GIFT OF 
 
 

 
 
 
 
 FEB 9 1917 
 
 
 SONGS OF THE SERBIANS 
 
 
 BY Dr. B. L. STEVENSON 
 
 
 
 
 Reprinted from Liberty', September, 1916 
 
 Liberty Publishing Co. 
 Oakland. Cal. 
 
 
3ERVATI0N 
 COPY ADDED 
 ORIGINAL TO BE 
 RETAINED 
 
 NOV 21 1994 
 
SONGS OF THE SERBIANS 
 By Dr. B. L. Stevenson — New York City. 
 
 PCI41O 
 Sfcl 
 
 Serbian national folk lore is receiving more than usual at- 
 tention today because of the spirited fighting of its heroic 
 little country. "I had no idea," says Havelock Ellis, "that 
 Serbian legendry literature possessed splendour and charm 
 of such unique quality," while Lord Curzon tersely remarks 
 of Serbian ballads "sumptous and interesting." A host of ad- 
 mirers numbering members of literary London, the Admi- 
 rality, cosmopolitan society and the ranks of organized lear- 
 ning acknowledge the beauty of the legends from the 
 splendidly "facinating, gallant little country" now fighting 
 greater battles than ever in the days of old. 
 
 "Just as your guslari kept the natural language alive 
 through dark days of persecution and misery" so the 
 sixteenth, seventeenth and eighteenth centuries brought 
 a renaissance of Serbia in song, Hugh A. Law has exclai- 
 med in praise of the traditionary customs and beliefs belon- 
 ging since time immemorial to the Serbians. "It is, I sup- 
 pose," says the folk-lorist Gilbert Murray, "the best 
 parallel now existing to literature from which the Homeric 
 poems arose. Certainly the accounts one reads of the Serbian 
 bards remind one of the Greek bards of the heroic age more 
 than anything else I know." 
 
 Truly from out of the mythic ages the Serbian bard has 
 come to say, "I am the people's heritage, I the soul of a 
 day that has lain in the beginning of time, in the dawn of the 
 age of man." And disentangled from entrapping years, 
 shorn of itinerant drapings, emerges the Serbian concept 
 of life adrift from Asia's hand, product of age-old alchemies, 
 of fate, the soul, birth and the passing of days. Glorious the 
 sun is conceived as provider, nourisher, and creator who 
 daily weaving destiny, climbs the high-hung heavens where 
 mountains do him honour and Time and the lesser gods 
 dwelling in regions of snow, bow in servile subjection, 
 recalcitrant acolytes in wondrous love of the sun. Equipped 
 with such fancy is it strange that throughout Old Serbia 
 odd customs of generating fire and heat prevail? Two young 
 
2 
 
 children stript to the skin and undefiled are sent into a 
 room apart to produce friction by drawing two sticks to- 
 gether, or fire is kindled in a big kettle and ladled out to 
 the credulous peasants, one by one. 
 
 Of fire and the counterpart of good and evil, of light and 
 darkness has the Serbian balladry sung, weaving the skeins 
 of purity and vice, sex and sexlessness, masculinity and fe- 
 minity with a dexterity marvelously prescient. Cabalistic, 
 carnal and diabolic is the demon-lover who feeding on inter- 
 red corpses represents the Slav's abhorance of vice, de- 
 christianized limitlessly like the malignance of Indian 
 Rakshasas. Vampires worm their way deep in the earth 
 only to be detected by the presence of stainless black 
 horses, alone at night in the churchyards. Exorcism, feti- 
 chism, and immolation seem to us Westerners to characte- 
 rize a land where "pagan rites still survive, where vampires 
 roam the meadows and vilas still wash their bodies on 
 the banks." 
 
 That washing takes place at all in " the unsanitary peasant 
 homes" as has been suggested by the zealous detractors 
 of Serbian beauty, is remarkable. Yet beauty, says Arthur 
 Pinero, interest, says A. Conan Doyle, and heroism, says 
 Robert Bridges are unmistakably found in Serbian balladry. 
 Perhaps these fanciful qualities are best detected in the 
 vision which the Serb has had of that chef oV oeuvre of his ima- 
 gination, the vila. A kind of muse, this creature baffles 
 description — white like the morning star, pure like an 
 early church Madonna, sensuous as a mistress, faithful as 
 a sister, and as spiteful as a midnight witch, — the vila 
 crowns the imaginative life of warrior Serbs. Swift footed to 
 succor distress in battle, and quick to warn of danger, as that 
 vila who upon the mountain Avala called aloud to De- 
 mitrius and Stephan to behold the plain of Belgrade so thick 
 with Turkish tents that had raindrops fallen no water would 
 have touched the earth, this type of fairy was the arbiter 
 of the people's destiny and the protector of its happiness. 
 Eager to heal the sick, their pale fingers caressing inexpres- 
 sably compassionate the souls of men, these muses resemble 
 nursing peasants of war-ridden Serbia today. Like the pea- 
 sant women, too, they throw their weight on the side of 
 warriors, and ride in the heavens Walkiire-mad. 
 
