LANGUAGES OF THE SORABIAN-VENDES IN LUSATIA, AND OF OTHER VENDISH
TRIBES NOW EXTINCT.
The north-eastern part of Germany, as far west as the Elbe and Saale,
was, from the fifth to the tenth century, almost exclusively inhabited
by nations of the Slavic race. Various Teutonic tribes--among them the
Burgundians, the Suevi, Heruli, and Hermunduri--had before this taken
up their temporary residence along the Baltic, between the Vistula and
the Elbe. In the great migration of the Asiatic-European nations,
which for nearly two centuries kept in motion all Europe from the Icy
Ocean to the Atlantic, and extended even to the north of Africa, the
warlike German nations moved towards the south-west, and Slavic tribes
traversing the Danube and Vistula, in immense multitudes, took
possession of the countries which they left. Those who came over the
northern Vistula, settled along the coasts of the Baltic as far west
as to the Elbe and Saale, and as far south as to the Erzgebirge (Ore
Mountains) on the borders of Bohemia.
These Slavic tribes were called by the Germans, _Wenden_, Lat.
_Venedi_, for which we prefer in English the form of _Vendes_, rather
than that of Wends. It appears indeed that this name was formerly
applied by the Germans indiscriminately to all the Slavic nations with
which they came in contact; for the name _Winden_, Eng. _Vindes_,
which is still, as we have seen, the German appellation for the
Slovenzi, or the Slavic inhabitants of Southern Germany, is evidently
the same in a slightly altered form. The name of _Wenden_, Vendes,
became, however, in the course of time, a specific appellation for the
northern German-Slavic tribes; of which, at the present day, only a
few meagre remnants are left. They were nevertheless once a powerful
nation. Five independent branches must be distinguished among them.
We first name the _Obotrites_, the former inhabitants of the present
duchies of Mecklenburg, and the adjacent country, west, north, and
south. They were divided into the Obotrites proper, the Wagrians in
Holstein, and the Polabæ and Linones on the banks of the Elbe and
Leine; but were united under a common chief or king. They and their
eastern neighbours the Wiltzi, (Germ. _Wilzen_, Lat. _Veletabæ_,) with
whom they lived in perpetual warfare, were the most warlike and
powerful among the Vendish tribes. The Wiltzi or Pomeranians lived
interspersed with the Kassubes, a Lekhish tribe, between the Oder and
the Vistula, and were subjugated by the Obotrites in A.D. 782. It was
however only by the utmost exertions, that these latter could maintain
their own independence against their western and southern neighbours,
the Germans. Conquered by Charlemagne, they regained their
independence under his successors, and centuries passed away in
constant and bloody conflicts and alternate fortunes. In the middle of
the twelfth century, however, they were completely subjugated by Henry
the Lion, duke of Saxony and Bavaria. He laid waste their whole
country, destroyed most of the people, and compelled the few remaining
inhabitants and their prince, to accept Christianity from his bloody
hands. In A.D. 1167 he restored to this latter, whose name was
Pribislaus, a part of his kingdom, and gave his daughter Matilda in
marriage to the son of Pribislaus, who, a few years later, was made a
prince of the empire, and was thus gained over to the German cause.
His descendants are the present dukes of Mecklenburg; and it is a
memorable fact, that these princes are at the present day the only
sovereigns in Europe of the Slavic race. German priests and German
colonists introduced the German language; although we find that Bruno,
the chief missionary among the Obotrites, preached before them in
their own language. The Slavic dialect spoken by them expired
gradually; and probably without ever having been reduced to writing,
except for the sake of curiosity when very near its extinction. The
only documents of it, which have come down to us, are a few incomplete
vocabularies, compiled among the Polabæ and Linones, i.e. the
inhabitants adjacent to the Elbe, in Slavic _Labe_, and to the Leine,
in Slavic _Linac_.
