DESTROYING SERB LANGUAGE.

Hawera & Normanby Star, Volume LXXIV, Issue LXXIV, 28 September 1918, Page 6

DESTROYING SERB LANGUAGE.

SYSTEMATIC TYRANNY.

. Austria t has ordeired the confiscation of all specifically Serbian books, including the magnificent collections ■of traditional - ballads, • the greatest pride ot Serbia!! culture. Tne Cyrillic alphabet in use in Serbia'has been forbidden, and the ; Latin substituted. AH Serbian teachers in the schools have been replaced by"either Austnans or Magyars, who are educating the children as "subjects of the Austrian Emperor, destroying their consciousness of Serb nationality and tampering withl their religion. Bulgaria^ has, as usual, gone even further in" this respect than her ally (says E.. M. Chadwick, in Collier's Weekly). She has inaugurated a sys---tematic destruction' of all Serbian literature. Not only every printed book, but ancient manuscripts in the monasteries, 'the only records preserved since. Serbia's mediaeval days of greatnessj have been confiscated and turned over to Bulgarian paper factories to be used for pulp. . . One and a-half cents a pound for the ancient and splendid literature of Serbia!

The Serbian Bible has met with, the same fate. The Bulgarians are even forcing the Serbs to change their.eur-names-^that is, to alter the characteristic Serbian termination "ie" into the Buigar ' 'off.;' Names of business firms, of shop signs, and of streets in the Serbian cities are all being treated in this way, in addition to th© names of private individuals.