fact must be considered as
proving, in an interesting way, how poems may be
orally preserved in a country where printed books are
very scarce. My readers should compare the remarks
of Mr. Gladstone in his valuable Homeric Primer.¹

in 1866, written by a native Bulgarian—Velyo D. Stoyanov.
In the poem, which is now before me, the Greeks are called
loukavi—treacherous.

¹ See page 41 of that work.

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EARLY SLAVONIC LITERATURE.

Such accounts as this of the memory of the Bulgarian woman greatly assist his theory.

A second part of the collection of Verkovich has not appeared, and he has since tarnished his fame by the publication of the Slavonic Veda (Veda Slovena), at Belgrade in 1874. This book is a mass of fabrications; the pieces printed contain allusions to the deities of the Indian mythology and traditions of Orpheus, the object being to exaggerate the antiquity of Slavonic tradition. The work is calculated to discredit for a long time any fresh collections of Slavonic oral literature.¹

In 1875 appeared the very interesting collection of Bulgarian songs published by Auguste Dozon. These were entirely new to the literary world, and had been either collected by the editor himself, or communicated to him by his friends. From the volumes of the Brothers Miladinov and M. Dozon a fair idea may be formed of Bulgarian folk-lore and mythology.² To these may be added the Bulgarian National Miscellany (Bulgarski Narodni Sbornik) of Basil Cholakov, published at Bolgrad, in Bessarabia, in 1873.

As might be expected, the country is well worthy of attention from the curious traditions and local customs which abound. As among the Serbs,

¹ See the severe criticism by Jagić in the "Archiv für Slavische Philologie," vol. i., Part III., p. 576.

² Some of the Bulgarian National Poems have been translated into German. Bulgarische Volksdichtungen, ins Deutsche übertragen von Georg Rosen. 1879.

EARLY BULGARIAN LITERATURE.

129

the chief legendary hero is Marko Kralevich, who
reminds us in so many particulars of the Russian
Ilya Murometz. A great number of poems are devoted
to him in the Miladinov Collection. The lyrical
pieces, which treat of the affections, show considerable
tenderness, and are by no means devoid of elegance.
In this respect they may be compared with the
Cossack Songs of Little Russia. Many lays relate
to the Vilas, or Samovilas, who figure among the
Russians as rousalki, or water-nymphs, and also
among the Servians. They are represented as of
a malignant nature, and feeling great jealousy of
female beauty. In the story of Neda and the Samo-
vila,¹ Neda has gone to the cool fountain (stoudna
voda), and has accidentally trodden upon the yellow
flowers of the Samovila, who tells her that she must
surrender her black eyes. In the ballad of the fair
Stana and the Samovila,² we are introduced to the
comely maiden arranging herself with rustic pride
for church on Easter-Sunday (Veligden, literally, the
Great Day). Her mother enjoins her not to go
too early to the church for fear the young priests
(giatzi) should make love to her; at this Stana is
offended, takes her white veil, goes into the garden,
and sits down under a rose-tree. She is met by a
malicious Samovila, who ends by tearing out her
black eyes.

We have also another lay, showing the malignity
of the Vilas connected with the great hero, Marko
Kralevich.

¹ “Miladinov,” p. 6.

K

² Ibid., p. 5.

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EARLY SLAVONIC LITERATURE.

Marko wandered by the green forest,
He wandered three days and three nights.
He could not find water,
Either to drink or to wash,
Neither for himself nor for his swift horse.
Then says Marko Kralevich—
“Ah, forest, Dimna forest,
Thou hast no water that I may drink,
And wash myself.
May the wind harass thee!
May the sun burn thee!”
The forest of Dimna replied to Marko, —
“Ah! Marko—ah! brave hero.
Do not curse the forest of Dimna,
Curse the old Samovila,
Who has taken the seventy springs
And has carried them to the top of the mountain.
She sells a glass of water,
One glass for black eyes.”

Hereupon the hero addresses his trusty steed, who,
in the Servian legends, is called Sharatz, and has
as much sympathy with his master as the more
celebrated horses of Achilles. They go in pursuit
of the Vila, and the hero becomes master of the
seventy springs.

A terrible lay concerning the Samovilas is given
by Miladinov as taken down from oral recitation at
Panagiouritche. Here we have something of the
same sort as the legend, which occurs in Modern
Greek, Rouman, and Servian, of the master-builder,
Manole, given in the Servian ballads under the name
of the "Building of Skadar," and also in Stanley's
"Rouman Anthology." A Samovila builds a castle,
"not in the sky, not on the earth; she builds it in

EARLY BULGARIAN LITERATURE.

131

the dark clouds, and it is built from young warriors,
fair girls, and black-eyed wives." Students of com-
parative mythology will not need to be reminded of
the wide circulation of this curious Aryan legend.
On another occasion we are told how a girl demands
back her brother from a Samovila, who has enchanted
him, as Vivien did Merlin. The angry Samovila
carries off the youth into the air and tears him into
thousands of little pieces, "of which the greatest
might easily be carried by an ant."

