Unfortunately, too, even were it otherwise, the materials for a history of Russian linguists are extremely scanty. Not one of those who have written upon Slavonic Literature, appears to have adverted to this as a distinct branch of scholarship; Slavonic scholars, too, have met but imperfect justice from the writers on general biography; and thus, especially for one to whom the native sources of information are inaccessible, the rare allusions which can be gleaned from the general history of Slavonic literature supply but an uncertain and imperfect guide,[201] even did opportunities present themselves for pursuing the inquiry. It would be unpardonable, nevertheless, to pass the subject over in silence; and I can only renew in especial reference to this part of the memoir, the claim for indulgence with which I entered upon this Essay. * * * * * Christianity, and with it the first seeds of civilization, reached Russia from Constantinople; and it is not unlikely that the friendly and frequent intercourse which subsisted between the two courts under the first Christian Dukes of Muscovy, Vladimir and Jaroslav, may have led to a considerable interchange of language between the members of the two nations. The many foreign alliances, too, with Constantinople, Germany, Hungary, France, England, Norway, and Poland, which were formed by the children of Jaroslav, may, perhaps, have tended to familiarize his subjects, or at least his court, with some of the languages of Southern and Western Europe. But no record of this—the one bright period in early Russian history—has been preserved, from which any particulars can be gleaned. The division of Jaroslav’s dominions between his sons at his death, (in 1054,) plunged the Russian nation into a series of civil wars and into the barbarism to which such wars lead, from which it did not begin to emerge till the sixteenth century; and, although a few translations (chiefly theological), from Greek and Latin, were made during this period, yet, from the interruption of all intercourse with foreign countries, it may be presumed that (with the exception, perhaps, of a few enterprising individuals, like the merchant Nikitin,[202] who, in the fifteenth century, traversed the entire East, and penetrated as far as Tibet,) the natives of an empire so completely isolated concerned themselves little about any language beyond their own.