In the middle of the seventh century, a number of Slavonian tribes stretched themselves along the Sava and the Danube, down to the Black Sea, and founded, at different times, no less than six separate kingdoms, those of Bulgaria, Croatia, Servia, Bosnia, Slavonia, and Dalmatia; under the name Srb, the four last of these nations must be considered as comprised. Their earlier history it is not easy to trace. Slavonian writers are disposed to represent the MaestidÆ, who made an incursion into Italy during the age of Claudius Tacitus (A.D. 276), as synonymous with the SarmatÆ; and Kopitar (a high authority) has gathered much evidence to prove that the dialect spoken in the district to the east of Sparta is of Slavonic origin. Leake has remarked, that many of the names of places in the Morea are Slavonian,—Kastanika, Sitina, Gorica, and others. In the neighbourhood of Sparta is a town called S??af?????, and it is notorious, that the language of several of the islands of the Grecian Archipelago, Hydra for example, is Slavonic. The original meaning of the word Srb, it is not easy to fix. Some derive it from Srp, a sickle, others from Sibir, Sever, the north; others from Sarmat, or Sarmatian; some from the Latin Servus; but Dobrowsky says, “Significatum radicis Srb, consultis etiam dialectis omnibus, nondum licuit eruere.” [0a] In the year 640, the Servians built, with the permission of Heraclius, the city of Servica, on the banks of the Danube. Little can be traced of their history till, under Vlastimir, at the end of the ninth century, they were the tributaries of the Greeks. At this period, they appear to have been engaged in wars with the Bulgarians, whom they subdued. At the beginning of the 11th century, Vladimir assumed the title of king of Servia. Afterwards, during the reign of Tzedomil, the Servians acknowledged the Roman authority, and leagued themselves with its emperors against Comnenus the Grecian monarch, in consequence of which Comnenus marched upon Servia (in 1151), subdued its inhabitants, and led their leader Tzedomil into captivity. The submission of the latter obtained his release; but the Servians, impatient of foreign control, made another attempt to free themselves, but were defeated on the banks of the Morava, by Isaac Angelos, in 1192, when Stephen Nemana was proclaimed monarch, with the title of Despot. His successor, Stephen Nemanich, was driven from his throne by the Hungarians, and his brother Vuk Nemanich was proclaimed king or Kral of Servia, under Hungarian authority. He reigned for a very short period, and the regal power again reverted to Stephen. At this period, however, separate from, and almost independent of monarchical authority, a number of dukes, princes, and Bans, exercised a sway in Servia; Bosnia, then called Rama, South Bosnia or Herzegovina, and Rascia, that part of southern Servia, through which the river Raska flows, were frequently detached from, and as frequently re-united to Servia proper. Milutin Urosh, who reigned from 1275 to 1321, was subdued by Charles the First of Hungaria. Soon after arose the monarch who is one of the most illustrious names in Servian song and Servian story, Dushan Silni (Dushan the mighty), who carried on several successful campaigns against the Greeks, and recovered many of the lost provinces of his country. He took the title of Tzar, [0b] and was succeeded by that ill-fated Lazar, whose defeat by the sultan Murad (Amurath), on the field of Kosova (June 15, 1389), is the subject of so many of the melancholy ballads of the Servians. Murad was stabbed by the Servian Molosh Obilich, and Lazar was executed in the Mussulmans’ camp. Murad’s brother (Bajazet), divided Servia between the two sons of Lazar, who did homage and paid heavy tribute. Since then, no dawn of liberty has shone upon Servia. Reduced to be the bloody theatre of the fierce wars which have been carried on between the Turks and Hungarians, every struggle for freedom—each feebler than the former one, has only served to deteriorate her condition, and to destroy her hopes. In 1459, Servia was treated solely as a conquered province,—her most respectable families banished or destroyed, while, from time to time, vast numbers of Servians emigrated into Hungary. In 1481, prince Pavo Brankovich made an irruption into Servia, and after defeating the Turks in several battles, headed 50,000 Servians, who fixed themselves as colonists under the protection of Hungary. In 1689, many thousand Servians flocked to the army of Leopold the First. The following year, the patriarch Tzernovich led into Sirmia and Slavonia nearly sixty thousand Servian families. By the treaty of Passarovich, in 1718, the greater part of Servia was transferred to the Austrians. It reverted back to the Porte in 1739. In 1759, a vast number of Servians emigrated into Russia, and peopled Newservia, but they have since been completely blended with the Russians, whose language they soon adopted. At the beginning of the present century, Servia was again released from the Turkish sway, and under the auspices of the Austrian emperor, is now governed by a Knes, or prince, whose name is Milosh Obrenowich. [0c]
