Hero Tales and Legends of the Serbians

by Woislav M. Petrovitch

Serbians attach the utmost value and importance to the sympathies of such a highly cultured, great, and therefore legitimately influential people as is the British nation. Since the beginning of the twentieth century there have been two critical occasions—the annexation of Bosnia and Herzegovina by Austria and the war against the Turks—when we have had opportunities to note how British sympathies, even when apparently only platonic, can be of great practical importance for our nation. It is quite natural that we should desire to retain and if possible deepen and increase those sympathies. We are proud of our army, but we flatter ourselves that our nation may win sympathy and respect by other than military features of its national character. We wish that our British friends should know our nation such as it is. We wish them to be acquainted with our national psychology. And nothing could give a better insight into the very soul of the Serbian nation than this book.
The Serbians belong ethnologically to the great family of the Slavonic nations. They are first cousins to the Russians, Poles, Czechs, Slovaks, and Bulgars, and they are brothers to the Croats and Slovenes. Since the Church has ceased to be the discordant and disuniting element in the life of the nations, the Orthodox Serbians and the Roman Catholic Croats are practically one and the same people. But of all Slavonic nations the Serbians can legitimately claim to be the most poetical one. Their language is the richest and the most musical among all the Slavonic languages. The late Professor Morfill, a man who was something of a Panslavist, repeatedly said to me: “I wish you Serbians, as well as all other Slavonic nations, to join Russia in a political union, but I do not wish you to surrender your beautiful and well-developed language to be exchanged for the Russian!” On one occasion he went even so far as to suggest that the future United States of the Slavs should adopt as their literary and official language the Serbian, as by far the finest and most musical of all the Slavonic tongues.
When our ancestors occupied the western part of the Balkan Peninsula, they found there numerous Latin colonies and Greek towns and settlements. In the course of twelve centuries we have through intermarriage absorbed much Greek and Latin blood. That influence, and the influence of the commercial and political intercourse with Italy, has softened our language and our manners and intensified our original Slavonic love of what is beautiful, poetical, and noble. We are a special Slavonic type, modified by Latin and Greek influences. The Bulgars are a Slavonic nation of a quite different type, created by the circulation of Tartar blood in Slavonian veins. This simple fact throws much light on the conflicts between the Serbians and Bulgarians during the Middle Ages, and even in our own days…

Genres: Folklore, Nonfiction, History

306 pages, Kindle Edition

First published January 1, 1914

Reviews

[Cwn_annwn_13 · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book contains some information about Serbian Folk Lore, Folk customs, a little theorizing about pre-Christian religion in Serbia and other Serbian legends but the bulk of this book is about Prince Marko. It would be very inaccurate to try to say he fits this description exactly but in a sense he is the Serb version of King Arthur. Overall an interesting and entertaining read if this sort of thing interests you.

4.5 out of 5 stars.

[Czarny Pies · Rating 4 out of 5]

The great philologist and ethnographer, Vuk Stefanović Karadžić (1787-1864) in his remarkable career collected and published 406 lyric songs and 117 heroic poems that had been transmitted orally for centuries by Serbian bards (gousslari). This corpus is a monument in European literature comparable to Elias Lonnröt's "Kalevala", Lady Gregory's "Irish Myths and Legends", the Grimm brothers "Kinder- und Hausmärchen" or Lady Charlotte Guest's "Mabinogian". As such it will be a source of great pleasure to readers interested in European folklore. Unfortunately as Petrovitch who selected the sample of Karadžić's poems that appear in this volume freely admits his prose translations are rather pedestrian.

Karadžić was also the compiler of the first modern Serbian dictionary and the great hero on the cultural level of Serbia's struggle for independence from the Ottoman Empire which began in the 18th century and which was waged through-out the entire nineteenth century.

"Hero Tales and Legends of the Serbians" was conceived to celebrate Serbia's triumph in the Balkan Wars of 1912-1913 which appeared to give Serbia its long sought-after independence. Very ironically it was published in August 1914 just weeks after the assassination Archduke Franz Ferdinand by a Serbian nationalist had instigated World War I. More than an introduction of Serbian folklore, this book is very intriguing document that illustrates the zeitgeist of Europe on the eve of one its worst catastrophes.

[Claudia · Rating 5 out of 5]

Loved it!

I had no idea of how rich the Serbian history and culture is. These tales show how well-preserved tradition and national pride is. I truly enjoyed this book.

[Mark Schlechty · Rating 5 out of 5]

Incredible stories...well told

I love the stories in this book . Especially the ones about Marco and Sharatz. The fairy tales were also very interesting. I spent many nights staying up way too late reading this book. The beginning of the book gives a significant amount of sociology/anthropology of Serbian people to help a reader understand the stories. The traditions and customs of the land are rich and meaningful and fun to read. I read stories from every culture and this is one of the finest.

[Allison]

There's good stuff in here, if you can read around the turn-of-the-century racism and imperialism to get at it.

[Alexei López · Rating 4 out of 5]

A Precious Jewel in European Culture

The nineteenth century was a time of rediscovery of tradition and folklore that resulted in efforts in which many men and women rescued the oral richness of the peasantry imagery. In spite of being a period in which the scientific mind tried to leave all this behind, many beautiful compilations of fairy tales and songs were published and reached an incredible sucess.

Petrovitch's book is such an attempt for Serbia. As the reader unfolds the pages, he/ she will find echos of other traditions (basically european but, not surprisingly, asiatic too). The first part of this work mainly focuses on the Serbian's quotidian life and social traditions, whereas the remaining of it deals with the national heroes and fairy tales.

I can't but recommend this beautiful volume to anyone interested in tradition, folklore, myth and comparative studies. The only weaknesses worth mentioning (in this edition) are: poor editing (some pages go blank because the size of the image that follows was not taken into account) and lack of information of the book (one needs to do some research to get some essential information (original publication date etc.,). These are the reasons why I didn't rate it as high as the ouvre deserves.

[Lianne · Rating 3 out of 5]

Een uitgave die oorspronkelijk stamt uit de tijd van voor de Eerste Wereldoorlog, de tijd waarin Servië groot was. De Nederlandse vertaling is uitgekomen toen die wereldoorlog gestart was, mede door een moord gepleegd door een nationalist in Sarajevo. Die (dreigende) wereldoorlog heeft de verzameling verhalen nauwelijks beïnvloed, zover ik kan beoordelen. Wel de langdurige bezetting door en strijd tegen het grote Ottomaanse rijk.
In veel legenden en heldensagen komen dezelfde thema's terug. De verhalen circuleerden in de verschillende delen van Oost-Europa blijkbaar met verschillende details.