The The Slavonians attempted, like the Ger-three years after Duszan's death. mans in the west, to achieve the same com- Czarat (empire) passed then, as they say, plete revolution in the eastern part of the over to the Turks. The cause of the SlavoRoman empire in Europe, but were not so nians and of Christendom against the Turks rapid in their progress. Their invasions be- was taken up by another Slavonian nationgan in the sixth century; and in the tenth, the Poles-who, after long wars, finally, the greater part of the Byzantine empire, as under their king John Sobieski, inflicted on Epirus, Macedonia, and Hellas, were occu- the Turks a decisive blow, from which these pied by them; and we have on record not latter never recovered. Lastly, a third Slaonly the complaints of Constantine Porphy-vonian power-Russia-seems disposed to rogenitus that all Peloponnesus was Slavonis- act in this affair the part of the ass to the ed, but those also of the commentators upon dying lion; but Europe wisely interfered, the ancient geographers that classica! names for the Turks of the present day, as will subwere no longer to be met with. To this sequently appear, are mostly Europeans. circumstance the modern Greek language, Setting aside, however, such considerations, which more resembles the Slavonic than its we here again witness the triumph of Europe ancient prototype, owes its origin. The over Asia, and of Christianity over Islamism. Emperor Justinian was a Slavonian by birth, This triumph we shall once more behold as were also many distinguished generals and even in the case of the apparently forlorn statesmen of the Byzantine empire.* That Servians, who, by their defeat at Kossowo, all the Slavonians did not effect a complete re- fell more or less into a state of barbarism and volution there, was owing to their inability slavery. to conquer the entire country. This inabili- In Bosnia Proper, the nobles, with some ty again arose from the character of their few exceptions, embraced Islamism, though immigration, which was only partial and ages elapsed before the completion of their never at any time general, for the Slavonians apostacy. Still they have preserved their constantly attempted to establish peaceable nationality entire, not one of them in a colonies rather than to make extensive conquests. For a considerable time they were either tributary vassals to the Greek emper ors, or received in their turn a tribute for the assistance they afforded to them in time of war. Amongst these Slavonians the Servians were the most powerful, and it seemed in the fourteenth century that they would become masters of Constantinople under their king Stephen Duszan, who called himself king and emperor, and bore in his coat-ofarms a double-headed eagle. His lieutenants ruled Ætolia and Macedonia, and the Byzantine writers used to compare him either to an all-devouring fire, or to a far and wide overflowing torrent-both irresistible powers of nature. He was preparing in 1396, at the head of eighty thousand armed men, to strike a last blow against the Greeks, when he died suddenly, and thus a different fate was prepared for the Servians. In the same year the Turks acquired their first firm footing in Europe by the capture of Tzympi, from which epoch the Turkish historians date their settlement in Europe, omitting previous conquests. The Servians divided by domestic factions during the minority of Duszan's successor, were unable to resist the ascending power of the Turks, by whom they were completely defeated at Kossowo, thirty This subject has been more extensively treated in the Article on Slavonian Antiquities, to which we must refer our readers. + Nicephorus Gregoras, IV. I. thousand, for instance, speaking the Turkish language. Some distinguished families yet flourish as in the time of their ancient independence, and that of Sokolowitch boasts of having given grand viziers to the three sultans, Soliman I, Selim II., and Murad III., maintaining nevertheless a very independent posi tion. The capital of Bosnia, Seraiewo, is a kind of oligarchical republic." In the part of Bosnia called Herzegowina, some of the ancient Boyars, though they remained faithful to the religion of their ances tors, maintained themselves in the possession of their rights by means of privileges (berates) wrung from the Turks. Under the protec tion of the Boyars, the people live far from the dominant nation, tending their flocks, and always wearing arms. In a similar manner were governed, until lately, Kraina and Kliutch; the first by temporary Knese (princes) appointed by the Porte; and the second, by hereditary Knese, called Karapantchitch. The tribes of Montenegro(Czernogorcy) have made themselves almost wholly independent. Forgetting the rest of the world, and obeying no laws save the ancient customs of their forefathers, they either acknowledge the authority of a chief descended from the family of Radowitch, or of the Wladika, that is, their bishop, according as the personal influence of either severally prevailed. Many Servians, flying from Turkish op • La Bosnie, par Pertusier. Paris. 