There are four provinces or governments (Sandshaks), Semendria, Perserin, Veltshterin, and Aladshahissar, consisting of nearly a million of Servians, subjected to Turkish authority. The greater part of these are Christians of the Greek Church. The number of Servians who recognise the Greek Church is estimated by Schaffarik at 2,526,000. [0d]
The various idioms of the Slavonian language may, without exception, be traced up to one single stem, the old or church Slavonic. From this one source, two great streams flow forth; the northern, comprehending the Bohemian, Polish, and Russian; and the southern, composed of the Hungarian, Bulgarian, and Servian tongues. The latter branches were much less extensively employed than the former. About a million and a half of men speak the Hungarian; not more than half a million the Bulgarian, which in Macedonia has been superseded by the Romaic, the Albanian, and the Turkish; while the Servian idiom, the most cultivated, the most interesting, and the most widely spread of all the southern Slavonian dialects, is the language of about five millions, of whom about two millions are Mahommedans. [0e]
The vicinity of Greece and Italy modified and mellowed the language of Servia, which is, in fact, the Russian hellenized, deprived of its hardiness and its consonant terminations, and softened down into a perfect instrument for poetry and music. [0f] Of the descendants from the ancient Slavonic, it is more closely allied to the Russian and Windish idioms, than to the Bohemian or Polish. Vuk Karadjich divides it into three distinct dialects, the Herzegovinian, or that spoken in Bosnia, Montenegro, Dalmatia, and Croatia; the Sirmian, which is used in Sirmia and Slavonian and the Resavian. No doubt the Servian language has been considerably influenced by the Turkish, but though it has been enriched by oriental words, it has not adopted an oriental construction. Schaffarik, in describing the different Slavonic tongues, says, fancifully but truly, that “Servian song resembles the tune of the violin; Old Slavonian, that of the organ; Polish, that of the guitar. The Old Slavonian in its psalms, sounds like the loud rush of the mountain stream; the Polish, like the bubbling and sparkling of a fountain; and the Servian like the quiet murmuring of a streamlet in the valley.”
The Servian alphabet consists of only twenty-eight letters, which is twenty less than the old Slavonic, and seven less than the Russian. The letters ? (dj), ? (tj), and ? the soft g of the Italians, are unknown to the Russians, and the Servians have added two letters to their alphabet, by combining the ? of the Russians with ? and ?, making ? and ?, which are equivalent to the Italian gl and gn, the Spanish ll and Ñ, and the Portuguese lh and nh. They have wholly dismissed the ?, which so constantly and so uselessly occurs in the church Slavonic and Russian.
No traces of Servian literature go beyond the thirteenth century. [0g] The Hexaemeron of Basil, the Bulgarian exarch, written in 1263, and the Epistle of Damian, in 1324, are both in the old church Slavonian tongue. The first Servian literary record is the Rodoslov of Daniel, archbishop of Servia, which is a chronicle of the four kings who were his contemporaries (from 1272 to 1336), beginning with Urosh. This book is a valuable register of the laws enacted during his life, and throws much light on early Servian history. An almanack, entitled Ljetopis, of this period, also exists; and of a somewhat later period, the Tzarostavnik, or Register of Princes, by an unknown author. Dushan, with whose name the Servians associate all that is glorious, caused a book of laws to be written for the use of his kingdom, which breathe a milder and kinder spirit than would be expected in an age and among a people so little instructed. They contain some remarkable provisions in favour of travellers and strangers; and not only compel hospitality, but protect property, by making the host responsible for its security. The battle of Kosova introduced a long night of darkness and desolation into Servia; and though a few religious books were published soon after the invention of printing, no one work of the slightest interest appeared till the end of the 17th century, when George Brankovich, [0h] the last of the Servian despots, wrote a history of Servia, bringing it down to the time of Leopold the First. In 1758, Demetrius Theodosijev established a Servian press. In 1796, the Austrian government granted a monopoly of all Servian literature to the university of Ofen, by suppressing all printing-presses elsewhere.
