Besides, I will confess to you one great sin of the Serbian people. It
is an exaggerated love for independence. It is a virtue as every honest
love is a virtue, but it becomes a sin if exaggerated. It is a brilliant
quality like the sunshine in the time of fighting against the common
enemy, but it is a sin in peace time when organised efforts for the
social welfare are required. This spirit of independence, the
independence from enemies as well as from friends, has considerably
disturbed our social life and progress-during the last century. Now, by
this greatest of our sins and greatest of our virtues as well, we Serbs
differed chiefly from our neighbours. The people in Great Britain have
been accustomed to look towards the Balkans as towards a country with
one and the same spirit. This is a great mistake. There are chiefly two
spirits: the Serbian and the Bulgarian, _i.e._ the spirit of
independence and the spirit of slavery. The Serbian spirit resisted
until the end stubbornly and tenaciously against the Turks conquering
the Balkans five centuries ago. The Bulgarian spirit surrendered without
any resistance. "The Kral of Bulgaria did not wait to be conquered, but
humbly begged for mercy"; so writes an English historian.[3] The
rebellious spirit of the Serbs arose first in the Balkan darkness a
hundred years ago against the tyranny and the despotic wickedness of the
Turkish rulers, and liberated the Serbian fatherland. The Bulgarian
spirit waited until strangers came and liberated the Bulgarian country.
Those strangers have been: Russians, Serbians, Roumanians and Mr.
Gladstone. The Bulgarian spirit has been since 1878 under the rule of
the German kings, as slavishly subordinate as it was for five hundred
years under the rule of the Turkish viziers and pashas. It was pure
ignorance which made some people exclaim some months ago: "It is King
Ferdinand's war against Serbia and the Allies, and not the Bulgarian
people's. The Bulgars will never fight against the Russians, their
liberators." Yet the fact is and will remain: the Bulgarian people have
only one thought, i.e. the thought of their ruler, be it Ferdinand or
somebody else, and they have only one will, i.e. the will of their
ruler. They will fight against the Russians as fiercely as they fought
against the Turks yesterday, and against the French and British to-day,
if it is only the plan and will of their ruler.
This slavish spirit, which is a disgrace to a nation in the most tragic
and decisive events of the world's history, makes the Bulgarian people
in peace very happy and fit for peaceful organised work, when obedience
and subordination are required. This slavish spirit is the greatest
virtue and the greatest sin of the Bulgarian nation.
Yet, I am speaking of our own sins, and I confess that our greatest sin
has been the too greatly developed love of personal independence. It is
the truest spirit of the Serbs. From this spirit originated all our
fortunes and all our misfortunes. From the point of view of this spirit
consider, please, all our sins in modern times: the killing of our
kings, the internal disturbances, and all the irregularity in the
political and social life of our country, and you will understand us
better; and if you understand us better, I am sure you will forgive us
more easily.