Page:The American Cyclopædia (1879) Volume XIV.djvu/809

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few additional localities, though not all which Servia claims as her own. The majority of Prince Milan was declared on Aug. 22, 1872. His relations with Turkey were complicated in the summer of 1875 by the outbreak of the in- surrection in Herzegovina, which excited in Servia a strong sympathy. The seat of the legislature, which had always been at Kragu- yevatz, was in October removed to Belgrade. At the first session held in the latter city (Oct. 4) the prince declared himself, contrary to the wishes of the skupshtina,* opposed to a war with Turkey, and appointed a new cabi- net in harmony with his conservative views, thereby impairing his popularity. See Ranke, Die serbische Revolution (Hamburg, 1829 ; 2d ed., 1844); Milutinovitch, Oeschichte Serbiens von 1389-1815 (Leipsic, 1837) ; Ounibert, Essai historique sur lea revolutions et Vindependance de la Serbie depuis 1804 jusqu'd 1850 (2 vols., Leipsic, 1855); Hilferding, Geschichte der Ser- ben und Bulgaren (Bautzen, 1856); the Rev. W. Denton, "Servia and the Servians" (Lon- don, 1862); Elodie Lawton Mijatovics (Wil- liam Tweedie), " History of Modern Servia " (London, 1874); and Saint-Ren6 Taillandier, La Serbie au XIX' siecle, Kara George et Mi- lotch (Paris, 1875). SERVIAN LANGUAGE AND LITERATURE. The Servian language forms, together with the Russian and Bulgarian, the eastern stem of the Slavic languages. In the wider sense of the word, in which it is frequently called the Illyrian or Illyrico-Servian, it comprises the languages of the Serbs proper, the Croats, and the Sloventzi or Vinds. The first of these dia- lects is spoken by the Serbs in the principality of Servia and in Hungary (in which country they are called Rascians), by the Bosnians, Herzegovinians, Montenegrins, Slavonians, and Dalmatians ; the second in the Austrian prov- ince of Croatia ; the third in the Austrian provinces of Styria, Carinthia, and Carniola. Those Serbs who belong to the Greek church use the Cyrillic alphabet, while those belong- ing to the Roman Catholic church (compri- sing chiefly the Dalmatians, Croats, and Slo- ventzi) have adopted the Roman alphabet. Among the Dalmatians, in former times, the 'Glagolitic alphabet was in use. (See GLAGO- LITIO.) Altogether, according to an estimate of Schafarik, the Servian language is spoken by about 7,250,000 persons, of whom more than 4,500,000 live under Austrian, more than 2,500,000 under Turkish, and about 100,000 under Russian rule. There are in the Servian language four declensions of substantives and two of adjectives ; the dual number has be- come extinct; the instrumental and the loca- tive cases are found as in other Slavic idioms. The comparative of the adjective is formed by annexing a syllable, generally yi ; the su- perlative by prefixing a syllable to the com- parative (nay). The verb, which is inflected after three conjugations, lacks a subjunctive, which is supplied by circumlocution, and a 734 VOL. xiv. 50 783 passive, which is expressed by means of a special participle. The tenses are the pres- ent, the future, the imperfect (with iterative signification), and the preterite. Of the pre- positions, some govern the genitive, others the dative or accusative, and the accusative and locative, others the accusative and in- strumental, others the genitive and instru- mental. The Servian surpasses all the other Slavic idioms in euphony, and has often been called the Italian of the Slavic family of lan- guages. The language of the eastern Serbs has received many Turcisms, but they have not affected its essential structure. The best gram- matical work on these languages is the Servian grammar (in the Servian language) by Vuk Ste- fanovitch Karajitch, of which Jacob Grimm published a German translation (Berlin, 1824) with an excellent introduction. Other scien- tific grammatical treatises are those of Danicic, Srpslca grammatika (3d ed., Belgrade, 1863) and Srpslca sintafaa (1868). A grammar of the Croat language was published by Berlic (Agram, 1842), and another in Latin by Bud- mani (Vienna, 1867) ; one of the Dalmatian by Babukic (German translation by Frohlich, Vi- enna, 1839). Of the language of the Sloventzi we have a grammar from Kopitar (Laybach, 1808). A dictionary of the Servian language has been published by Karajitch ; an Illyrian- German and German-Illyrian dictionary by Richter and Ballmann (2 vols., Vienna, 1839- '40) ; a German-Illyrian by Mazuranic and Uza- revic (Agram, 1842); and a Croat by Drob- nitsch (Gratz, 1852). An extensive Serbo- Croat dictionary is now (1875) in course of preparation by the South Slavic academy of sciences in Agram. The Serbs who belong to the Greek church had no literature in their own language until the middle of the 18th cen- tury. Their writers used the Old or Church Slavic, which however was generally mixed with the popular dialect. The most ancient remnants of this style reach back to the llth century, and consist principally of documents, diplomas, acts of government, &c., a collection of which was published at Belgrade in 1840. Among the most ancient writers of Servia are Stephen, the first king of Servia (crowned in 1217), who wrote the history of his father; his brother, Archbishop Sava (died 1237), who wrote monastic rules and other works; Do- mentian (about 1263), who wrote biographies of saints; and especially Archbishop Daniel (1291-1338), the author of the chief work on the ancient history of Servia, called Rodoslov (" Genealogical Register "). Count Pucic has collected and published the records, deeds, and laws of the period in his Monumenta Serbica (Vienna, 1858) and Srbski spomenici (Belgrade, 1858-'62). Of great importance also are the statutes of King Stephen Dushan (1336-'56). The Gospels were printed in Belgrade in 1552. During the following two centuries the only work of note was a "History of Servia," from the origin of the people until the reign of the