Imatges de pàgina
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times a week during the season, i. e. from December till July or August. Each lecture occupies about two hours. The place where they are held is a low, dark, dirty room in a building connected with the Royal Library, more plainly and even coarsely furnished than most of the common school-houses in this country. In 1829 the number of pupils in each of the two Arabic courses was from ten to fifteen; in Modern Greek, from twenty to thirty.

8. Göttingen. The number of students at this University seems to have greatly diminished, in part, probably, on account of the political disturbances which occurred there two or three years since. During the summer semester of 1833, only 843 students were matriculated; of whom 215 were in Theology; 308 in Law; 206 in Medicine; and 114 in the faculty of Philosophy. At the end of November last, the number entered for the present winter semester was 833. In the summer of 1825 there were over 1500 students; and in the winter of 1829-30, nearly 1300. Comp. Bibl. Repos. I. p. 27.

The second volume of Neander's History of the Planting and Progress of the Christian Church under the Apostles, is announced as published; but has not yet been received in this country. Of Lücke's Commentary on the Writings of St. John a new edition is in press. Part I, comprehending the Epistles, is published, and is said to have been wholly rewritten.

THE

BIBLICAL REPOSITORY.

No. XV.

JULY, 1834.

ART. I. HISTORICAL VIEW OF THE SLAVIC LANGUAGE IN ITS VARIOUS DIALECTS; WITH SPECIAL REFERENCE TO THEOLOGICAL LITERATURE.

Continued.

B. WESTERN SLAVI.

I. History of the Bohemian Language and Literature. Or all the Slavic languages, the Bohemian dialect with its literature is the only one which can, in the mind of the evangelical theologian, excite a more than general interest. Not so much indeed by its own nature, in which it differs little from the other Slavic languages; but by those remarkable circumstances, which in the night of a degenerate Catholicism, made the Bohemian tongue, with the exception of the voice of Wickliffe, the first organ of truth. Wickliffe's influence, however great and decided it may have been, was nevertheless limited to the theologians and literati of the age; his voice did not find that responding echo among the common people, which alone is able to give life to abstract doctrines. It was in Bohemia, that the spark first blazed up into a lively flame, which a century later spread an enlightening fire over all Europe. The names of Huss and Jerome of Prague can never perish; although less success has made them less current than those of Luther and Melancthon. In no language of the world has the Bible been studied with more zeal and devotion; no nation has ever been more willing to seal their claims upon the Word of God with their blood. The long contests of the Bohemians for liberty of conscience, and their final destruction, present one of the most VOL. IV. No. 15.

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heart-rending tragedies to be found in human history. Not less ready to maintain their convictions with the pen than with the sword, the theological literature of the fifteenth, sixteenth, and the first twenty years of the seventeenth centuries, is of an extent, with which that of no other Slavic language can be compared. It is true, however, that most of these productions bear decidedly the stamp of the period in which they were written. Dictated by the polemical spirit of the age, and for the most part directed by one protestant party against another, there is very little to be found in them to gratify the Christian, or from which the theological student of the present day could derive any other than historical instruction. On the other hand, while the theological literature of all the other Slavic nations is almost exclusively limited to sermons, catechisms, prayer-books, and other devotional exercises, among the Bohemians alone do we meet with exegetical researches and interpretations, founded on a scientific examination of the original text of the Scriptures.

Having thus acknowledged the claims of the theologian first, we must add, that other departments of the Bohemian literature are equally rich, and most of them cultivated with a better taste. There is indeed hardly any science or art, in which the Bohemians have not to boast of eminent names. But the talent for which this nation is the most distinguished, is that of music. A fondness for music and a natural gift to execute it, is indeed common to all Slavic nations; but whilst their talent is mostly confined to a susceptible ear, and a skill in imitating,-for the Russians and Poles possess some celebrated musical performers, though very few distinguished composers,-the talent of the Bohemian is of a far higher order. He unites the spirit of harmony which characterizes the Germans, with the sweet gift of melody belonging to the Italians, and thus seems to be the true ideal of a complete musician. A great part of the most eminent names among German composers are Bohemians by birth; and there is hardly any thing which strikes the American and English traveller in that beautiful region more, than the generality of a gift so seldom met with in their own countries.

Bohemia, until the sixth century, was inhabited by a Celtic race, the Boii. After them the country was called Boiohemum, i. e. home of the Boii; in German still Böheim.1 The Boii were driven to the south-west by the Markomanns; the

1 More generally contracted into Böhmen.

Markomanns were conquered by the Lombards.

