open door."

AUSTRIA'S REPRESSIVE POLICY

Another item of Austria's policy which it would not have been
difficult to foretell was her refusal to countenance the union of
Dalmatia and Croatia. Von Thurn's idea of favouring the harmless
Italianized party was thought very admirable and was now once more put
into action. This party was very much concerned to keep its head above
water; the rising tide of nationalism and equality and of other
pernicious French notions made as much appeal to them as they did to
Metternich. What he stood out against, they also hated; for the
national spirit, fostered by the union of the two Slav provinces,
would swamp them. If Dalmatia, on the other hand, remained autonomous
they would be much more likely to survive. So they became autonomists.

A fair number of those who for economical or social reasons gave
themselves out as belonging to this little autonomous party were
unable to speak Italian, being less cultivated than many of those who
continued to be patriotic Serbo-Croats. But as Italian now became the
language of the schools and offices, of the law-courts and of public
life generally, these autonomous persons hastened to learn it.

THE WORK OF VUK KARA[vZ]I['C]

But now we hear the steps of other Southern Slavs whose mission is to
call the people to their own language and to make the language worthy
of the people. With the encumbrances that in the centuries had so
disfigured it, the archaisms and the pseudo-classicisms, it would
never come to pass that one great Serbian nation would be formed. And
that is what Vuk Kara[vz]i['c], throughout his life, was aiming at.
While Milo[vs] Obrenovi['c] in Serbia took up the arms which Kara
George had dropped, and used some others of his own, Vuk Kara[vz]i['c]
was tramping with his wooden leg round Serbia and Montenegro,
Macedonia and Bulgaria, Syrmia and the Banat. He longs to find out
where his country lies and, having found his people, to use their own
language as the spoken and the written language of the nation. For
this purpose he had to reform the Cyrillic alphabet, as it contained,
like Russian and Bulgarian, letters that are not pronounced; and the
Serbian produced by him is a purely phonetic language. He had, of
course, his enemies, particularly in the clergy, who were the most
important class. What he was doing with the Palaeo-Slav displeased them
hugely. Here was he trying to substitute what they called "a language
of ox-herd