Serbia in Light and Darkness Part 1

Serbia in Light and Darkness.

by Nikolaj Velimirovic.

AUTHOR'S NOTE.

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. I dedicate, therefore, the following pages to all those who suffer much in these times, and whose understandings are enlarged and human sympathies deepened by sufferings.

I will take this opportunity of expressing my warm and respectful thanks to His Grace the Archbishop of Canterbury for his kind a.s.sistance and generous commendation of my work in England.

My grat.i.tude is due to the Rev. G.K.A. Bell and Dr. E. Marion c.o.x for their help in the revision of these pages.

NICHOLAI VELIMIROVIC.

London, _April_, 1916.

PREFACE

BY THE ARCHBISHOP OF CANTERBURY.

The presence of Father Nicholai Velimirovic in England during the last few months has brought to the many circles with which he has been in touch a new message and appeal enforced by a personality evoking an appreciation which glows more warmly the better he is known. But this little book is more than the revelation of a personality. It will be to many people the introduction to a new range of interest and of thought.

He would be a bold man who would endeavour at present to limit or even to define what may be the place which the Serbia of coming years may hold in Eastern Europe as a link between peoples who have been widely sundered and between forces both religious and secular which for their right understanding have needed an interpreter. Of recent days the sculpture and the literature of Serbia have been brought to our doors, and England's admiration for both has drawn the two countries more closely together in a common struggle for the ideals to which that art and literature have sought to give expression. It is not, I think, untrue to say that to the average English home this unveiling of Serbia has been an altogether new experience. Father Nicholai's book will help to give to the revelation a lasting place in their minds, their hopes and their prayers.

RANDALL CANTUAR.

LAMBETH, _Easter_, 1916.

_PART I_

LECTURES ON SERBIA

ENGLAND AND SERBIA.

_Delivered for the first time in the Chapter House of Canterbury Cathedral. Chairman: the Lord Archbishop of Canterbury._

THE SIGN OF THE CHURCH OF ENGLAND.

YOUR GRACE, LADIES AND GENTLEMEN,

To come to Canterbury, to visit this Sion of the Church of England, that has been my dream since my fourteenth year, when I for the first time was told of what a spiritual work and of what an immortal glory this place has been the home. I dreamed a beautiful dream of hope to come here silently, to let every man, every house and every brick of the houses silently teach me, and, after having learned many fair and useful things, to return silently and thankfully home. Unfortunately I cannot now be a silent and contemplative pupil in this place, as I desired to be, but I must speak, forced by the time in which we are living and suffering. I will speak in order not to teach you, but to thank you. And I have to thank you much in the name of the Serbian nation and in my own name.

I thank you that you are so mindful of Serbia, of a poor and suffering country that failed so much in many respects, but never failed in admiration of the English character and civilisation. From central European civilisation we received a small light and a great shadow. From English civilisation we got--I dare say it--the light only. There is no doubt that English civilisation, being a great light, must have its shadow also, but our eyes, blinded by the great light, did not see the dark side of this light.

I thank you that you gave us Shakespeare, who is the second Bible for the world; and Milton the divine, and Newton and Herschel, the friends of the stars; and Wellington and Nelson, the fearless conquerors of the ambitious tyrant of the world; and Stephenson, the great inventor of the railway and the great annihilator of distance between man and man; and Carlyle, the enthusiastic apostle of work and hope; and d.i.c.kens, the advocate of the humble and poor; and Darwin, the ingenious revealer of brotherly unity of man and nature; and Ruskin, the splendid interpreter of beauty and truth; and Gladstone, the most accomplished type of a humane statesman; and Bishop Westcott and Cardinal Newman, the illuminated brains and warm hearts. No, I never will finish if I undertake to enumerate all the ill.u.s.trious names which are known in Serbia as well as in England, and which would be preserved in their integrity in Serbia even if this island should sink under the waters.

I have to thank you for many sacrifices that the people of this country have made for Serbia during the present world-struggle. Many of the English nurses and doctors died in Serbia in trying courageously to save Serbian lives in the time of typhus-devastation. They lost their own lives saving ours, and I hope in losing their lives for their suffering neighbours they have found better ones. Their work will never be forgotten and their tombs will be respected as relics among us Serbs.

