The History of Yugoslavia. Henry Baerlein
It was hinted by some other opponents of Vuk that he might well be an Austrian agent, who, in order to disturb the people, was now raising questions of a most contentious nature, which had previously not been thought of. But when the great philologist died in 1861 in Vienna he had long been recognized as one of the most ardent patriots. His three volumes of national songs excited the enthusiasm of Jacob Grimm, who rushed off to learn this new language, and with essays and letters to reveal it to Goethe. Translators, commentators, expounders and editors flocked from all sides, and Vuk was regarded as Serbia incarnate.
THE METHODS OF SERBIA'S MILOŠ
One naturally judges a country of which one is ignorant by the little which one knows about the private life of its ruler. And it was fortunate for Serbia's reputation that Prince Miloš had a Vuk to throw a shadow over him. Kara George had been a hero, Miloš called himself a statesman. Anyhow, he walked in crooked paths, although the murders that he was accused of are now said to be not proven—with the exception of Archbishop Nikčić, one of his critics, and another prominent man whom he requested the Pasha to have strangled. Kara George—one finds in many books—was done away with when he came back to renew the fight against the Turks; most people say that Miloš, his arch-rival, had him murdered in his sleep. All that one knows for certain is that the assassin was a man in the employ of one of Miloš's prefects. As for Miloš sending the head to the Sultan, it is pointed out that as the Sultan's vassal he could not do otherwise. But the stories of his wife, the strong-minded Princess Liubica, are acknowledged to be true—how she would cry out to the warriors, if they seemed to waver, that they were but women, and how this induced them to attack again; how she would cook her husband's meals and wait on him; how when she discovered that any other lady had found favour in the Prince's sight she slew her, and retired into the mountains until her husband was appeased or had discovered a new lady. The court etiquette of that period was under the baneful influence of Turkey. Miloš used to live in Turkish houses—some of them are extant to this day—he gave audience as a Turkish pasha, seated amid cushions on the floor, his room was hung with captured Turkish flags, and on his head he wore a turban. It was often rumoured that when he had gained sufficient money he would not continue to forbid the working of the Serbian salt-mines, lest the profits of his own mines in Roumania should diminish; and it is not creditable that he should have made his subjects pay their contributions to the Turkish Tribute in the currency of Austria, while he would forward it in Turkish currency—of course less valuable—and keep the difference. He also tried to monopolize the swine trade, the most lucrative in the country; he seized whatever he coveted—lands, mills and houses—and even burned down a part of Belgrade in order to build a new Custom-House, whose takings would flow into his pocket. "Am I not the chief," he said, "the Gospodar, and shall I not do what I like with my own?" But he was a real Prince. After the Peace of Adrianople in 1829 an edict was issued by the Sultan, which recognized Serbia as an independent principality, with Miloš as hereditary prince. He organized a standing army and built roads and schools and churches. He abolished, in 1833, the old Turkish system of land-tenure and introduced that peasant proprietorship which causes the Serbs, down to this day, to go into battle in defence of their own lands. In 1836 he offered the bishopric of Šabac to the famous Bulgarian monk, Neophyte Rilski, who wrote the first Bulgarian grammar and translated the New Testament, of which the first edition was burned by the Greek Church at Constantinople, while the second edition sold to the then enormous extent of 30,000 copies. The modest monk, who was born in 1793 and died in 1881, preferred the life of a student and teacher;[39] he therefore declined an offer which was so creditable to him who made it. … Yet in spite of Miloš's great services to his country he had his detractors. It was one of them, perhaps, who painted the portrait that one usually sees of him—an incongruous portrait, because the uniform is most correct—he is holding in his hand the Serbian military headgear, not a turban—but the face, with its serpent-like moustaches, high cheek-bones and black eyes, looks more like that of a Tartar than anything else. Those who did not care for Miloš said that it was barbarism not to let the laws be put in writing; but to this he never would consent. In 1835 he announced in the official Gazette (Novine Srpski) that he was the "only master"; he set about gaining for his country the interest of foreign Powers. England, which in 1837 sent Colonel Hodges as her agent to Belgrade, was for having Serbia placed under the protection of the Great Powers. Constitutional England was backing Miloš and his despotism, while, on the other hand, Russia and Turkey came out, to their own surprise, as champions of a constitution. They demanded that the power of Miloš should be limited by something which they euphemistically called "an organic regulation." Finally, there was imposed on him a Senate consisting of members appointed for life, but when this body asked him to account for the manner in which he had spent the public funds the Prince found that he could not allow himself to be so hampered and, in 1839, he abdicated. ("If," he once said, "if Charles X. of France had understood how to govern as I myself did in Serbia, he would never have lost his throne.") Vutčić, his arch-enemy, flung a stone after him into the Save. "You will not return," he cried, "until a stone can float on these waters!" "I shall die as Serbia's ruler!" shouted Miloš. (And when he ultimately did come back Vutčić was cast into prison, where he died mysteriously—Miloš refusing the Turks permission to examine the body.)