Though it is not my intention to write a general history of the literature of Servia, in introducing one interesting branch of it to the English reader, I cannot but slightly refer to the essential services it has received from a few distinguished writers.
John Raich was born in Karlovitz in 1726, and died in 1801. He received his elementary education from the Jesuits in Komorn, removed to the evangelical school at Oedenburg, and completed his studies at Kiev. He afterwards visited the famous convent of Chilendar (on Mount Athos), which was built and endowed by Shupan Nemana, who died there as a monk, having taken the name of Simeon. Raich was ultimately chosen archimandrite of the convent of Kovil, in Chaskisten bataillon. His principal work, printed at Vienna (1792–5), is his history of the Slavonian people. [0i] He also wrote a history of Servia, Rasza, Bosnia, and Rama (Vienna, 1793); a tragedy on the death of the Tzar Urosh (Ofen, 1798); and many theological treatises. He uses the church Slavonian dialect, but his style is full of Servian and Russian phraseology, which he perhaps adopted as likely to recommend his productions.
Dosithei Obradovich, who was born in 1739, and died in 1811, was the first who ventured to apply the popular language to the purposes of literature. His birth-place was Chakovo in the Banat of Temeshvar, and at the age of fourteen he became a monk in the Opovo convent. Here he was too restless to remain, and having determined to see foreign countries, he travelled for a quarter of a century, and visited Greece, Albania, Italy, Turkey, Russia, Germany, France, and England. The love of home had mastered the desire of change, and he returned to Servia, when he was made a senator at Belgrad, and appointed to superintend the education of the children of Tzerny George. He published at Leipzig, in 1783, an auto-biography, entitled “Tzivot i prikliuchenjia D. Obranovicza,” besides sundry poems and fables, and moral treatises.
Demetrius Davidovich has greatly assisted in elevating the language of the Servian people to the best purposes of literary instruction. He is (I believe at this time) the secretary to Milosh, the hospodar of Servia. For many years he edited a Servian newspaper at Vienna, and has annually published a Servian almanack (Zabavnik), in which are many interesting particulars respecting the literary and political history of his country. The indisposition on the part of the superintendents of schools in Servia, to employ the popular tongue as the instrument of education, has been long the ban of civilization, and the barrier to national improvement. But of late the influence of those who have endeavoured to make literature subserve the interests and the happiness of the many rather than the few, has led to the dismissal of Slavonian, and the substitution of Servian books. A controversy, with much controversial bitterness, is at the present moment carried on in Servia (where, as elsewhere, to be dignified is by some thought better than to be useful, and to please a few pedants is deemed more worthy of ambition than to instruct a whole people), between the advocates of the antiquated Slavonic, and those whose simple and intelligible maxim is, “write as you speak, if you would be understood;” and of the latter every year adds greatly to the numbers.
But of all the writers of Servia, he from whom the volumes emanate whence these translations are taken, is beyond comparison the most attractive and the most popular.