Besides, Great Britain also sent military help for Serbia. It was dictated to Great Britain by the highest strategic reasons to send troops to Serbia, to the Danube, in order to stop the Germans there, to hinder their junction with the Bulgars, to annihilate all their plans and dreams regarding the East, to defend Serbia not only as Serbia, but as the gate of Egypt and India, and so to protect in the proper place and in the most efficacious manner her oriental Dominions. But seemingly England sent her troops to Serbia more to protect her honour than her Dominions, more to help Serbia than to defend Egypt and India. The number of these troops and the time when they arrived in Serbia indicate that. Hundreds of miles the Serbs had been driven back by the enemy before the British forces reached the Serbo-Greek frontier. But still they reached the Serbian land, they fought on Serbian soil and shed their n.o.ble blood defending that soil. Serbia will rather forget herself than the English lives sacrificed for her in such a catastrophic moment of her history.

England is THE GREATEST EMPIRE OF THE WORLD, not only at the present time, but since the beginning of human history. Neither the artificial combination of Alexander of Macedonia nor the ancient Roman Empire, neither Spain of Charles V. nor Napoleon's ephemeral dominion were nearly so great as the British Empire of to-day. Never has a nation possessed so much sea and so much land as the British. This wonderful Empire includes people of every race, countries of every climate, human societies of every degree of civilisation, almost all kinds of minerals, plants and animals, lakes and rivers, mountains and forests. The most ancient civilisations of Egypt, India and the Mediterranean Islands are brought together in conjunction under the same rule as the new worlds, like South Africa, Canada and Australasia. The communication between the zones of the everlasting snow and those of the everlasting hot sun is established in perfection. The countries and peoples which were for thousands of years in contact with each other only through dreams are now in real contact through business, trade, science, art, and through common sufferings and hopes.

Still it might be asked: Has such a great body indeed an aim?

Short-sighted people, who are ready at once with a reply on any question, will say: The only aim of this great Empire is the exploitation of every country and every body by the English with the pretext of civilisation. So may think some English too. What can we say about THE AIM OF THE GREATEST EMPIRE? The truth is that the real aim of this Empire is larger than the selfishness of any person or of any nation. The real aim is:

_First_, to exchange the material products of the countries, and so to create a greater comfort for the people that live in them. In the wildest islands in the Pacific you can find--I will mention only little things--the same fine sofas, fireplaces, draperies, modern kitchens, piano and library, electric light and cablegrams, as in London. And in foggy and smoky London you can have all the African fruits, Australian wine and wool, Canadian metals and wood, Indian beasts and African ivory.

_Second_, to exchange the spiritual good of races and nations. The wisdom of the world is not concentrated in the brains of any single nation. Every nation has some original experiences of its own about this life. The Eskimos have certainly something new to say to the people from the plains of the Ganges and the Nile. And these people, these descendants, of Buddha and Rameses, as well as the descendants of Moses and Hamurrabai, have things to say that never were thought possible in the countries of perpetual snow and ice in Northern Canada. Such is of the greatest profit for science, religion, ethics, sociology, art.

Darwin and Spencer, with their immense scientific experiences, were possible only in such a world-Empire as the English. The words of Tagore, the Indian thinker, can be heard to-day without great delay on the Atlantic and Pacific, as well as in India. When a genius is born in New Zealand his message reaches the world, and his glory cannot be concealed in the southern hemisphere.

_Third_: this Empire is an experiment in the realisation of human brotherhood. I repeat, through the medium of this Empire man is brought near to man, and nation to nation, and race to race. It was very difficult in the ancient Roman Empire to become _civis Roma.n.u.s_, because this Empire was founded upon the Pagan philosophy of lords and servants. It is, on the contrary, very easy in the British Empire of to-day to become a British citizen, because the British Empire is founded upon the Christian philosophy of democratic equality and brotherhood. All is not accomplished, but I say it is an experiment, and a good one; a prophecy, and a hopeful one.

