ave been inconsiderable; their own idiom on the contrary being soon
absorbed by that of the natives. Rurik's grandsons had already Slavic
names.[4] The principal event in those ancient times, and one which
manifested its beneficent consequences in respect to civilization
here, as every where, was the introduction of Christianity, towards
the end of the tenth century. Vladimir the Great, the first Christian
monarch, founded the first schools; Greek artists were called from
Constantinople to embellish the newly erected churches at Kief; and
poetry found a patron and at the same time her hero in Vladimir.
Vladimir and his knights are the Russian Charlemagne and his peers,
king Arthur and his Round table. Their deeds and exploits have proved
a rich source for the popular tales and songs of posterity; and serve
even now to give to the earlier age of Russian history a tinge of that
romantic charm, of which the history of the middle ages is in general
so utterly void. The establishment of Christianity was followed by the
introduction of Cyril's translation of the Scriptures and the
liturgical books. The kindred language of these writings was
intelligible to them; but was still distinct enough from the old
Russian to permit them to exist side by side as two different
languages; the one fixed and immovable, the voice of the Scriptures,
the priests, and the laws; the other varying, advancing, extending,
adapting itself to the progress of time.

That this latter, the genuine old Russian, had its poets, was, until
the close of the last century, only known by historical tradition; no
monument of them seemed to be left. But at that time, A.D. 1794, a
Russian nobleman, Count Mussin-Pushkin, discovered the manuscript of
an epic poem, 'Igor's Expedition against the Polovtzi,' apparently not
older than the twelfth century. It is a piece of national poetry of no
common beauty, united with an equal share of power and gracefulness.
But what strikes us even more than this, is, that we find in it no
trace of that rudeness, which would naturally be expected in the
production of a period when darkness still covered all eastern Europe,
and of a poet belonging to a nation, which we have hardly longer than
a century ceased to consider as barbarians! There hovers a spirit of
meekness over the whole, which sometimes even seems to endanger the
energy of the representation.

The genuineness of this poem has, so far as we know, never been
questioned;