The Serbian Folk Epic: Its Theology and Anthropology

By Krstivoj Kotur

This scholarly study explores the moral and religious philosophy of Serbian folk poetry and makes its literary treasures available to English speakers.
 
This thorough and well-documented study examines the theology and anthropology of the Serbian folk epic. The book opens a new field in Slavic folklore and offers scholars material previously unavailable in English. The work also sheds light on the soul of Serbian national culture.
 
A scholar of Eastern European culture and history, Krstivoj Kotur investigates a number of fascinating topics, including conceptions of God; man’s relationship to culture and civilization; the transcendentalism of Serbian folk poets; the deep ontological, cosmic, and theurgic character of the heroes of the Serbian folk epic; and many others.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Philosophical Library Open Road
• Release date: Feb 22, 2022
• ISBN: 9781504074759

Krstivoj Kotur

Dr. Krstivoj Kotur was born in Yugoslavia and became a resident of the United States in 1949. He was a graduate of the University of Belgrade, Yugoslavia, and the University of Sofia, Bulgaria, and subsequently received a Doctor of Divinity degree from the University of Vienna, Austria. Dr. Kotur authored many articles in various cultural and religious journals. He also instructed in the Russian language at the Harrisbug Area Center for Higher Education as a member of the Lebanon Valley College faculty in Annville, Pennsylvania, and taught German at the high school level. Prior to his death, Kotur occupied the pastorate of St. Peter the Apostle Serbian Orthodox Church in Fresno, California.

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PART I: INTRODUCTION

Serbia and the Serbians—A Brief Historical Outline

History is replete with instances of social, geographical, cultural, and even national assimilations of one people by another—whether through coercion or fortuity. Scores of identifiable unique cultural entities have incurred deprivation of their indigenous integrity. As Serbia was once a nation unto herself, and her people established and maintained a distinct and unique cultural pattern, so now is Serbia an indiscrete component of a superseding political and cultural unit. The ensuing chapter, therefore, is dedicated to identification of the Serbs as a generic entity.

Serbia was, at one time, part of the ancient country of Illyria. The area was conquered by the Romans in 44 A.D., who governed it as the province of Moesia. In the late fourth century Gothic invaders overran the province.

At the beginning of the seventh century of the Christian era, the Serbs lived primarily on the northern slopes of the Carpathian Mountains. In 637 A.D., under pressure exerted by the invasion of the Asiatic hordes, and with the permission of the Byzantine Emperor Heraclius, the Serbs settled in the sparsely populated northwest corner of what was at that time the Byzantine Empire. Although this area was virtually unpopulated, the Serbs encountered and intermingled with Albanian settlements, Latin colonies, and the nomadic Wallachs (Welsh). Over the course of centuries, this circumstance has somewhat modified the essential Slavic genesis of the Serbs.

Ethnographically one nation, the Serbs lived in a number of independent political counties, or as they called them zupaniyas. In the eighth century they organized these units under zupans. The latter were military and political chiefs who paid tribute and gave allegiance to Byzantium. In this manner, the Serbs were virtually independent, on a tribal basis, each tribe with its own zupan, having an elected leader—Grand Zupan or Prince—who was a vassal of the Byzantine Emperor.

Many attempts were made by various zupans to organize and unify the zupaniyas into a state, particularly prominent among whom was Visheslav, Zupan of Zagorye (Lima, Tara, Piva), toward the end of the eighth century. More successful in this endeavor was Chaslav (931-960). This great-great-grandson of Visheslav succeeded in forming a united Serbian state stretching from Antibary on the Adriatic to the Cetina River in Dalmatia, and from the Adriatic coast to the Kolubara and Ibar Rivers in the east. This first union of zupaniyas disintegrated upon the death of Chaslav, and political control devolved upon Bulgaria. Toward the beginning of the eleventh century, direct rule was assumed by the Byzantine emperors. Another attempt to unite the provinces into one monarchy was made toward the end of that century by Zupan Michael Visheslavich, but it also failed.

According to historical records, the first attempt at collective Christianization of the Serbs was unsuccessfully undertaken by Emperor Heraclius (610-641). A second and more successful attempt occurred under the guidance of Zupan Mutimir (841-890) of Rashka. Emperor Basil I, the Macedonian, had agreed to grant independence to Rashka (the first Serbian province within Byzantine boundaries so designated), provided the people accept Christianity. To that end, in 879 A.D., the emperor dispatched a group of missionaries to Rashka, Zeta, and Zahumlye.

