Historical View of the Languages and Literature of the Slavic Nations: With a Sketch of Their Popular Poetry — John Shaqi
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. BOHEMIANS and MORAVIANS (Czekhes). These are the Slavic inhabitants
of the kingdom of Bohemia and the Margravate of Moravia, both
belonging to the Austrian empire. They are about four and a half
millions in number; of whom 100,000 are Protestants, the rest
Catholics. Schaffarik includes also 44,000 of the Slavic inhabitants
of Prussian Silesia in this race.
2. SLOVAKS. Almost all the northern part of Hungary is inhabited by
Slovaks: besides this they are scattered through the whole of that
country, and speak different dialects. They are reckoned at between
two and three millions.
II. POLISH OR LEKHIAN BRANCH.
This comprises the inhabitants of the present kingdom of Poland; of a
part of what are called since 1772 the Russian-Polish provinces; of
the duchy of Posen; and of Galicia and Ludomeria. The bulk of the
people in this latter country are Russniaks or Ruthenians. In the
Russian provinces, which were formerly called White Russia, Black
Russia, and Red Russia, and were conquered by the Poles in former
times, the peasantry are Russians and Russniaks; in Lithuania, they
are Lithuanians or Lettones, a race of a different family of nations.
In all these countries, only the nobility and inhabitants of the
cities are really Poles, or Slavi of the Leckian race. To the same
race belongs also the Polish population of Silesia, and an isolated
tribe in the Prussian province of Pomerania, called the Kassubes. The
Slavi of the Leckian race hardly amount to the number of ten millions;
all Catholics, with the exception of about half a million of
Protestants.
II. SORABIAN-VENDISH BRANCH.
There are remnants of the old Sorabæ; and several other Slavic races
in Lusatia and some parts of Brandenburg. Their number is less than
2,000,000; divided between Protestants and Catholics.
There is no doubt, that besides the races here enumerated, there are
Slavic tribes scattered through Germany, Transylvania, Moldavia, and
Walachia, nay, through the whole of Turkey. Thus, for instance, the
Tchaconic dialect, spoken in the eastern part of ancient Sparta and
unintelligible to the other Greeks, has been proved by one of the most
distinguished philologists to have been of Slavic origin.[12] But to
ascertain their number, at any rate very small, would be a matter of
impossibility, and in every respect of little consequence.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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