THE SLAV SOUL OF CROATIA
His democracy, in spite of his agrarian reforms, was very far from that of Vuk, and far from that of a young noble of Croatia, Ljudevit Gaj, who one evening in the drawing-room of Count Drašković—the same Count Drašković who wrote in German, for such was the spirit of the time, his Exhortation to Croatian Maidens that they should be truly Croatian—well, in this gentleman's house at Zagreb Ljudevit Gaj recites some verses he has written for a dowager. They are in Slav. The audience is inclined to be amused. Of course they know something of the language because, like Anastasius Grün in the Slovene country, they talk it to the servants. But among themselves in Croatia the upper classes prefer to use Latin. There is no doubt, as Count Louis Voinović, a Yugoslav poet, has said, that this pursuit of Latin brought into the Slav world much that is indispensable in modern thought. It created among them an atmosphere of social courtesy, which, according to Saint Francis of Assisi, is the sister of Charity. It has humanized the Slav world and furnished it thus with formidable weapons. But, on the other hand, it cast a veil over the differences between the nations and caused people to be blind to their own national genius. The Croat nobility, with few exceptions, were at this time so much in harmony with the Magyar magnates, so anxious to prevent their peasants from hearing the Marseillaise, that they would, if need be, learn the Magyar language. But to use Slav in a drawing-room! This was a new idea. They smiled good-naturedly; but Gaj, with some other young men, some priests and some savants, founded a literary brotherhood that was to become famous under the name of "Danica." Famous also is an image he conceived. "The Southern Slavs," said he, in his programme of 1836, "are as a triangular lyre whose extremities are at Scutari, Villach and Varna." He said there was a time when the strings of this lyre resounded with harmonious sounds, but that the winds in their fury have torn them. Styria, Carinthia, Carniola, Croatia, Slavonia, Montenegro, Herzegovina, Serbia, Bulgaria and Southern Hungary are these broken strings, which it is necessary to repair. Let the people in these lands, he said, forget their religious differences and remember that they are the children of one mother. Let them write the same language. Gaj thus aimed at bringing Vuk's reforms to bear upon the Latin characters with which the Serbo-Croat language is written in Croatia. Before his party was victorious it had to vanquish most determined opposition. Pamphlet was hurled against pamphlet, grammar against grammar, Gaj and his men had to overcome not only those who were the guardians of tradition, but all those who thought it natural and proper that in syntax there should be some difference between the Croat and the Serb. Yet now the philologists are out and the poets; their business takes them between the legs of the Great Powers, where they sometimes come to grief, but they are striking all those fetters from their nation. Peter Preradović is born in the Military Frontier and he dies an Austrian General. At the beginning of his distinguished career he could speak nothing but German, and it was in emotional German poetry that he first expressed himself. But afterwards, carried away by the new winds that were cleansing the Croat language and sweeping from it the reproach of being a mere jargon for the servants,