1822. pression, took refuge in Austria, where they of the "History of the Popes," for valuable have made productive tracts of land which details concerning Servia, which he has colbefore were mere deserts; such as the dis- lected on the spot, and given to the world in tricts of Warasdin and Karlstadt, as also the the work first mentioned at the head of this morasses formed by the inundations of Glogo- article. nitza; and have rendered besides good service In Servia Proper, ruled by the Pasha of to their adopted country against the Turks. Belgrad, there remained no nobility either They enjoy certain privileges, as those of Christian or Mahomedan, nor were any kind electing their archbishop in a general assem- of privileges enjoyed by any class of the bly, and sending representatives to the Hun- people, but the whole mass of population garian Diet, independently of their provin- was in a state of slavery, and all doomed cial Congress. It is these Servians who, alike to obey blindly their Turkish task-masunder the name of military colonists, protect ters. the entire frontiers of Austria on the side of Nevertheless, even a nation thus absolutely Turkey, cultivating land allotted to them, enslaved has a history of her own, though and obeying chiefs of their own nation. They this history may not consist in records of point with pride to some of their country- whatever ennobles man in the sight of heaven men who have been raised to the highest of- and earth,-in the achievements of heroism, fices of state in the Austrian empire. of civic virtue, genius, and talent. The hisAll these tribes, together with the Dalma- tory of every enslaved nation is of a quite tians and Morlacks, who once obeyed Venice, different tenour; its element is the fear of constitute only one people, having the same the master or lord, which fear, when it is ablanguage, customs, and manners, however solute, is the beginning of wisdom, but only they may otherwise differ by government and the beginning, and it only attains to the end religion, amounting to about four millions of wisdom when the second element, an absoof population. Whilst some of them march lutely active service of the lord, is combined in the vanguard of Islamism, others watch the with it. frontiers of Christendom, and these again are divided by the religious rites of the Greek and Latin churches. Some are independent, others subject to foreign rule, while some remain almost in the state of nature; and fi. nally, while some live with their eyes fixed upon Mecca, others have of late begun to take an active part in the progress of European civilisation. With all these differences, the Ranke: ground of their life is one and the same. When an enslaved nation unites these two elements in her life, she never fails to defeat the ends of her masters, or, as is said of tyranny, to be suicidal. Let us now see with what degree of fear the Turkish masters inspired the Servians, and how these latter served them. Their condition in the sixteenth century is thus described by Herr "The Servians were under very servile subThe hardest lot was reserved for those who jection to their masters, with respect both to inhabit Servia Proper, or Serfwilaieti, subject their persons and their property. To the spahi to an immediate Turkish rule; and the num- belonged every tenth sheaf of their fields; to ber of these amounts to no more than eight the pasha every house was bound to furnish, at hundred thousand. It is of their condition Christmas, maize, barley, and oats; and to the sultan belonged the haradsch, or poll-tax, levied that we now intend to speak, not without at on all males. Yet even this was not deemed the same time casting a glance also at their sufficient, and the peasants were often brought songs, more celebrated than even their revo- even from Belgrad and Sinederewo, as far as lution in the present century; and we wish Constantinople, to make hay in the sultan's this article to be viewed as belonging to a meadows, where they were detained from their cycle of essays which have appeared from homes full two months. A certain number of time to time in this journal on the subject of the inhabitants of the villages were also obliged to labour for the pasha during a hundred days Slavonian history and literature, and written in harvest time. Another great hardship was, by Slavonians. We venture to hope that this that the spahi and janissaries were quartered in same Slavonian literature to which Goethe their villages, and exercised over them an immepaid so much attention, will, when better diate and despotic power. In addition to this, known in England, add a new phase to her there was the tribute of boys, which carried off literature, and at all events it will contribute from them, every five years, the flower of their to establish the conviction, that wherever man stant source of insecurity still remained, owing youth. For such even as escaped this, a conhas been placed, in all times and in all coun- to the Turkish robbers, mostly deserters from tries, he has ever raised his voice to join the the army, who dwelt in the land, and