Serbia

“ Bless each Serbian town and hamlet,
Mountain, meadow, heart and spire.
When our host goes forth to battle
Death or victory to embrace-
God of armies! be our leader
Strengthen then the Serbian race!
On our sepulchre of ages
Breaks the resurrection morn,
From the slough of direst slavery
Serbia anew is born.
Protect the serbian fatherland,
the fruit of five centuries of battle,
God save, God protect,
so prays to you, the Serbian people!
This work is a translation and has a separate copyright status to the applicable copyright protections of the original content. ”

“ By this protection of Serbia, as well as of all the little and oppressed nations in Europe and Asia, you will do more for the glory of your country than by any extension of its frontier or accumulation of riches. Serbia suffers and still hopes. Serbia's hopes go to God, crossing this island of yours, crossing your hearts and souls, as the bridge between her and God. Serbia hopes to be free with all her brothers, who are suffering under the manifold yokes of merciless strangers. Serbia militans did every possible thing you expected her to do. ”

“ Serbia had existed during 500 years of material annihilation under Turkish rule. Through all that wilderness of time, the ideal of freedom had been her pillar of cloud by [310] day, and of fire by night, pointing to the Promised Land. Serbia is again in the wilderness, and the same light guides and cheers her. She is full of courageous faith, because she understands that a nation means, primarily, not physical country (mountains, rivers, valleys) , not State, not Government, but a free and united spirit. ”

“ It was a busy time in Europe in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries; the nations had enough to do to keep their own houses in order,—and when they had leisure they must keep in touch with new life, with the renaissance of Art and Learning. They were enchanted with the discovery that they were not mere parvenus like distant Serbia, but descendants of that grand old house that had once conquered the world. The beauty of Paganism—ah, that was something worth contemplating! But Serbia—well, the Crusades were over, and the Turk was no longer threatening Western Europe ”

“ In human affairs, the dream of a Greater Serbia is no less a recurrent nightmare than the numerable German Reichs and Serbia erupted upon the world stage no less frequently and regularly than its northern equivalent. ”

“ CHAPTER FOUR. SERBIA AND THE WAY THERE "The wicked flee when no man pursueth, but the righteous is bold as a lion."
Twice had I visited Montenegro and had heard much of Great Serbia. Of the past as seen by Serb eyes I read in any number of cheap pink and blue ballad books. As for the present, big Montenegrins in the most decorative national dress in Europe, swaggered up and down the main street of Cetinje, consumed unlimited black coffee and rakia and discussed the glorious days when all Serbs should again be united under Gospodar Nikita. ”

“ Do not expect from me an equivalent description of Serbia, which has been one of the greatest factors in this world-war during many months, and which has disturbed your hearts for so long and attracted thousands of your sons and friends over the seas, to take the sword from Serbia's mangled hands and continue the struggle for the same cause for which she fought until death. ”

“ The Nations of Europe that had over-looked Serbia in her days of strength—she was so young, and so far away, half hidden in her wilderness of mountains—the Nations of Europe that had turned deaf ears to her cries when the Turk attacked her, began to make inquiries about the little sister. ”

“ So we cannot imagine a Serbia without Prilep, the source, yea, the birthplace of our national poetry. Every people must have some sacred soil in their country, a part more sacred than other parts, which binds them more to their fatherland, which excites their enthusiasm, and which obliges them to defend and to die for it. ”

“ A country very rich in melody is Serbia. Here one may find a truer and more intense musical feeling, a stronger love of the soil, and more sincere devotion to the beauty of nature, especially of spring and summer, than in any other part of Jugoslavia. ”

“ It seems to every one of them like a dream: the land which has been for generations and generations the topic of poetry now stood before the Serbian warriors as a reality. The Serbian brothers from Austria-Hungary came to Macedonia, kissed the sacred soil, and each one took a handful of the sacred dust from the tombs of our kings and heroes of old. ”

“ The aim of this volume is to give to the English-speaking people some glimpses into the past struggles, sufferings and hopes of the Serbian nation. I have tried to describe the Serbian life in light, in its peace, its peaceful work, its songs and prayers; in darkness, in its slavery, its sins, its resistance to evil and battle for freedom.
It is only the peoples which suffer themselves that can understand and sympathise deeply with the Serbian soul. ”

“ For all she is and has achieved Serbia is indebted only to herself, to the capabilities, valour and perseverance of her own children. Russia was her only foreign protector. The Serb is a straight-dealing, industrious man, and, like all the Southern Slavs, essentially poetic. ”

“ In some minor ways, Serbia may, in her civilisation, have been behind other nations in the west of Europe, but she was ahead of Western Europe in that one thing, which is of real importance, that one thing which cannot be copied or learned from other nations, and which is, therefore, either innate or unachieveable: Serbia is ahead of other nations, in her power of sacrificing herself for ideals. All nations are ready to sacrifice life for nationhood. ”

“ Put yourselves, gentlemen, in the chair of a judge, and I will confess to you all the sins of Serbia. Serbia sinned and suffered. Her sins have been her hell, her sufferings—her purgatory. I don't pray you to forgive Serbia, but only to compare justly her sins with her sufferings. The Serbs sinned against all the ten commandments, it is true, but still regarded the ten commandments as the standard which is better than a nation's doings. Although the people said beautifully: "A grain of truth is better than a ton of lies," still the lie, like a parasite, had its nest in Serbia as elsewhere. ”

“ Then those people who recognize heroism, those people who admire patience and silent bravery, those people who long had cried, "Plucky Serbia!" who had long been working for Serbia, now worked the harder, and other workers joined them, until there were few sections of the globe where there was not a group working for Serbia. The remnant of the army, too, worked harder than ever, training, gathering strength, adding to its numbers,—and at last it was ready. ”