It is but rarely that we find any kindly acts
assigned to these creatures. Their mischievous ac-
tivities, however, may occasionally be defeated by
the energy of man. Thus the mysterious peasant,
Jovan Popov, conquers one of these supernatural
beings, and takes her home as a wife: but, after
having given birth to a son, she succeeds in escaping
to the inaccessible retreats which are frequented by
creatures like herself. Jovan Popov reminds us very
much of the Russian hero, Mikoula Selianinovich,
mentioned in a previous chapter of this work.

I give a few extracts from this ballad, literally
translated :—

Jovan Popov has gone ploughing at Easter.
When he had gone half his journey
There appeared a Samovila of the mountain,
And stopped him in his path.
" Go back, Jovan Popov,
Do not plough on Easter Day."
Jovan answered softly,—
" Fly away, Samovila,
Lest I descend from my swift steed,

K 2

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EARLY SLAVONIC LITERATURE.

Lest I catch you by your auburn hair,
And bind you to the tail of my swift horse.

The Samovila grew angry,
She let fall her auburn hair
And caused his swift horse to stumble,
That she might drink his black eyes.
Ivan Popov became angry;
He caught the Samovila by her auburn hair
That he might bring her home.
From afar he calls to his mother,
"Come forth, dear mother,
I bring you a bride, a Samovila."

The Samovila is detained as a wife, and a child
is afterwards born to the marriage, but the fairy
manages to escape at last.

At once rushed forth the Samovila;
She took the child,
And said haughtily to Jovan,—
"Oh! hero, Jovan Popov,
What! did you think
That you could keep a Samovila,
A Samovila for your love?"

Dragons and serpents play a very important part
in all these stories, and are subdued by heroes, as
in the fine Russian *bílina*, which tells us of Dobrîna's
battle. The horse also is frequently introduced as
an agent, and is represented with wings. The dragons
fall in love with women and carry them off. On
page 10 of Miladinov's book, we have a poem in
which Perdan, who had been left an orphan, fights
three days and three nights with two dragons, who

EARLY BULGARIAN LITERATURE.

133

eventually overpower him. In one poem (Dozon, page 7) a female dragon takes the form of a bear, a favourite animal in the legendary poetry of so many countries. Some of the lines in this piece are very picturesque; it begins as follows:—

His mother said to Stoyan,
"Stoyan, —my son, Stoyan, —
Whilst thou wert my son, with thy mother,
Thou wert fair and ruddy.
Since thou hast parted from thy mother
Thou art a pale yellow,
Like a yellow orange,
And like a green bush.
Hast thou, my son, evil companions?
Or are the shepherds rude to thee?"

To this the son replies that he has no bad associates, nor is he ill-treated by the shepherds, only at night a she-bear comes to him and calls him her sweetheart.

To Stoyan his mother said,
"This is not a savage bear;
It is Elka, the she-dragon."

The mother counsels him to ask craftily the she-dragon to tell him of some plants which will create aversion when a person is anointed with their juice, alleging as a reason that a certain Turk has conceived a passion for his young sister, and he wishes to make him hate her. Elka tells Stoyan the names of the magic plants; they are boiled in a pot by the mother at midnight.

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EARLY SLAVONIC LITERATURE.

their name from Judas, the betrayer, for in Slavonic
countries, as elsewhere, we have a curious confusion
of Pagan and Christian superstitions. Peroun, the
god of thunder, has been mixed up with Elijah, or
Elias (St. Ilya).¹ Veles, the god of cattle, has been
converted into St. Basil, and Sventovit has probably
been metamorphosed into St. Vitus, originally a
Sicilian saint. These Youdas are represented as
exercising a malignant influence upon the human
race. Their songs, like those of the Sirens of Greek
fable, have an intoxicating effect; listeners lose their
reason, and if they wish to preserve themselves must
stop their ears. Miladinov identifies these spirits
with others called Stii. Of a mischievous character
also are the Violitzi and the Lamias, beings borrowed
from the ancient and modern Greek mythology, with
which the Slavonic has much in common. Two
considerable ballads on St. George and the Lamias
are given by Miladinov. As in Russia, so in Servia
and Bulgaria, we have a host of poems sung by
wandering minstrels on the feast days of certain
saints. I have already alluded to Bezsonov's Russian
collections, called "Wandering Psalm - singers"
(Kalieki perekhozhie), published at Moscow in six
parts in 1860-62. Here we find many a curious
mediæval legend worked up into a rhythmical
form.

¹ In the Miladinov Collection we have the ballad of St. Elias and the Nine Lamias (Svete Ilia i derv Lamii). For information on these subjects see Ralston, "The Songs of the Russian People" and "Russian Folk-Tales."

EARLY BULGARIAN LITERATURE.