Stephanovich Karadjich Vuk was born on the 26th October, O. S., in the year 1787, at Trshich, an obscure village in Turkish Servia (Iadar), near the town of Losnitza and the river Drina, at a short distance from the Austrian and Hungarian frontier, where, however, the Servian language is spoken with far more purity than in the larger towns. In his early youth he passed the borders, and received his education at the Gymnasium of the dissidents from the Greek church at Karlovitz. There his school instruction began and ended; but having visited Vienna, intercourse there with intelligent and instructed men led to the development of the natural powers of his mind, and directed his inquiries to the hidden stores of popular literature which his country possessed. A feeble and crippled frame unfitted him for bodily labour, and all his thoughts and all his ardour attached themselves to intellectual exertions. He began his literary career at Vienna, and published in 1814 his Servian Grammar, and a century of Servian songs; but the embarrassments of the censorship induced him to seek a freer field for the publication of his works, and he removed to Leipzig, where the edition, in three volumes, of his popular Servian poetry, appeared in 1823–4. He soon obtained high reputation there, and received the diploma of doctor in philosophy, and was elected to many literary distinctions. The emperor Nicholas, in that spirit so honourable to many of the autocrats of Russia, has conferred on him a yearly pension of 100 ducats; and he now pursues his interesting inquiries, and from time to time exerts that creating and regenerating power which has called the poetry of Servia into existence, and established for it a permanent reputation. [0j]
The Servians must be reckoned among those races who vibrated between the north and the east; possessing to-day, dispossessed to-morrow; now fixed, and now wandering: having their head-quarters in Sarmatia for many generations, in Macedonia for following ones, and settling in Servia at last. But to trace their history, as to trace their course, is impossible. At last the eye fixes them between the Sava and the Danube, and Belgrade grows up as the central point round which the power of Servia gathers itself together, and stretches itself along the right bank of the former river, southwards to the range of mountains which spread to the Adriatic and to the verge of Montengro. Looking yet closer, we observe the influence of the Venetians and the Hungarians on the character and the literature of the Servians. We track their connexion now as allies, and now as masters; once the receivers of tribute from, and anon as tributaries to, the Grecian empire; and in more modern times the slaves of the Turkish yoke. Every species of vicissitude marks the Servian annals,—annals represented only by those poetical productions of which these are specimens. The question of their veracity is a far more interesting one than that of their antiquity. Few of them narrate events previous to the invasion of Europe by the Turks in 1355, but some refer to facts coeval with the Mussulman empire in Adrianople. More numerous are the records of the struggle between the Moslem and the Christian parties at a later period; and last of all, they represent the quiet and friendly intercourse between the two religions, if not blended in social affections, at least associated in constant communion. [0k]
The earliest poetry of the Servians has a heathenish character; [0l] that which follows is leagued with Christian legends. But holy deeds are always made the condition of salvation. The whole nation, to use the idea of GÖthe, is imaged in poetical superstition. Events are brought about by the agency of angels, but the footsteps of Satan can be nowhere traced;—the dead are often summoned from their tombs;—awful warnings, prophecies, and birds of evil omen, bear terror to the minds of the most courageous.
Over all is spread the influence of a remarkable and, no doubt, antique mythology. An omnipresent spirit—airy and fanciful—making its dwelling in solitudes—and ruling over mountains and forests—a being called the Vila, is heard to issue its irresistible mandates, and pour forth its prophetic inspiration: sometimes in a form of female beauty—sometimes a wilder Diana—now a goddess gathering or dispersing the clouds, and now an owl among ruins and ivy. The Vila, always capricious, and frequently malevolent, is a most important actor in all the popular poetry of Servia. The Trica polonica is sacred to her. She is equally renowned for the beauty of her person and the swiftness of her step:—“Fair as the mountain Vila,” is the highest compliment to a Servian lady—“Swift as the Vila,” is the most eloquent eulogium on a Servian steed.
Of the amatory poems of the Servians, GÖthe justly remarks, that, when viewed all together, they cannot but be deemed of singular beauty; they exhibit the expressions of passionate, overflowing, and contented affection; they are full of shrewdness and spirit; delight and surprise are admirably pourtrayed; and there is, in all, a marvellous sagacity in subduing difficulties and in obtaining an end; a natural, but at the same time vigorous and energetic tone; sympathies and sensibilities, without wordy exaggeration, but which, notwithstanding, are decorated with poetical imagery and imaginative beauty; a correct picture of Servian life and manners,—everything, in short, which gives to passion the force of truth, and to external scenery the character of reality.