kidnapped universal chorus of praise to the Almighty the natives in order to sell them as slaves.”Father. In the present instance we are in- pp. 11, 12. debted to Herr Ranke, the well-known author| Thus was it with the Servians in the days even of the legislator Soliman I., during the greatest military prosperity of the empire, with which kind of prosperity that of the subject appears to stand in an inverse ratio. The Rajas, as the conquered nations are called, were oppressed, in defiance of the laws of God and man. With the decline of the military power of the Turks, and indeed of their power generally, in the 18th century, the condition of the Servians improved. peculiar kind, who were masters over the whole land, a few villages only excepted, which belonged to the crown. Both the spahi and their vassals were kept in subjection to the Porte by the pashas, who were removable at pleasure, in order to obviate the evil which might arise from the possessions of the army becoming hereditary. The pashas appointed kadis to administer justice both to the Servians and the Turks, but who were paid only by the former. "No tribute of boys was henceforth levied, The Servians used to receive even their and nothing more was heard of the kidnapping bishop, always a Greek, from Constantinople, of the inhabitants by ferocious soldiers What which circumstance served only to augment most concerned their ordinary habits of life was, that personal service had ceased; neither the their jealousy of the Greeks. The bishops pasha nor the sultan were any longer entitled to considered their see merely as a farm, cared demand statute-labour, and neither spahi nor ja- little or nothing for the welfare of the Church, nissaries were quartered in the villages. Even and usually sided with the Turks, for which respecting property an enfranchising improve the Servians repaid them with full hatred. ment had taken place. The haradsch was still Thus pasha, kadi, and bishop, considered in a paid to the sultan, and for this came annually from Constantinople the tosker, or receipts, but light of political economy, entered the country the pasha no longer received grain. In ex- solely in order to export money from it, and change, he required twice in the year a tribute both it and its inhabitants were regarded merein money proportionate to the necessities of the ly as a fund, the interest of which belonged administration, the poresa. As he distributed nominally to the government, but in reality this by the counsel of the presidents of the na- was given to certain individuals in payment of tion, the knese, over the twelve districts of the their services, and to others as a farm revenue. land, who then further subdivided it amongst the smaller circles, villages, and households, they In consonance with such a view of political were relieved from all the vexations inseparable economy, it was customary to exact for murfrom an investigation carried on by oppressive der, or even for an accidental death, as drownservants of the pasha, as to the produce of the ing, &c., a blood-fine (krwnina), by way of harvest and the yielding of every crop. The compensation for the loss of so much human levies of the spahi were of two kinds: at one stock; but as to the punishment of the murtime the tenth of the produce of the fields, the derer, this was a thing never thought of. vineyards, and the hives; and at another, a poll Pasha, kadi, and bishop usually stayed in the tax (glewnitza) of two piastres upon all married couples. To collect the former, he appeared in country until they had amassed sufficient person in the village, but a portion of this was riches to buy themselves higher offices elsealready taken to pay the glewnitza. In some where. It seemed as if the Servians were place, every married pair, rich and poor, came to doomed to eternal slavery, which might have an agreement to compound with the spahi by been the case, had all offices on the Turkish paying him annually ten piastres in lien of all side been wholly hereditary or wholly tempohis rights. They freed themselves gradually from the arbitrary usurpations of the Turks on rary. But now, as the spahi remained always the profit and product of labour."-pp. 13, 14. in the country, they would not suffer the pasha to oppress the people for his own profit; Hence, it happened, that the two nations whilst the latter again, being placed nearer separated more and more, so that, at the end to the source of power, would not allow the of the last century, the Turks inhabited ex- spahi to make slaves of the sultan's subjects, clusively the towns and fortresses, and the and took their part against the former. Servians the open country. The principal this mutual jealousy amongst the Turks, the part of the Turkish population consisted of Servians were indebted for the preservation the spahi, who were both landholders and of their very existence. But, upon the whole, military men. They had, however, no special property in the country; they had neither distinct possessions, nor a country-house in any portion of it; neither had they power to administer