For the whole of this week I’ve had a visitor in the person of 
G. Levy from Düsseldorf, sent over as their delegate by the workers 
there. He only left yesterday and took up all my spare time, so that 
despite the best of intentions I did not succeed in writing to you. 
Further on I shall give you an account of the news, some of it 
important, of which he was the carrier.” 

Not one of the 3 books you asked for was available at Norgate 
and Williams. I have ordered the Lay of Igor”? but wanted to let you 
know about the other two first. 

Dobrowsky’s ‘Slavin’, Hanka edition, is very far from fulfilling the 
expectations aroused by its title. The book falls into 2 parts as 
regards the contents, if not the arrangement, viz.: 

1. Short essays on Slavonic linguistic studies which, in view of 
more recent studies, could at most be of antiquarian interest (e.g. 
sample from the Wendish New Testament, Slavonic declension, on 
the Slavonic translation of the Old Testament, etc.). 

2. An attempt, wholly devoid of polemic bite, to reconstitute the 
character of the Slav peoples in integrum.’ This is done by taking 
excerpts from sundry works, mostly German writings. Here is a list 
of these essays, which make up the bulk of the book*: 

‘Slawische Vélker’. (From Herder’s Ideen* etc.) 

‘Sitten der Croaten’. (From von Engels’ Geschichte von Dalma- 
tien, Croatien, Slavonien. Halle 1798.) 

‘Sitten und Gebrauche der Illyrier, der Morlaken etc.’ (From 
ditto.) 

‘Charakter der Illyrier’. (From Taube’s Beschreibung des Konig- 
reichs Slavonien. Leipzig 1777.) 

‘Die Tracht der Illyrier’. (From Hacquet’s Beobachtungen auf einer 
Reise nach Semlin.‘) 

a See this volume, pp. 23-25. - > as a whole - ¢ Here Marx gives the titles of a 
number of chapters from Dobrowsky’s book and some excerpts from it. - 
d J. G. Herder, Ideen zur Philosophie der Geschichte der Menschheit, Theil 4. - ¢ Serbian 
name: Zemun. 

‘Prokops Schilderung der Slawen und Anten’. (From Stritter’s 
‘Geschichte der Slawen nach den Byzantinern’ in Schlozer’s 
Allgemeine Nordische Geschichte.) 

‘Auszüge aus des Herrn Professor B. Hacquet’s Abbildung und 
Beschreibung der stidwest- und ostlichen Slawen’. 

‘Volkstümliches der Russen’. (From Dupré de St. Maure, 
Observations sur les moeurs et les usages russes. Paris 1829. 3 vols.) 

‘Charakter und Kultur der Slawen im Allgemeinen’. (From 
Schaffarik, Geschichte der slawischen Sprache, etc. Ofen 1826.) 

That’s about all. Appended is ‘Der böhmische Cato’ in Czech, 
‘from an old manuscript described by the late Voigt in Acta 
litteraria’? — 

Dobrowsky writes in a bumbling, good-natured, naive style, with 
the greatest cordiality towards his German colleagues, whether 
‘late’ or still living. All that seemed of interest to me in the Slavin 
were a few passages in which he directly recognises the Germans 
as the fathers of Slavonic historical and linguistic studies. 

As regards linguistic studies, he cites among others ‘Schlozer, 
Vorschlag zu einer allgemeinen vergleichenden slawischen Sprachlehre 
und . Worterbuch’24 Further, ‘Schlézer, Vorschlag, das Russische 
vollkommen richtig und genau mit lateinischer Schrift auszudrücken’. In 
general ‘Herr Hofrat Schlézer’ would appear to be the patriarch 
of whom the others profess to be the disciples. 

‘Schlézer’s Nester: A work indispensable to anyone wishing to acquaint himself 
with the critical approach to Slavonic history in general and the Russian annals in 
particular.’ 

Of Voigt’s. Geschichte Preussens: 
‘Was the first to acquaint the Bohemians with the monuments of Antiquity.’ 25 

Also cited: ; 
‘Johann Leonhard Frischen’s Programmen von der slawischen 
Literatur’, 1727-1736, 

‘which has elucidated the history of several Slavonic dialects’. 

‘Slawischer Biicherdruck in Württemberg im 16ten Jahrhundert. Ein 
literarischer Bericht von Chr. Friedr. Schnurrer, Prof. in Tibingen, 
1799°— 

‘ 

a very valuable book which contains the finest and most important contribu- 
tions to the history of Wendish and Croat bibliography’. 