137

Now and then among these Bulgarian ballads we come upon one which expresses forcibly the wretched thraldom under which the country long groaned. Probably many more might have been collected, but the responsibilities of publishing them were too serious. We have seen what a fate was brought upon the Miladinovs by a few satirical lines. The most striking of these is the story of the "Young Janissary and the Fair Dragana," given in the collection of the latter. The Janissary, who in his early youth had formed one of the victims of the tribute of flesh which the unfortunate Christians were obliged to pay to their conquerors after having sacked a village and committed great atrocities, carries off a female captive, whom he finds out to be his own sister. As this ballad is a very interesting one, I add a literal translation of it.

## THE JANISSARY AND THE FAIR DRAGANA.¹

The land of the Wallachians is desolated,
The land of Wallachia and Moldavia,
Moldavia and all the Dobrudja,
Some run up and some run down
From the cruel Turk and the terrible Magyars.
They were cutting to pieces the old and making slaves of the
young.
They were taking the maidens selected from the rest,
And made them youthful slaves,
And young men also they chose.
And they made the young men Janissaries.
Wherever they passed the villages were burnt.

¹ Miladinov, p. 124.

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EARLY SLAVONIC LITERATURE.

The men they enslave, the villages they burn.
They crossed the white Danube:
They drew up their ranks near Yetropoli,
They spread abroad their blue tents.
They divide the pillage of the broad plain,
The young girls and young men.
To some of them two or three fall as a portion.
To the young Janissary has been given
Only one young girl, the fair Dragana.
And he led her into his white tent,
And when it was late in the evening,
The young Janissary was sitting in the court-yard.
He looked down, he looked up.
Out of the black earth a blue fire burns,
But from the blue sky a rain of blood falls.
The young Janissary was frightened,
So that he called to fair Dragana,
And said sadly to Dragana,—
"Oh! Dragana, my slave,
I will ask you to tell me truly,
Have you a brother or have you a sister?
Have you a father, have you a mother?"
But Dragana answered him clearly,—
"I have a father, I have a mother;
I have a brother, I have a sister."
"Where is thy brother? has he been carried into slavery?"
Dragana answered him sadly:
"When they came to the Wallachian land
The Turks killed the young Bulgarians,
And my brother was taken by that army.
Now thirty years have passed
Since I saw my brother."
"Oh! Dragana, my slave,
If thou seest him, canst thou recognise him?"

¹ The ballad-singer seems careless about his chronology in making Dragana rather older than one would imagine.

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139

“If I see him, I shall recognise him
By his wounded head, by his broad chest.”
But the Janissary asked Dragana,—
“What is there on thy brother’s head?”
“My brother has a mark from a sword;
He was wounded in a cruel battle.”
But the Janissary asked Dragana,—
“What has your brother on his broad chest?”
“My brother has a scar on his breast,
Having been wounded by an arrow in the cruel battle.”
And the Janissary bared his chest,
His white chest, and his wounded head,
And to Dragana he said sadly,—
“Arise, sister, let us go home,
Let us go home, let us see our mother.”

Just as Greece has a multitude of ballads treating
of her *klephts* and *pallicares*, so the Bulgarians have
songs on the *haiduks* or brigands, who are celebrated
as our forefathers sang the exploits of Robin Hood
and Little John, and the French rustics of last century
the knaveries of Mandrin. Slavonic literature has a
great deal to tell us about these heroes: to go back
to the earlier days, we have Solovei, and in later times
Stenka Razin, Vanka Kaïn, and Pougachev, the bold
robber of the Yaik, who nearly overthrew the empire
of Catherine II.¹ M. Dozon complains that the
Bulgarian brigand is a far more vulgar hero than the
Servian. In many instances, certainly, he is but a
cowardly assassin; vices, however, of this sort are
just those with which a race becomes inoculated that
has long groaned under an iron yoke: it will never

¹ See Rambaud, “La Russie épique.”

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141

“Oh! Stoyan, poor fellow,¹
To-morrow they will hang you
At the Sultan's palace,
So that the Sultana may see the spectacle,
And the Sultan's children.”
Stoyan says to Gioula,—
“Gioula, daughter-in-law of the priest,
Are these girls sisters-in-law,
Or are they only neighbours?”
Gioula answers Stoyan :—
“Oh! Stoyan, poor fellow,
Why do you ask whether they are sisters-in-law or not,
Or whether they are neighbours?”
Stoyan says to Gioula,—
“Gioula, daughter of the priest,
Tell the youngest,
Since they will hang me,
To wash my shirt,
To unfasten my hair.
For it pleases me, O Gioula,
When they hang a fine young fellow
That his shirt should be white,
That his hair should float in the wind.”

Occasionally these robber-songs take a higher tone,
and show something more than the coarse materialism
of a life of thieving, which is only to be terminated
by the halter. There is a poetry about these "dedi-
cated beggars to the air" with their "looped and
windowed raggedness." M. Dozon cites with justi-
fiable approbation the beautiful little song which may
be found on page 37 of his collection. The following

¹ Or, more literally, “Oh! Stoyan, poor fool!” The words are, *Mori Stoyane gidio*. The first is the Greek *μῶρος*, the last is Turkish.