justice or demand service, nor yet to expel arbitrarily the cultivators, or to prohibit them from settling elsewhere. They had only the right to exact a tribute, and for this they were bound to perform military service. They formed thus an aristocracy of a Το every Turk was master of the rajas; resplendent arms, rich dresses, large houses, all that was good and magnificent, the Turks took for themselves; they even monopolized colours, leaving to the Servians only green, as a token of ignominy,-but it proved an emblem of hope. That which gave most offence was their personal treatment of the Servians. A Servian was not permitted to ride, but might only walk in a town, and he was obliged to perform menial offices at the bidding of any Turk. On meeting a Turk outside the walls, he was obliged to turn aside, dismount, and cover his arms. It was considered his duty to submit to insults, and a crime if he returned them. Fortunately no evil is absolute but only relative in this world of ours, and when carried to a certain point is sure to defeat itself. This supreme oppression of the Servians contributed to their ultimate deliver brothers, whose birthdays fall in the same Out of this narrow sphere of patriarchal as his brother some one of whom he has 'Far remote in the mountain clefts and in the valleys, formed by rivers and smaller streams lie outstretched the Servian villages, occupying, even if they consist of not more than forty or fifty houses a space equal to that covered by Vienna and its suburbs. The houses stand isolated, far from one another; each is a separate Marriage, again, is with them a link no community. Around the house itself, which is a space enclosed by walls of clay, and roofed in longer individual, but which cements families with hay and the dried bark of the linden-tree, together, and is usually a kind of barter; so in the centre of which stands the hearth and the useful an object as an adult maiden is not to fire, chambers are constructed, klüet, or waiat, be acquired for nothing. The bride, before which are often adorned throughout with po- entering the house of her spouse, to which lished boards, but without hearths. A separate she is led in procession by her brother, and room is occasionally found in this abode; there the father and mother sleep; the chambers are welcomed in like manner, is obliged to perfor the younger couples. All form together a form certain ceremonies, such as to dress an single household; they work and eat together, infant, to touch with a distaff the walls of the and in winter evenings gather round the fire. house which are to behold her so often busy Even when the father dies, the brothers, who with this implement, and to mount on a tachoose the most able amongst them to be mas-ble with bread, water, and wine in her hands, ter of the household [starieshina], remain together until their numbers become so great as to of which she is to have the care, whilst her render separation necessary. A single house- mouth is filled with a piece of sugar, as a hold often forms a whole street. Little exter- sign that she is to speak little, and only what nal assistance is required. The men build for is good. An individual may be further linkthemselves their houses and chambers; manu- ed with the community in a twofold manner. facture for themselves, according to the mode One mode is by being chosen Kmete, or elof their ancestors, their ploughs and waggons, der, and a Knes of the village, selski knes, carve the yokes for their oxen, put hoops round their casks, and make shoes from untanned lea- and by contributing his share to the poresa ther. The rest of their apparel is prepared by and blood-fine. The other mode is spiritual, the women, who spin wool and flax, weave linen and consists in the worship of the saint whose and cloth, which they die with madder. A day is usually celebrated by all the commusmith is a necessary artisan for the village, and nity. Such several communities or villages, he prepares their tools. The mills belong to united under one supreme Knes, or Bashknes, several houses in common, and each house has its day. Yet it is not this seclusion alone, which constitute a Knesina, through which they is of itself sufficient, nor even that certain im- are related to the government. This society posts press only upon the households, that links of peasants and Christians was not developed the families. The main cause is a feeling of before the commencement of the late revothe fraternal connection quite peculiar to this lution of Servia. race. The brother is proud of possessing a sis- Conformable to their social condition borter; the sister swears by the name of her brodering on civilisation, and on a state of nather; the wife does not mourn for the departed husband; his mother and sisters mourn for him ture, are the religious notions of the Servians, and watch over his grave. In some places they in which we find all the social and natural have a strange custom, that when one of two relations of man mysteriously tinged with religion. Theirs is a kind of nature-worship, | Dodole. All the females