Poetry as the inspiration of the Balkan war was the theme of a recent
talk given by Madame Slavko Grouitch before the Friday Club in Chicago,
and elsewhere, during her brief sojourn in her native country. Madame
Grouitch was a student at the American School of Archaeology in Athens
when she married the young Servian diplomat who now represents his
nation in London.
According to the speaker, the Servian national songs have kept alive the
heroic spirit of the people during more than four centuries of Turkish
oppression. Through them each generation of the illiterate peasantry has
fought once more the ancient wars, and followed once more the ancient
leaders even to the final tragedy of the battle of Kossovo, where in
1377 they made their last brave stand against the Mohammedan invader.
Whenever a few people assemble for a festival, some local bard, perhaps
an old shepherd or soldier, a blind beggar or reformed brigand, will
chant the old songs to the monotonous music of the _gusle_, while the
people dance the _Kolo_.
"There are thousands of songs in the Servian epic," says Mme. Grouitch,
"and each has many variants according to whether it is sung in Bosnia,
Herzegovina, Montenegro, Dalmatia, Servia, Bulgaria or Macedonia; for
all these political divisions are peopled by the Servian race descended
from the heroes whose deeds are the theme of such unwearied narration.
The bard is called the Guslar from his one-stringed instrument, whose
melancholy cadence--a sighing-forth of sound--affects the emotions and
increases the pathos of the words. For the story is usually sad, even
when it proclaims the triumph of great deeds."
These songs invariably begin:
Once it was so; now it is told.
And they as invariably end:
From me the song; from God health to you.
A number of poems were read from Mme. Mijatovich's rather uninspired
translation of the Kossovo series, published in London in 1881. Extreme
simplicity and vividness characterize the old epic, which follows the
hopeless struggle of the noble Czar Lazar against the foe without, and
suspicions, dissensions, blunders, even treacheries, within. Certain
characters stand out with the uncompromising exactness of some biblical
story: the Czar himself; his over-zealous Vojvode; Milosh Obilich, whose
murder of Sultan Murad precipitated the disaster; and certain haughty
and passionate women, like the Empress Militza and her two daughters.
Also "Marko, the King's son," whose half-mythical figure is of the race
of Achilles.
"There was one thing," said Mme. Grouitch, "which the Turk could not
take away from the Serb--the heavenly gift of poetry; that continued to
dwell hidden in the breast of the southern Slav. His body was enslaved,
but his soul was not; his physical life was oppressed, but his spiritual
being remained free. In the eighteenth century Europe re-discovered the
Servian national poetry, and became conscious that the race survived as
well as its ideals. Then Serb and Bulgar again appeared in current
history, and began to retrace the ancient boundaries.
"All the conferences of all the powers can never diminish the hopes, nor
eclipse the glory of the Serb race in the minds of the Balkan peoples;
because the Guslar, who is their supreme national leader, is forever
telling them of that glory, and urging them to concerted action against
all outside foes. It was the Guslar who led the Montenegrin Serbs from
one heroic victory to another, so that 'their war annals,' as Gladstone
said, 'are more glorious than those of all the rest of the world.' It
was the Guslar who inspired Kara George and his heroic band of Servian
peasants to keep up their battle until free Servia was born.
"Amid the roar of cannon at Lule Burgas and Monastir, I could hear the
mighty voice of the Guslar reminding Serb and Bulgar that their fight
was for 'the honored cross and golden liberty.' And they obeyed because
it was the voice of their nation. It is this irresistible national
spirit which leads their armies, and beside it the spirit of German
training behind the Turk is a lifeless shadow. The Ottoman power in
Europe is in ruins now, a wreck in the path of a national earthquake
which the Guslar has prophesied for five hundred years. The Guslar has
done his duty, and he stands today in a blaze of glory at the head of
the united and victorious nations of the Balkans."
The speaker told of an impressive ceremony at the Servian legation in
London. Young Servians, recalled home for military service last autumn,
met there on the eve of departure. Wine being served, the minister and
his young patriots rose with lifted glasses, and chanted the ancient
summons of Czar Lazar to his people:
Whoever born of Serbian blood or kin
Comes not to fight the Turk on Kossovo,
To him be never son or daughter born,
No child to heir his lands or bear his name!
For him no grape grow red, no corn grow white;
In his hands nothing prosper!
May he live
Alone, unloved! and die unmourned, alone!
_H. M._