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is a strictly literal translation; the original reminds
one of some of the best klephtic ballads :—

Liben, the young hero, cried out
On the summit of the old mountain,
Liben bade adieu to the forest,
To the forest and fountain he spake—
"Oh, Wood! oh, green Wood!
And, oh! cool Spring,
Dost thou know, Forest, dost thou remember
How often I have wandered over thee,
Have led my young heroes,
Have carried my red standard?
I have made many mothers weep,
Deprived many brides of their homes.
Even more little orphans have I made,
So that they weep, Forest, they curse me.
Farewell, Forest, farewell,
For I shall go home,
So that my mother may betroth me;
May betroth and marry me
To the daughter of the priest,
The priest Nicholas."
The forest never speaks to any one,
And yet it spake to Liben.
"Liben, thou hero, Liben,
Enough hast thou wandered over me,
Hast led thy chosen youths,
Hast carried thy red standard
On the summit, on the old mountain,
By the cool thick shade of the trees,
By the dewy green grass.
Thou hast made many mothers weep;
Thou hast deprived many brides of their homes.
Thou hast left more little children orphans,
So that they weep, Liben, they curse
Me, voivode, on account of thee.

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143

Till this time, Voivode Liben,
The old mountain was thy mother,
The green forest was thy bride,
With tufted foliage adorned,
Refreshed with the sweet breeze.
The grass gave thee a bed,
Thou wert covered by the forest-leaves,
The clear waters gave thee drink,
The forest-birds sang to thee.
For thee, Liben, they spoke,¹
Rejoice, young hero, with thy companions.
For with thee the forest rejoices,
For thee the mountain is glad,
For thee the stream is cool.
But now, Liben, thou biddest adieu to the mountain,
Thou dost desire to go home,
That thy mother may betroth thee,
May betroth thee and marry thee
To the daughter of the priest,
Of the priest Nicholas."

Surely never were the sympathies between nature
and man more beautifully expressed than in this
delightful song, which has all the freshness of its
native woods and mountains upon it. If we could
only do away with the savage accessories, the cruel
stories about widows and orphans, it might be taken
for one of Wordsworth's pictures. The part played
by women in these exploits of brigandage does not
form a theme for song, as far as I am aware, among
the Servian collections of Vouk Stephanovich and
others, yet it is frequently introduced into the Bul-

¹ Stories of persons who could understand the language of birds and wild beasts are very frequent among Slavonic traditions, especially Servian and Bulgarian.

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garian ballads. M. Dozon mentions only four pieces
of a similar nature among the modern Greek songs.
One of these is the well-known lay, beginning :—

Ποιὸς εἶδε ψάρι 'ς τὸ βοῦνο καὶ θάλασσα σπαρμένη ;

Ποιὸς εἶδε κόρην εὖμορφη 'ς τὰ κλέφτικα 'νδυμένη;

Who ever saw fish on a mountain, or the sea sown like a field?
Who ever saw a lovely girl who had dressed her as a klepht?

A poem entitled "Sirma Voivodka," on a heroine
of this kind is given in the collection of Miladinov.
Demetrius, one of the brothers, speaks of having
known this woman at the age of eighty at Prilip, and
having heard from her own lips the recital of her
adventures.

With the popular poetry our remarks on Bulgarian
literature must close, as modern compositions (and
they are indeed but scanty) do not come within our
scope.

EARLY SLAVONIC LITERATURE.

145

CHAPTER VI.

THE EARLY LITERATURE OF THE SERBS, CROATS,
AND SLOVENES.

THE Serbs belong to the eastern division of the Slavonic race, as will be seen by the table given in my first chapter. Their language is for all practical purposes identical with that of the Croats and Dan magians. It also stands in very close relation to that of the Slovenes. Some have proposed to give these people the generic title of Illyrian, probably suggested by classical associations and the souvenirs of the short-lived Napoleonic kingdom of 1809. The name, however, has not become permanent, and, if used at all, only obtains among scholars.¹ This great Illyrian family is not only divided politically,—some of its members being subjects of Austria, and others independent, for the few left to Turkey since the treaty of Berlin are not worthy of mention,—but also theologically, the chief creeds being those of the Greek and Latin Churches and the Protestants being comparatively insignificant in number. There is, also, a considerable sprinkling of Mahomedans in Bosnia and Herzegovina, where the language is strictly

¹ Cf. "Grammatik der illirischen Sprache," by Ignaz Berlić. Agram, 1850.

L

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Servian, and many of those whose ancestors went over to the Mussulman faith have kept their Slavonic names and Slavonic customs. This change of belief took place soon after these provinces were overrun by Turkey, the landed proprietors being anxious to preserve their estates and influence. The religious divergence has led to a farther separation in the alphabets employed, those of the Greek Church naturally preferring the Cyrillian, and those of the Roman the Latin. This causes a deplorable confusion and a chaos of orthographies. Some take Vouk's modified Cyrillian alphabet. About forty years ago an attempt was made by Dr. Ljudevit Gaj, the founder of the so-called Illyrian school of literature, but his efforts were only partially successful.

