Serbia in Light and Darkness Part 4

Either snow or ice, or steam or fluid, water is always water. Either poor or rich, or ignorant or learned, man is always man.

Another:

Only a half-good man can be disappointed in this world. But a wholly good man never is disappointed because he never expects a reward for his good actions.

The Serbian people _sang_ also. Sitting around the fire in the long winter nights, the Serbian peasants sang their glorious past, their dark present and their hopes for the future. There is a Serbian instrument called the _gusle_, more interesting than the Greek lyre, because more appropriate for the epic songs. It looks also like the Indian instrument _tamboura_. Well, as the ancient Greek bards sang their Achilles, using the lyre, and as the ancient Indian singers sang their Krishna with the help of the tamboura, so the Serbian epic singers accompanied with the gusle their songs on their hero of old, Marko. Marko was a historic person, a king's son. He was the never-weary champion of right and justice, the protector of the poor and oppressed, a believer in the victorious good, a man who left an impression on the coming generations like a lightning flash in the dark clouds. In every village house in Serbia there is a gusle, and almost in every family a good singer with the gusle. The blind bards sang on the occasion of the festival or a meeting.

The great Pitt, when once asked from whom he learned the English history so well, replied: "From Shakespeare." To the same question we Serbs can reply: "From our national poetry." It is very rare for a people in the ma.s.s to know their past as well as the Serbs know their own. The Serbs regard their history not so much as a dry science, but rather as an art, a drama, which must be told in a solemn language. They knew their history, and therefore they sang it; they sang it, and therefore they knew it better and better.

The Serbian men sang, but not only the men, the women sang as well. When the harvest was being gathered during July and August, the women and girls sang in the fields or under the fruit trees. In our country we have the sun abundantly, and the outdoor singing responds fully to the luxuriance of light. What shall I say then about our women's singing in the autumn in the dry and soft moonlight? It is the time of spinning on the distaff. The tired men go to bed, but the women sit down in a circle in the houseyard in the open place. They chat and they sing without stopping their spinning. They sing two and two, in duet, but so that a new duet is begun when the other finishes. This duet singing is not only in one family, but in many at the same time, in different parts of the village. Moonlight--we have wonderful clear and white moonlight in Serbia--silence, singing from every side, from every house, from girls, nightingales and other birds. The whole of the village is the stage, hundreds of singers, moonlight and open starry s.p.a.ce--I am sure you would be much more fascinated by such a Serbian rustic opera than by many modern operas on a stage in London. And now--there rushed into Serbia:

THE KAISER, WHO DOES NOT SING,

and our singing stopped. Under the Turks the Serbian people sang. You can find in the British Museum ten big volumes of the Serbian national poetry which was composed during the time of the Turkish rule in Serbia.

This rule was very hard and very dark indeed, but still we considered ourselves as the champions of the Cross against the Crescent, and we imagined that we should be the bulwark of Christian Europe, i.e. of Central Europe in the first place. Therefore we endured the struggle with the Turks, singing and hoping. And now--the two _Christian_ Kaisers, with a fox from Sofia, have crushed Serbia more completely than she ever was crushed by the Turks. "Come back to your homes and your customs," so the Kaiser William invited the Serbian refugees.

"To your customs!" But, oh _ill.u.s.trissime Caesar,_ we could reply, our first and best custom is to sing. Tell us, how we could sing now? You know, oh Kaiser, because you preached the Bible also, you must know the Biblical complaints of the Israel of old: "By the rivers of Babylon, there we sat down, yea, we wept, when we remembered Zion. We hung our harps upon the willows in the midst thereof. For there they that carried us away captive required of us a song, saying, Sing us one of the songs of Zion? How shall we sing the Lord's song in a strange land?" You are now playing a real Babylonian role towards us Serbs, i.e. towards a people who fought for the Cross, who sang freedom and who were crucified for justice. You are not a better man than any peasant from the Serbian villages. Do you want a proof? The Serbian peasant can sing, and you cannot. You cannot sing, not because of your diseased throat, but because of your evil conscience. You stopped the singing in a country of songs, oh ill majesty! How could we now sing our songs while our homes are transformed into empty caves? How could we sing, seeing our bread in strangers' hands and cold stones in ours? How could we sing now, when all our past protests against you and all our dead are disturbed in their graves? You covered our country with sins and crimes, and it is not our custom to sing of sins and crimes, but of virtues.