Shortly after general Christianization of the Serbs had taken place at the end of the ninth century, the two Slavic apostles Cyril (or Constantine) and Methodius appeared in the Balkans to evangelize and convert the Slavs of Moravia. So that the purpose of their mission could be better served, the brothers devised a Slavonic alphabet, apparently adapting the Greek alphabet. This Glagolithic writing, in the subsequent improved form known as Cyrillic script (after its author, Cyril), is still the official service language of the Serbian, Russian, and Bulgarian Orthodox Churches.

In 1169 Stephan Nemanya became Grand Zupan. During the remainder of the twelfth century, he succeeded in uniting the majority of the Serbian counties under his scepter, establishing the independent state of Serbia as well as the Nemanyich family as the reigning dynasty of Serbia (1169-1371). The capital chosen by the Grand Zupan was Ras, a town located in a narrow but fertile valley, known today as Novi Pazar.

According to the chronicles, Nemanya was born in 1113 and died in 1199. His life spanned nearly an entire century, and for nearly half of that century he worked and fought for the unity of the Serbian people. He assumed the title of King although he was never actually crowned. He regarded the Byzantine Emperor as an equal and, since he succeeded in marrying his younger son, Stephan, to Eudocia, daughter of Emperor Alexios Angelos, it may be presumed that his kingdom no longer was regarded as subordinate to Byzantium.

Nemanya was a warrior of the first rank, yet also a very religious man; whenever he had a pause between battles he built churches. The queen of his votive churches, which still stands today, is Studenitza. The monastery of Studenitza stands high on a bank of a tributary of the Ibar, eight miles from the main road. It was here, in 1196, that Nemanya called together his Grand Assembly and declared his intention of abdicating in favor of his younger son, Stephan, saying, Have this one instead of me. He is a noble branch of my body. I place him on the throne which Christ bestowed upon me. To his eldest son, Vukan, he allotted the coastal provinces of South Dalmatia to rule with the title of Prince. Then to both sons he extended a memorable exhortation. My sons, put your hope in God and do not boast of your wisdom and favor. Be not desperate when God castigates you, nor downhearted when He reproves you, for God castigates him whom He loves to make him more perfect.¹

On the Day of Annunciation, March 25, 1196, Nemanya and his wife, Anna, took monastic vows, changing their names to Simeon and Anastasia respectively. Soon after entering the monastic order, Simeon and Anastasia separated; the former going first to the monastery of Studenitza and later to Mount Athos, and Anastasia to her Convent of the Holy Virgin near Kurshumlija.

Rastko, the youngest son of Nemenya, was born in the city of Ras in 1169. Even as a young boy, without a sampling of mundane pleasures, he abhorred the world of delusive riches, luxury, and glory. He despised the royal palace, and also entered a monastic order, receiving the name Sava. He then journeyed to Mount Athos (Sveta Gora),² where he and his father established the monastery of Chilendari. After nearly two years of prayer in the tranquility of Mount Athos, Sava returned to his native Serbia, where for more than forty years he worked faithfully for the benefit of the Serbian nation and the known world.

On the Day of the Ascension of our Lord in 1220 (during the reign of Emperor Theodor Laskaris), Sava was consecrated Archbishop of Serbia by the Ecumenical Patriarch Manuel. On that day for the first time, the headless organism of the Serbian Orthodox Church simultaneously received a spiritual leader and its independence; for on that day also, Archbishop Sava placed the consecrated crown on the head of his brother, Grand Zupan Stephan, and proclaimed him Stephan, King of all the Serbian lands and the Seacoast. Stephan, the first-crowned Serbian king, reigned from 1196 until 1228. These events, however, proclaimed the fruition of complete independence for the Serbian people from foreign domination—in an ecclesiastical as well as secular sense.

With the creation of an independent Serbian Orthodox Church, Sava did not intend to promulgate chauvinism among the Serbs, but through the organization of a national church wanted only to establish his people as a worthy member of the Universal Family of Christ. He himself was imbued with the spirit of ecumenical Christianity. He traveled throughout many countries of both Europe and Asia, and served as mediator in numerous conflicts between various nations. He thus felt at home in every community of every nationality and language. Sava’s spiritual influence was of such duration and magnitude that the Serbian Orthodox Church proclaimed him a saint. A secular Prince, Rastko, had become the spiritual leader of the Serbian nation and saint of its church. His influence, even after his death in 1235, was so immense that the Turks—after conquering Serbia and establishing their rule during the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries—deemed it necessary to exhume his remains and transport them to Belgrade where, in 1594, approximately three hundred years after his death, they were burned on the hill of Vratchar.

Other kings of the Nemanyich dynasty who brought the kingdom of Serbia to greatness were sons of Urosh I, Dragutin (1276-81) and Milutin (1282-1321). Commerce with the Slavonic republic of Dubrovnik (Raguza), Byzantium, Venice, and other principalities flourished. A recognizable sociopolitical structure had also developed, particularly in comparison with contemporaneous European countries. During this period, the capital was Prizren, in South Serbia.