As in the present work we have only to do with the older Servian literature, I shall extend my notice no farther than the period of the extinction of Servian nationality at the battle of Kosovo (1389).

The earliest composition which has come down to us in the Illyrian language (to use the generic term) is the production of an unknown priest of Dioklea, now Duklja, a mere collection of ruins, formerly the capital of south-western Illyria, on the river Moraca. Hence he is called in Latin Anonymus Presbyter Diocleus, or in Illyrian Pop Dukljanin. He must have lived about the middle of the twelfth century, as the chronicle in verse compiled by him extends to the year 1161. The poem itself consists of about 1,165 lines. Like our own rhyming histories, it is tedious and is interesting only as a literary monument.

SERBS, CROATS, AND SLOVENES.

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It is printed by Kukuljevic Sakcinski, in the Archives for South Slavonic Literature ("Arkiv za pověstnicu Jugoslavensku"). Agram, 1851. The early period of Servian literature has been investigated with great care by the celebrated Schafarik. I cannot, however, follow him here in his minute enumeration of all the oldest documents to be found in the Servian language, such as the inscriptions on coins. I shall select the most important, and may mention here that there are Servian recensions of many of the chief works of Palæoslavonic literature, translations of Saints John Chrysostom, Gregory, and others.¹

The following demand special notice.

1. The Life of St. Simeon by his son St. Sabbas, the first Archbishop of Servia. This was written about the year 1210, but unfortunately is only preserved in a manuscript of the seventeenth century. Besides this we have a "Tipik" (collection of statutes) by him for the monastery of Studenitza, where he was an Igoumen. St. Sabbas enjoys a great reputation among his countrymen for his labours in the education of the people. He was the founder of the celebrated Khilander Monastery on Mount Athos, in the year 1192.

2. The History of St. Simeon and St. Sabbas by Dometian, compiled in 1264, and preserved in a manuscript of the fourteenth century; for the copy

¹ The oldest documents of the Servian language, properly so called, which have come down to us, are a letter of Koulin, the Ban of Bosnia, in 1189, and the letter of the Tzar Simeon Nemanya to the monastery of Khilander on Mount Athos.

L 2

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EARLY SLAVONIC LITERATURE.

must certainly have been written between 1350 and
1400. Dometian (or Domitian) was a monk of the
cloister of Khilander. It has been printed several
times, the latest edition being that of Danichich, a
scholar to whom we are indebted for an admirable
lexicon of the old Servian, indispensable to all students
of this interesting language.

3. The "Rodoslov," or Lives of Servian kings and archbishops, compiled by Archbishop Daniel, who died in 1338. Here are contained the lives of Kings Radoslav, Vladislav, Ourosh, Dragoutin, Queen Helena, Miloutin, Ourosh III., and Stephen Doushan. After his death his book was continued by an anonymous writer or writers in the work entitled "Tzarostavnik." "The Rodoslov" has also been edited by Danichich (Agram, 1866). I must tell the reader that neither elegance of style nor vigour of narration will be found in these productions. They are written in an involved and confused manner, and the language differs very much from the modern Servian, being, in fact, a kind of ecclesiastical Slavonic, greatly modified by Servian influences. The prose is, however, as good as anything of the kind in our own country at a similar period.

4. The Life of Stephen Dechanski, founder of the monastery called after him, written by Gregory Tzamblak, an Igoumen of the same monastery.

5. In 1394, we have the code of laws of King Stephen Doushan, one of the earliest specimens of Servian legislation. This can only be compared in importance with the "Rousskaia Pravda" of Yaroslav,

SERBS, CROATS, AND SLOVENES.

149

mentioned in a preceding chapter. These laws have
been much praised for their humane and civilised
spirit in many respects, especially their encourage-
ment of hospitality. Some of the punishments, how-
ever, which they sanction, appear barbarous at the
present time. Take the following as instances :—

"Whoever sells a Christian (slave) to a man of
any other faith shall have his hands cut off and
his tongue cut out.

"If a nobleman commits an assault on another nobleman, he is to have his hands and nose cut off; if a peasant commits an assault on a nobleman, he is to be hanged.

"If slaves assemble together in a riotous manner, they are to have their ears cut off and their eyebrows singed off."¹

The Servian chroniclers, such as they have come
down to us, are at best but scanty, and confined to
very dry details. They end, for the most part, with
the sixteenth century, when the country had long
been under the yoke of the Turks. Whenever their
style becomes less meagre, it is sure to grow florid,
and it would be dangerous to receive some of the

¹ These laws were first published from the manuscript by Raich, in his "History," at the close of the last century, since which time they have been edited by Schafarik and Miklosich. I have used the convenient little edition printed by Novakovich at Belgrade ("Zakonik Stephana Doushana, Tzara Sрpskog"), 1870. Macieiowski, a Pole, has written an excellent history of Slavonic legislation, of which there is a German translation. As these sheets are passing through the press, the death at Warsaw of this veteran is announced at the age of 90.

