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
1. RUSSIANS. The Russians of Slavic origin form the bulk of the
population of the European part of Russia. All the middle provinces of
this vast empire are occupied almost exclusively by a people of purely
Slavic extraction. The numerous Slavi who are scattered through
Asiatic Russia, are of the same race. They belong to the Greek
Church. To ascertain the exact numbers of the different races of one
and the same nation, is exceedingly difficult. The statistical tables
of the government afford little help; since it is the policy of the
latter to annihilate as much as possible the difference of races.
Schaffarik, in his Slavic Ethnography, gives the number of the
Russians proper at 38,400,000. We follow him, as the most diligent and
most consistent investigator of this matter; but we also feel bound to
remark, that his statistical assertions have occasioned surprise, and
met with contradiction.
2. RUSSNIAKS or RUTHENIANS, also called _Russinians_ and
_Malo-Russians_. These are found in Malo-Russia, the South of Poland,
Galicia, Ludomeria or Red Russia, the Bukovina, also in the
north-eastern part of Hungary, and scattered over Walachia and
Moldavia. The Kozaks, especially the Zaporogueans, belong chiefly to
this race; while the Kozaks of the Don are more mixed with pure
Russians. Their number is given at more than thirteen millions. They
all belong to the Oriental Church; though a portion of them are
Greek-Catholics, or adherents of the United Church.
II. ILLYRICO-SERVIAN BRANCH.
1. The ILLYRICO-SERVIANS proper, frequently called _Rascians_ or
_Raitzi_, comprising five subdivisions.
a) The SERVIANS in Servia, lying between the rivers Timock, Drina,
Save, the Danube, and the Balkan mountains; and, as a Turkish
province, called Serf Vilayeti. Their number is at least a million. In
earlier times, and especially at the end of the seventeenth century,
many of them emigrated to Hungary; where even now between three and
four hundred thousand of them are settled; exclusive of their near
relatives, the Slavonians, in the kingdom of Slavonia so called.
b) BOSNIANS, between Dalmatia, the Balkan mountains, and the rivers
Drina, Verbas, and Save; from four to five hundred thousand in number.
Most of them belong, like their brethren the Servians, to the Greek
Church; about 100,000 are Roman Catholics. There are of late many
Muhammedans among them, who still retain their language and most of
their Slavic customs.
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