Long after the whole region was perfectly Germanized, a few towns in
the eastern corner of the present kingdom of Hanover, were still
almost exclusively inhabited by a people of Slavic race, who in the
seventeenth century, and even to the middle of the eighteenth, had
preserved in some measure their language and habits. But, since the
Germans were strongly prejudiced against the Vendish name,--the
nations of this race, especially those in the western part of the
German territories, being despised as subjugated tribes, and inferior
in general knowledge and information,--they gradually renounced their
national peculiarities. Towards the close of the seventeenth century,
when Hennings, German pastor at Wustrow, took great pains to collect
among them historical notices and a vocabulary of their language, he
found the youth already ignorant of the latter, and the old people
almost ashamed of knowing it, or at least afraid of being laughed at
by their children. They took his inquiries, and those of other
intelligent persons, in respect to their ancient language and
usages, as intended to ridicule them, and denied at first any
knowledge of those matters. We find, however, that preaching in the
Vendish language of this region was still continued for some time
later. Divine service was held in it for the last time at Wustrow, in
the year 1751. According to the vocabularies which Hennings and a few
others collected, their dialect, like that spoken in Lower Lusatia,
was nearly related to the Polish language; partaking however in some
peculiarities of the Bohemian, and not without some of its own.[1]
The second great Vendish tribe, the Wiltzi or Pomeranians (Germ.
_Wilzen_), also called Veletabæ, were, as we said above, subjugated
in A.D. 782 by the Obotrites; and the country between the Oder and
the Vistula formed for more than a hundred and fifty years a part of
the great Vendish kingdom. They regained, however, even before the
final dissolution of this latter in A.D. 1026, the partial
independence of their own dukes; who attached themselves to Germany,
and afterwards, under the name of the dukes of Pomerania, became
princes of the empire. In the year 1124 the first Pomeranians were
baptized by Otho, bishop of Bamberg; and the place where this act was
performed, Ottosbrunnen (Otho's Well), which five hundred years ago
was encircled by four lime-trees, is still shown to the traveller. As
they received religion and instruction from Germany, the influence of
the German language can easily be accounted for. German colonists
aided in spreading it throughout the whole country. The last person
who understood the old Pomeranian language, is said to have died in
the year 1404. No trace of it remains, excepting only the names of
places and persons, the Slavic origin of which can be recognized
throughout all north-eastern Germany by the terminations in _its,
enz, ik_, or _ow_. In A.D. 1637 the line of the old Pomeranian dukes
expired, and the country fell to Brandenburg, with the exception of
that part which Sweden usurped at the peace of Westphalia. The island
of Rügen, which till A.D. 1478 had its own native princes, belonged
to this latter. It is the principal seat of German-Slavic
antiquities. The ancient Rugians and their gods are mentioned by
Tacitus, and described by Saxo Grammaticus. The old chronicles and
legends, founded on still older traditions, speak of a large and
flourishing city named Vineta on the small island Wollin, south-east
of Rügen, once the principal seat of the western Slavic commerce,
and, as Herder calls it, the Slavic Amsterdam. This city is said by
some to have been destroyed by the Danes; by others to have been
ingulfed in the sea by the sinking of the ground beneath it. Modern
inquirers, however, have doubted whether it ever existed; and, hard
as it is to renounce the many poetical associations attached to such
a subject,--so similar to those which fill the mind in thinking of
Pompeii and Herculaneum,--their objections have not yet been
satisfactorily refuted.
The third separate branch of the Vendish stem were the Ukrians, or
Border-Vendes, Germ. _Ukern,_ from _Ukraina_, border. They lived in
the territory which afterwards became the margravate of Brandenburg,
and were divided into several tribes, as the Hevelli on the banks of
the Havel, the Retarians, etc. Their situation was such, that constant
conflicts between them and the guardians or watch of the German
frontiers, the Saxon margraves on the other side of the Elbe, were
unavoidable. These served gradually to extend the German _marches_ or
frontiers further and further, until in the year 1134 Albert the Bear,
count of Ascania, finally conquered the Vendes. The Slavic inhabitants
of this region were cruelly and completely destroyed; the country was
repeopled by German and Dutch colonists, and given as a fief by the
emperor to Albert the Bear, the first margrave of Brandenburg.
Brandenburg was the German form for _Brannibor_, the most considerable
of the Vendish cities, after which the country was called. The names
of places, many of them altered in a similar manner, are indeed the
only weak traces of the Vendish language once spoken in this part of
Germany. No tribe of the Vendes seems to have been so completely
extinguished; the present inhabitants of Brandenburg being of as pure
a German origin, as those of any other part of Germany.