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EARLY SLAVONIC LITERATURE.

stories which they give us as authentic history. Thus we are told, that after the battle of Kosovo, "one Vojvode, Kraimir, begged Bayazet to permit him to hold a silver basin that the noble head of his tzar should not fall on the earth. Prince Bayazet was so surprised by this extraordinary evidence of the noble's loyal love to the czar that he granted his request."¹ There is a very curious version in Servian of the "Alexander Sage," one of the many forms of this interesting mediæval legend. It was edited with notes by Novakovich, and originally published in the Glasnik (Messenger), a valuable Servian literary journal, to which I may here take the occasion of expressing my great indebtedness. After the fall of the Servian monarchy at the Battle of Kosóvo in 1389, the written literature of Servia during some centuries is but meagre, although the activity of the Dalmatians to a certain extent compensated for it. There was, however, a noble ballad literature living orally among the people in the midst of their deplorable degradation. They did not forget that they were once a nation. I will now speak of these ballads, that are inferior to none which any other European people can show. Some of the earlier Dalmatian poets had alluded to such compositions, and even introduced extracts from them into their works, but the first attempt to collect them for the use of the people was made by the Franciscan monk, Andrew Kacic-Miosic, a Dalmatian, who died

¹ Cited by Madame Miyatovich, p. 31.

SERBS, CROATS, AND SLOVENES.

151

in 1783. Here was clearly a man in advance of his age, for such poems were altogether alien to the artificial French taste, which was then dominant throughout Europe. Percy's "Reliques," which may be said to have created the modern romantic school of poetry, which rapidly spread from England to Germany, were not published till 1765. The collection of Miosic was printed at Venice in 1756 under the title of "Razgovor ugodni naroda Slovin-skoga" (Recreations of the Slavonic People). Many of the poems were composed by Miosic himself, and the old ones were very much tampered with by him. It is to be regretted that such should have been the case; but we must remember that Percy did not pub-lish all the specimens in his collection in their original form, and Allan Ramsay, both in his "Evergreen" and "Tea-Table Miscellany," altered the Scotch poems almost ad libitum. It has been left for our century to witness a severe fidelity in the reprints of early authors, and the transcriptions of oral poetry.

That the Serbs must have had their national songs from very early times, we may infer from the travels of Nicephorus Gregoras,¹ who, in the year 1325-26, came to King Stephen Ourosh IV. of Servia as ambassador from the Byzantine Emperor An-dronicus the Elder. He notices that some Serbs attached to his suite sang "tragic songs celebrating the great exploits of their national heroes." As M. Pipin remarks, this is important, because it shows the

¹ See "Kossovo," by Madame Miyatovich, p. 33; also Pipin and Spasovich, i., p. 263.

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EARLY SLAVONIC LITERATURE.

existence of a national epic among the Serbs be-
fore the Battle of Kosóvo. In the description of an
embassy sent from Vienna to Constantinople in 1531,
a certain Kouripeshich, by birth a Slovene, speaks of
hearing songs sung in honour of Milosh, who slew
the Sultan Murad.

Extracts also began to appear in some of the
Dalmatian poets of the sixteenth century. The first
Western scholar who called attention to them was
the Abbé Fortis in 1794, but they were not well
known till the publication of the four volumes of
Vouk Stephanovich Karajich in 1814 ("Narodne
Srpske Pyésme") at Leipzig. Many of these were
translated into German by Theresa von Jacob,
afterwards the wife of Professor Robinson of America,
who wrote under the pseudonym of Talvj ("Volks-
lieder der Serben," Leipzig). Soon afterwards an
English version of some of the most remarkable
appeared from the pen of Dr. (afterwards Sir John)
Bowring, with an elaborate introduction. The ren-
derings, however, it must be confessed, are diffuse
and inaccurate. Bowring had a very imperfect know-
ledge of the Servian language, and Mrs. Robinson
roundly taxes him with having translated from her
German version. The selection published by the
present Lord Lytton in 1861 is also of no value, as
the pieces have been translated through the medium
of the French. The small work of Mme. Mijatovics
(Miyatovich), entitled "Kossóvo," published in 1881
in London, is in every way accurate, and will
give much valuable information to those desiring

SERBS, CROATS, AND SLOVENES.

153

to make a closer acquaintance with these interesting
productions.

The metre of the Servian poems is the unrhymed
trochaic, rendered familiar to Englishmen by Long-
fellow's "Hiawatha"; it seems the natural rhythm of
people in a rude state of civilisation with poetical
instincts, occurring besides in the old Bohemian frag-
ment, "The Judgment of Libusa" (Libusin Sond),
and also in the Finnish Epic, the "Kalewala," to say
nothing of many others.

