The popular poetry of the Slavic race, which still survives, is found
in its perfection among the Serbians and Dalmatians, while it is almost
extinct among the other nations. It is of unknown antiquity, and has
been handed down from one century to another.
The Slavs have always been a singing race, and must have been so from
Pagan times, as their songs abound with heathen gods and customs,
dreams, omens, and a true Eastern fatalism. Love and heroism are the
usual themes, and among the Serbians the peculiar relation of sister
and brother forms the principal subject of interest.
A Serbian woman who has no brother is considered a fit subject for
sympathy. The Serbian poetry is nearly all Epic, and in this particular
class of verse no modern nation has been so productive. There is a
grand and heroic simplicity in their song, as it recounts their daily
life; the hall where the women sit spinning near the fire, the
windswept mountain side, where the boys are pasturing their flocks, the
village square where youths and maidens dance, the country ripe for the
harvest, and the forest through which the traveller journeys, all
reecho with song. This Serbian poetry first became generally known in
Europe through Goethe and Grimm in Germany, and Bowring and Lytton in
England.