When will you show us your virtues? You have shown us until now only your iron and fire, your brutality and brutality, and again brutality and brutality,--and, did I say?--iron and fire. That is the essence of your religion and science, of your soul and glory. We will despise all that you brought into our country. Let us be silent, Sire, and you may continue to show your Mephistophelean civilisation, and after you have crushed all those who are weaker and smaller than you, Sire, open your lips and preach upon their ruin to your admirers: _cantate Domino!_ But we will not sing after our custom of old in your presence. We prefer to be silent and to wait for G.o.d's judgment.

The Hidden Moral Treasures of the Serbian people are now shining, as always, throughout all the times of darkness and suffering.

You will remember from the beginning of the war all the declarations of the Serbian government about the Serbian loyalty to the end. Some among you might have thought: such declarations are dictated by political reasons. No, such declarations have been only a poor expression of what we all in Serbia thought and felt. Loyalty to friends, devotion to our pledged word, fidelity to the signed and unsigned treaties were always considered in Serbia as sacred duties in the conscience of the people.

Our morale is not something that was learned in the schools--do not forget we had no schools for centuries--but rather an inherited treasure which every man was obliged to keep in great brilliancy. It is not a morale supported by learning, sophisms and quotations, it is an elementary power which is not a possession, but which has possession of everybody. Our Prime Minister uttered the other day these words: "Better to die in beauty than to live in shame!" Fifteen hundred years ago similar words were uttered on this island of yours by a knight of Beowulf's escort: "Death is better than a life of shame." Every child in Serbia thinks the same as our Prime Minister about the value of life and death.

"Better to die than" to live so and so, or than to do this or that--hundreds of the Serbian proverbs begin with those words. In proverbs is expressed our moral wisdom, in proverbs and poetry. Yet our proverbs are poetry as well. The morale is regarded not so much as a teaching, rather as poetry, like history. History and morality are things which shall be sung, history and morality are such dignified topics that they must be expressed in a dignified, solemn language.

Poetry is the very essence of things. It is the most earnest thing in the world. That is our opinion.

The Serbs read the Bible very little, although they had the Bible in their own language and used it in divine service before you used it in the church of your own. The Bible was listened to in the church, but poetry at home. As Shakespeare can be called your second Bible, so, and still more, our national poetry for us has been indeed a second Bible.

Our poetry has been our history, our moral, our beauty, our hopes, our education, our encouragement--our Bible. By our poetry, as by the Bible, the morale is not only taught but inspired. What is this morale, taught by Serbian poetry and proverbs, when uttered in a dry form?

"Dear G.o.d, we thank thee for all," that is the usual beginning of every poem.

Love? Love is better than justice.

Justice? Justice is better than injustice.

Injustice? It must be punished.

Suffering? It must be relieved.

Patience? That is the great virtue of the sufferers.

Honour? Better to die than to give up honour.

Dishonour? It means as much as death.

Mercifulness? It shines like the sun over the world.

A beggar? He puts your heart to the test.

Death? G.o.d is behind death and therefore death is no evil.

Prayer? It shall be used always, but it never helps unless we do our best.

Humility? It is always rewarded by love.

Fearlessness? It is commended very strongly.

Cowardice? It is repudiated and despised to the utmost.

Obedience? Youth must be obedient and respectful towards old people.

Chast.i.ty? Better to burn down a church than to take or to give away chast.i.ty.

Protection of the weak? Marko protected weak people and animals. That is a great merit.

Chivalry? Always; towards friends and enemies.

Work? Without work prayer does not help.

Freedom? Man is man only in living in freedom and in fighting for freedom.