The descendants of only two Vendish tribes have preserved their
language; and even these, from powerful nations spread over the
surface of at least 4800 geographical square miles, have shrunk into
the comparatively small number of scarcely two hundred thousand
individuals, now inhabitants of Upper and Lower Lusatia. Nearly all of
them are peasants; for the higher classes, even if Slavic blood
perhaps runs in their veins, are completely Germanized. These tribes
are the Sorabians, Lat. _Sorabæ_, Germ. _Sorben_, in Lusatia, divided
into two different branches. They call themselves to this very day
_Servians_, or rather (as also their brethren on the Danube) _Serbs_;
their language, the _Serbish_ language. Although in fact two distinct
tribes, and speaking different dialects, yet their early history
cannot well be separated. After the dissolution of the great kingdom
of Thuringia by the Francs and Saxons in the year 1528, the Sorabians,
or Sorbæ, took possession of the countries left by the Hermunduri,
viz. the territory between the Harz mountains, the Saale, and the
Erzgebirge, and extended their dominion in a northern direction to the
seats of their brethren, the Ukrians, and towards the east as far as
to the region in which their near relations, the Lekhes. about the
same time had settled. They made slaves of the few German inhabitants
whom they found scattered through this country; and according to their
industrious habits, began immediately after their arrival to cultivate
the soil, to build cities, and to trade in the productions of the
country. Although not strictly a warlike people, they were able for
several centuries to defend their frontiers against the frequent
attacks of their German neighbours on the other side of the Saale, and
to give them trouble in return. But they yielded before the arms of
Charlemagne; and after a short interval of renewed independence, they
were completely subjugated and made tributary by Henry I. Their
country, according to the German custom, was divided into _marches_,
and populated with German settlers. These latter more especially
occupied the towns, and built villages among the woods and mountains;
whilst the Vendes, chiefly addicted to agriculture, continued to
occupy the plains. But even on the plains, there soon arose the
castles of German knights, their masters and oppressors; and the
Vendish population was by degrees reduced to the miserable condition
of serfs.
In the year 968, the first attempt was made to convert them to
Christianity, partly by the sword of the conqueror, partly by the
instruction of Christian missionaries. But more than one century
passed away, before the Christian religion was fully introduced among
them. Benno, bishop of Meissen, who died in A.D. 1106, at the age of
ninety-six, acquired by his activity in the work of converting the
Vendes, the name of the apostle of the Slavi. The obstinate resistance
with which the Christian religion had been rejected by them, can
easily be explained by the unjudicious, nay flagitious way, in which
it was presented to them by the Germans; who came among them, the
sword in one hand and the cross in the other; and exacted moreover
from them the sacrifice of their language, their customs, their whole
nationality in exchange. The naturally childlike and submissive
disposition of the Slavi rendered them in all other regions, as we
have seen, willing to receive the Christian doctrines, more especially
when their superiors themselves acted as their apostles, as was in
some measure the case with the Russian Vladimir, Jagello in Lithuania,
etc.[2] But the mode described above, which was adopted by the German
heroes, not only among the Vendes, but also some centuries later among
the old Borussians, could not but rouse all their feelings of pride
and nationality to a decided resistance. Even when the Germans
refrained from force, their means of conversion were equally opposed
to the spirit of Christianity. Bishop Otho of Bamberg, for instance,
was accustomed, when on his missionary travels, to have fifty or more
wagons in his train loaded with cloth, victuals, and other supplies,
in order to reward on the spot those who submitted to baptism.[3]
But the holy light of Christianity, even after the Vendish tribes had
embraced its doctrines, did not clear up the darkness of their fate.
The whole humiliating relation between masters and serfs in Germany,
which still degraded the last century, was unknown to the free ancient
Germans, among whom only the prisoner of war was a slave; and is
derived from the period of the submission of the Vendes. The Germans
indeed seem to have considered them as an inferior race, and treated
them accordingly. The contempt with which the old historians speak of
them, is revolting to every liberal and unprejudiced mind, and can
hardly be explained. For the Sorabians seem to have been at the time
of their submission, superior on the whole to the Germans in respect
to civilization; although in consequence of this contemptuous
treatment, they in the course of time fell far behind them. Despised
and oppressed, they were kept for centuries in a state of ignorance
and neglect; from which, it seems, they could only escape by
renouncing their Slavic peculiarities, and above all their language.
