 Through the whole of the 18th century, Serbian literature was mostly under the sway of Russia, or rather of the Russian Orthodox Church.As the Russo-Slavonic language was not readily understood by the Serbian reading public, its form used by the Serbs came under the influence of their living dialect and began soon to approach nearer to Serbian than to Russian.This artificial literary jargon was called Slaveno-Serbski, Slavo-Serbian.