The subject becomes far simpler if we consider the Croats only in respect to their language, as it prevails among them at the present time. Here they do _not_ appear as a distinct race; but still are divided into two portions. One, in Military Croatia, comprising the military districts of Carlstadt and Varasdin, and also the Banal Border, speak the Dalmatian-Servian dialect with very trifling variations; the other, in Provincial Croatia, i.e. the provincial counties of Agram, Kreutz, and Varasdin, approach nearer to the Slovenzi or Vindes, whose language will be the subject of our next section.[31] The dialect of this latter division of the Croatians forms indeed, in a certain measure, the transition and connecting link between the Dalmatian-Servian and the Vindish languages.
We have mentioned above,[32] that the Croatians adopted a system of writing different from that of the Dalmatians. The earliest documents of their literature are of the sixteenth century, and all belong to the history of the Reformation. Here also the new doctrines found minds willing to receive them; and as several of the _magnates_, among whom is the illustrious name of Zriny, were also their supporters, there was no difficulty in establishing a press, in order to diffuse the new light with greater speed and certainty. In the course of the last half of the sixteenth and the beginning of the seventeenth centuries, a large number of Croatian books, catechisms, postillae, etc. were printed. One of the warmest champions of the Reformation was Michael Buchich, curate of the island Murakoz, who publicly adopted the Calvinistic confession, and endeavoured to spread abroad his own, convictions by sermons and writings. Persecuted by the bishops, condemned by synods, he and his followers found some protection in the Christian tolerance of the emperor Maximilian II. But the successors of this prince thought otherwise; and the most powerful of the Hungarian noblemen took arms for the defence of the Romish religion. At the diets held in 1607 and 1610, destruction was sworn to the new doctrines and to their adherents; and all steps were taken for the fulfilment of the oath.
In the middle of the seventeenth century, all Croatia had reverted to Romanism. From that time onward, for more than fifty years, there was not a thought of cultivating the language of the people; all books were again written in Latin, and are so mostly even to the present day. The first who interested himself anew for the foundation of a national literature, was Paul Ritter, of Vitezovich, ob. 1713, who procured a printing office to be established by the estates, and himself wrote several books in the Croatian language. A few writers followed his example; but the activity of the press was, and is now, almost exclusively devoted to the printing of the ordinary catholic books for spiritual edification and religious instruction. The Gospels are extant in the Croatian dialect; but not the whole Bible. Most of the Croats, however, are able to read and understand the books of their Dalmatian neighbours.[33]