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
The more exuberant, however, do we find the productiveness of some of
their dramatic writers. Polevoi, whom we have mentioned as the editor
of the "Telegraph," and as a keen critic who exerted great influence,
poured out a whole flood of tragedies and comedies. To judge from the
applause with which they were received on the stage, the writer was
more successful in this branch, than in his historical enterprises.
Besides him, Lenski, Koni, Feodorof, and others, as well as numerous
translators, furnished provision for the stage. The most respectable
talent was shown by Kukolnik; of whom his countrymen have a very high
idea, but to whom foreign critics assign rather a lyric than a
dramatic genius. The reverential attachment of Russians to their
monarch is exhibited in the very titles chosen by several dramatic
poets. One of Kukolnik's dramas bears the rather prolix name, "The
hand of the Almighty shelters the Tzar." A piece of Glinka is called,
"Our Life for the Tzar," etc.
The popular poetry which is scattered over all Slavic countries, has
at last received the attention due to it. That of Russia is not so
early as that of some other branches of the same family; with the
exception however of certain songs for harvest, weddings, festivals,
funerals, and some other like verses, sung or recited on certain
stated occasions. There are among them some, which in their most
essential portions are derived from pagan times. The Ukraine, and
indeed Malo-Russia in general, and all the regions where Ruthenian
tribes have settled, are particularly rich in popular poetry. Valuable
miscellaneous collections have been made by Prince Tzertelef,
Maximovitch, Sacharof, by the Polish literati Bielowski and
Siemienski, Bodianski, etc.[45]
To the philological works enumerated on page 84, we may add the
following productions of the present period: Brosset, on the
Literature and Language of Armenia and Georgia;[46] also the
Dictionaries of these languages by Chodubashef and Tschubinof, the
latter (Georgian or Grusinian) the first which was ever published; a
Chinese grammar by the priest Hyacinth, who prepared likewise a
history of China some years ago, which we must suppose has been
published. A new Turkish dictionary was published in 1830 by Rhasis.
Prince Alexander Handsheri prepared another of French, Arabic,
Turkish, and Persian; in aid of which the Sultan subscribed for 200
copies. Sjogren, an academician, known by his Studies on the Finnish
Language and Literature, devoted himself in connection with the latter
to the Caucasian idioms, and published the results in the Transactions
of the Academy. A Turco-Tartar grammar was written by Kasembeg, a
Tartar by birth, but educated in European Russia, and professor of
those languages at the university of Kazan.
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