in every house only that with them it is spiritualized. though pour over her, symbolically of rain, a flask of imperfectly, by Christianity. At the ap- water, and the procession is so contrived that proach of winter, for example, they celebrate the rain-pregnant clouds discharge their conthe Feast of the Dead,* or rather the Death tents upon it before it is concluded. A song of Life; and on Palm Sunday they com- is adapted to the occasion. In praying for memorate its renovation. In the first case, rain, the dominion over storms is ascribed to every one does honour to some deceased the principal saints; Elias is made the God person, and in the second the following cere- of Thunder, his name being Thunderer, mony takes place. On the eve of this day, whilst the fiery Maria sends forth lightning, a number of maidens collect upon a hill and and Panthelimon rides on the tempest. Their sing songs on the resuscitation of Lazarus, festival occurs between the 20th and 28th of and before daybreak they go to the side of July. The people thus confess themselves the stream from which they draw water, dependent on the powers of nature, and alwith dances and songs, describing how the ways swear by them,--by the sun and the water becomes troubled by the antlers of the earth. Zako mi Santza! Zako mi Semlje! stag, and grows clear again in his eyes. By So be the sun to me! So be the earth to me! this allusion they mean, no doubt, that the At the same time they acknowledge that water becoming freed from the snow and ice everything remains under the immediate is the first herald of nature's renovation. sovereignty of God, and begin every kind of Again, on the eve of our patron saint St. work in his name. It would be thought im George, about the end of April, the women pious to make a promise without adding, "If gather flowers and herbs, which they cast God wills so;"-and this practice has beinto the water caught by them as it is dashed come so universal as to introduce a curious from the mill-wheel, and leave it so during laconism in their speech. On meeting any the night. In the morning they bathe in it, one, they do not inquire "Whither do you as if abandoning themselves to the influences go if God wills so?" but say simply, "If of waking nature, and think to enjoy thereby God wills so?" It is also customary to say good health. Pentecost is the day of the "Christ be praised!" to which the answer remarkable ceremony called Kralitza. From is, "For ever and ever, amen!" This custen to fifteen maidens assemble, one person-tom is found also in other Slavonian nations. ating a standard-bearer, another a king, and a third, who is veiled, a queen. She is attended by a lady, and as they walk in procession from house to house, they dance and sing The burden of their song is Lelio, the God of Love, according to the ancient Slavonian mythology; and thus everything breathes of pure bright enjoyment, nourished by the sympathy of blooming nature. There is not a phase in the revolution of the year but has its rite. St. John's day, in June, is considered so holy that the very sun in reverence stands still for three days. Shepherds celebrate the evening by making torches of the bark of the birch-tree, which they hold burning in their hands as they go round their sheepfolds and cattle enclosures, after which they ascend the mountain, where they pursue their sports so long as the torches continue to burn. As the year advances, the Servians have their corresponding ceremonies. To avert a protracted drought so injurious to the corn, a girl so enveloped in grass, herbs, and flowers, that her face is scarcely visible, and bearing the appearance of a moving heap of grass, goes from house to house. She is called They pray three times a day; in the morning, after dining, and in the evening, each in his own fashion: and at public entertainments it would be considered disgraceful to any one that he should be incapable of de livering a fine prayer. Their usual pledge in drinking is, "To the glory of God!" and the general form of invitation is, "Our house is also that of God; we ask you to come to us this evening; what the Saint has given we shall not conceal." But the mixture of paganism and Christianity, of nature and spirit, is nowhere more palpable than in their mode of celebrating Christmas-day. Herr Ranke gives the following description of it, having been present at the ceremony: "On Christmas-eve, when work is over, the master of the house goes into the wood, and cuts down a young straight oak. He brings it into the house with the salutation, Good even him, God grant it to thee, thou prosperous ing, and a happy Christmas.' They answer man and rich in honour,' and they scatter grain over him. They then deposit the tree, which is called Budniak, amongst the embers. In the morning, which is announced by the firing of pis tols, the visitor already appointed for each house appears; he throws grain out of a glove through For the celebration of this feast in Lithuania, the doors, crying, Christ is born! He then see Foreign Q. R., No. 43. approaches nearer, and striking the budniak as |