Serbia gradually expanded until, under the leadership of Stephan Dushan (1331-55), she controlled most of what is now Yugoslavia, Albania, and Greece. Dushan assumed the title of Emperor of the Serbians, Greeks, and Bulgarians and made the Serbian Orthodox Church absolutely independent of the Greek Patriarch in Constantinople, elevating the Archbishop of Serbia to the dignity of a Patriarch. The seat was established at Pec, near the great monastery of Dechani which had been constructed by Stephan Dechanski (1327-34). In 1349, Dushan convened Parliament at the capital of Skoplye, and submitted a codex of civil and criminal laws, known now as the Zakonik of Tsar Dushan.

After Dushan’s death in 1355, the Serbian Empire began a rapid disintegration. Shortly thereafter, the vast and mighty hordes of the Turkish sultan Murat began pushing up from the south of the Balkan peninsula. After overrunning the Byzantine Empire and emerging victorious from the crucial battle on the river Maritza in Bulgaria (1371), they threatened Serbia herself, whose sole hope now devolved upon the ruler of northern Serbia, Lazar Hreblyanovich (1371-89). His ally, King Trvtko of Bosnia, came to his aid, as did the other members of the so-called South Slav League—the Bulgarians, Albanians, and Rumanians. On June 28 (15), 1389, the two armies met on the fatal field of Kossovo, and the Serbs were decisively defeated. Lazar was taken prisoner and beheaded. Murat met his death at the hands of Milosch Obilich, Lazar’s son-in-law, and protagonist of the Kossovo epic.

For the next seventy years, the Serbian princes were subjected to Turkish rule. Sporadic fighting continued until 1459, when the Turks captured the fortress of Smederevo, south of Belgrade, whereupon Serbia became a province of the Ottoman Empire. From the middle of the fifteenth century to the beginning of the nineteenth, the entire Serbian nation (with the exception of a handful of hardy mountaineers in Montenegro) was transformed into Rayah—the conquered infidels—and had no rights or privileges. The life, honor, and property of the Serbians had no protection from the Turkish rulers for nearly four centuries. The conquerors divided Serbia into pashaliks, governed by pashas in the name of the sultan, and their occupation was unusually cruel. The rayah were constantly exposed to the cruelty and impetuous whims of the Turkish feudal lords; men were tortured and beaten for little or no reason; women and children were abducted by force; girls were taken to harems or slave markets throughout the vast Ottoman Empire; and boys were taken to Turkey and educated to be the most ruthless type of mercenaries (janissaries). Civilized life, which had flourished under the Nemanyich dynasty, suddenly gave way to utter darkness and misery.

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That the Serbian nation did not succumb altogether; that through the Turkish subjugation it retained a deep consciousness of its nationality; and, that at the beginning of the nineteenth century it demonstrated itself capable not only of successfully defying its secular oppressor but also of quickly and efficiently organizing a modern state in the European pattern—could largely be attributed to the unique mission of the Serbian bard-gooslari and their ballads of heroes—Junacke Pjesme. The Serbian folk ballads sprang up not long after the tragic defeat inflicted upon the Serbs at the Battle of Kossovo, and the tragic figures of that scenario—Tsar Lazar, Tsaritsa Militsa, Milosch Obilich, Vuk Brankovich, Old Yug Bogdan (father of Tsaritsa Militsa) and his nine sons, the Maiden of Kossovo, Ivan Kosantchich, and Pavle Orlovich—soon became subjects of the famous Kossovo cycle of heroic songs.

To the Serbians Kossovo was much more than what Flodden was to the Scots, a defeat in which king and army perished; more even than Hastings was to England, a defeat which enabled a conquering race to impose its will on the conquered. The Normans were civilized kinsmen and men of the same faith as the English. But the Ottomans were alien barbarians, with a lesser civilization and a religion totally different from that of the conquered. Hence the terrible effect which Kossovo produced on the Serbs was the overthrow of their language, civilization, nationality, religion, of all that they held dear. The Montenegrins still wear round their caps a black border in mourning for Kossovo. … The popular anguish found expression in that famous cycle of songs on Kossovo, which were preserved by the gooslars, the wandering minstrels, and which were compared by Goethe with the ‘Iliad’ and the ‘Odyssey.’³

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Finally, after 345 years of brutal subjugation, the Serbs were reunited under Karageorge (originally named George Petrovich [1766-1817]), founder of the Karageorgevich dynasty. Beginning in 1804, they waged a nine-year revolt, but Turkey regained control in 1813. Two years later, a second revolt was led by Milosch (1780-1860), founder of the Obrenovich dynasty. Within a few months, Serbia was free of Turkish domination; Milosch was recognized as the hereditary prince of Serbia in 1817; and Serbia was granted limited self-government within the Empire. An intense rivalry between the two houses developed, however, and lasted until 1903 when the Serbian legislature selected Peter I Karageorgevich as king.

