The following melancholy song expresses the general hatred against the Pole, the oppressor, in a manner not less strong. Haidamack is another name for the Ruthenian peasant under[pg.362] Polish dominion, and was formerly, as well as Burlak, also applied to the Malo-Russian Kozaks in general.
We finish with a few Ruthenian ballads, having no political reference. The first is interesting as illustrating a peculiar popular superstition. The Leshes are a kind of Satyrs; covered like them with hair, and of a very malicious nature. They steal[pg.363] children and young women. Their presence has a certain benumbing influence; a person whom they visit cannot move or stir; although, in the case of our ballad, we have some suspicion that "the brandy, the wine, and the mead," had some preparatory influence.
The second exhibits the whole plaintive, yielding mood of a Russian loving maid; and may be considered as a characteristic specimen.
THE LOVE-SICK GIRL.[364]
The following little elegy, heard and written down in Galicia, we have always considered as one of the gems of poetry. It is a sigh of deep, mourning, everlasting love.
Of still greater importance in respect to our subject are the SERVIANS. We have seen already in this work, that the inhabitants of the Turkish provinces of Servia and Bosnia, of [pg.367] Montenegro, of the Austrian kingdom of Slavonia, of Dalmatia and Military Croatia, speak essentially the same language; which is likewise the vernacular dialect of numerous Servian settlements in Hungary, along the south-western shore of the Danube. Of this language, which has been alternately called Illyrian, Servian, Morlachian, Bosnian, Croatian, Rascian, and perhaps by still other different appellations, it may be truly said, that it has more names than dialects; and even the few of these latter differ so slightly, that the difference would scarcely be perceived by a foreigner. It is also true, that, on account of the various systems of writing which have been adopted by the different sections of this race, the foreigner will sometimes find it more difficult to understand the language as written than as spoken.
The inexhaustible mine of Servian popular poetry belongs then to the whole nation; although, of course, neither the productiveness is every where the same, nor the power and opportunity of preservation. For its favourite home we must look to those regions where modern civilization has least penetrated; viz. to Turkish Servia, Bosnia, Montenegro. There also the vernacular language is spoken with the greatest purity.
An intelligent Italian traveller, Abbate Fortis, published about a hundred years ago an interesting description of the Morlachians, that is, the Croatian Servian inhabitants of Dalmatia, a tribe distinguished by wild passions and proud contempt of civil life; but full of poetical feeling, and much attached to old usages and the recollections of their ancestors. He printed for the first time some of their beautiful ancient ballads; but although they were much admired in the German versions which Herder and Goethe gave of them (through the French), the region of their birth remained a terra incognita. To a few literati only it was known, that many of these ballads, although in a spurious shape, had been collected by the Franciscan monk, Andreas Cacich Miossich; and also that a great many fragments[pg.368] of remarkable popular heroic songs were scattered, as illustrations, through the Croatian and Dalmatian dictionaries of Bellosztenecz, Jambressich, and Delia Bella. It was known, too, but only by a few, that even ancient Servian historians referred to similar songs.
Vuk Stephanovitch Karadshitch must therefore be called the true discoverer of this mine of beauty; and the judiciousness, patience, and conscientious honesty, with which his collection was got up, deserves the highest praise. Many of the remarkable songs first communicated to the literary public were the reminiscences of his own youth; for he was born and brought up in Turkish Servia. Many more he was only able to find after years of careful and indefatigable research. His large collection—four volumes with at least five or six hundred pieces of poetry—was formed upon the principle, that no piece should be admitted, for the genuineness of which he could not be personally responsible, by having himself heard it from one of the people. Nearly the third part of these poems consists of epic tales; some of them from five to seven hundred verses long; one, more than twelve hundred.