The use of this latter before courts of justice was in the fourteenth
century forbidden by law throughout most of the country. In the
beginning of the same century, the Vendish language was still
sometimes heard at Leipzig, but not afterwards. In the villages also
it became wholly extinct fifty or a hundred years later; and only
single words passed over into the German language. But this was not
the case with their usages and other national peculiarities; there are
still several tribes, nay the peasants of whole provinces in this part
of Germany, in whom the Slavic origin can be distinctly traced.[4]
Their language however was driven into the remotest eastern corner of
their former extensive territory; and is there, and only there, still
to be heard. We speak of the province called Lusatia, situated between
Saxony, Bohemia, Silesia, and Brandenburg, of which the greatest part
is at present under the Prussian dominion, and the smallest but
richest portion under that of Saxony.
_Lushitze_, Lusatia, Germ. _Lausitz_, signifies in Slavic, a low
marshland. This name was formerly applied only to the north-eastern
part of this province, or Lower Lusatia, which is, or was at least at
the time of the Vendish settlement, a country of that description. At
a later period, the name was carried over very improperly to the
south-western part, or Upper Lusatia, a beautiful and mountainous
region. Lusatia was given by Henry I, as a fief, to the margrave of
Meissen. In the course of the following centuries, its two parts were
repeatedly separated and reunited, alternately under the dominion of
the last named margrave, of Poland, or of Bohemia, without however
belonging to the German empire. In the fourteenth century it was at
length incorporated with Bohemia, and remained so for nearly three
hundred years. To this circumstance alone the partial preservation of
the Vendish language is to be ascribed. At the peace of Prague, A.D.
1636, it was allotted to Saxony. At the congress of Vienna in 1815, it
was assigned, with the exception of the smaller half of Upper Lusatia,
to Prussia, to which monarchy it still belongs.
1. _Language of the Sorabians in Upper Lusatia_.
The cities of Bautzen, Zittau, Kamenz, Löbau, and their districts,
form the Saxon part of Upper Lusatia. Of its 195,000 inhabitants,
about the fourth or fifth part still speak the Vendish language. In
the north-eastern part of Upper Lusatia, which belongs to Prussia,
there is about the same proportion of Vendish inhabitants. In both
territories the whole number of Vendes is about 100,000. Their
language is very nearly related to the Bohemian; where the Sorabians
of Lower Lusatia and the Poles pronounce the letter _h_, the Upper
Lusatians and Bohemians give the sound of _g_. Both Lusatian dialects
have of course lost very many of their original peculiarities; thus
both have adopted the article from the German language.
The Reformation exhibited here, as every where, its favourable
influence on the vernacular language. The bishops of Meissen, to
whose diocese Lusatia belonged, had indeed repeatedly admonished the
priests and curates, to whose care the spiritual welfare of the poor
Slavic Lusatians was intrusted, to learn the language of the people;
but no particular pains was taken; and the Romish clergy, who spoke of
the natives with the utmost contempt, were quite satisfied to hear the
people say _Amen_ and _Kyrie Eleison_ after their own Latin prayers.
As Lusatia lies near to the scene of Luther's earliest influence, the
Gospel was preached early to the Slavic inhabitants by some of his
followers; and it had the natural consequence, that the Romish clergy
also began to give some attention to the vernacular language. In 1550,
if not before, a Sorabian translation of the New Testament, the
manuscript and perhaps the autograph of which is preserved in the
library of Berlin, was completed; but it was never printed; probably
because during the melancholy period of the "Interim" so called, which
commenced about that time, the energies of the Protestants were in
some measure paralyzed. Towards the end of the century Luther's
smaller Catechism, and several other religious and doctrinal tracts,
were translated from the German, mostly by clergymen, and introduced
into the schools; chiefly the village schools; for the cities were
steadily becoming more and more Germanized.
The neglect and decline of the Sorabian population was however always
painfully felt by some patriotic individuals; and the very injudicious
and tyrannic attempts of their German rulers, during the seventeenth
century, to eradicate the language and supplant it by the German,
found in all places only a reluctant and forced submission. But the
effect of appointing every where German magistrates and German pastors
was irresistible. The language was gradually forgotten by the rising
generation; and hardly a Vendish book was printed during the first
three quarters of the seventeenth century. Indeed hardly any one
knew how to write in a language, the orthography and grammar of
which had not yet been subjected to any rules or principles.