During the Russo-Turkish Wars of 1877-78, Serbia and Russia allied to defeat Turkey in the Balkans. The 1878 Congress of Berlin recognized Serbian independence but, in effect, made the country subservient to the dual monarchy of Austria-Hungary. Serbian relations with Austria-Hungary deteriorated during the so-called Pig War of 1905-07, and worsened after 1908 when Austria-Hungary annexed Bosnia and Herzegovina. In 1912 Serbia, Bulgaria, and Montenegro signed mutual defense pacts, and the alliances led to war when Montenegro attacked Turkey in October of 1912 (the First Balkan War). Turkey had been weakened by foreign and domestic strife, and by December of 1912 Turkish rule had been eliminated in Macedonia and Albania. Bulgaria contested the Serbian claim to Macedonia, and Serbia (now allied with Greece) attacked Bulgaria in the Second Balkan War. By July of 1913, Bulgaria had sued for peace, and Greece and Serbia took most of Macedonia, the district of Novi Pazar, and Kossovo-Mitohiyan.

Austria-Hungary became alarmed at the growing strength of Serbia, and tension was already extremely high on June 28, 1914, when the Austrian archduke and heir to the Austro-Hungarian throne, Francis Ferdinand, and his wife, were assassinated by a Serbian student, Gavrilo Princip, at Sarajevo in Bosnia. The dual monarchy declared war and in August invaded Serbia. By December, 1915, Serbia was occupied by the Central Powers, and the Serbian army and government fled to the Greek island of Corfu early in 1916.

The Serbian government in exile agreed to the terms of the Corfu Declaration, calling for Slavic unity, and the disintegration of the dual monarchy of Austria-Hungary in the final months of World War I provided tremendous impetus to the South Slav independence movement. In 1918, after the war had ended, the Serbian government in conjunction with the leaders of Croatia, Montenegro, and Slovenia, proclaimed the Kingdom of the Serbs, Croats, and Slovenes. Prince Alexander of Serbia—later Alexander I of Yugoslavia, pending the recovery of his ailing father Peter I Karageorgevich (King of Serbia since 1903)—accepted the regency of the provisional government for the newly created state on December 1, 1918. This state became the kingdom of Yugoslavia in 1929.

On October 9, 1934, King Alexander I, in France on a diplomatic mission, was assassinated. The King’s son, still a minor, succeeded to the Yugoslav throne as Peter II, and control of the government was vested in a three-man regency council headed by Prince Paul, a cousin of the late King.

Following the German invasion of Poland on September 1, 1939, the Yugoslav government proclaimed neutrality; however, following an ultimatum from the Third Reich, it capitulated and signed a treaty of non-aggression on March 22, 1941. Popular indignation culminated two days later in a successful coup d’état. The regency was deposed and the insurgents, supported by King Peter, formed a government dedicated to the maintenance of neutrality. The governments of the United States and Great Britain soon proclaimed their support of the Yugoslav stand.

Axis retribution was swift and merciless. Supported by Italian, Hungarian, and Bulgarian forces, German armies invaded Yugoslavia on April 6, and on April 12, King Peter and the government fled to London where the new government in exile was formed.

The vanquished kingdom was speedily dismembered. Italy seized the Dalmatian region, part of Slovenia, and Montenegro. Germany occupied the remainder of Slovenia and Serbia. Hungary took Voyvodina, and Bulgaria seized most of Macedonia. A puppet state under Italian protection was formed in Croatia, to which Bosnia was attached. After the partition of Yugoslavia, great political and military turmoil prevailed.

The post-war destiny of Yugoslavia was determined by Great Britain, the Soviet Union, and the United States at the Yalta Conference in February of 1945. A new government was formed on March 7, 1945. On November 28, 1945, the monarchy was abolished, and the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia proclaimed, of which Serbia is the largest autonomous republic.

This is the glorious, tragic, tumultuous, and turbulent history of Serbia and the Serbians from the very beginning to the present.

The Epic in General

The word epic derives from the Greek word e9780806537450_img_7957.gif πος, which means word, speech, tale, song. Epic poetry is a type of poetry, usually in the form of a long narrative poem, dealing with action of broad sweep and grandeur, and of traditional or historic interest. Most epics deal with the fortunes or deeds of a single individual, thereby giving unity to the composition. Commonplace acts and details of everyday life may appear, but they serve as a background for the story, and are told in the same heroic style and elevated language as the rest of the poem.

The Greeks distinguished epic from lyric poetry both by its nature