Historical View of the Languages and Literature of the Slavic Nations: With a Sketch of Their Popular PoetryTalvj
History
Historical View of the Languages and Literature of the Slavic Nations: With a Sketch of Their Popular Poetry
Talvj
Folk songs, Slavic; Slavic languages -- History; Slavic literature -- History and criticism
Among the Dalmatian clergy, there were a few who united a real
interest for the preservation of their language and for science in
general. Raph. Levakovitch improved the breviary in 1648, in respect
to language; the archbishop Vincenz Zmajevitch, ob. 1771, a great
patron of the literature of his country, founded a hundred years later
a theological seminary in Zara. Matthias Caraman, on occasion of a new
edition of the missal by the Propaganda in 1741, undertook a
fundamental revision and correction of it. The Propaganda also founded
a Slavic professorship in the _Collegia Urbano_; and for the benefit
of this Society a new translation of the whole Bible was resolved
upon, which however has never been published. A notice of the
exertions of the priest Rosa belongs rather to the history of
Dalmatian secular literature.
b) SECULAR LITERATURE.
It is not certain at what time, nor by whom, the Latin letters were
first adopted for the Servian language. The earliest teachers of the
occidental portion of that people having been Romish priests, they of
course used their own letters for writing such Slavic words or names
as occasion required. The Latin alphabet probably came into use
without any particular pains, long before the introduction of the
Glagolitic letters. These, in their awkward hieroglyphic form, were
little adapted to supersede the Latin forms. The example of the Poles
and Bohemians could only encourage the first Dalmatian writers to
continue in the same course; although each of these nations follows a
different system of pronouncing the same letters. The orthography of
the Dalmatians remained, however, for a long time entirely unsettled:
and is so still in some measure. A greater difficulty arose from the
absurd practice of the Slavonians and Croatians, who, although
speaking and writing the same language, yet write and print it each
according to a different system of combination; thus limiting the
perusal of their own scanty productions almost exclusively to the few
readers of their small provinces respectively, whilst the remainder of
their countrymen are hardly able to understand them. This division,
however, compels us likewise to separate in our sketch the literature
of the Dalmatians proper, and that of the catholic Slavonians.
_Literature of Dalmatia Proper_.
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