In 1679 the Jesuit Jacob Ticinus, a native of Lusatia, in a little
Latin pamphlet, advised his countrymen to adopt the rules of
orthography current in the Bohemian language, so nearly related to
their own.[5] But the Protestants among them, who constituted the
principal part in number and respectability, rejected his advice; and
preferred to adopt the rules established shortly afterwards by a
German clergyman, Z.J. Bierling.[6] This was a system between the
Bohemian and the German, and is still observed. It was probably a
sense of the approaching danger of an ultimate total extirpation of
their language, that roused the slumbering Vendes again to some
efforts. Parts of the Gospels were published towards the close of the
same century by Michael Frenzel; and in 1706 the whole New Testament
appeared in a Vendish translation, conformed to Luther's German one.
A translation of the whole Bible, made by several Protestant
clergymen, was first published in 1729; and has been twice reprinted.
A version for Catholics, by A. Swotlik, is extant in manuscript. A
German hymn-book for the latter already existed in 1696; and in 1710
the Protestants were likewise supplied with one. In the former the
orthography of Ticinus was followed; while the latter was printed
according to the system of Bierling. Thus this handful of people,
surrounded by German adversaries and underminers of their nationality,
and who would have had hard work enough even if they had stood as one
man in their own defence, were split into parties, even in things the
most indifferent; and thus made their own weakness still weaker.
The Protestants succeeded at last in the establishment of a seminary
for the education of Vendish ministers at Leipzig in 1716. Another was
instituted at Wittenberg, A.D. 1749. Their literature continued to be
almost exclusively of a religious kind; and consisted mostly of
translations from the German. Another _Wendische Grammatica_ was
written by G. Matthei, one of the translators of the Vendish Bible. A
dictionary was prepared by Frencel.[7] Both works can now only be
considered as curiosities. The latter proceeds upon the firm
conviction, that the Slavi were originally Hebrews; and contrives to
point out in all the substantives or nouns of the Sorabian language a
certain degree of analogy. The only philological works, which will be
of use to those who may wish to study this Slavic dialect in our day,
is a short grammar by Seiler,[8] and a more modern one by J.P. Jordan.
The latter has adopted the system of orthography best adapted to the
language, viz. that introduced by Dobrovsky for the Bohemian.[9]
The Upper Lusatian dialect has acquired in this way a degree of
cultivation, which of course, since most of those who speak and read
it are of the common people, comparatively few are able to appreciate.
In religious hymns, there is no deficiency; and several cantos of
Klopstock's Messiah have been translated into it by Möhn, in the
measure of the original. In regard to the popular songs of the
Sorabians, a kind of poetry in which most Slavic nations are so rich,
no pains was taken until recently to discover whether they had any or
not. But when on the publication of the remarkable Servian ballads,
the interest of the German public in this species of poetry became
strongly excited, the Saxon minister of state, baron Nostitz, himself
an esteemed German poet, turned his attention particularly to this
subject; and succeeded in collecting several little songs full of that
sweet, half pensive, half roguish feeling, which characterizes Slavic
popular poetry in general. They were translated by him and
communicated in manuscript to his friends: but whether they have ever
been printed we are not informed.
This subject, however, was not long suffered to rest. Two societies
have been formed within the last twelve years, one at Breslau among
the students of the university natives of Lusatia; the other at
Bautzen among the scholars of the Gymnasium or High School; for the
promotion of their native language and extending the knowledge of the
antiquities of their country. Both these societies of the rising
generation are favoured and assisted by gentlemen who take a general
interest in Slavic affairs. Another learned society, called "The
Scientific society of Upper Lusatia," a union of scholars, had been
founded previously. In 1836, this society offered a premium for
collecting a certain number of genuine songs with their melodies,
still extant among the common people. The result has been a very
valuable collection. The first numbers appeared in 1841; and the whole
will form a standard work in the literature of popular poetry. It was
an agreeable surprise to find, that even these isolated Slavic tribes,
who have been so long separated from other nations related to them,
were still in possession of a store of genuine Slavic ballads and
ancient melodies; while, on the other hand, many other ballads were
found among them, in which the influence of their German neighbours,
or perhaps their own influence on the latter, could be distinctly
traced. Ballads and ditties, known to have been sung centuries before
in Hessia or on the Rhine, rose suddenly from the night of an unheeded
existence: disguised, indeed, but easily recognized, in a Slavic
dress, which bore indications of the same antiquity.[10]
2. _Language of the Sorabians in Lower Lusatia_.