Wealth? It is no virtue, and if it does not support virtue, it is a vice.

G.o.d? He is the Lord of the World and thy steady companion.

Such morals have been preached, yea, sung by our ancestors, and by ourselves. Certainly we have sinned often against these morals, but in our sins and in our virtues they have been always regarded as a standard of all that is good and beautiful.

SINNING SERBIA.

Serbia sinned and repented her sins, and again sinned. 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 h.e.l.l, 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. Although the people said: "It is better to be blind with justice than to have eyes with injustice," still injustice had its seed, its growth and fruits among the same people. Although Cain's sin has been abhorred by the conscience of the Serbs, still this sin of taking the life of a brother has defiled the very soil of Serbia, which has been so much sanctified by the sufferings and unselfish sacrifices of her people. You will not find certainly in Serbia the refined vices which are practised in the shadow of great civilisations, but you will find quite enough great and small sins, which the Serbian conscience does not justify any more than yours.

THE SERBIAN AND THE BULGARIAN SPIRIT.

Besides, I will confess to you one great sin of the Serbian people. It is an exaggerated love for independence. It is a virtue as every honest love is a virtue, but it becomes a sin if exaggerated. It is a brilliant quality like the sunshine in the time of fighting against the common enemy, but it is a sin in peace time when organised efforts for the social welfare are required. This spirit of independence, the independence from enemies as well as from friends, has considerably disturbed our social life and progress-during the last century. Now, by this greatest of our sins and greatest of our virtues as well, we Serbs differed chiefly from our neighbours. The people in Great Britain have been accustomed to look towards the Balkans as towards a country with one and the same spirit. This is a great mistake. There are chiefly two spirits: the Serbian and the Bulgarian, _i.e._ the spirit of independence and the spirit of slavery. The Serbian spirit resisted until the end stubbornly and tenaciously against the Turks conquering the Balkans five centuries ago. The Bulgarian spirit surrendered without any resistance. "The Kral of Bulgaria did not wait to be conquered, but humbly begged for mercy"; so writes an English historian.[3] The rebellious spirit of the Serbs arose first in the Balkan darkness a hundred years ago against the tyranny and the despotic wickedness of the Turkish rulers, and liberated the Serbian fatherland. The Bulgarian spirit waited until strangers came and liberated the Bulgarian country.

Those strangers have been: Russians, Serbians, Roumanians and Mr.

Gladstone. The Bulgarian spirit has been since 1878 under the rule of the German kings, as slavishly subordinate as it was for five hundred years under the rule of the Turkish viziers and pashas. It was pure ignorance which made some people exclaim some months ago: "It is King Ferdinand's war against Serbia and the Allies, and not the Bulgarian people's. The Bulgars will never fight against the Russians, their liberators." Yet the fact is and will remain: the Bulgarian people have only one thought, i.e. the thought of their ruler, be it Ferdinand or somebody else, and they have only one will, i.e. the will of their ruler. They will fight against the Russians as fiercely as they fought against the Turks yesterday, and against the French and British to-day, if it is only the plan and will of their ruler.

This slavish spirit, which is a disgrace to a nation in the most tragic and decisive events of the world's history, makes the Bulgarian people in peace very happy and fit for peaceful organised work, when obedience and subordination are required. This slavish spirit is the greatest virtue and the greatest sin of the Bulgarian nation.

Yet, I am speaking of our own sins, and I confess that our greatest sin has been the too greatly developed love of personal independence. It is the truest spirit of the Serbs. From this spirit originated all our fortunes and all our misfortunes. From the point of view of this spirit consider, please, all our sins in modern times: the killing of our kings, the internal disturbances, and all the irregularity in the political and social life of our country, and you will understand us better; and if you understand us better, I am sure you will forgive us more easily.

SERBIA IN PRAYER.

Serbia has sinned, Serbia has prayed. If you put on one side of the scales Serbia's sins and on the other Serbia's sufferings and prayers, I am sure the latter will send the balance down.