The Battle of Kosovo Cycle holds the most prominent 
 place in the folk lore of this warlike Slavic country. Cele- 
 brating a historical event as it does, it serves in a yet greater 
 degree to entvisage national character and to give a con- 
 crete picture of the human characteristics which played the 
 parts in creating the story. The list of separate songs in- 
 cludes such topics as: 
 
 I. Knez Lazar Builds His Memorial Church at Ravanitsa. 
 
 II. The Turks on Kosovo Plain. 
 
 III. Sultan Murat Sends His Challenge to Tsar Lazar. 
 
 IV. Tsar Lazar and the Tsaritsa Militsa. 
 
 V. Tsar Lazar Chooses the Heavenly Kingdom. 
 
 VI. The Maiden of Kosovo and the Serbian Heroes. 
 
 VII. Milosh Obilich Asks His Way to the Turkish Camp. 
 
 VIII. The Quarrel between Obilich and Brankovich. 
 
 IX. The Battle of Kosovo. 
 
 X. Stephan Vasoyevich. 
 
 XL News from the Battle of Kosovo. 
 
 XII. The Maiden of Kosovo. 
 
 XIII. The Death of the Yugoviches' Mother. 
 
 XIV. Sanctification of Tsar Lazar. 
 
 The separate stories play up to high motives of human 
 action. The epic "Tsar Lazar Chooses the Heavenly King- 
 dom" is a case in point. Tsar Lazar, the ruler who about the 
 end of the XlVth century fought so gallantly against the 
 Turks was successful to the point of annihilating a great 
 body of Turks near the river Toplitsa in 1387. Wherupon 
 the Sultan Amurath gathering a large host of Asiatics 
 marched against the Serbs on one of the largest plains in the 
 middle of the Balkan Peninsula, the field of Kosovo — or 
 the "field of blackbirds'' as it is called. Thereupon was 
 foredoomed the eventual conflict which was to be presented 
 to the Serbians, a choice between earthly rule or heavenly 
 approbation. Tsar Lazar in being called upon to choose 
 between the victory of his troops or the hope of inheriting 
 Heaven is virtually face to face with a situation similar to 
 that which our Lord met when He renounced the delights 
 of this world for life Eternal. The poem runs: 
 
"Flying comes a gray-like bird, a falcon, 
 From the Holy City, Jerusalem, 
 And a little swallow seems to carry — 
 — No, 'tis not a gray bird, not the falcon, 
 But it is the Holy Saint Elijah 
 And no little swallow is he bringing, 
 But a letter from God's Blessed Mother, 
 He bears it to the Tsar on Kosovo, 
 
 "0 Tsar Lazar, thou of glorious line, 
 
 Between two Empires which one wilt thou choose? 
 
 Dost thou desire the Kingdom most of God? 
 
 Or dost thou choose the Empire of this World? 
 
 And when the Tsar had listened to those words, 
 The Tsar the question ponders o'er and o'er; 
 * Dear God, what shall I answer, how decide? 
 Upon which Kingdom shall I set my choice — 
 Shall I most desire the Heavn'ly Kingdom? 
 Or shall I choose an Empire of this world? 
 If that I, in choosing either Kingdom, 
 Should earthly Empire above all, desire — 
 The earthly Kingdom is a little thing; 
 God's Kingdom is forever and for aye.' — 
 The Tsar will'd for the Kingdom of the Lord, 
 Rather than the Crown of worldly Empire... (l) 
 
 Likewise a moral conflict is portrayed in the epic "Tsar 
 Lazar and the Tsaritsa Militsa, "in which Militsa, regretting 
 the loss of the scion of her race, entreats all her male relatives 
 to withold participation in the Battle of Kosovo, only to 
 be answered by each separate hero that bravery called to 
 Kosovo, come what may to the perpetuation of the line. 
 