“ When the Slovenes of Istria, Carniola, Styria, and Carinthia, together with the Serbo-Croats, form a strong, prosperous and free, though small State, their culture will be developed to the full, crowning and unifying Southern Slav life.
This growing civilization of Greater Serbia, which may be called Yougoslavia, will gather up the scattered threads of the history of Serbian art in the past. ”

“ Serbia, taught by the bitter lesson of 1908 not to be caught again unprepared, had spent much money and care on its army during the last few years and had brought it to a much higher state of efficiency. In Austria-Hungary careful observers wore aware that something was afoot and that the gaze of Serbia, which from 1903 till 1908 had been directed westwards to Bosnia and the Adriatic, had since 1908 been fixed on Macedonia and the Aegean. ”

“ The love songs of Serbia seem to have a special inspiration of their own. We may hear the shepherds singing in green pastures and among the fir-woods, or in the silence of the mountains. From the vineyards, from the fair and dances, and from the daily round of work the strains arise. Everywhere that youth is seen a poem is heard, and every occupation is accompanied by a song.
We cannot, however, leave this part of our subject without mentioning some of the burlesque poems, which the Jugoslavs possess in great number, partly narrative and partly lyric. ”

“ Serbia throughout the nineteenth century was rent by the ceaseless blood-feud between the Karageorgevitches and the Obrenovitches, a history bloody as that of the Turkish Sultans, the results of which are not yet over—one that has so largely influenced the fate of yet unborn generations that we must understand its outlines in order to follow modern events. ”

“ As Serbian politicians looked from the heights of their Serbian mountains, upon the glories of their fertile land, a land of corn and bread, a land of wine and vineyards, they must have heard the Tempter's words, whispering as of old, "All these things will I give you if—if—you will fall down and worship militarism and the Central Powers." ”

“ War, for them, a kind of holiday! They were soldiers now; they would be real men when they reached the sea! The little boys, the hope of the future! Of the thirty thousand who trod that dreary road, only a half lived to reach the sea. Not one-half of these reached the island where they were to have their training as soldiers. [Pg 95]
The soul of Serbia was in agony as a ghostlike army, pale, pinched, and starved, crept over the snowy mountains, over the soggy roads—men, women, and poor dumb animals sinking in to their death. ”

“ Sometimes they fought among themselves, with an occasional black eye for one or the other, because they found it hard to decide, not what they could do for Serbia—the youngest and most inexperienced—but what they could get from her without her discovering their motives, without the others objecting. They forgot that Serbia was no longer a child ”

“ In his ten years’ reign King Peter has gone far to restore to Serbia her ancient glories. During his reign her politics have become more settled at home and abroad. Agriculture, trade and industry have improved and expanded. Literature and art have made miraculous strides, so that Serbia may fairly consider herself the equal of the Western nations; and the Serbian army has now demonstrated its excellent organization and great military value in three successive wars. ”

“ The rise of Serbia was due to the happy direction that was now given to the virile spirit of the people; standing back to back in their own land, they were soon able to arouse the despondent hearts of their countrymen who languished under various tyrannies outside the national frontiers. ”

“ Marko Kraljevitch, the popular hero-knight, feudal lord and outlaw, according as occasion demanded, embodies Serbian resistance and Serbian revolt against Moslem invaders. The stirring accents in which tales of his deep attachment to Serbia were recounted awakened exultant delight in the heart and brain [322] of listeners and inspired them to the hope of liberation from the hated yoke. Serbia was prepared for the day of national independence by means of this slow and century-long propaganda. ”

“ By its geography, no less than racially, Bosnia is an integral portion of Serbia. For over a thousand years Bosnians and Serbians have had a mutually common civilization. The same historical and political vicissitudes have been shared by the two peoples. Common economic aims and the identity of inhabited territory have furthermore acted as unifying factors. Whatever be the name applied to Croats, Dalmatians, Slavonians, Bosnians or Serbs, all speak the Serbian language. All have striven for centuries to promote their individuality as a nation. ”

“ Today the political aspirations of this compact mass of Serbians are centered around the independent kingdom of Serbia, which is regarded as the nucleus around which a greater Serbia comprising all the Serbian-speaking inhabitants of the Balkan peninsula will group. ”

“ Serbia is not only protected by the ranges on her boundaries, but four-fifths of the surface is covered with mountains, [Pg 78] a "chaos of mountains," a fact both helping and hindering her progress through the centuries. The general aspect of Serbia is one of beauty, with high and rugged mountains, mysterious forests, and long narrow river valleys as picturesque as fertile. Even the Sumadia, called the rallying point of the Nation, is now well cultivated and enterprising. ”

“ The Serbian people whom I had met during the first six months had appealed strongly to me. Lovers of poetry and of peaceful arts; intelligent and imaginative; impressionable to new ideas; warm-hearted, gay, with a keen sense of humour; brave as soldiers, courageous as citizens; responsive to the best within reach, whilst aiming at ideals possibly beyond reach: how could they fail to awaken a sympathetic response? Is there any other of the Balkan nations which could more safely be entrusted [295] with responsibility for the evolution of culture in the Near East, than our youngest ally? ”

“ Of all the new kingdoms which had been carved out of the Sultan's dominions, Serbia—let us remember this fact to her everlasting honour—is the only one that has won her own independence. Russia, France, and Great Britain have set free all the rest. ”

“ The Serbians are without doubt the most patriotic people that history has ever known, and Serbia is a country almost entirely devoted to agriculture, where the great majority of the inhabitants are owners of the soil, so that, in the mouth of a Serbian peasant the words "my country" refer to something more than an abstraction. ”