In a little work like the present a minute analysis
of these remarkable songs cannot be attempted.
They are sung to an instrument with one string
called a gousla, of which a representation may be
seen prefixed to the first volume of Vouk's collection.
It is a sort of guitar, and in shape resembles one half
of a pear cut in two. No doubt the melody of the
language, as in Italian, greatly assists all these *im-
provisatori*. It is certainly a curious phenomenon,
that in modern times we should find a class of
Homeridæ chanting to such primitive music the
heroic achievements of their ancestors. A great deal
of this kind of poetry is still being composed, as
many of the songs relate to comparatively modern
events, especially the exploits of Peter the Great and
Napoleon I. Madame Miyatovich, in the interesting
work already cited, has given a curious picture
of the modern Servian bard, as he is still to be
found:—

"During the meeting of the National Assembly, I
had the opportunity of hearing a certain peasant,

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EARLY SLAVONIC LITERATURE.

Anta Neshich, recite in blank verse, to numerous audiences outside the Assembly Room, the whole debate on the bill for introducing the fresh monetary system into Serbia, concluding with the final acceptance of the bill. The poet put the debate on the Budget into the same taking form, to the great delight of his many auditors. Anta Neshich, from Ripany, a village about fifteen miles from Belgrade, was himself a member of the Assembly, and this fact of course did not make his recitations outside the walls less interesting to his auditors."

She tells us, subsequently, that "according to Serbian tradition, the two sons of the last Serbian ruler, Despot George Brankovich (who reigned from 1427 to 1456), after having been blinded by order of Sultan Murat II., took up the profession of wandering minstrels. The blind princes, with gousla in hand, travelled from city to city, from castle to castle, singing songs of the 'good old time.'" The talent for improvisation is very widely spread among the Serbs. We are told that even the beggars make their petitions in this way, and the wailing over dead bodies, or by graves, is in a kind of rhythmic chant. The metrical form is much more accurately kept up among the Serbs than the Russians or Malo-Russians. We shall see that it is among the members of the eastern branch of the Slavonic languages we get this wealth of popular poetry. Bohemian is poor, and Polish hardly boasts anything at all.

To the majority of readers the cycle which treats of Knez Lazar and his fate at the Battle of Kosóvo, will

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EARLY SLAVONIC LITERATURE.

Bears the standard of the Cross before them.
Take thou from me words of salutation,
Bid him give the flag to whom he pleaseth,
Bid him stay with thee within the palace."
On the morrow, when the day had broken,
When the barriers of the town were opened,
Queen Militza hied her to the portals,
Took her stand at entry of the city,
Saw the warriors all parade before her—
Bosko Yougovich among the warriors,
On his steed and all with gold resplendent,
And Christ's glorious banner downward flowing.
And there comes the Tzaritza Militza,
Lays her hand upon the palfrey's bridle.
At the gates she reaches to her brother,
Thus with gentle accents doth address him :
"Boshko Yougovich, alas! my brother,
Lo! the Tzar hath granted my entreaties,
And thou needst not journey to Kosóvo.
To thee doth he send his choicest blessing,
Let whoe'er thou pleasest take the standard,
At Kroushévatz with me thou shalt linger,
I shall have a brother leal to swear by."
To his sister Yougovich replieth :
"To thy palace white return, fair sister,
But I shall not backward journey with thee,
Still my faithful hands shall clutch the standard,
Tho' the Tzar should give me e'en Kroushévatz.
Never may the army on me gazing
Call me Boshko Yougovich, the craven,
He who has not dared to seek Kosóvo
In Christ's honour there his blood to lavish,
Yea, and for his holy faith to perish."
Thus he spoke and sped him through the portal.
After him came Youg Bogdan, the aged,
And the seven Yougovichi with him,
Upon all the seven in order calling,

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157

Never answer she nor look receiveth.
Yet a little longer time she waiteth,
And there cometh Yougovich Voino
Leading proudly forth Tzar Lazar's horses.
And the steeds are decked with golden housings,
And she throws her arms around her brother,
And doth in these words at once accost him:
"Oh, my brother, Yougovich Voino,
Thou art granted to my close entreaties,
And the Tzar doth send thee kindly greeting!
Give the horses to what chiefs thou choosest
Thou with me shall rest thee at Kroushévatz,
I shall have a brother still to swear by."
To her Voino Yougovich replieth:
"O my sister, to thy white tower hie thee.
Never backward goes a noble warrior,
Never leaves the coursers of his master,
Even when he knows that death awaits him.
Let me, sister, go unto Kosóvo
For the Holy Cross my blood to lavish,
Dying for my faith and with my brothers."
Thus he spake, and quickly passed the portals.
And the Tzaritza, when she beheld him,
Fell upon the cold stones in her anguish,
Fell half-lifeless on the chilly pavement.
And anon there came Lazar the glorious,
And when he beheld his wife Militza
From his manly visage tears were flowing.
Gazing to the right hand and the left hand,
Goluban he called, his trusty servant.
"Goluban, my servant, tried and faithful,
From thy swan-white horse descend, I pray thee,
By her fair white hands take thou thy lady;
Lead her back unto the lofty palace,
There I pray thee by God's grace to tarry.
Go not thou to battle at Kosóvo,
Rest thee with the Tzaritza in the palace."

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EARLY SLAVONIC LITERATURE.

