The Birth of Yugoslavia, Volume 1

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ery school in Serbia and Bulgaria was closed, so that no teaching could be given anywhere save in the monasteries; it is said to be a fact-I have it from Dr. Zmejanovi?, lately Bishop of Ver?ac-that when Kara George, the beloved and illiterate heiduk, made his first insurrection, there were, in addition to the monks, precisely eight individual

ll the raia felt themselves as brothers[24] that the Serb and Bulgar planted that democracy which flourishes among them now. They saw what dangers threatened in the towns. Vuk Karaji?, the reformer of the Serbian language, tells of certain merchants there who, by assuming Turkish apparel

VING IN

come into the Banat and Ba?ka since 1479. He adds that he is favourably disposed towards them, as they are a fighting race of the first order, so that he can trust them to defend those provinces against the Turk.... Not only, therefore, did he bestow upon them exceptional privileges, but in 1471 he appointed Vuk, the grandson of George Brankovi?, to be Se

nja they murdered him. History[25] relates that some years after this on the 14th of August the pasha, a man of Serbian origin, commanded that the corpse be exhumed; whereupon a ring on the dead man's finger proved that he was related to the pasha. According to the Turkish

t down at the terrific battle of Mohács-10,000 Serbs under their voivoda, Paul, fought in the Hungarian ranks-and after the fall of Buda-Pest the political organization of the Serbs, with a despot as their ruler, came to an end, being replaced by a religious organization, at the head of which was the restored Patriarchate of Pe

ESTANT I

their most notable fellow-workers was Matthew Vlaci? (Mathias Flacius Illyricus), professor at the Universities of Wittenberg, Jena, Strassbourg and Antwerp, a veritable encyclop?dist of the Reformation, and, with Luther and Melanchthon, one of its leaders. A very distinguished man, who had already, about 1550, joined the Protestant Church, was Peter Paul Vergerius; before 1550 he had twice been Papal Nuncio in Germany, a bishop in Croatia and afterwards in Istria. The rank and file of the Glagolitic clergy received

, REFUGE

o the Republic's mighty neighbours. And in 1472 the Senate had directed that within its walls no speeches should henceforth be made in Slav. But as the Senate consisted of forty-five nobles, and these were obliged to be over forty years of age, one may say that they did not represent what was most virile in the State; at all events, this isolated tribute to expediency may for a time have been observed in that assemblage, in the world of letters it was disregarded. And this is the more wonderful when we remember that Dubrovnik had from Italy a language that was already formed, she had Italian models and printers and even their literary taste. But ?i?ko Men?etic and D?ore Dr?i?-both of them nobles, by the way-started at once to write verses in Slav; not very sublime verses, as they were principally love-songs of the school that imitated Petrarch, but it is pleasing to recall that they were written in spite of the thunders of Elias Crijevi?, a contemporary renegade. Under the name of Elias di Cerva this gentleman travelled to Rome, where he made hims

Professor of Slav Language and Literature at the University of Leipzig, this work surpasses Tasso's Jerusalem Delivered; but it is commonly thought that there is more literary merit in Gunduli?'s Dubravka, a lovely, patriotic pastoral. The worthy Franciscan Ka?i?,[27] who followed him with a work-Familiar Conversations on the Slovene Nation-would perhaps be regarded by us as more remarkable for his originality; but this patriotic production, in verse and in prose, didactic, chronological, allegorical and epic, has made him immortal. Beginning with Teuta, the first king of the Slovene nation, who flourished, says the author, about the year 3732 B.C., he proceeds imperturbably and sometimes in moving numbers to relate the lives and virtues of all the other Slovene kings, be they Bosnian, Croat, Serbian, Bulgarian; it may well be that the secret of his vogue is, in the

lini,[28] that until last century the ruling classes of Piedmont spoke French; Alfieri and Cavour had to "learn Italian," but who would on this account pretend that Piedmont is a French province? There is really nothing strange in the fact that the P

SMOOTHED

he could continue to navigate freely; in the fifteenth century she had three hundred ships that were seen in all parts of the Mediterranean and even in England. She had been wont to pay five hundred ducats a year to the Kings of Hungary, and now and then, when it was opportune, she sent this tribute to the Austrian Archdukes, the rightful heirs of Hungary. To the captain of the Gulf of Venice she dispatched every year a piece of plate, to the King of the Two Sicilies she presented a dozen falcons, with a very respectful letter, and the Pope, who was not forgotten, o

cient of it in their own immediate territory, the Senate made a regulation that each vessel which came back after a voyage of four years must bring a cargo of salt. This was Dubrovnik's chief source of revenue until the end of her independence in 1808, and efforts that were made by others to break down this monopoly led to bitter conflicts. With regard to the goods which they carried home with them from the Balkans, these comprised cattle and cheese, dried fish from the Lake of Scutari, hides of the wolf a