The poetry of the Servians is most intimately interwoven with their daily life. It is the picture of their thoughts, feelings, actions, and sufferings; it is the mental reproduction of the respective conditions of the mass of individuals, who compose the nation. The hall where the women sit spinning around the fireside; the mountains on which the boys pasture their flocks; the square where the village youth assemble to dance the kolo,[366] the plains where the harvest is reaped; the forests through which the lonely traveller journeys,—all resound with song. Song accompanies all kinds of business, and frequently relates to it. The Servian lives his poetry.[pg.369]
The Servians are accustomed to divide their songs into two great portions. Short compositions in various measures, either lyric or epic, and sung without instrumental accompaniment, they call shenske pjesme, or female songs, because they are mostly made by females. The other portion, consisting of long epic tales in verses of five regular trochaic feet, and chanted to the Guslé, a kind of simple violin with one chord, they called Yunatchke pjesme, that is, heroic or young men's songs; for it is an interesting fact, that the ideas of a young man and of a hero, are expressed in Servian by one and the same word, Yunak. The first are, in a very high degree, of a domestic character. They accompany us through all the different relations of domestic life; as well through its daily occupations, as through the holidays and festivals which interrupt its ordinary course. Much has been said, and more could be said, in praise of these harmonious effusions of a tender, fresh, and unsophisticated feeling; but, as we have already dwelt at large upon their general character, we must be satisfied here with adding only that which distinguishes Servian lays from other Slavic songs.
And this distinction we find principally in the cheerfulness, which is the fundamental element of Servian poetry,—a serenity clear and transparent like the bright blue of a southern sky. The allusions to the misfortunes of married life alone, gather sometimes in heavy clouds on this beautiful sky. The fear of being chained to an old man, or of a grim mother-in-law, or the quarrelling of the sisters-in-law, or the increasing cares of the household,—for, in the true patriarchal style, married sons remain in the house of the parents, and all make together only one family,—all these circumstances disturb sometimes the inexhaustible serenity of the Servian women, and call forth gentle lamentations, or perhaps still oftener horrible imprecations, from their humble breasts. Indeed the songs not made for particular[pg.370] occasions also bear strongly and distinctly the stamp of domestic life, and are fall of allusions to family relations.
A spirit of graceful roguery is very prevalent among Servian girls. Their social spinning meetings are especially productive of little witty ballads, in which men and women are represented as disputing, and the former, of course, are always outwitted; just as is the case in numerous English and German popular ballads. But love is also among them the grand and prevailing theme. To judge from these songs, Servian girls and youths keep up a frequent and tender intercourse with each other. The youth bears carefully in memory the hour when the girls go to fetch water; and the frequent festivities, where the dance is not permitted to fail, give the best opportunity for mutual intercourse. Further to the south, and between the mountains, the customs are more strict, and love-songs are less frequent.
Among the ancient songs, recited on certain stated occasions, the wedding songs, adapted to all the various ceremonies of Slavic marriage, are the most remarkable. And here we meet again with one of those various contradictions of the mental world, which puzzle philosophy. While all the symbolic ceremonies are strongly indicative of the shameful state of servitude and humiliation, to which the institution of marriage subjects the Slavic woman[367] (for Slavic maidens are in a certain measure free and happy, and, if beautiful and industrious, even honoured and sought after;) the songs, the mental reproductions of these coarse, rough, humiliating acts, are delicate, sprightly, and almost gallant. There are various indications, that, like the Russian[pg.371] songs of this description, which they strongly resemble, they are derived from a very early period. Like them they have no allusion to church ceremonies.[368]
The feeling expressed in their love-songs is in general gentle and often playful, indicating more of tenderness than of passion. If, however, they are excited to anger, their hatred becomes rage; and is poured forth in imprecations, of which no other language has a like multitude. But these imprecations are not stereotype, as is the case with most other nations. They are composed often, with astonishing ingenuity, by the offended persons themselves. Sometimes we see curses invoked upon the satisfying of the common wants of life. Thus when the lad curses his faithless love: "As much bread as she eats, so much pain may she suffer! as much water as she drinks, so many tears may she shed!"
We subjoin a few of these Servian ballads as specimens, just as they happen to come to hand.
RENDEZVOUS.