From his horse the serving man descended;
Down his white cheeks tears full fast were pouring,
From his snow-white steed forthwith descends he,
By her white hands takes his mistress fallen,
Takes her straight unto her lofty palace.
But his heart's desire he cannot conquer,
He must hie him to Kosóvo's battle,
He hath mounted straight his snow-white palfrey,
He hath ridden swiftly to Kosóvo.

It was at the Battle of Kosóvo (the field of black-birds) that the Serbs were utterly defeated by the Turkish Sultan Murad on the 10th of June, 1383. No event has been more celebrated in the national songs than this. Many are the lays to tell of the treachery of Vouk Brankovich and the glorious self-immolation of Milosh Obilich, who stabbed the conqueror on the battle-field. One of the lays tells us how the news of the result of the battle was brought by two ravens. The shroud made of silk embroidered with gold, with which his Tzaritza Militza covered the body of her husband, is still preserved in the cloister of Vodnik in Syrmia; and a tree which the beloved queen planted is still shown to travellers at Zupa. One of the ballads deals with the discovery of the head of Lazar after the battle,¹ and its miraculous appearance.

I will conclude with one more specimen of the
cycle of the Battle of Kosóvo, which shall be given in
a literal prose version :—

¹ For many interesting details, see "Travels in the Slavonic Provinces of Turkey," by Mackenzie and Irby, i. 182; also the book of Madame Miyatovich, previously mentioned.

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The maiden of Kosóvo rose early;
She rose early on Sunday,
On Sunday before the bright sun,
Tucked up her white sleeves,
Tucked them up to her white elbows.
She carries white loaves on her shoulders,
In her hands two golden goblets,
In one cold water,
In the other ruddy wine,
She goes straight to the plain of Kosóvo;
Then the maiden wanders over the battle-field,
Over the field of the noble Prince.
She goes among the bleeding heroes,
When she finds any living
She bathes him with cold water;
She gives him the red wine sacramentally,
And feeds him with white bread.
Fate conducted her
To the hero, Paul Orlovich,
The young standard-bearer of the Prince,
And she found him, still living,
Though his right hand was cut off.¹
His ribs are all broken,
And she takes him from the gory stream,
She bathes him with the cool water,
She gives him of the red wine.
When the heart of the young man revived,
Paul Orlovich spake:
"Dear sister, maiden of Kosóvo,
What great need hast thou
That thou disturbest heroes in their blood
Whom dost thou, young as thou art,
Seek in the battle-field?
Is it a brother, or a brother's son,

¹ I have ventured to condense this poem by omitting a line occasionally.

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EARLY SLAVONIC LITERATURE.

Or dost thou seek an aged parent?"
The maiden of Kosóvo said:
"Dear brother, unknown soldier,
I seek no one related to me.
Neither a brother, nor a brother's child,
Nor an aged father.
Dost thou know, O strange warrior,
When Prince Lazar gave the sacrament to his host,
At the beautiful church, Samodrezha,
By the hands of thirty monks, three weeks ago?
Last of all came three valiant chiefs;
One was the Chief Milosh,
The other Ivan Kosanchich,
And the third Milan Toplitza.
I was there at the gates,
As the voivode Milosh passed by—
As handsome a youth as any in this world:
His sabre trailed along the ground,
A silk cap, ornamented with feathers, he wore:
On the hero a variegated mantle,
About his neck a silk handkerchief.
He looked around and cast his eyes on me,
He loosened the variegated mantle,
Loosened and gave it to me.
'Take, maiden, the variegated mantle,
By which you will remember me;
By the mantle think upon my name.
See, I go to perish, my love,
In the camp of the noble Prince.
Pray God, my dear love,
That I return whole from the camp,
And that good fortune may come upon you.
I will marry you to my Milan,
My Milan, my dear friend,
Who is my sworn brother;
By the highest God and St. John;
At thy wedding I will be groomsman.'

SERBS, CROATS, AND SLOVENES.

161

After him came Ivan Kosanchich,
As handsome a youth as any in this world,
On his finger a golden ring;
He looked round and gazed on me,
From his hand he took the ring of gold,
From his hand, and gave it me.
' Take, maiden, the ring of gold,
By which you will remember me,
And by the ring think of my name.
Lo! I go to perish, my love,
At the camp of the honourable Prince.
Pray God, my dear love,
That I come back from the camp sound,
And a good fortune may befall thee.
I will marry thee to my Milan,
My Milan, my dear friend,
Who is my sworn brother,
By the highest God and St. John,
I will conduct thee as a bride.
After him came Milan Toplitza,
As handsome a youth as any on this earth,
On his arm a golden bracelet.
He looked round and gazed on me,
From his arm he took the golden bracelet,
From his arm took it and gave it me.
' Take, maiden, the bracelet of gold,
By which you will remember me,
And by the bracelet think of my name,
For I go to perish, my love,
At the camp of the honoured Prince.
Pray God, my dear love,
That I return safe from the camp,
That good fortune may befall thee,
I will take thee for my true love.'
And the three warriors went.
These now to-day I seek on the battle-field."
And Paul Orlovich said :—

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