After the

downfall of the great kingdom of Thuringia, in the middle of the sixth century, Slavic nations pushed forward into Germany, and the Tchekhes settled in Bohemia, where an almost deserted country offered them little or no resistance. The Tchekhes, a Slavic race, came from Belo-Chrobatia, as the region north of the Carpathian range was then called. Their name has been usually explained from that of their chief, Tchekh; but Dobrovsky more satisfactorily derives it from ĉeti, cjti, to begin, to be the first; according to him Tchekhes signifies much the same as Front-Slavi.3 The whole person of Tchekh has rather a mythological than a historical foundation. The whole history of this period, indeed, is so intimately interwoven with poetical legends, and mythological traditions, that it seems impossible at the present time to distinguish real facts from poetical ornaments. The hero of the ancient chronicles Samo, the just Krok, Libussa the wise and beautiful, and the husband of her choice, the peasant Perzmislas, all move in a circle of poetical fiction. There is, however, no doubt that there is an historical foundation for all these persons; for tradition only expands and embellishes, but rarely, if ever, invents.

What we have said in our introduction, in regard to the vestiges of an early cultivation of the Slavic nations in general, must be applied to the Tchekhes particularly.* The courts of justice in which the just Krok and his daughter presided, and which the chronicles describe to us, present indeed a wonderful mixture of the sacred forms of a well-organized society, and of that patriarchical 'relation, which induced the dissenting parties to yield with childlike submission to the arbitrary decisions of the prince's wisdom. According to the chronicles, so early as A. D. 722, Libussa kept a pisak, or clerk, literally writer; and

2 The country along the banks of the Vistula. According to other writers, Belo-Chrobatia was the name of the country on both sides of the Carpathian chain. In some old chronicles the Tchekhes are said to have come from Croatia, which induced more modern historians to suppose them to have emigrated from the present Croatia ; others suppose that under this name Chrobatia was understood.

3 In his essay Ueber den Ursprung des Namen Cech, Prague and Vienna, 1782. In his later works he confirms this opinion; see Geschichte der böhmischen Sprache und alten Literatur, Prague, 1818, p.

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* See above, p. 333, 347.

her prophecies were written down in Slavic characters. The same princess is said to have founded Prague. A considerable number of Bohemian poems, some of which have been only recently discovered, are evidently derived from the pagan period. Libussa's choice of the country yeoman Perzmislas for her husband, in preference to her noble suitors, indicates the early existence of a free and independent peasantry. All these scattered features are however insufficient to give us a distinct picture of this early period; and here, as among all other Slavic nations, history commences only with the introduction of Christianity. The small states originally founded by the Tchekhes, were first united into one dukedom during the last years of Perzmislas; while under his son Nezamysl, in the year 752, they are said to have first distributed the lands in fee, and to have given to the whole community a constitutional form.

The name of Boii, Bohemians, was transferred to the Tchekhes by the neighbouring nations. They continued to call themselves Tchekhes, as they do even now. The Moravians, a nearly related Slavic race, who probably came to these regions at the same time with the Tchekhes, called themselves Morawcik, from Morawa, morass, a name frequently repeated

4 In writing Russian and Servian names, we have adapted our orthography to the English rules of pronunciation, so far namely as English letters are able to express sounds partly unknown to all but Slavic nations. The Poles and Bohemians however, who use the same characters as the English, have a right to expect that in writing their national names in the English language, their orthography should be preserved; just as it is in the case of the French, Spaniards, Italians, etc. No English writer would change French or Spanish names according to the English principles of pronunciation. We consequently alter letters only in cases where otherwise a foreigner, unacquainted with the Bohemian language, would find an absolute impossibility of pronouncing them correctly; following in this the example of most German writers, and of those Bohemian authors who write in German. Thus we put i for the consonant j, which the Bohemian uses, with a shade of pronunciation inexpressible by letters, for the vowel i; thus above, Morawčik instead of Morawejk, etc. A few words will be sufficient to explain what else may be peculiar in their way of expressing sounds familiar to other nations; thus č is pronounced tch; s=sh; z the same sound softer; fr followed by a soft sibilant; cis in every case pronounced like ts; hence Janocky must be pronounced Janotsky; Rokycana, Rokytsana; Ctibor, Tstibor, etc. The vowels a, e, i, y, are every where to be pronounced as in father, they, machine, frisky.

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