Serbian epic poetry

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The Serbian epic poetry is a form of oral traditional heroes seals in predominantly Serb as both Croat populated areas of the Western Balkans , but also strong after Albania and Bulgaria have worked. Stylistic devices, narration, themes, the formal poetic elements, such as the Slavic antithesis of this pure folk poetry, were adopted by the bards of the epics of the formerly feudal Bugarštice . This courtly poetry was originally widespread in the aristocratic environment of the Serbian Empire. With the emigration of the aristocracy and the bards to the neighboring countries not conquered by the Ottomans, the actual Serbian heroic epic developed in the patriarchal milieu of the Christian Slavs who remained under the influence of the Ottomans and using the language of the village and country from this old poetic substrate, which experienced a lyrical expansion through the so-called women's songs on topics of social social order in the patriarchal peasant society of the clans, especially in the heartland of the Volksepik in today's geographical area between Montenegro and Herzegovina.

While the Serbian epic poetry is always composed of eight to ten syllables, the long verse with 14 to 16 syllables was characteristic of the Bugarštice. The addition of a line of verse to a refrain is only given for the latter. Both poetic styles are related in terms of content, have a similar choice of motif and language and are formed from verses without rhyming, but the folk poetry experienced an artistically higher maturity and sustainable reception due to its connection to the living environment and the lively folk language, which lasted from 15th to lasted strangely long in the first half of the 20th century. The Serbian heroic epic, as an essential bearer of national identification, language and culture, had a social relevance, in which it also provided an important poetic medium for historical references and in the formerly Christian regions ruled by the Ottomans kept resistance to foreign rule alive for centuries . The epic chants always avoid black and white masking and the heroes of the songs are often outlined as antiheroes (Prince Lazar, Vuk Brankovic, Kraljevic Marko). The Ottoman opponents are also given a high level of appreciation, which, for example, in the heroic song from the cycle of Kraljevic Marko Marko and Musa Kesedžija as Marko in the Albanian outlaw Mina, meets not only an equal opponent, but a stronger hero than himself.

About the work of the autodidactic language reformer, philologist and folk song researcher Vuk Karadžić , which cannot be recognized highly enough in terms of cultural history, and the essential promotion of his records and translation of the Serbo-Croatian folk epic by a narrow circle of literary influential poets, as well as recognized Slavic philologists in the age of German Romanticism by Yernej Kopitar , Joseph Dobrovský , Jacob Grimm , Clemens Brentano , Talvj and Johann Wolfgang Goethe , this genre became part of world literature and was widely received by the reading public. The prominent German translations were soon translated into French, Russian, English and Polish, which enabled the epics to be widely distributed in Europe. With Prosper Mérimée , Alexander Puschkin , Walter Scott and Adam Mickiewicz , the authoritative poets in their countries translated the Serbian folk epics.

Poetic elements

In the heroic tone of the epics, its diverse, often drastic metaphors for nature and Christian allegory, as well as a down-to-earth narration and the mediation of central historical events through the development of essential heroic figures, there are diverse characteristics of the hero and folk epic. Historical tradition is connected in them with mythical, Christian and folk elements to the story, which is artistically designed with great virtuosity. Many songs are connected with this through poetry and truth.

The meter of the heroic songs follow the traditional trochaic Ten silver ( deseterac ), with a break after the fourth syllable. In keeping with the traditional manner of presentation, the songs contain numerous anaphors; a general imagery is characteristic of the epic narration: among other things, the color white characterizes Vila (supernatural beings) and the churches and houses; as well as characteristic word combinations. One of the essential poetic figures of any song is the antithesis in particular .

History and reception

Bugarštice

The earliest record of a fragment of a Bugarštice was recorded in 1497 in the Italian city of Giaoia del Colle on the occasion of the visit of the Queen of Naples Isabella Del Balzo on May 31, 1497 by the Italian court poet Rogeri di Pacienzia in the epic court poem Lo Balzino . This was performed there by a colony of Slavic emigrants to dance and music and belongs to the group of the so-called despot epics, a corpus of the post-Kosovo cycles, in which the historical event of the capture of Janos Hunyadi by Đurađ Branković was thematized :

'Orao se vijaše nad gradom Smederevom.
Nitkore ne ćaše s njime govoriti,
nego Janko vojvoda govoraše iz tamnice:
'Molim ti se, orle, sidi malo niže
da s tobome progovoru: Bogom te brata imaju
pođi do smederevske [gospode] da s'mole
slavnome despotu da m'otpusti iz tamnice smederevske ;;
i ako mi Bog pomože i slavni depot pusti
iz smederevske tamnice, ja te ću napitati
črvene krvce turečke, beloga tela viteškoga
An eagle hovered over the city of Smederevo,
No one wanted to speak to the eagle,
But Janko the Duke spoke from the gaol:
'Eagle, come down a little, I beg you,
I want to speak to you; brother-in-God,
Go to the [lords] of Smederevo, let them begin
The glorious Despot to free me from Smederevo gaol;
And if God helps me, if the glorious Despot frees me
From Smederevo gaol, then I will feed you
On red blood of Turks and white bodies of knights

Half a century later, in 1555, the Croatian poet Petar Hektorović made the most important epic work of the genre in the inscription of a recitation in the so-called "Serbian manner" by the fisherman Paskoje Debelja during a boat trip on the island of Hvar . Makro Kraljević and his brother Andrijaš is the classic tale of fratricide , which, like later ten-syllable epics, opens with a formula-like phrase: Two poor men were good friends for a long time ('Dva mi sta siromaha dugo vrime drugovala') further developed into the Slavic antithesis.