ERCIAL E

e Stradone, amounted to a hundred million ducats, they were able to give very little news of the more distant Southern Slavs. The Serbs had not forgotten that brothers of theirs were living in the north-west. If in the days of the Turkish oppress

NSMEN AND THE M

1527, had sworn to respect the ancient rights and traditions of the realm, his heirs favoured more and more a policy of centralization; and in 1578, taking advantage of a serious agrarian conflict between nobles and peasants in C

children received no lands. Alexander Severus, who introduced this arrangement, used to say that a man would fight better if at the same time he were defending his own hearth. Under Diocletian the "miles castellani" o

bitants. Venice attempted to colonize the desert places with Italian farmers, but having failed on account of malaria and the lack of water, she called in a more vigorous element, the Slav from Dalmatia and Bosnia. Meanwhile the towns, in which were the descendants of those who had come from Italy in the days of the Roman Empire, fell more profoundly into decay. Those western towns looked on the Slav with disdain, they would not mingle with the rural population; but as these were much more active and were often strengthened by fresh immigrants, one thought that they would gradually swamp the more effete men of the towns. And, on the other hand, the

he Turks were quite as ready to bind themselves in this fashion. There is, for example, the treaty which settles what travelling expenses the Venetians are to pay to the emissary of the Pasha of Travnik on his way to Zadar, how much velvet, how many loaves of sugar and how many pots of theriac must be provided for each member of his entourage;

E OVERLORDS O

ered the conspirators were executed in 1671 at Wiener Neustadt. In the spring of 1919, when the bones of these two patriots were brought back to Croatia and buried after a series of imposing and most moving ceremonies, Austria was in such a state of hunger that she waived her good taste and received what she had exacted for the bones, namely, five hundred trucks of meat and potatoes. After the battle of Vienna in 1683 both Serbs and Bulgars rose, for it seemed to many hopeful people that the Turk was on the point of dissolution. There was an outbreak in the Bulgarian mountain village of ?iprovtsi, but this was suffocated with such ferocity that for more than a hundred years the Bulgar would not make another effort. The spirit of the Slav appeared to have gone out of him. Wars that we

RATION UNDER

almost every Serbian house, be it private house or Government building. These refugees settled in Syrmia, Slavonia, the Banat and Ba?ka, and received from the Emperor certain rights, such as that of electing their voivoda (duke), of owning land, a

are two European families, while the soil of Djakovica is still clean."[31] The life which these people led was one of misery-tribute in some form or other had to be given to an Albanian bravo, who made himself that family's protector, and, in spite of that, the holding of any property, house or land or chattels, seems to have depended on Albanian caprice, and the physical state of the Serbs was wretched, through lack of nourishment and disease. Various efforts had been made to render the land more endurable for those who were not Muhammedan Alba

t this exodus was to be of a temporary character, but in 1690 the Imperialists had to continue their retreat, taking with them across the Save and the Danube not only the Serbs who had, like Arsenius, sought refuge in Serbia, but a far more numerous body whose domicile had always been Serbia itself. What tells against the theory of the 30,000 families from Pe? and Old Serbia is the fact that the Turkish troops followed so closely on the heels of the Austrians that the Patriarch and his clergy had great trouble in escaping themselves, and in addition to the Turk there was the difficulty of those mountain roads in the middle of winter. Thus it seems likely that most of the Serbian population of what is called Old Serbia remained there. The previous historians, who say that such a vast number followed the Patriarch and his priests, have based themselves, it appears, on the notes and chronicles of those priests. And the people, deprived of the guidance of their priests-who were then th

ver to Islam. The small, untidy village of Virpazar, by the Lake of Scutari, has got a certain fame, because the chosen men who were to purge the country of this evil started out from there on Christmas Eve in 1703. Those who participated in the "Montenegrin Vespers" were not likely to forget the incidents of that impressive ceremony. The Bishop celebrated Mass, and from the consecrated tapers in his hand the people lit their own. Every man was armed. They knelt-their tapers hardly trembling-and they kissed the sacred image which the Bishop held. Then he blessed their weapons and they sallied

together with the Muhammedan Albanians, they have assumed the Albanian type and become the most savage foes of the Orthodox religion and of the people from which they are sprung. The popular saying," he adds, "is right which asserts that: 'A Christian become a Turk is worse than a real Turk.'" Of course, in order to make it appear that he was a real Albanian, there was always a tendency for an

nd various magnificent red and white buildings which look like so many Government offices but are, in fact, devoted to Church affairs, the training of theological students and so forth. Their Patriarchate at Karlovci appeared to the Serbs as the rock of their nationality outside Serbia. The Constitution granted to them did not make them precisely a State within a State, but at least it set up a political-religious unity-for the privileges included those of having a chief, the voivoda, and of having a certain territory with autonomous internal organization and exemption from all taxes. Here the Serbs, forming a separate and distinct group, with their own re