 But of all the Kosovo Songs, one stands out pertinently 
 picturing a mother in Israel, as one might say. The Yugo- 
 viches' mother praying for news of the battle in which are 
 her nine sons and her husband, the great Yug Bogdan, asks 
 for falcons' eyes, and the wings of swans to take her to the 
 battle field. There she finds the nine dead heroes with their 
 
 (1) Quoted from the translation made by Prince Lazarovich-Hrebelia- 
 novich, The Serbian People, vol. I, p. 398. (1910) 
 
5 
 
 nine spears stacked above and their nine warrior horses 
 waiting. With heart like stone she takes the horses back to 
 her castle with her to bear in heavy silence her grief with 
 her daughters-in-law. Not until the arrival of a falcon from 
 the battle field bearing the dead hand of her son, does she 
 break down and weep, and then only as she dies. 
 
 "God adored! What a mighty wonder — 
 
 When the army on Kosovo gathered! 
 
 In that army, nine were sons of Yugo, 
 
 And tenth was old Bogdan, great Yug Bogdan. 
 
 The Yugoviches' mother prayed of God, 
 
 That the eyes of falcons* God would give her, 
 
 And white wings of the swan, she prayed He'd give, 
 
 That she might fly to far Kosovo Plain, 
 
 And might see there the nine Yugoviches 
 
 With them, the tenth, the great old Yug Bogdan. 
 
 Dead, she finds, there, the Yugoviches nine, 
 And tenth of them, old Yug Bogdan lay dead! 
 
 But that mother's heart set hard like stone, 
 And from that heart no tear fell down. 
 Instead, she takes the nine good horses there, 
 
 And to her Castle white, she then goes back. 
 
 When it was light, the hour of new-born day, 
 Two vultures come a-flying, raven black, 
 
 They carry a dead hand, a hero's hand, 
 And on that hand there glows a wedding-ring. 
 Into the mother's lap they throw it. 
 
 Then Damian's mother takes the hand up, 
 Turns it over, strokes it, and plays with it — 
 Whisp'ring to the hand, she stammers starkly: 
 
 'Here in my lap, 'tis here, that thou dids grow! 
 Torn from the tree wert thou — on Kosovo!' 
 That sob of death, lightly her soul set free."(l) 
 
 (1) Idem ib. p. 402. 
 
The significance of this tale is detected in its personal 
 stoicism and its symbolism, considered an allegory of the 
 nine Nemanya Kings and their mother, the old Serbian 
 Kingdom. 
 
 The nationalistic idea of old Serbia alive in the 
 new is most remarkable in these poems. It has been 
 the centrifugal force which has kept the Serbians a 
 nation. Exposed to the impact of alien civilizations, this 
 central fact of existence, the creation and the recitation of 
 the songs, has preserved nationalism and repelled the dis- 
 ruptive forces of dispersion. Embracing India, Greece and 
 Babylon as it does and reflecting Germanic, Roman and 
 Gaelic kinship, Serbian literature yet stands forth sin- 
 gularly unique, the echo of a people's genius, cultured by 
 Vuk Karadzhich, to whom belongs the honour of being 
 creator of his nation's tongue and the collector of tales which 
 before him were the common possession of the singing heart 
 of bard and peasantry. Although the published epics ap- 
 peared early in the nineteenth century, the greatest notice 
 was taken of them in 1823-33 when Karadzhich brought 
 out his monumental work. In 1868 Avril succeeded in 
 bringing the Kosovo epic particularly before the notice 
 of the cultured world by publishing "La Bataille de Kos- 
 sovo." Petranovich included this same epic in his collection 
 of 1867; Vuk Vrchevich and M. Miloyevich helped to 
 popularize it. The critics, on their side, have seen in this 
 cycle a Homeric epos, the product of a South Slav (and 
 therefore Byzantine Slav) in contrast to North Slav pro- 
 ductions. The invariable decasyllabic verse, the rythmic 
 declamation and the fragmentary motiving suggest the 
 creative power of an age-old people. There is no fixed fall or 
 tonality, and the caesura occurs after the fourth syllable. 
 The critics have fully analysed text and content : Hilf erding 
 and Miklosich, diagnosing Vuk's text and Pavich, Sviloye- 
 vich and Yurishich Yanko finding Dalmatian and Ragu- 
 san marks in the songs. But like all academic questions, 
 a tendency to argue to futility is hardly to be avoided. 
 Whatever criticism says the main point remains that the 
 epos gives a glowing picture of the life and spirit of the 
 people and as such is to be revered. 
 
