He is our Liberator and our father! And we will erect a monument of hearts Whose cross, by its gleaming 'mid the clouds, Shall transmit the memory to young children and the babes in arms, And this shall be unto ages of ages So long as the world and man shall exist! In southwestern Russia, where the ancient epic songs of the Elder Heroes and the Kieff Cycle originated, the memory of them has died out, owing to the devastation of southern Russia by the Tatars in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, and the decay of its civilization under Lithuanian sway in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries. In the sixteenth century the population of southern Russia reorganized itself in the forms of kazak communes, and fabricated for itself a fresh cycle of epic legends, which replaced those of Kieff; and there the _kobzars_ (professional minstrels who accompany their songs on the _kabza_, a mandolin-like, twelve-stringed instrument) celebrate the deeds of a new race of kazak heroes. But in the lonely wildernesses of the northeast, whither the Tatar invasion drove the descendants of those who composed and sang the great epic songs, no more recent upheavals have brought forward heroes to replace the historic paladins, who there hold undisputed sway to the present time. Of the songs still sung by the people, the following favorite (in the version from the Olonetz government) may serve as a sample. It is not rhymed in the original. Akh! Little guelder-rose, with pinkish azure bloom, And merry little company, where my dear one doth drink; My darling will not drink, until for me he sends. When I, a maiden, very young did dally, Tending the ducks, the geese, the swans, When I, a young maid, very young, along the stream-bank strolled, I trampled down all sickly leaves and grass, I plucked the tiny azure flowerets, At the swift little rivulet I gazed; Small was the hamlet there, four cots in all, In every cot four windows small. In every little window, a dear young crony sits. Eh, cronies dear, you darlings, friends of mine, Be ye my cronies, one another love, love me, When into the garden green ye go, then take me, too; When each a wreath ye twine, twine one for me; When in the Danube's stream ye fling them, drop mine, too; The garlands all upon the surface float, mine only hath sunk down. All your dear lover-friends have homeward come, mine only cometh not. QUESTIONS FOR REVIEW 1. How was Christianity introduced into Russia? 2. In what two important centers was it finally established? 3. How was the Greek Church able to supply these converts with a Slavonian translation of the Bible? 4. Who were Kyrill and Methody? Describe their work. 5. Why was "Ancient Bulgarian" not the original language of the Bulgarians? 6. In what language was Russian literature written up to the time of Peter the Great?