SOUTHERN SLAVS U

i., making use of very chosen phrases, insists on the merits of the Serbs and confirms their privileges. And until the Treaty of Pojarevac these privileges are maintained immune. This treaty came at the conclusion of the 1716-1718 war against the Turks; it put the Banat in the hands of Austria, who made it a Crown-land, with military government and autonomous administration. From this time onward the country, which had had an exclusively Ser

reas the Magyars did not do so until 1733. Consequently, if the Emperor had died between these two dates Croatia would have been separated completely from Hungary. Maria Theresa would have become Queen of Croatia, but the Magyars would not have been obliged to place themselves under her. The Croats on this occasion declared that the crown of Croatia was to pass to that member of the House of Habsburg who should reign not only in Austria but

ncil, confided its functions to the Hungarian Government, and, on the same occasion, in 1779, proclaimed the town of Rieka (Fiume), with its surroundings, to be "separatum sacr? regni Hungari? coron? adnexum corpus." Rieka, like Triest, had been a free town under the Habsburgs, the reason being that they were th

ION OF TH

follow him attached themselves to the Serbian Church, and after a considerable time were given by Joseph II. in 1786 a Roumanian bishopric, at Sibiu. This bishopric was placed under the administration of the Serbian Patriarch at Karlovci "in dogmaticis et pure spiritualibus," which seems to show that the other privileges of the Serbian Church did not extend to the Roumanians. The Serbs h

THE BULGARI

ionless description of the diocese, which he wrote in exile-he was the last Patriarch of Pe?-that the inhabitants of a place called Rekalije, in the district of Djakovica, are not Albanians but Serbs and Bulgars who had been, a short time before, converted to Islam. It seems probable that the sharp divisions of Serb, Bulgar, and so on, did not then exist, and that the Greek Patriarch at Constantinople did himself not know what variety of reprehensible Slav it was that lived in those parts.... The last Patriarch of Ochrida, whose name was likewise Arsenius, spent the remainder of his life in exile at Mt. Athos, and there, in another monastery, was a pale, sickly monk, poring over crabbed MSS. This Pa?ssu, a Bulgar, had entered, like his elder brother, the great Serbian monastery of Hilendar. We know from him that while the various Orthodox monks of Mt. Athos-Greeks, Bulgars, Russians, Serbs and Vlachs-were frequently at loggerheads, yet the others even more frequently combined to fall upon the Bulgars and to upbraid them because their history had not been glorious and because they had an insufficient number of saints. The Bulgar was nothing but a servant of the Greek; Bulgarian was no doubt written in a monastery here and there, but as for the spoken language, were not the townsfolk often ashamed of it? Did they not prefer to tal

rossed the Danube and fought with great courage. Yet the Austrians were beaten and Kot?a was captured, by treachery, in the Banat; he was brought back to Serbia and impaled with sixty of his comra

COLONISTS I

mulberry trees in the middle of the place-the tale of all this is told in as deliciously matter-of-fact a manner as Robinson Crusoe. The picturesque, as in that book, startles us now and then, with a vivid scene-until 1848, we are told, at the arrival of a staff-officer or of a general, every bell in the place had to be set ringing and gunpowder had to be fired off. One finds oneself revelling in the minuteness of the descriptions, one follows happily or sadly the fortunes of Ruppenthal and Kopp and Morgenstern. Everything is true, for the compilers of the book have felt, like Defoe, that "this supplying a story by invention is certainly a most scandalous crime." We are given all the names of those who at the beginning occupied the ninety-nine houses-the hundredth being used as an inn-with their place of origin, the numbers of their male and female dependants, and by what means they had hitherto earned their bread. Many houses have been added since that time. Among all the Germans, house No. 79 was occupied by George Siráky, a Hungarian who had been a peasant. Ten years afterwards another list is made and Siráky still disposes of the same twenty-four "yoke"[35] of plough-land, ten of meadow and one of garden, which he had originally been given, whereas some of the others had increased or diminished their holdings. Then we lose sight of him, and his name does not become one of those which reappears in succeeding generations. Of course, the colony was established on a military basis; an officer, usually a lieutenant, with one or more non-commissioned officers, was stationed there, as the representative of a commandant who presided over several villages. The resident officer was supposed to maintain law and order, to see to it that the people sowed their land at the right season, and to inform the commandant of any delinquency, for the lieutenant was not allowed to punish anyone. As one or more of the able-bodied men belonging to a house might be absent for a long time on military service or in captivity, or else through sickness or wounds be unfit to work, and through lack of means the householder not be in a position to hire day-labourers, in that case his fellow-villagers, one after another, were obliged to assist him without payment. In order that all possible respect should be attached to the chief man and woman of a house-the house-father and house-mother-these were not liable to punishment for small offences, and if a considerable offence made it necessary to punish them, then they were first of all deposed from their position. Various public posts were filled by the house-fathers or other men, and for refusing to accept such a post a man was commonly arrested; but this punishment, as well as that of so many strokes with a ca