 Yet although uniquely Serbian, "in the folk tales we find 
 striking traces of contact with the Turk, and through him 
 
with the Arab,"(l) traces which recall such historic events 
 as the Hellespont crossing and the misrule of the Turkish 
 viziers. Forceful enrollment of strong young Serbs for the 
 janissary band was a feature as common to Turkish ex- 
 ploitation of Serbian lands as the abduction of fair maidens 
 for the delectation of sultan's seraglio. " Yet it must not be 
 thought that these Serbian tales have no originality, no 
 character of their own; there is about them a sturdy mo- 
 rality that is certainly not Oriental/' (2) as for instance a tale 
 is told at Istamboul of a Serbian hero, Kralyevich Marko, 
 who even champions the cause of a Turkish maiden against 
 an amorous Moor. Dowered with gifts but piteously sad 
 is the maiden whom Marko, seeking to comfort, frees 
 from the power of the hateful Moor, by shattering to earth 
 his powerful antagonist astride the mare Bedevia. Tales of 
 the peasants though, at times overlaid with evidences 
 of fierce brutality, yet show in the refinement and delicacy 
 of their telling the unmistikable mark of the East. Heavy 
 ornamentation and sickly sweetness obtrude as foreign tra- 
 ces; the tassels and tamboretes, pavilions and silken flags 
 are as Turkish as the golden drapery, the nuptial robe fleck- 
 ed with gold, the costly wedding shirts and the bootfuls 
 of ducats are Venetian. Perfume and minarets signal the 
 menace of a foreign cult which although artistically pleasing 
 was, when assuming an intermingling of religion, abhorent to 
 the Serbians who sensed behind the Turkish fez, the javelin 
 and the yatagan relics of a torpid day, of faithless Pashas, 
 of black midnight secrets of houris and other Stamboul fan- 
 cies — the comingling of dead flowers, ikons and rose dust. 
 
 For quite pure as the tone of a bell is the Serbian strain 
 of religious feeling; compact of the sound of chimes, mas- 
 culine entonation, the scent of incense and the sight of ba- 
 sil flowers powdery white against the gold of the ikons, it 
 calls up an aroma of chastity, asceticism and rigorous for- 
 malism. The odour of monastery life, rendolent of mists 
 which rise at dawns, suggests long fasts at Christmas and 
 at Easter time in monasteries high up in cloud-draped moun- 
 tains, where riverlets dash swiftly by and the woodlands 
 seem always intently listening, or the muted moods of the 
 
 (1) Quoted from private letters adressed to W. M. Petrovitch upon 
 the appearance of his Hero Tales and Legends of the Serbians. (1914). 
 
 (2) Idem. 
 
8 
 
 midsummer fasts when bees hum in tall languorous grasses 
 and chimes peal over fair fields in which flowers hide their 
 black roots creeping under soil. The church is often quoted 
 as a retreat from persecution and from wicked agressors; 
 such is told of the unhappy death of Yelitsa whose body 
 bound to the tails of dashing horses fell to earth on a de- 
 sert spot where eventually rose a noble church, walled 
 of marble, vine-entwined. 
 
 To forget faith and embrace Islam was ever the coax 
 of insidious luxury to the Serbians. And how foolish sounds 
 a warning against embibing a beverage prepared from 
 forest plants and flowerets which might cause transforma- 
 tion to the life of a libertine, involving the wearing of scarlet 
 velvets, opening secret cupboards and taking forth golden 
 gowns with silky trains and long flowing sleeves. Stephan 
 Yaksich, in entreating the Turk for his bride "more 
 beautiful than the white vila herself," made a profound 
 obeisance and kissed the slipper and knee of the Sultan. For 
 love of opposite sex not only were coarse fur caps and heavy 
 cloaks discarded, but finely tempered swords and sabres 
 studded with diamonds as big as maidens' eyes were bran- 
 dished by gallants who " shone on the verdant fields like 
 setting sun behind the forest" as they waved on flagpoles 
 adorned with golden apples, the sign of the great glistening 
 cross. And journeys far in bridegroom interest have been 
 undertaken over paths now placarded with every war news 
 story. Wanderlust and travel longing were far from lying 
 dormant in the Serbian Gaelic heart blood. From the 
 mountains to the plain, from high Miroch to yon Zagorye, 
 from the Banat to Bulgaria, from proud Venice to Vienna, 
 from the church at Tekiya over 'cross the river Timok, 
 tsar and bridgroom, gilded coaches Arabian coursered have 
 by custom long since travelled. Even today on the level 
 plains of Zhablyak, and the pleasant lands of Morava where 
 the shepherds sleep at noonday, and the men of Podgoritsa 
 gather, one can hear recited the elemental stories of the 
 nation's long gone past. The waving grasses linger, and the 
 goatherds sprawling, tending horses idly drinking, tell 
 pleasant tales of goats and shepherds, flocks that saunter in 
 the sunshine of the mountain's blazing noon-tide, lyric lays 
 that chant in chorus of dire chances befalling lambkins. 
 All the fragments then that nestle deep in hollows of man's 
 memory are thus living in the present like the undulating 
 grasses springing on the downs in Serbia. 
 
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