It is this immense extent, which adds greatly
to the difficulties of a general survey of the different relations and
connections of nations, broken up into so many parts. The _history of
the language_ is our object, not the history of the people; we
therefore give of statistic and political notices only so much, as
seems to be requisite for the illustration of our subject.
The earliest data for the history of the civilization of the Slavic
race, we find in their mythology; and here their oriental origin
again appears. The antithesis of a good and evil principle is met with
among most of their tribes; and as even at the present time in some
Slavic dialects every thing good, beautiful, praiseworthy, is to them
synonymous with the purity of the white colour, they call the good
Spirit _Bielo Bog_, the white god; the evil Spirit _Tcherno Bog_, the
black god. The _Div_ of the old Russians seem to be likewise akin to
the _Dev_ of the Hindoo; the goddess of life, _Shiva_, of the Polabae,
to the Indian _Shiva_; as the names of the Slavic personification of
death, _Morjana_, _Morena_, _Marzana_, evidently stand in connection
with the Indian word for death, _Marana_. Strabo describes some of the
idols of the Rugians, in which we meet again the whole significant
symbolization of the East.
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