Lower Lusatia, or the north-eastern part of the Lusatian territory,
together with the adjacent circle of Cotbus in Brandenburg, has about
the same number of Vendish inhabitants as the upper province. The
dialect they speak has a strong affinity with the Polish; but is, like
that of their brethren in Upper Lusatia, corrupted by German
interpolations, and even in a still greater degree. It is obviously on
the decline; and we can only expect, that after the lapse of a hundred
years or less, no other vestige of it will be left than written or
printed documents.
The first book known to have been printed in this dialect, which is
written according to a peculiar combination of the German letters, is
Möller's Hymns, Catechism, and Liturgy, Bautzen 1574. Their present
literature, like that of Upper Lusatia, is confined to works for
religious instruction, grammars, and dictionaries. Of the former they
possess no small number. They have also a complete version of the
Bible. The New Testament was translated for them as early as 1709, by
Fabricius, and printed together with the German text. It has been
repeatedly reprinted; and in the year 1798 a translation of the Old
Testament by Fritze was added.[11]
FOOTNOTES:
[Footnote 1: Herder, in his _Volkslieder_, communicated a popular
ballad from this dialect. See _Literatur und Kunst_, Vol. VII. p. 126,
edit. of 1827-30.]
[Footnote 2: "On a certain day all the inhabitants of Kief were
assembled on the banks of the Dnieper, and on a signal from the
monarch, all plunged into the river, some to the waist, others to the
neck; parents held their children in their arms while the ceremony was
performed by the priests in attendance. Thus a nation received
baptism, not only without murmuring, but with cheerfulness; for all
were convinced that a religion, embraced by the sovereign and boyards,
must necessarily be the best in the world" Foreign Quart. Review, Art.
on Karamsin's History of Russia, Vol. III. p. 160. Compare Henderson's
Travels in Russia, p. 191.]
[Footnote 3: See Cramer's _Pommersche Kirchen Historie_, LI. c. 29.]
[Footnote 4: Among others the peasants of the duchy of Altenburg, who
are highly respectable through a certain degree of cultivation rare
among German peasants, and distinguished for their wealth and
prosperous condition. Although long since perfectly Germanized,
certain Vendish usages have been kept up among them, more especially
at weddings and similar festivals, the details of which are very
interesting.]
[Footnote 5: _Principia linguae Vandalicae seu Wendica_, Prague
1679-1682.]
[Footnote 6: _Didascalia sive Orthographia Vandalica_, Bautzen 1689.]
[Footnote 7: _De Originibus linguae Sorabicae_ M. Abrah. Frencelij,
Budiss. et Zwickau 1693-96.]
[Footnote 8: _Kurzgefasste Grammatik der Sorben-Wendischen Sprache_,
Bautzen 1828.]
[Footnote 9: _Grammatik der wendisch-sorbischen Sprache in der Ober
Lausitz. Im Systeme Dubrovsky's abgefasst_, von J.P. Jordan, Prague
1841. Here may be mentioned also, _Maly Sserb_, i.e. _der kleine
Serbe, wendische-deutsche Gesprache etc. mit einem wendisch-deutschen
und deutsch-wendischen Würterbuch, etc._ von J.E. Schmaler, Bautzen
1841.--There exists besides this only one Sorabian Dictionary, and
this in Latin, _Vocabularium latino-sorbicum_, by G.A. Swotlik,
Bautzen 1721.]
[Footnote 10: _Volkslieder der Wenden in der Ober und Nieder Lausitz,
und mit den Sangweisen, deutsher Uebersetzung_, etc. herausgegeben von
Leopold Haupt und J.E. Schmaler, Grimma 1841, 2 vols. The second
volume contains the songs in the dialect of Lower Lusatia.]
[Footnote 11: Philological works on this dialect are the following:
Hauptmann's _Wendische Sprachlehre_, Lübben 1761. _Kurze Anleitung zur
Wend. Sprache_, 1746. Megiseri _Thesaurus Polyglottus_, Frankf. 1603;
including the Lower Lusatian. Several vocabularies of this dialect are
extant in manuscript; see Schaffarik's _Geschichte_, p. 486.]
* * * * *