ity of Servia, Montenegro, Bosnia, Herzegovina, Croatia, Dalmatia, Bulgaria, Albania, Epirus, all the countries from the Adriatic to the Black Sea, acknowledged the headship of Dushan (AD. 1333-1356), who codified their laws — like the Slavonian emperor of Rome, Justinian — giving supreme legal authority to a national assembly, providing for incorrupt administration of justice, recognizing the institution of trial by jury, regulating the heredicity of property, and equable taxation, and insisting on the necessity of free trade as indispensable for the material progress of the people. Unhappily ambition and the weakness of the Greek empire tempted Dushan to turn longing eyes on Constantinople and the Empire of the East. The Greek emperor invited the Osmanli Turks to cross the Bosphorus and help him against probable attack. Just at that moment Dushan died, and the governors of the twelve provinces of the Servian empire, though for a time they held together against the Turks under the leadership of Lazar, whom they elected to prevent the spread of dissensions among themselves, were without any sufficient connecting links to hold them together after Lazar was killed, and the Servian power was destroyed, at Kossova in 1389.
The genius of the Servs was such as to favour their separation into such portions as were easily conquered and absorbed by the Turks, who were firmly established on the Danube for some half-century before the fall of Constantinople avenged on the Greek empire its base introduction of savage allies to help it against its neighbours of like faith and related race. The Slavonian system of government had its root in the sadrooga, or village community, which still flourishes as much as anything can flourish under Turkish rule among the Slavonian populations, and has been of priceless value to a people who, without some such tie to bind men together in country districts, to secure a home for the defenceless widow and orphan, and to preserve family order amidst State disorder, could scarcely have continued to hold apart and keep alive the burning memory of former freedom and greatness. It has been round the hearth of the village-family, numbering members often of five and six generations, that the history of the nation and the exploits of the national heroes, common to all the divided provinces and dear to Christian and to renegade Slav Mahometan alike, have been sung to the monotonous gusla and woven into the very being of each Slav from infancy. And it has been by the influence of the patient elders of the family that the hot indignation of the strong members has been restrained from time to time and reserved to take the best moment for hastening the dawn of better days for the nation.
As of one nation it is still necessary to speak of these people. For though we speak commonly of them as Bosnian, or Servian, or what not, they themselves feel that they are brethren, and do not perhaps sufficiently recognize that their quiet, patient, industrious, somewhat self-absorbed nature is not necessarily fitted to hold together under one head. It may be that they may learn that some form of federation suits them best. One thing seems quite certain, — that though Austria or Russia may plan to absorb fresh Slavonian populations, and may therefore offer aid secretly or openly to insurgent provinces to get rid of the Turk, the Slavs themselves have a very definite idea that they are made, not to be governed, but to govern themselves, and would rise against fresh masters with all the more courage and persistence because they had already freed themselves from the more hopeless and long-endured tyranny. They point with pride and look with the longing rivalry of affection to the steady self-respect and patience of Free Servia and Montenegro, and aver freely that what Slavs have done already Slavs will do again. They remember that the heroes of Slavs have been not so much warriors as lawgivers and educators.
Austria has within her borders a considerable Slav population in Croatia, Dalmatia, Istria, Hungary, and Slavonia, and owes much to their support in the troublous times of 1848. At the time of the triumph of Madgiar statesmen and the establishment of dualism in the empire-kingdom, the interests of these Slav populations had to give way to the Madgiar influence, and it is a serious matter for Austria to see a Slav insurrection on her Turkish border just at the moment when matters are going, to say the least, not smoothly in her dual and divisible government. But her Slav populations, though they do not possess all the rights which Englishmen conceive to be necessaries of life, are chiefly Roman Catholics living under a government of the same religion and not without constitutional institutions. Their active sympathies with their kinsfolk in insurrection cannot be either quelled sufficiently to prevent their sheltering the crowds of hungry and naked women, children, and old men who fly across the borders of