AV COLONISTS AN

aling with Protestant Slovaks or with Protestant Germans-that the language of the ruling race should be employed. This comparative toleration was, of course, tempered by exceptions. Thus in the very Catholic city of Pe?uj

companion of an elderly Viennese. He told me how he had lately impressed upon the mother of his illegitimate son that the boy must receive a thoroughly Catholic education, and in every place this gentleman made his patronage of an hotel dependent on the proprietor's religion, which he frequen

?OKCI AN

ctoria, were arrayed in the local costume, which permits great variety of colour so long as the lady wears, I am told, about fifteen petticoats. These worthy people used to have nothing but their Church, and are now extremely religious. The man who has most influence over them is Bla?ko Raji?, a priest and deputy, who was not always able to prevent a Hungarian Archbishop from sending a priest to his church, where he held services in Magyar. During one night, at all events, this church caused the Magyars much annoyance. It was at the beginning of the Great War-they had accused Raji? of making signals from the tower, which is very high; and in order to prove their accusation they sent a large body of soldiers, who surrounded the church, on a boisterous winter's night. Sure enough, the signals were seen to be flashing up there. The church was locked and a blast of the bugles had no effect-save that a few Bunjevci looked out of their windows-for the flashes did not cease. Then the captain commanded his men to give a mighty shout: "Put out those lights! Put out those lights!" But not the least notice was taken. There was nothing to do but to wait until Raji?, or whoever it was, should finish his nefarious business and come down. About an hour later, though, the wind became so piercing that a non-commissioned officer suggested that the captain should send for the big drum; the noise of that, said he, would surely reach that devil in the tower. But the big drum, when it came, had no success. The noise it made, reinforced by those of the bugles and the men's shouting, was such that some B

ereas the Orthodox join the tips of the thumb and first two fingers. The ?okci are considered a weaker people than the Bunjevci; the mothers-they say it is love-are often so weak that they allow their children to do anything they like at home, and would not think of remonstrating with them if they wear their caps in church. Among the ?okci none is of a higher than the peasant class, for which reason their priests have usually been Magyars. He who ministers to the village of Szalánta, however, is a Croatian poet. The mayor of that village-I believe a typical specimen of the ?okci-was a

ey also were converted by Maria Theresa, in whose time they fled from Montenegro, Macedonia and the Bulgarian frontier. Gradually they

chosen by 150,000 Southern Slavs when they preferred, in 1768, to go into exile rather than change their religion, like the

This movement may be studied from the close of the eighteenth century in Croatia, where Latin had hitherto been the official

TNO

Yougo-Slav, by Vouk P

their names were nearly always Slav. Those Romans-of course not implying by that word that their forbears had come from Rome or even from Italy-those refugees who took to the mountains mingled with the Slavs and were also joined by wandering shepherds from Wallachia, owing to whom all this variegated population came to be called Black Vlachs, Mauro-Vlachs and in English Morlaks. The epithet "black" was attached to the Vlachs, so Jire?ek thinks (cf. Bulletino di Archeologia Dalmata, Split, 1879), on account of the hordes of Black Tartars who until the beginning of the four

Du?an at his coronation had raised to the Pat

erals. (The women, who can count up to 100, use the Bulgarian language.) The Pomaks live for the most part in the Rhodope Mountains and in the Lovac district of northern Bulgaria. They are endowed, as a rule, with meagre intelligence, so that the educational endeavours of the Bulga

ss the Parliament, the mayor his fellow-citizens, the priest his parishioners, th

s jelenje, 2 vols., by Fr

ischen Literatur

Slave, by Charles L

mazia. Flor

es to his knees. On the other hand, it seems to be established that he was an ordinary inmate of the prison, whose site is now occupied by the Café Astoria; and one's faith in the accuracy of the Eger Museum is rath

donia. Lo

regret that in her book High Albania (London, 1909) she did not confine herself to recording of the men of Prizren that "of one thing the population is determined: that is, that never again shall the land be Serb"; but she adds, on her own account, that in this picturesque town and its neighbourhood the Serbs are engaged in a forlorn hope and that their claims

ille-Serbie et dans le Sandj

nd there his collection of books, in the two rooms just as he left them, was naturall

r Franzfelder Geme

nch metrical system this measurement was used in Austria. It still survives there, a "joch" or yoke being equiva