Others cited are: Schlézer, Allgemeine Nordische Geschichte. Joh. 
Christoph de Jordan, De originibus Slavicis opus etc., Vienna 1745, 

a Hungarian name: Buda. 

fol. 2. Father Gelasius Dobner, ad Hajek, Annales Bohemorum, 
Prague 1761 and ’63. (Of this Schlozer remarks: primus delirare 
desiit”) Stritter, Memoriae populorum ad Danubium e Script. Byzan- 
tints, Petersburg 1774. Gercken, Versuch in der dltesten Geschichte der 
Slaven, Leipzig 1771. Gatterer’s Einleitung in die synchronistische 
Universalhistorie, Gottingen 1771, and Gebhardi, Allgemeine Welt- 
historie, 1789. 

Of all these works only the titles are given, with the exception of 
the opinions extracted above. Voila le ‘Slavin’ 

As regards the 3rd work, the title is: Dr. M. W. Heffter, Der 
Weltkampf der Deutschen und Slaven seit dem Ende des Sten 
Jahrhunderts, 1847 (costs 7/-). Even in his preface the author admits 
that he only has a detailed and first-hand knowledge of Slavonic 
history in so far as it refers to the Prussian ‘Fatherland’. More than ?/4 
of his book of 481 pages is devoted to the period between the end of 
the 5th century and 1147. Only here and there does the remainder 
go beyond the 13th, or at latest the 14th, century, and then quite 
cursorily. 

Having given you an opinion on these two works, I await your 
instructions whether or not to order them. Another book by 
Heffter has been published: Das Slawentum, Leipzig 1852 (45 
pages or so). Constitutes the 10th booklet in the Brockhaus series 
Unterhaltungen, Belehrungen etc’ A popular compendium of 
Slavonic history. It was from this little book I learned that in 1849 
Nicholas issued a ukase by which 

‘all his subjects were strictly forbidden to take part in Pan-Slavism’. 

At the Museum I discovered, and made extracts from, 5 
manuscript folio volumes on Russia (18th century only). They are 
part of the literary legacy of Archdeacon Coxe, known for his zeal 
as a collector.” They contain many original (hitherto unpublished) 
letters from English ambassadors in Petersburg to the Cabinet 
here, some of them very COMPROMISING INDEED. Amongst the papers 
dated 1768 there is a manuscript by one of the Embassy attachés 
on ‘the character of the Russian nation’.? I shall send you 
some extracts from it. There is also interesting information 
on the Russian ‘artels’ by the Embassy chaplain, a cousin of 
Pitt’s.© 

@ the first to have ceased to rave - > There you have the Slavin. - © Unterhaltende 
Belehrungen zur Forderung allgemeiner Bildung. 1-27 Bändchen, Leipzig 1851-1856. - 
d Various Papers on the Genius and Character of the Russians, 1768 (MS). - 
e L. K. Pitt, Ueber den russischen Handel (MS). 

Although anti-Russian, recent French writings are, with few 
exceptions, almost all tinged with Pan-Slavism. Thus Desprez,* but 
more particularly Cyprien Robert who, in Paris in 1848, published 
the journal, La Pologne. Annales contemporaines des peuples de 
l'Europe orientale, etc. The same man has published, among other 
things, Les Slaves de la Turquie, édition de 1844, précédée d’une 
introduction, etc., 8°, Paris 1852. Further, Le Monde slave, son passé, 
son état présent et son avenir, Paris 1852. A Parisian author,” whose 
nom de guerre is Edmond, but who is said to be a Pole, is 
exceptional in having published an exceedingly venomous attack 
on Russian pretensions to socialism, and comments on their 
communes, etc. I haven’t yet been able to trace this, but shall have 
a look at the Revue des deux Mondes which apparently contains 
extracts from it. 

I began this letter today with the intention of sending you 
masses of gossip. But, having strayed off in another direction and 
time being short, I shall leave that till tomorrow and confine 
myself for today to telling you that Heise, under the influence of 
strong liquor (so Imandt writes), is rapidly approaching his end‘; 
that Oswald—of tobacco and refugee fame—who doesn’t speak a 
word of French, has been appointed Professor of the French 
Language at University College, London; that Ruge’s friends are 
putting it around that he’s suffering from ‘dropsy’ though it’s 
probably nothing but water on the brain; that a number of 
German worthies (Faucher, Meyen, Franck, Tausenau, etc.) will 
be meeting tomorrow chez mine host Kerb, in order to achieve 
an entente cordiale as to the Fatherland’s requirements, and that 
‘Meyen’ has expressed the ‘hope’ that he can persuade Bucher to 
‘take part’ in this confabulation; finally, that Proudhon has become 
a director of the royal imperial French railways. 

Salut. 
Your 
K. M.