The poetry of Servia was wholly traditional, until within a very few years. It had never found a pen to record it, but has been preserved by the people, and principally by those of the lower classes, who had been accustomed to listen and to sing these interesting compositions to the sound of a simple three-stringed instrument, called a Gusle; and it is mentioned by GÖthe, that when some Servians who had visited Vienna were requested to write down the songs they had sung, they expressed the greatest surprise that such simple poetry and music as theirs should possess any interest for intelligent and cultivated minds. They apprehended, they said, that the artless compositions of their country would be the subject of scorn or ridicule to those whose poetry was so polished and so sublime. And this feeling must have been ministered to by the employment, even in Servia, of a language no longer spoken, for the productions of literature, though it is certain the natural affections, the everyday thoughts and associations could not find fit expression in the old church dialect:
“The talk
Man holds with week-day man in the hourly walk
Of the mind’s business, is the undoubted stalk
“True song” doth grow on.”
The collection of popular songs, Narodne srpske pjesme, from which most of those which occupy this volume are taken, was made by Vuk, and committed to paper either from early recollections, or from the repetition of Servian minstrels. These, he informs us, and his statement is corroborated by every intelligent traveller, form a very small portion of the treasure of song which exists unrecorded among the peasantry. How so much of beautiful anonymous poetry should have been created in so perfect a form, is a subject well worthy of inquiry. Among a people who look to music and song as a source of enjoyment, the habit of improvisation grows up imperceptibly, and engages all the fertilities of imagination in its exercise. The thought which first finds vent in a poetical form, if worth preservation, is polished and perfected as it passes from lip to lip, till it receives the stamp of popular approval, and becomes as it were a national possession. There is no text-book, no authentic record, to which it can be referred, whose authority should interfere with its improvement. The poetry of a people is a common inheritance, which one generation transfers sanctioned and amended to another. Political adversity, too, strengthens the attachment of a nation to the records of its ancient prosperous days. The harps may be hung on the willows for a while, during the storm and the struggle, but when the tumult is over, they will be strung again to repeat the old songs, and recall the time gone by.
The historical ballads, which are in lines composed of five trochaics, are always sung with the accompaniment of the Gusle. At the end of every verse, the singer drops his voice, and mutters a short cadence. The emphatic passages are chanted in a louder tone. “I cannot describe,” says Wessely, “the pathos with which these songs are sometimes sung. I have witnessed crowds surrounding a blind old singer, and every cheek was wet with tears—it was not the music, it was the words which affected them.” As this simple instrument, the Gusle, is never used but to accompany the poetry of the Servians, and as it is difficult to find a Servian who does not play upon it, the universality of their popular ballads may be well imagined.
Independently of the measure of ten syllables, universally used in the ballads of the Servians, they have verses of seven syllables, consisting of two trochaics and one dactyl:
Wilt thou love thy? Militza?
Of eight syllables, consisting of four trochaics: as,
Hastan onward to the wedding.
And of one trochaic between two dactyls:
Merrily?, dancing, merrily?.Of ten syllables, two trochaics and two dactyls:
Morava’s banks are trod by? the maiden.
Of twelve syllables, composed of two trochaics and one iambic:
Go then, Kum, thou lov’d one, waits she for thee.
And of thirteen syllables, namely, four trochaics, a dactyl, and a closing trochaic:
Look around, thou lovely Creta, smilingly look round.
The translations which have appeared in Germany under the name of Talvj are the work of an amiable woman (Theresa von Jacob), who having passed the earlier part of her life in Russia, and possessing a mind cultivated by literature, and captivated by the natural beauties of Servian poetry, has most successfully devoted herself to their diffusion.
Professor Eugenius Wessely, of Vinkovcze in Slavonia, has also published a small volume of Translations from the Nuptial Songs of the Servians; [0m] the renderings have the merit of perfect fidelity, and his introduction contains many interesting illustrations of Servian manners.
In the following translations I have, in all the narrative poetry, preserved the original measure. Rhyme is seldom used by the Servians. It is found in some of the shorter lyrical pieces, in the rendering of which I have allowed myself some latitude of expression. But the wish, above all things, to preserve most faithfully the character of the original, has prevented my introducing many very obvious decorations, and my veiling many equally obvious defects. To fidelity, at least, this volume may lay an honest claim. I have endeavoured to avail myself of all the authors who have written on the subject, particularly of the valuable criticisms of Dr. Kopitar in the Vienna Iahrbuch der Litteratur, of the works of GÖthe, Grimm, and Vater. The notes attached to Talvj’s translation I have employed, without any special reference to them.