_Fourth_: Great Britain is destined by Providence to be a great educator of nations. That is her part in history. She has democracy and tradition--two things that are considered everywhere as incongruous--and therefore she is capable of understanding everybody and of teaching and leading everybody. She is the nurse for the sick people of the East; she is the schoolmaster for the rough people of the wild isolated islands; she is the tamer of the cannibals and the guide of the civilised; she inspires, vivifies, unites and guides; she equalises; she Christianises.

I read the other day a German menacing song:

We are going, we are going to see Who will henceforth govern the world-- England or G.o.d?

I can say certainly--G.o.d. He will govern the world. But we can say to-day, though in due humility: _Gesta Dei per Britannos_. Would you know a.s.suredly through which of the powerful nations G.o.d is working to-day? Ask only which of these nations is most the champion of the rights of the small and poor nations, and you will find out the truth.

For from the beginning of the world-history all the leading religions and philosophies called the great and powerful to protect the poor and powerless. The record of this recommendation belongs doubtless to the Christian religion. The suggestion of all the religions was like this: it is impossible to be proud and selfish under the eyes of G.o.d. The suggestion of the Christian religion is: Under the eyes of G.o.d the more you have the more you must give, and the more you give the more you have; and if you even give your life for men, you will find a better life in G.o.d.

WHAT IS SERBIA THEN?

If we Serbs look upon the English power on this planet, and then look and see our own less than modest place on the globe, we must unwillingly exclaim in the words of the Psalmist: O Lord, what is man, that thou art mindful of him?--or with a little change: O England, what is Serbia, that thou art mindful of her? And the poor sons of Serbia, that thou visitest them?

A small strip of land with five million inhabitants and without seaboard. A peasant people devoted to agriculture and to nature, to the forest and cattle, to songs and tales. A past full of glory, of blood and sins. A present full of tears, pains and hopes. A king carried on a stretcher through the rocky desert of Albania,--a loyal parliament which refused to make a separate peace with the enemy even in the darkest hour of national tragedy,--an honest government which did everything possible to save the country, and which, when the country was nearly conquered, exclaimed through its President: "It is better to die in beauty than to live in shame!"--a fearless army, which for three years only knew victory, now watching in snow on the mountains of Montenegro and Albania, and lodging in the dens of wolves and eagles.[1] Another army of old men, of women and children, fleeing away from death and rushing to death. Shall I say that is Serbia?

No: that is only a part of Serbia.

You have heard talk of Greater Serbia. I personally think that Serbia can never be greater than in this solemn hour of her supreme suffering, in which all the civilised world in both hemispheres trembles because of her catastrophe and sympathises with her. I personally love my little country just because it is so little; and just because its deeds are greater than its size. I am not sure that I should love it so much should it happen to become territorially so big as Spain or Italy. But I cannot help it; I must say that our Irridentists in Austro-Hungary are more numerous than our population in Serbia. Eight millions of our Serbo-Croat and Slovene brothers have been looking towards Serbia as towards their Piedmont, waiting their salvation from Serbia, as Alsace-Lorraine is waiting its salvation from France, and being proud of Serbia as all slaves are proud of their free kinsmen. All the slaves from Isonzo to Scutari are groaning under the yoke of an inhuman Austro-Magyar regime, and are singing of Serbia as their redeemer from chains and shame. Little Serbia has been conscious of her great historic task, to liberate and unite all the Southern-Slavs in one independent being; therefore she, with supreme effort, collected all her forces to fulfil her task and her duty, and so to respond to the vital hopes of her brethren.

Shall I say that is Serbia?

No; that is only physical Serbia.

But there is a soul of Serbia.

For five hundred years the Serbian soul suffered and believed. Suffering sometimes breaks the belief. But the Serbian suffering strengthened the belief of the Serbian people. With belief came hope, with hope strength; and so the Serbs endured the hardest and darkest slavery ever recorded in history, not so much by their physical strength as by the strength of their soul. Besides, it was a great temptation for the Serbs to abandon the Christian faith and to accept the faith of the Crescent. Under this condition only, the Turks promised freedom to the Serbs and equal rights. Several of the aristocratic families could not resist this temptation and became renegade to the faith of their ancestors in order to save their lives. But the ma.s.s of the people fearlessly continued to be faithful to the belief in the Cross.