The Bugarštice 'Marko Kraljević and his brother Andrijaš' contains some traditional formalistic expressions, some of which are only characteristic of Bugarštice, some of them both for Bugarštice and the ten-syllable epics. In the lecture, which was recited in the standard of the Ijekavian dialect, the use of Ekavian expressions is striking due to the origin of the poetry. In Hektorović's own prose, on the other hand, there are no ekavisms, but he wrote them down for Bugarštice. Some linguistic historical elements in "Marko Kraljević and his brother Andrijaš" have not been used since the middle of the 15th century, so this poetry is dated to the end of the 14th or the beginning of the 15th century.

Brother, my dear, I beg one thing of you,
Do not pull your sword out of my heart,
O brother, O my dear;
Until I say two or three words to you.
When you come to our hero mother, Marko, Prince,
Do not give our mother a crooked share,
Give her my share too, Marko, Prince,
To our mother, my brother,
For she will get no more sharing from me.
And if our mother should ask you
Sir Marko:
"My son, why is your sword running with blood?"
Do not tell her the whole of the truth,
O my brother, O my dear,
Do not let our mother be distressed,
Say these words to our hero mother:
"My mother, my darling, a quiet deer
Would not step out of my road,
Hero mother,
Neither he from me, my mother, my darling
Nor I from him.
I stood my ground and drew my hero sword,
And struck into the quiet deer's heart.
And when I looked and saw thar quiet deer
While his soul parted from him on the road,
I loved the quiet deer left my brother,
The quiet deer,
If he came back I would not murder him. "
And when our mother presses you and asks:
"Where is your brother Andrijaš, my Prince?"
Then do not tell the truth to our mother,
Say: "The hero stayed in a foreign land,
My mother, my darling.
For love he cannot leave that land,
Andrijaš
In that land he has kissed a fine-dressed girl.
And ever sinnce he kissed that fine-dressed girl,
He comes no longer to the wars with me,
And he has given him herbs I do not know,
And the wine of forgetting to the hero,
That fine-dressed girl.
Do not expect him soon, mother, my dear. "
When pirates drop on you in black forest,
Do not fear them, my brother, my dear,
Cry out to Andrijaš to your brother,
Though you will call in vain to me, brother,
When they hear you call my name
The cursed pirates,
Heroes will scatter from before your face,
As they have always scattered, my brother,
Whenever they have heard you call my name.
And may your beloved companions see
That you murdered your brother without cause '

The hero of the story, Marko Kraljević , appeared in legendary form for the first time in 1427 in the historical work "Život despota Stafana Lazarevića" by Konstantin Kostenezki in the passage about the Battle of Rovine , when he said: "I ... pray to God that he helps Christians even if I am the first to be killed "is quoted. Marko Kraljević's dual personality is already illustrated here. On the one hand, as a vassal of the Ottoman Sultan, he is forced to physically support the Ottomans, on the other hand, he remains a heroic figure who finds expression through his spiritual independence.

Formation of the songs

The main topic is historical events in the history of the (Greater) Serbian Empire, the battle on the blackbird field, the Marko-Kraljević cycle, the history of the despots, Haidukes and border warriors, as well as general topics on the social order in families and clans of the Dinaric Slavs the Ottoman primacy.

Body

The body of Serbian epic poetry is divided into cycles.

swell

  1. ↑ Svetozar Koljevic in: Marko the Prince. 1984, p. 195.
  2. ↑ Vera Bojić: Vuks Serbian Folk Songs in European Music - a contribution to research on reception . In: Wilfried Potthoff (Ed.): Vuk Karadžić in a European context . Carl Winter, Heidelberg 1990, ISBN 3-533-04281-2 , p. 14.
  3. ^ Svetozar Koljević : Preface to the translation of Serbian-Croatian heroic songs by Anne Pennington and Peter Levi: Marko the Prince - Serbo-Croat Heroic Songs . Unesco collection of representative works, European Series, Duckworth, London 1984, ISBN 0-7156-1715-X , p. XIII.
  4. ^ Svetozar Koljević: The Epic in the Making . Clarendon Press, Oxford 1980, ISBN 0-19-815759-2 , p. 27.
  5. ^ Svetozar Koljević: The Epic in the making . Clarendon, Oxford 1980, pp. 27-28.
  6. ↑ Svetozar Koljevic in: Marko the Prince. 1984, pp. 49-57.
  7. ↑ Svetozar Koljevic in: Marko the Prince. 1984, p. 50.
  8. ↑ Svetozar Koljevic in: Marko the Prince. 1984, p. 52.
  9. ↑ Svetozar Koljevic in: Marko the Prince. 1984, p. 52.
  10. ^ Anne Pennington, Peter Levi: Marko the Prince - Serbo-Croat Heroic Songs . Duckworth, London 1984, p. 31.
  11. ↑ Svetozar Koljevic in: Marko the Prince. 1984, p. 179.

literature

  • Golenishchev-Kutuzov, IN: Epic serbskogo naroda [Epics of Serbian people]. Moskva: Akademiia Nauk SSSR, 1963

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