No universities, no schools, no libraries, no written literature and no
lectures for five hundred years! Imagine such a people. That is the
Serbian people.
The only men who could write--the priests; the only library--the memory;
the only education--the mother; the only university--nature; the only
historians--the blind bards; the only friend and comforter--God! Imagine
such a people and call them--Serbs.
Imagine the English people for half a thousand years without schools,
without education, without universities, without historians, authors,
friends and comforters! I am sure it is difficult for you to imagine
your country even without Shakespeare, and without Oxford and Cambridge
scholarships and the British Museum, not to mention other things. It may
be of great interest to a psychologist as well as to a historian to know
what kind of mental activity a people shows who are deprived of all that
we to-day consider as an indispensable need of daily life. What may such
a people be doing? Well, when by such a people are meant the Eskimos, it
is clear: they hunt, eat, talk and sleep. But when by such a people is
meant a people of the European, Aryan race--what then? The Serbs are a
European, Aryan race. What did they do? Three things--they thought, sang
and hoped.
They _thought_. They thought about heaven and earth, about life and
death, and man and animal, and about everything that affects human
nature. They made comparisons and asked for the reason and purpose of
everything. They drew their conclusions and expressed the results of
their long observations. They thought a very, very long time before they
uttered a short sentence. These sentences lived in the oral traditions,
and have been transferred from one generation to another. These
sentences are very like the Proverbs in the Bible, very like La
Rochefoucauld or extracts and quotations from famous works. The Serbian
sentences are striking. I have read a good deal by the great writers of
Europe, but very often a popular Serbian saying strikes me more forcibly
than a famous book.
Here is just one saying:
God is on the height, Satan is in the depth, man is in the middle. If
God will, He can be above, below and in the middle. If Satan will, he
can be below and in the middle. If man will, he can be like God
everywhere, in the middle, or above or below.
Another:
A bird envied the serpent; thou knowest earth very well. The serpent
envied the bird: thou knowest heaven very well. And both envied man:
thou knowest heaven and earth. Man replied: "My knowledge and my
ignorance make me equally unhappy."
Another:
Either snow or ice, or steam or fluid, water is always water. Either
poor or rich, or ignorant or learned, man is always man.
Another:
Only a half-good man can be disappointed in this world. But a wholly
good man never is disappointed because he never expects a reward for his
good actions.
The Serbian people _sang_ also. Sitting around the fire in the long
winter nights, the Serbian peasants sang their glorious past, their dark
present and their hopes for the future. There is a Serbian instrument
called the _gusle_, more interesting than the Greek lyre, because more
appropriate for the epic songs. It looks also like the Indian instrument
_tamboura_. Well, as the ancient Greek bards sang their Achilles, using
the lyre, and as the ancient Indian singers sang their Krishna with the
help of the tamboura, so the Serbian epic singers accompanied with the
gusle their songs on their hero of old, Marko. Marko was a historic
person, a king's son. He was the never-weary champion of right and
justice, the protector of the poor and oppressed, a believer in the
victorious good, a man who left an impression on the coming generations
like a lightning flash in the dark clouds. In every village house in
Serbia there is a gusle, and almost in every family a good singer with
the gusle. The blind bards sang on the occasion of the festival or a
meeting.
The great Pitt, when once asked from whom he learned the English history
so well, replied: "From Shakespeare." To the same question we Serbs can
reply: "From our national poetry." It is very rare for a people in the
mass to know their past as well as the Serbs know their own. The Serbs
regard their history not so much as a dry science, but rather as an art,
a drama, which must be told in a solemn language. They knew their
history, and therefore they sang it; they sang it, and therefore they
knew it better and better.
The Serbian men sang, but not only the men, the women sang as well. When
the harvest was being gathered during July and August, the women and
girls sang in the fields or under the fruit trees. In our country we
have the sun abundantly, and the outdoor singing responds fully to the
luxuriance of light. What shall I say then about our women's singing in
the autumn in the dry and soft moonlight? It is the time of spinning on
the distaff. The tired men go to bed, but the women sit down in a circle
in the houseyard in the open place. They chat and they sing without
stopping their spinning. They sing two and two, in duet, but so that a
new duet is begun when the other finishes. This duet singing is not only
in one family, but in many at the same time, in different parts of the
village. Moonlight--we have wonderful clear and white moonlight in
Serbia--silence, singing from every side, from every house, from girls,
nightingales and other birds. The whole of the village is the stage,
hundreds of singers, moonlight and open starry space--I am sure you
would be much more fascinated by such a Serbian rustic opera than by
many modern operas on a stage in London. And now--there rushed into
Serbia: