dr MILOŠ KOVIĆ,
mkovic13@gmail.com
SUMMARY: For more than six hundred years, Serbs have been singing songs and telling tales about the battle at Kosovo Polje. The search for the truth about the Kosovo tragedy and its deeper meaning began almost the day after the two armies left the field of battle. Unusually durable and vital, the stories of the battle of Kosovo have, by changing their shape through cults and prayers, heroic poems, literature and art, scientific research, and political slogans, for centuries inspired people in making fateful decisions. They have also been called the Kosovo Covenant, the Kosovo Cult, the Kosovo Commitment, the Kosovo Myth, the Kosovo Legend, Vidovdan (St. Vitus Day) Idea, Vidovdan Cult, Vidovdan Ethics.
What is the secret of durability of Kosovo lore? What and how much influence does it have on the Serbs’ national consciousness? Thus posed questions do not require hasty answers. Let us, therefore, map out the routes and set signposts for future research.
KEY WORDS: Battle of Kosovo, 1389, lore, Serbian national identity, Kosovo Covenant, epic poems, science and politics
“SACRED SOURCES” AND “COVENANTAL NATIONS”
The works of Anthony Smith (1939–2016), one of the most prominent theorists of nation, national identity and nationalism, offer a useful theoretical model for researching these questions [1]. Smith’s works were created in constant dialogue with modernist theories, according to which the nation is a modern phenomenon created in the 18th or 19th century, with primordialist interpretations, for which nations are as old as human history itself, as well as with the neoperennialist school, which finds nations in the Middle Ages and the early modern age [Smith 2003; Smith 2008:1–27; Smith 2009: 3–21].
Anthony Smith called his approach ethnosymbolism. Unlike modernistically oriented researchers, he did not seek the most important answers in the domain of politics, the economy and the state, but rather in the domain of religion and culture. According to his interpretations, the key factors in the creation of nations are stories, memories, myths, and symbols. Their origin is, most often, pre-modern or even very ancient, which is why there can be no talk of the creation of nations “out of nothing,” and only in the modern age. He found these sacred sources or sacred foundations, symbolic resources with pre-modern ethnies, but also with modern nations [Smith 1998: 37–114; Smith 2009: 23–40].
However, writing about pre-modern, even ancient epochs, Anthony Smith also used the term nations. It was, thus, rightly noted that he could be counted among neoperennialists [Bakić 2006: 242–244]. Smith found the first nations among the Old Testament Jews and in ancient Egypt, as well as in Armenia in late antiquity. He did not dispute the neoperennialists’ conclusions about the existence of national consciousness at the time of the Hundred Years’ War between the English and the French, in the 14th and 15th century, or with the Czechs during the Hussite Wars in the 15th century. In his opinion, the true beginnings of nations should, nevertheless, be sought in the 16th century, in the Reformation period [Smith 2008: 16, 93, 109, 114–130; Smith 2003: 44–130; Smith 2009: 41–59; Smith 1996: 21–125].
It is important for the theme of this paper to mention that Anthony Smith accepted the opinion of modernist Eric Hobsbawm, according to whom there was noticeable “proto-nationalism” among pre-modern Serbs and Russians, and that in England, in the Tudor period, “something close to modern patriotism” can be found [Smith 2008: 108]. Hobsbawm claims that Serbs are a good example of a “proto-nation” “because the memory of the old kingdom defeated by the Turks was preserved in song and heroic story, and, perhaps more to the point, in the daily liturgy of the Serbian church which had canonized most of its kings” [Hobsbawm 1996: 86].
It was exactly in the lap of religion that, according to Anthony Smith, the pre-modern “sacred sources” of national identity were created. Religion turned “ethnies” into “sacred communities“ [Smith 2003: 25, 33]. “Sacred sources” will also represent the foundation on which nations and national ideologies would be built in the modern age. Smith explains the resilience of “sacred sources” by their religious origin. The deeper and more stable they are, the more durable an ethnie and a nation are. The most important among them are the myths of ‘ancestry’, ‘election’, ‘golden age’,‘holy land’, and the ‘glorious dead’ [Smith 2003: VII–X, 9–43; Smith 2008: 39–46; Smith 2009: 90–99].
The myth of ancerstry is very often tied to the moment of theophany, the birth of a saint or hero, acceptance of a new cult or faith, like in the case of Tiridates III in Armenia, Chlodovech I in the Frankish Kingdom, or St. Vladimir in Russia. This myth can be altered and adapted to new needs, like, for example, in the case of the French storming of the Bastille prison on July 14, 1789 [Smith 2008: 40–41; Smith 2009: 91–92].
[1] Over the course of his academic career spanning almost half a century, Anthony Smith occasionally changed his standpoints. These are mainly his final works: A. D. Smith, Ethno-symbolism and Nationalism: A Cultural Approach, London and New York 2009; A. D. Smith, The Cultural Foundations of Nationalism: Hierarchy, Covenant and Republic, Oxford 2008; A. D. Smith, Chosen Peoples: Sacred Sources of National Identity, Oxford 2003; A. D. Smith, Myths and Memories of the Nation, Oxford 1999.
What is particularly important, however, is Smith’s understanding of chosen peoples who can be divided into covenantal and missionary nations. The self-awareness of pre-modern peoples, but also of present-day nations is, Smith notes, frequently tied to the belief in the quality of being “chosen”. The belief of the special grace of God and the community’s covenantal relationship with God was among Christian peoples based on modeling after the Old Testament, especially the Pentateuch, the Books of the Maccabees, Prophets, and the Psalms. Where historical sources frequently cite Moses, the Exodus, the Mosaic covenant, arrival in the Promised Land, or the Books of the Maccabees, careful separation of literary conventions of the epoch from traces that could lead to the actual presence of awareness of “chosenness” is needed – on a case-by-case basis. At the same time, a Covenant entails not only the grace of God and care for the “chosen people”, but also the punishment that will befall that people should it violate the covenant. The aim is to preserve the covenant, cults and customs and thereby become, as Smith points out, according to the Second Book of Moses, “a kingdom of priests, and a holy nation” [Smith 2008: 107–134; Smith 2003: 44–130][2] .
Covenantal peoples strive to keep the covenant and the grace of God by setting themselves apart and refusing to be assimilated by other religions. That is especially evident in periods of defeat, loss of state, independence, and emigration. An example are Jews, with whom the bearer of the covenant are the people, Armenians, for whom the church is “New Israel,” and Ethiopians, with whom the bearer of the covenant is the ruling dynasty [Smith 2003: 44–94; Smith 2008: 76–80].
Missionary peoples aim to spread their cults and stories. Among the peoples who see themselves as an “instrument” in spreading God’s will, Smith mentions, among others, the English, Scots, the French, Russians, American colonists, and Arabs. Present-day West continues that missionary work in the name of, at least superficially, secularized goals [Smith 2008: 95–130[3] .
In his book The Cultural Foundations of Nations, Smith would divide nations into hierarchical nations, which find their role models in Middle Eastern states and the Roman Empire, covenantal nations, which model themselves after the Old Testament Jews, and republican nations, whose role models are the Greek poleis and the republican Rome. While hierarchical nations would include medieval monarchies in England, Russia, France, or Scotland, republican nations were created in the French and American revolutions. Covenantal nations are, besides Jews, Armenians and Ethiopians, from the period of Reformation also the English, the Dutch, the Swiss, American colonists, and Russians. To be “covenantal”, it is important that a nation has holy scripture in the language of the ethnie or nation, and in the Christian West of Europe, unlike – as Smith notes – the Orthodox East, that would be possible only as of the Reformation period. The teachings of Calvin and Zwingli already contained faith in being “chosen” and “covenantal”. It was fortified by the experience of persecution and exodus during the religious wars of the 16th and 17th century and expanded from individuals to communities of believers. Protestantism, in Smith’s opinion, became the key mainstay of English and Dutch nationalism thanks to Cromwell’s puritan, and the Dutch revolution. In both cases, the rebels identified with “new Israel”, whereas they saw their enemies as the forces of the Egyptian pharaoh [Smith 2008: 122–130; Smith 2003: 115–123]. The identity of most nations, however, has throughout history remained a palimpsest of hierarchical, covenantal, and republican layers. “Covenantal nations,” for example, most often accept egalitarian political and social ideals and can easily transform into “republican nations” [Smith 2008: 76–159].
Ethnies and nations remember the second most important “sacred source” of national identity, “the golden age,” as the time of greatest glory and heroism, religious restoration, and great political and artistic achievements. Commemorated in epic poetry, history or art, it serves subsequent generations as a moral, political and artistic source. Violation of norms established during “the golden age” can even lead to a curse on and doom of the community. The origin of myths about “the golden age” is pre-modern, as shown by the lore of the ancient Greeks about the Homeric age, of the Romans about the time of the republic and the Punic Wars, or of the Jews about the age of Moses and David [Smith 1996: 21–125]. They, however, are still important today. The Greeks’ hesitation in picking their ”golden age” between Antiquity and Byzantine times shows that nations can choose different “golden ages” and that the choice, like in the myth of ancestry, often depends on current political considerations [Smith 2008: 160–183].
The ”holy land” is the one where saints, prophets, sages, and heroes lived and died. What makes it especially sacred are their relics and tombs. It is, very often, the stage of great battles and it is believed that it was made sacred by the blood and graveyards of the heroes that fell on it in the struggle for faith and the fatherland. The “holy land” remains an inspiration to leaders, prophets and artists for centuries. For the Jews, it was Canaan, which the covenants of Abraham and Moses promised them. For the puritans, exiled from England, the shores of North America and its wilderness became the “promised land” and “new Jerusalem,” where they built their “City upon a Hill”. For centuries, the Irish believed their island to be insula sacra. For the Swiss, it was Rutli, a meadow on the bank of Lake Lucerne, the stage of the oath in 1291, as are the venues of their battles with the Habsburgs from the 14th century and, in particular, the landscapes of the Swiss Alps [Smith 2008: 42–43; Smith 2003: 131–165; Smith 2009: 94–95].
The “glorious dead” is, according to Anthony Smith, the “sacred source” with possibly the greatest strength and durability. It is about those who died for their faith and community. The main source for centuries was Christ’s sacrifice [Smith 2003: 222]. Smith thus notes that the overview of Protestant martyrs, provided in John Foxe’s Book of Martyrs (1563), in the crucial 16th century when the English national identity was being shaped, was the second most popular book in England after the Bible [Smith 2008: 124–125]. However, those who fell in lost battles were especially important. In that context, Anthony Smith writes about the importance of the Battle of Kosovo for the Serbs’ national identity [Smith 2008: 124–125.]. He notes that the place of the Battle of Thermopylae (479 B.C.) in the creation of the Greeks’ national identity, the fall of Jerusalem and destruction of the Second Temple (70 A.D.) for the Jews, or the defeat in the Battle of Avarayr (451) for Armenians all testify to the importance of the “glorious dead”. Earthly defeats and heavenly victories, however, are still not considered archaic myths from epochs long past. The national identity of Francophone Quebecers rests on the defeat in the Battle of the Plains of Abraham (1759), whereas the mass deaths in the Battle of Gallipoli (1915) are taken as the key moment in shaping the national consciousness of Australians and New Zealanders. Remembrance of those dates is always accompanied by appropriate public ceremonies. Present-day regular laying of wreaths on the graves of unknown heroes and on the battlefields from the two world wars in France, Great Britain, Russia, and other countries has the same meaning [Smith 2008: 44–46; Smith 2003: 218–253; Smith 2009: 97–99].
[2] S. 2 Мој. 6; 1 Петр. 2, 9; Откр. 1, 6.
[3] On the contemporary Western, missionary type of “chosenness,” based on the works of Anthony Smith and other researchers, s. [Šljukić 2011: 38–46, 71–90].
“NEW ISRAEL”
The theoretical pattern offered by the works of Anthony Smith obviously enables a number of insights useful for studying the Serbs’ national identity and, especially the place and role of Kosovo lore in its creation and shaping. That has already been noted in Serbian science [Ковић 2002: 403–418; Kovich 2005: 81–102; Марјановић-Душанић 2007: 335–336; Šljukić: 29–47; Симић, 2012: 64–65; Тодоровић 2015: 243–286; Ковић 2015: 202–269].
It has been found that Serbian heroic poems of the Kosovo Cycle contain all the key constitutive elements of ancient, Indo-European epic tradition, which can be found and reconstructed in the ancient Indian Mahabharata, Persian Shahnameh, the Greek Iliad, and Celtic and Nordic sagas. That is why today there is talk of Pre-Kosovo [Лома 2002: 11–12, 131]. Among such ancient epic motifs is not only a heroic death on the battlefield, which brings a reward in the afterlife[4], but also the choice of the Kingdom of Heaven [Лома 2002: 133–147].
Nevertheless, Christianity left the deepest mark on the stories about Kosovo. The Serbian Church, right after the battle, gave them New Testament meaning, through the creation of the cult of the Holy Emperor Lazar, with the central motifs of choosing the Kingdom of Heaven, the last supper, communion, and conscious sacrifice. From 1390 to 1420 alone, 10 such cultic writings about Lazar and Kosovo were made [Трифуновић 1968; Михаљчић 1989: 127–156; Ређеп 2007: 18–44]. Both the Kosovo Covenant and the Serbs’ national consciousness would be shaped in the lap of the Patriarchate of Peć in subsequent centuries under foreign rule [Видовић 2013: 66–70].
The New Testament motif of choosing the Kingdom of Heaven was mentioned in old Serbian literature particularly with regard to a ruler stepping down from the throne and going to a monastery. Saint Sava and Saint Simeon provided the pattern for that. The arenga of the Dečani Chrysobull, for example, states that they exchanged the kingdom on earth for the Kingdom of Heaven [Лома 2002: 135]. At the time of the Battle of Kosovo, the cult of Serbian saints, especially the rulers from the Nemanjić dynasty, bound those who wished to carry on their traditions [5]. The Church, which was the bearer of these cults, during the collapse of the Serbian empire, in the fighting for the Nemanjić legacy, supported exactly Prince Lazar Hrebeljanović [Михаљчић 1989b: 50–100].
The fact that Saint Sava’s and Saint Simeon’s orientation toward the Kingdom of Heaven could have served as a role model to Prince Lazar himself is testified to by the oldest cultic writing on Kosovo (made between 1390 and 1393), The Prologic Hagiography of Prince Lazar. It says that Lazar and his knights headed into battle “having as firm guarantors” “Simeon, a new myrrh-gusher, and Saint Sava” and that they were “armed” with “the prayers of our venerable and God-bearing fathers, Simeon and Saint Sava” [Раваничанин II 1993: 128; Трифуновић 1968: 13–39].
The period of Prince Lazar could already see its “myth of ancestry” and even its “golden age” in the time of Saint Sava and Saint Simeon. It was noted that the works of Domentian and Theodosius, as well as the frescoes in the Church of the Holy Salvation, testify to the fact that Saint Sava was recognized already in his time as the founder of the national church organization, who, like the apostles, brought “his people” and “his fatherland” to Christ [Манастир Жича 2012: 205–209]. Furthermore, Domentian’s The Life of Saint Sava and The Life of Saint Simeon indicate the existence of awareness of “chosenness” and covenantal status [Благојевић 1994: 15–28]. Such motifs, at the core of which is the cult of these two saints, are also seen in the works of subsequent Serbian writers. Comparisons between the Nemanjić dynasty and the Old Testament Tree of Jesse, highlighted in texts and particularly on the frescoes in the Nemanjić endowments, were based on the cult of Saint Simeon – designed by Saint Sava – as the root from which the shoots of his dynasty, but also of the entire Serbian people, grow [Марјановић-Душанић 2007: 149; Поповић 2006: 27–118]
Domentian, citing models from the Old Testament, calls the Serbian people “the chosen of God”, “new Israel,” and “second Israel”. Saint Simeon is for Domentian “the perfect father of the fatherland”, who, with Saint Sava, brings the Serbs to God, to make them “the perfect people”. Domentian also compares the progenitor of the dynasty to Jacob. When he was inviting Stefan Nemanja to come to Mount Athos, Saint Sava called him the new Jacob and “new Israel”. Domentian would later, again following the example of the Old Testament, which expands that term to include Jacob’s descendants, call Nemanja’s descendants and fellow Serbs “new Israel”, too [Доментијан 1865: 3, 150, 192; Благојевић 1994:19–21].
Domentian likens Saint Sava to Moses, where “the first Israel and his children were /given/ adoption and glory and promise”, whereas “the second Israel raised by God brought a new people to the Lord”. Domentian even notes that the first Israel sometimes deviated from the covenant, while the “children” of Sava’s “fatherland” remained faithful to it. He calls both Moses and Saint Sava “vožd”, “leader”; Moses is “the leader of the gathering of Israel”, whereas Saint Sava is “the leader of the fatherland” [Доментијан 1865: 3, 150, 192; Благојевић 1994:19–21].
In light of pre-modern examples of national consciousness based on Old Testament patterns, provided by Anthony Smith, the search for a medieval synthesis of covenants and patriotism does not seem anachronous [6]. In the words of this researcher, there is a blend of covenantal and hierarchical traditions in medieval Serbian culture. It is especially important that, observed in that way, the covenant of Prince Lazar could have been affirmation, execution of the covenant of Saint Sava and, most importantly, of the New Testament of Jesus Christ. Serbian writers have long identified that and stressed that, more than the Old Testament, the New Testament is the key role model of the covenants of Saint Sava and Kosovo [Поповић 2016: 454–455; Патријарх Павле 2015, 392; Митрополит Амфилохије 2011, 69–71, 85–86; Митрополит Амфилохије 2009, 370–371; Јевтић 1992; Видовић 2009: 43]. One of the most important differences lies in the fact that, according to the New Testament point of view, every people is “chosen,” like the first, Old Testament “chosen people” [Митрополит Амфилохије 2010: 248].
[4] V. Đurić also noted that this motif is found in the most ancient epic poems, such as The Iliad, The Epic of Gilgamesh, and Mahabharata [Ђурић 1987b: 40–43], see also [Ређеп 2007: 33, 35].
[5] On medieval rulers as national saints and the cult of relics in the Serbian Middle Ages s. [Поповић 2006]. In detail on the cult of rulers’ sainthood among Serbs s. [Марјановић-Душанић 2007: 85–194]. See also [Марјановић-Душанић 1997].
[6] For sources which could indicate national consciousness in the Middle Ages, see also [Станојевић 1934: 35–37].
“THE TSAR HE CHOSE A HEAV’NLY KINGDOM”
The covenantal nature of Kosovo lore is also evident in the fact that an explanation for the defeat in Kosovo and subsequent fall under Turkish rule was sought in the Serbs’ transgressions and violation of the covenant. We saw that, according to Anthony Smith, the punishment is interpreted as a consequence of trespassing against the moral examples established in “the golden age”; he underscores that God, in the Pentateuch, threatens those who abandon the covenant with a curse [7] . Already in the 14th and 15th century, particularly in the period after the Battle of Kosovo, the most important writers told stories about the sins of Emperor Dušan, about the murder of his father Stefan of Dečani, and the willful declaration of the Patriarchate. The ecumenical patriarch had excommunicated the Serbian emperor, Church hierarchy and the people. The Serbian Church is believed to have accepted the views of the Ecumenical Patriarchate during the rule of Prince Lazar. It would be none other than Prince Lazar who would achieve reconciliation between the two churches and bring the Serbs back into the Orthodox community [Ферјанчић и Ћирковић 2005, 312–313, 326–329].
Nonetheless, it was believed that both Emperor Dušan’s son Uroš and the Serbian people had to suffer for Dušan’s sins. The willfulness of the Mrnjavčević dynasty and the legendary assassination of Emperor Uroš were perceived as punishment, but also as continuation of Serbian transgressions. Dušan’s sins would remain the main cause of ruin of the Serbian empire even in the works of the most important Serbian historians of the 17th and 18th century, Count Đorđe Branković and Jovan Rajić. The unfortunate series of transgressions included, ultimately, the disharmony among noblemen and the treason of Vuk Branković at Kosovo Polje (Field of the Blackbirds) [Михаљчић 1989b: 127–145; Ређеп 2013: 7–16, 221–231, 387–398]. Epic poems claimed that before the Battle of Kosovo Serbian noblemen had gotten so arrogant that they rode into churches on horseback and took the antidoron by stabbing it with their spears [Лома 2002]. From that tradition, which apparently lasted for centuries, stemmed the interpretations of Metropolitan Petar II Petrović Njegoš in The Mountain Wreath (1847):
“God is angry with the Serbian people
because of their many mortal sins.
Our kings and tsars trampled upon the Law.
They began to fight each other fiercely
and to gouge out each other’s very eyes.
They neglected the government and state
and chose folly to be their guiding light.
Their servants ceased to obey their masters
and washed themselves in the blood of their tsars.
Our own leaders, God’s curse be on their souls,
carved the empire into little pieces…” [8]
[Његош 1986: 17, 180–182].
The merging of covenant and patriotism is visible already in cultic writings about Lazar and the Battle of Kosovo, made in the lap of the Church, between 1390 and 1420. In The Hagiography of Holy Prince Lazar authored by an unknown monk of the Ravanica Monastery, believed to have been written between 1392 and 1398, Prince Lazar, preparing for battle, “was zealous for God and for his fatherland.” He encouraged “his soldiers and noblemen” with these words:
“Let us go, brothers and children, let us go into the forthcoming endeavor by looking at the reward giver Christ. Let us serve duty through death, let us spill our blood, let us redeem life by death and unsparingly surrender the limbs of our bodies to be cut for our faith and fatherland and God shall certainly have mercy on those who remain behind us and shall not exterminate our kin and land to the end.” [Раваничанин I 1993: 123–124; Трифуновић 1968: 78–112].
A Word About Prince Lazar by Patriarch Danilo III (written in1392–1393), who in an earlier work called Saint Simeon and Saint Sava “firm champions of their fatherland,” and the Nemanjić dynasty the Tree of Jesse [Danilo Mlađi 1960b: 109], also joins the Kosovo Covenant as the choice of the Kingdom of Heaven with patriotism. The presumed influence of The Wars of the Jews by Flavius Josephus, The Tears of the Prophet Jeremiah, and A Novel About Alexander of Macedon on the ideas and dialogues in this work [Трифуновић 1968: 343–346, 352–353; Кашанин 2002: 263] could only contribute to that. For that reason, Milan Kašanin called Danilo III “the most complete and strongest ideologue of the Battle of Kosovo and the kingdom of heaven” [Трифуновић 1968: 343–346, 352–353; Кашанин 2002: 263].
The Word by Patriarch Danilo III is also about sacrificing oneself for faith, but also for the prince, “the fatherland” and “Serbian land”. Before the battle, Prince Lazar tells his “soldiers, big and small” that they should accept their pending death “for Christ and the piety of our fatherland”:
“It is better that we die in the endeavor than live in shame. It is better that we receive death by sword in battle than give our backs to our enemies. We have lived long for the world, let us finally ensure to undertake a feat of suffering, to live eternally in heaven, let us give ourselves the title of soldiers of Christ, blessed sufferers, to write our names in the books of life. Let us not spare our bodies in the fight, so that we may receive wreaths of light from the one who judges accomplishments. Pain gives birth to glory and effort leads to rest.” [Danilo Mlađi 1960a: 110].
To that, “the praised and manly, and noble, birthed and raised by the Serbian land, like beautiful shoots and chosen (cedars) of Lebanon” reply that they are ready “to die for you and for piety, and for the fatherland”:
“Let us die so that we may live forever. Let us offer ourselves to God as a living sacrifice, not like before by our brief and dazed indulgence, but in a feat by our blood. Let us not spare our lives, so that after this we may be a true example to others. Let us not be afraid of the fear that has come at us, nor of the swooping of the diabolical enemies jumping at us. If we were really to think about fear and loss, we would not be worthy… …We, o, friends and fellow warriors, we do take on the burden of previous soldiers who are with Christ, to be glorified in Christ. We are one human nature, subjugated to the same passions. And may we have one grave. And one field to receive our bodies with our bones, for the settlements of Eden to receive us with light.” [Danilo Mlađi 1960a: 111].
In A Word by Danilo III, the covenant does not pertain solely to Prince Lazar, or even to his “lofty noblemen”, but, as we have seen, also to his “soldiers, big and small”, whose bones will be received by “one field”. The fact that the idea of a covenant was not limited to the highest social strata is also proved by a description of the transportation of the relics of Prince Lazar from Priština to the Ravanica Monastery, which alongside Princess Milica, the Church hierarch and the nobility also involves “a multitude of people” [Danilo Mlađi 1960c:113]. The aforementioned Ravanica monk also writes about the “multitude of people” attending the transportation of the relics of Prince Lazar [Раваничанин I 1993: 124].
Folk, epic poems about Kosovo from the period of Turkish domination, adapted the medieval Christian and knightly ideals to the mentality of the Christian common folk, shepherds and farmers. The Kosovo Covenant, from the outset tied more to the church and liturgy than to knightly, noble circles, would through oral epic poetry completely merge with folk and subsequently national culture. A few centuries later, Ivo Andrić, in the essay titled Njegoš as a Tragic Hero of the Kosovo Thought, conveys an observation by Ljubomir Nenadović that in Montenegro even “wearied women… talked to him about Kosovo as of their own fate and personal tragedy”, as well as that the local Serbs wanted in all things to take “only the path set forth by the Kosovo covenant” [Андрић 1981: 9]. For them, the Kosovo Covenant, like for Njegoš, the “Jeremiah of Kosovo,” is a struggle for “removing the curse of Obilić” for “mortal sins”:
“The entire fate of all these people was determined and governed by that covenant. Like in the most ancient legends, which are always the greatest human reality, everyone personally felt the historical curse that had turned ‘lions’ into ‘farmers’, leaving ‘the terrible thought of Obilić’ in their souls, to live thus torn between their ‘farmers’,’ common folk reality and knightly, Obilić thought…” [Андрић 1981: 9].
That blending of the Christian, clerical Kosovo Covenant with folk culture is best illustrated by another classic example thereof, the epic poem The Fall of the Serbian Empire. It was written down by Lukijan Mušicki, the archimandrite at the Šišatovac Monastery, according to the singing of “some blind woman from Grgurevci” [Ђурић 1987a: 698].
In the poem, ahead of the battle, the Theotokos herself, via Saint Elias, sends a message to “emperor Laza” “from the shrine – from Jerusalem”. Domentian compared Saint Sava to Saint Elias and wrote that Saint Simeon and Saint Sava “renewed for their fatherland the bright path to Jerusalem” [Марјановић–Душанић 2007: 100–101, 102]. Prince Lazar was also given a choice between “two kingdoms”:
“Tsar Lazar, thou Prince of noble lineage,
What wilt thou now choose to be thy kingdom?
Say, dost thou desire a heav’nly kingdom,
Or dost thou prefer an earthly kingdom?
If thou should’st now choose an earthly kingdom,
Knights may girdle swords and saddle horses,
Tighten saddle-girths and ride to battle–
You will charge the Turks and crush their army!
But if thou prefer a heav’nly kingdom,
Build thyself a church upon Kosovo,
Let not the foundations be of marble,
Let them be of samite and of scarlet…
And to all thy warriors and their leaders
Thou shalt give the sacraments and orders,
For thine army shall most surely perish,
And thou too, shalt perish with thine army.“
When the Tsar had read the holy letter,
Ponder’d he, and ponder’d in this manner:
„Mighty God, what now shall this my choice be!
Shall I choose to have a heav’nly kingdom?
Shall I choose to have an earthly kingdom?
If I now should choose an earthly kingdom,
Lo, an earthly kingdom is but fleeting,
But God’s kingdom shall endure forever.“
And the Tsar he chose a heav’nly kingdom,
Rather than an earthly kingdom…”[9]
[Пропаст царства српскога 2007: 265–266]
Old Testament role models are clearly visible also in the years right after Lazar’s death in Kosovo. Prince Lazar’s son, Despot Stefan Lazarević, would be likened by his biographer to Moses, Jesus Navin, David, and Solomon [Ређеп 2013a: 73–84]. The despot’s “folk”, in difficult times of Turkish invasion, follow the Old Testament patterns of a chosen people, who keep God’s legacy:
“Even now you have shown your force among your people, not letting peoples to completely destroy Thy legacy; even now save those who did not bend (their) knees before Baal, and before the weaknesses of (human) nature, rather they (rose) strengthened from powerlessness, those who were courageous in battles, who believe the One who wins wars with a strong hand, those who preferred to suffer with God’s men rather than taste the temporary sweetness of sin, (to be like those) who were crucified for Christ’s flock.” [Константин Филозоф 2007: 13; Ређеп 2013b: 77–78]
[7] See also: 3 Мој. 26, 14–46.
[8] See: https://www.rastko.rs/knjizevnost/umetnicka/njegos/mountain_wreath.html
[9] See: https://www.rastko.rs/kosovo/umetnost/serbepic/thefall.htm
FOREIGN EMPIRES
Serbian and Turkish sources, as well as the travelogues of foreigners passing through Serbian lands, show that by the end of the 15th century the epic lore about the curse, betrayal and defeat in Kosovo had been fully formed. While the name “Miloš Kobila” was first mentioned in the Turkish Chronicles by Konstantin Mihailović from Ostrovica (written between 1496 and 1501), the linking of betrayal to Vuk Branković is found no earlier than in The Kingdom of the Slavs (1601) by Mavro Orbini [Михаљчић 1989: 127–211; Ређеп 2007: 45–85].
The cults of Serbian national saints, among whom, in addition to Holy Prince Lazar, Saint Sava and Saint Simeon were especially important, were kept and nurtured in the lap of the Patriarchate of Peć [Историја српског народа III 2 1993: 11–14, 64–67. Михаљчић 1989: 259–260; Екмечић 2011: 45–46, 59–63]. Serbian saints were still depicted together with figures from the Old Testament. One side of a 17th century icon kept in the treasury of the Patriarchate of Peć depicts the funeral service for Saint Sava, while the other side shows the Holy Maccabean Martyrs [Српски иконопис 2016: 21].
Among the monasteries, which were the main footholds of Serbian consciousness during Turkish rule, the endowment of Holy Prince Lazar, Ravanica, where Lazar’s relics were kept, was particularly renowned [Михаљчић 1989b]. In the period of efforts toward finding a deeper meaning in defeat and deterioration, the cult of the Holy Prince Lazar, like the cult of the Holy King Stefan of Dečani, was shaped and cultivated as a cult of the holy ruler – martyr [Михаљчић 1989b: 219–245; Марјановић–Душанић 2007: 188–194; Поповић 2006: 162–183].
Formulated in the terms used by Anthony Smith, in foreign empires in which Serbian states were immersed and where Serbian nobility changed their faith or died out, the Serbian Church completed the transformation from a hierarchical into a covenantal nation. Like in the case of Protestant covenantal nations, that was additionally helped by extremely unstable times, the fall of the empire and the Despotate, religious persecution, pressure to convert, and especially the wars which, after the arrival of the Turks, always had a strong religious aspect, which intensified with the start of Reformation and Counter-Reformation. The Serbs, like the Jews, became closed up in an attempt to prevent assimilation and defend the covenant. Like with the Armenians, the bearer of the covenant was the Serbian Church, the Patriarchate of Peć. It was possibly recognized as the Kingdom of Heaven which the Kosovo Covenant speaks of, after the fall of the state as the earthly kingdom [Видовић 2009b: 70–93].
Milorad Ekmečić also points out that in the Balkans, starting with the Turks’ invasion in the 14th and 15th century, and in the rest of Europe with the beginning of the religious wars in the 16th century, religion became the key determinant of identity, more important than language or awareness of ethnic origin [Екмечић 201: 14–20, 23–24]. Wholly in the spirit of ethno-symbolistic interpretations, stories and cults, especially of Serbian saints, constituted the foundation of the Serbs’ particular identity. The Russians recognized them by the cults of Saint Sava, Saint Simeon and Holy Prince Lazar as proved, among other things, by the fact that it is exactly these saints who were depicted on the frescoes of Moscow’s Cathedral of the Archangel during the rule of Tsar Ivan IV Vasilyevich (the Terrible), whose grandmother was Serb Ana Jakšić and whose great-grandfather was Stefan Jakšić. An extensive world chronicle called Лицевой летописный свод (The Illustrated Chronicle), put together for this tsar, contains detailed descriptions and illustrations from the lives of Saint Sava, Holy King Stefan of Dečani and the Battle of Kosovo [Свети Сава у руском царском летопису 2012].
Orbini’s book and the works of other Dubrovnik writers, as well as a drama about the Battle of Kosovo created in Perast in the late 17th century, confirmed the radiation of the Kosovo Cult in Roman Catholic lands, too. Especially influential was Orbini’s interpretation of Kosovo lore, based on oral, epic poetry. Roman Catholic travel writers, such as Benedikt Kuripešić, Philippe Dufresne-Cannay or Jean Palerne Foresien, were often more interested in Miloš’s heroic feat than in the Christian covenant of Prince Lazar [Ређеп 2007: 64–88; Михаљчић 1989: 145–147, 155–161].
Finally, in The Hagiography of Prince Lazar, also called The Tale of the Battle of Kosovo, created in the late 17th or early 18th century in the area of Boka Kotorska and Montenegro, the Kosovo epic lore gained its final form, known from subsequent collections by Vuk Karadžić. A testament to the popularity and influence of this compilation of epic and written tradition is also the fact that it was preserved in 36 versions [Ређеп 2007: 88–97; Ређеп 2010; Михаљчић 1989: 161–166].
Meanwhile, during the Great Migration led by Patriarch Arsenije Čarnojević in 1690, the relics of Prince Lazar headed on their second journey, from the Ravanica Monastery to the town of Szentendre and back, seven years later, to the Vrdnik Monastery in Srem [Кашић 1981: 148–153; Ћоровић-Љубинковић 2007a: 165–176]. The very saving of the relics testified to their importance for the Serbs; a hundred years earlier, the Turks had punished the Serbs by burning the relics of Saint Sava.
THE COVENANT, EPIC POETRY, SCIENCE, AND POLITICS
Over the course of the 18th century, the cult of Prince Lazar would, however, see a sudden rise among the Serbs in the Habsburg monarchy, in the territory of the Metropolitanate of Karlovci. As part of efforts to save one of the most important “sacred sources”, the cult of Serbian saints, from religious conversion, but also from Russification, their hagiographies were in the course of the 18th century gathered and printed in the Srbljak books. Holy Prince Lazar was, along with Saint Sava and Saint Simeon, the most esteemed Serbian saint at that time. The idea of the Serbs as “new Israel”, the chosen people, was alive; it was supplemented with the story of the 1690 Great Migration, which was compared to the exodus from Egypt [Симић 2012: 64–65]. Visual depictions of Prince Lazar from that period testified, however, to the fact that like in The Tale of the Battle of Kosovo in Serbian civic culture the saint and martyr was increasingly being replaced by the secular ruler, which was similar to existing, competitive Central European models [Михаљчић 1989b: 203–216; Симић 2012: 58–76].
However, by the publishing of traditional Serbian poems, which Vuk Stefanović Karadžić had gathered, Kosovo lore was fortified in its epic form. There the nation’s “sacred sources” – “ancestry”, “election and the covenant”, “the golden age”, “holy land”, and “glorious dead” – were tied more to Prince Lazar, Miloš and Kosovo than to Saint Sava, Saint Simeon and the Nemanjić dynasty. All that provided fruitful motifs and inspiration to Serbian Romanticism in the 19th century. Besides offering Serbian intelectuals signposts in the typical Romanticist search for an original, authentic national culture, Vuk Karadžić played a key role in redefining the Serbian national identity, again in the spirit of European Romanticism, from a community of cult and lore to a community of language. As a result, Kosovo lore was interpreted in laymen’s terms, as a heroic epic and an artistic, folklore expression of national spirit. Serbian literature and historiography, but also politics, would be adjusted to the models established by Vuk Karadžić. Serbian culture, little known until then, would in educated European circles, thanks to Vuk Karadžić and Jernej Kopitar, be recognized by the Kosovo epic cycle, by Prince Marko and other heroes of epic poems. In the Serbian environment, that gave the epic tradition on Kosovo lore additional authority [Историја српског народа V 2, 1981: 381–415; Екмечић 1989, 420–460; Екмечић 2011: 131–150; Поповић 1976, 64–77].
The ideas of Enlightenment and Romanticism which came from the Habsburg monarchy via Dositej Obradović and Vuk Karadžić, as well as the vivid experience of the Serbian Revolution, in direct contact and most often serious conflict with the ideas of the French Revolution, brought to the Balkans by Napoleon’s army, conditioned the appearance of the republican model of nation among the Serbs. Formally, all Serbs, albeit split between several states (the liberated Serbia and Montenegro, the Ottoman Empire, the Habsburg Empire), lived in monarchies. Essentially, however, the centennial experience of second-class subjects of Muslim sultans and Roman Catholic emperors of a different religion, and of the self-governing, egalitarian social structure in which they had lived for centuries, the revolution of Karađorđe and Vuk’s linguistic reform made Serbian territories fertile soil for the idea of nation as realization of the principles of democracy and the people’s sovereignty. That would be the main idea of the key Serbian national ideologues in the 19th century: Jevrem Grujić, Vladimir Jovanović, Svetozar Miletić, Svetozar Marković, Jovan Skerlić, and Jovan Cvijić [Ковић 2015b: 204–269].
In the epoch of Serbian Romanticism, up until around 1878, there almost would be no man of letters who would not reflect in the Kosovo themes [Терзић 2012: 56–64]. Among them, a quite prominent place belonged to Metropolitan Petar II Petrović Njegoš and his Mountain Wreath, which combined the epic tradition with a strong, individual artistic expression, but also with a renewed covenantal, Christian interpretation of Kosovo lore [Велимировић 1986b: 325–481; Велимировић 1986a: 785–797; Видовић 2013; Ломпар 2010; Књига о Његошу, 2013].“Montenegro and the folk who had found refuge in its hills were the quintessence of that Kosovo mystery. All who were born in those hills, came into the world with a reflex of Kosovo blood in their gaze”– Ivo Andrić wrote regarding Njegoš and his time [Андрић 1981: 9]. That what Andrić wrote was no exaggeration is confirmed by The History of Montenegro, from the quill of Njegoš’s predecessor, Metropolitan Petar I Petrović Njegoš, subsequently Saint Peter of Cetinje, which begins with Kosovo, as well as the anthem Onamo, namo (There, O’er There), all in the sign of patriotic Kosovo lore, which would be written by one of Njegoš’s successors, Prince Nikola [10].
The influence of Kosovo lore on the spiritual, but also political life of the Serbs in the 19th century is immeasurable. Thus the vizier of Travnik in 1806 reported to the Sublime Porte that Karađorđe and his rebels were preparing for an open conflict with the sultan himself and that “…like King Lazar once went out to Kosovo, so will all go out to Kosovo. They are constantly holding books about the history of the aforementioned king in their hands and he is a great instigator of rebellion in their mind” [Тричковић 1965: 18]. Kosovo messages were conveyed by the Church and oral, epic poetry. In rebel camps, at the surrounded trench in Loznica, the blind gusle player Filip Višnjić sang about the Battle of Kosovo. In the midst of historic events, thanks to Višnjić’s songs, the names of Karađorđe and his military commanders were incorporated in the decasyllable heroic epic side by side with Lazar and Miloš [Панић Суреп 2014: 41–51].
Kosovo lore and Serbian heroic, epic traditions had a particularly important impact on Serbian ideologues from the epoch of Romanticism, especially those gathered in the United Serb Youth. However, when after the Great Eastern Crisis of 1875–1878 the project of national liberation and unification failed, unrealistic plans and the naïve enthusiasm of Romanticists were blamed for that [Скерлић 1966a].
While Svetozar Marković and his followers, bearers of subsequent Serbian radicalism, socialism and democratism, demanded a “realistic” approach to politics and culture [Скерлић 1966b], Archimandrite Ilarion Ruvarac had the same influence on historiography. His most important followers would be liberal conservatives, whom the Serbs called “progressives”. The key debates, in which the epic image of the past was being abandoned and Serbian critical historiography was being created, free of patriotic conditioning, were led precisely on the subject of Kosovo lore. And so Serbian realism was based on redefining the Kosovo legacy [Ћирковић 2007a: 89–103].
Jovan Rajić claimed that folk poems were useless to historians, whose main task is to establish the truth. Now, however, Ilarion Ruvarac and Ljubomir Kovačević showed that King Vukašin, despite what the lore said, did not kill Emperor Uroš. Kovačević also, in an extensive scholastic study, claimed that Vuk Branković had not committed treason at Kosovo Polje. That sparked heated reactions and polemics, in which the main opponent was history professor at the Great School, Pantelija Srećković. The debates started in 1879 and symbolically ended in 1894 with the arrival of Ljubomir Kovačević in Pantelija Srećković’s place in the Great School’s department of national history [Сувајџић 2007; Ћирковић1992, 9–15: Руварац 1993: 17–287; Михаљчић 1992; Ковачевић 1992: 297–352; Самарџић 1976; 75–76]. In that way, which was not without a deeper meaning, two key transgressions against the Kosovo Covenant were pushed out of the world of exact academic knowledge of the past.
It is, however, important to note that the new, academic, “realistic” view of Kosovo lore did not annul or even mitigate Serbian nationalism. It now only aimed to be “realistic”, grounded not in Romanticist verve, but rather in “reality”. The celebration of the 500th anniversary of the Battle of Kosovo was held in such a way so that the great powers, the Habsburg and Ottoman empires above all, would not find in it an occasion for conflict [Војводић 1998: 36–50]. After the Austro-Hungarian occupation of Bosnia and Herzegovina, Serbian national politics, however, turned exactly to Kosovo and Old Serbia. That policy, in its mainstream, was designed and led by historian and member of the critical school Stojan Novaković [Војводић 2012; Војводић 2015]. Unlike Ruvarac, he claimed that folk traditions were an important historical source, but not for determining the facts about events, but rather for studying “the spiritual physiognomy of the events themselves”, “psychological features”, states of collective consciousness in past epochs [Новаковић 1982: 12–13; Самарџић 1976, 191–196, 210–217; Самарџић 1981: 231–238; Ћирковић 1982: xiv–xx; Ћирковић 2007a: 111–115]. Ljubomir Kovačević took part in the wars of 1876–1878, then also in the equipping and sending of the first Serb Chetnik units to Old Serbia and Macedonia. In the war for the liberation of Kosovo and Old Serba, he lost his only son [Михаљчић 1992: 295; Историја српског народа VI 1 1983: 149]. Ilarion Ruvarac, on the other hand, as a loyal subject of Austria-Hungary, was not always immune to the initiatives which, ahead of celebrations of dates from the Kosovo tradition and national history, aimed to rein in Serbian nationalism and strengthen the Austrian influence [Сувајџић 2007: 230–231, 361–394].
During the period of modernism, in the early 20th century, Kosovo and the related lore found themselves at the center of Serbian culture and politics. The poem At Gazimestan by Milan Rakić, Serbian consul in Priština and Ljuba Kovačević’s son-in-law, published in the elite Serbian Literary Herald in 1907 (reprinted in the collection New Poems, as part of the cycle In Kosovo in 1912), provided the first incentives for new interpretations. The poem highlighted, among other things, the “sacrificial” “sacred source,” interpreted in the patriotic key:
Sculptures by Dalmatian sculptor Ivan Meštrović, meant to be a part of his monumental Vidovdan (St. Vitus Day) Temple, were also an important incentive. They were recognized as the official, artistic form of the Vidovdan idea, around which the Yugoslav youth movement rallied. The Vidovdan idea, as Isidora Sekulić called it (1911), or the Vidovdan ethics, as Miloš Đurić called it (1914), was a return to heroic and “sacrificial” Kosovo lore. Vidovdan Day, as the day of the Battle of Kosovo, had since the time of publishing of Vuk Karadžić’s collections experienced renewed popularity [Марковић 2006–2007: 47]. The new, Vidovdan idea emerged largely among the younger generations, in the period after the Annexation Crisis of 1908–1909 and aimed to restore vigor and self-confidence to Serbian culture, faced with the colonial ambitions of and threats of war from Austria-Hungary. It can be said that it was the Serbian echo of vitalism and heroic activism, preached at the time by Henri Bergson and Friedrich Nietzsche. Miloš Đurić interpreted the “philosophy of Kosovo” as “the philosophy of the phoenix, the philosophy of Golgotha,” whereas Isidora Sekulić wrote that the Vidovdan idea should be “a vivid and agile awareness of falcons and soldiers and cultural workers” “which will turn us into ramparts that do not fall” [Секулић 2016: 426; Ђурић 1914: 79; Ivan Meštrović 1919; Шијаковић 2015].
Faced with Roman Catholic, Austro-Hungarian trials and tribulations, comparable only to the previous Muslim, Turkish invasion, the republican nation was discovering its Orthodox, covenantal heritage. That fact that the Vidovdan idea ahead of 1914 did not boil down only to the “sacrificial” source, “unirradiated by the glow of the old halo”, was confirmed by the appearance of the book Njegoš’s Religion (in the magazine Delo in 1910, as a book in 1911), by young theologian Nikolaj Velimirović, whose sermons were listened to and read with absolute attention. Kosovo lore and the work of Njegoš were there reinterpreted in the original Christian, covenantal key. In the opinion of then member of the Young Bosnia movement, Ivo Andrić, Velimirović’s interpretations were closest to Njegoš’s “Christ-like view of the world” [Андрић 1981: 26]. Dimitrije Mitrinović, one of the ideologues of Young Bosnia, who sang the praises of Meštrović’s sculptures, would later have quite an influence on the ideas of Nikolaj Velimirović [Митриновић 1911: 717–727, 802–808, 884–888; Биговић 1998: 53–55; P. Palavestra 1977; Хамовић 2016: 72–86]. Jovan Skerlić, the leading public figure of the Serbian and Yugoslav movement in the period 1908–1914, approvingly observed these trends among young writers and artists [Скерлић 1913: 220; Скерлић 1911: 933–940; Ковић 2015a 576–578; Лубардић 2015: 328–357].
At the same time, the public in Serbia anxiously watched the process of systematic expulsion of the Serb population from Kosovo and Metohija. The privileged, Muslim Albanian outlaws and “muhaxhirë,” refugees from the areas Serbia liberated in 1878, had the tacit support of the Turkish authorities in their persecution of the local Serbs. The Islamization of this border area of the Ottoman Empire with Serbia, in the period from the creation of the Albanian League in 1878 to liberation in 1912, led to a change in ethnic relations in Kosovo and Metohija and, for the first time, to the creation of an Albanian majority. “The war for avenging Kosovo,” as the First Balkan War (1912) was called, would according to contemporaries’ testimonies be one of the most popular wars the Serbs waged in the 19th and 20th century. The liberation of Old Serbia imbued the Serbian and Yugoslav idea with undreamed-of enthusiasm and confidence and set the ruling circles in Austria-Hungary in their intent to finally deal away with Serbia [Терзић 2012: 113–231; Војводић, 2000: 7–103, 303–417; Bataković 2012: 59–77; Богдановић 1990: 175–216].
The Vidovdan assassination in Sarajevo was largely based on the pattern of Miloš’s murdering the tyrant in Kosovo. Gavrilo Princip, Nedeljko Čabrinović and Trifko Grabež saw Austro-Hungarian military maneuvers and the visit of heir to the throne Franz Ferdinand to Sarajevo, exactly on St. Vitus Day, as a deliberate national insult. They said in the investigation that they had wanted to carry out the assassination even before they had learned about the date of the visit, but also that they had wanted to sacrifice themselves for the freedom of their people. Čabrinović even claimed that, like slandered Miloš Obilić, by killing the tyrant he had wanted to clear his name, seeing as his father and he had been accused in Sarajevo of being Austrian informants. “Tomorrow is Vidovdan. Do you remember Miloš’s covenant?” Čabrinović wrote to a friend ahead of June 28, 1914 [Dedijer 1978: 419; Ковић 2014: 36–38].
In all the trials and tribulations, from the Annexation Crisis of 1908 to the end of World War I, gusle players used poems about Lazar, Miloš and Karađorđe, or new and freshly created ones about King Petar and his voivode (Field Marshals), to encourage the Serbs in the same way their predecessors had done in the First Serbian Uprising a hundred years earlier [Винавер 1979: 5–13. Вучетић 1924; Guzina 1924]. Kosovo lore was not without influence on the decisions made by the Serbian military and civilian authorities in World War I, especially those on refusing surrender, leaving the country and retreating through Montenegro and Albania (1915). As fate would have it, during the retreat in November 1915 the entire Serbian army found itself at Kosovo Polje. Sources reported that the army leaders, soldiers and civilians were deeply aware of the symbolism of the event and wondered whether the Serbs would again, precisely at Kosovo Polje, lose their freedom. Voivoda Živojin Mišić unsuccessfully demanded that the crucial battle against a superior enemy take place there. The last failed attempt at the Serbian army’s breakthrough to the south and the Allies, known as the Kačanik Maneuver, also took place in Kosovo [Ковић 2017: 202–231].
While the Serbs were going through the Albanian plight and rehabilitation on Corfu, the Allies, in a bid to hearten them to fight to the end on the Salonika front, too, marked Vidovdan with ceremonies. Poet Gilbert Keith Chesterton claimed in a brochure of the British Kosovo Day Committee, printed in 85,000 copies, that the Kosovo idea best expressed the spiritual goals of the Allies in World War I [The Lay of Kossovo 1917: 32; Kossovo Day 1916].
The Cult of Vidovdan became, in the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes and subsequently in the Kingdom of Yugoslavia, a part of official culture. That was one of the reasons for the hostility with which Croatian parties and the Communist Party of Yugoslavia received it. Ivan Meštrović himself, whom King Aleksandar Karađorđević wanted to appoint court artist and with whose works he decorated the capital city, sided with the Croatian nationalists [Meštrović 1969].
The Belgrade military coup and the mass demonstrations on March 27, 1941, which rejected the signing of the Tripartite Pact with the fascist countries, were, similarly to the Vidovdan assassination, an expression of a readiness to make a sacrifice and thus earn the Kingdom of Heaven. The Serbian Orthodox Church put up persistent resistance to the signing of the Tripartite Pact. It is believed that Patriarch Gavrilo Dožić and Bishop Nikolaj Velimirović knew about preparations for the coup. Right after the coup, the patriarch gave a speech on the radio in which he said, among other things:
“In these days, fate has again posed the question before our nation as to which empire it will choose. This morning at dawn, that question was answered: we have chosen the kingdom of heaven, i.e. God’s kingdom of truth and justice, national harmony and freedom.” [Радић 2011: 349].
At the very start of the 1941 uprising, the biggest armed operation was carried out on St. Vitus Day, led by priests and uncaptured royal officers, and it was an attack on an Ustasha unit in Avtovac near Gacko, in eastern Herzegovina. The first outlawed Herzegovinians, from the nearby village of Kazanci, were led by their priest Radojica Perišić. The oath before a big attack on the Germans in Loznica, which was commanded, among others, by Hegoumenos Georgije Bojić and priest Vlada Zečević, in August 1941, was sworn in the Tronoša Monastery, the center of the Kosovo Covenant and especially of the cult of Jug Bogdan and the Jugović brothers [Petranović 1992: 128, 182, 183; Karchmar 1987: 177-372, 444-457; Мастиловић 2009: 12-16, 182-184].
Heroism, however, always had a price, which was not paid only in human casualties. The sacred relics of Prince Lazar, Emperor Uroš and Stevan Štiljanović were rescued from the Croatian Ustasha without any epic glamour, with the help of the German Nazis; in 1942, they were transported from Srem to occupied Belgrade [Дурковић-Јакшић 1981: 215–228]. In Kosovo and Metohija, which were given over to fascist Greater Albania, renewed systematic persecution of Serbs resumed [Ković 2001: 79–93; Bataković 2012: 97–103; Богдановић 1990, 243–257].
The Communist Party of Yugoslavia would, even after 1945, condemn the “Greater Serbian” “Vidovdan idea” of the Karađorđević dynasty[11]. The partisan army, however, largely consisted of Serbs, recruited among other things with the help of the epic, heroic, gusle-playing perception of Kosovo lore. Literary critic Zoran Mišić would in his article entitled What Is the Kosovo Commitment (1963) notice a similarity between the slogans at the demonstrations of March 27, 1941 and “Better that we die in the endeavor than live in shame” and other statements from A Word About Prince Lazar by Danilo III [Мишић 2016: 428]. That, in his opinion, was the essence of the Kosovo choice: “the choice of the most difficult, most deadly path, which is the only right path”; “to give up all that is deceptive gain and rapacious glory, abandon that which is achievable for the love of the unachievable, to wish like Njegoš that what cannot happen happens” [Мишић 2016]. In subsequent socialist times, a whole host of Serbian authors would find inspiration in Kosovo lore [Хамовић 2016а: 183–332].
In socialist Yugoslav culture, Njegoš was given due attention, but as an artist and freedom fighter grown on epic heritage; even Andrić was berated for “pro-regime” writing, with regard to Njegoš, about the Kosovo Covenant and the “Kosovo mystery”. On that trail was the demolition of the Chapel of Njegoš on Mt. Lovćen, which King Aleksandar Karađorđević had reconstructed after World War I, and the construction of the Meštrović Mausoleum in its place (opened in 1974). Along with the start of the Albanian uprising in Kosovo in 1968, that event was one of the main incentives for the Serbs’ increasing discontent and political mobilization. They were also fueled by historians’ subsequent findings about the territorial promises made to Albanian communists already during World War II for the sake of creating a joint, Balkan communist confederation [Кљакић и Пековић 2013, 153–382; Ђурић Мишина 2012: 319–330; Богдановић 1990: 265–299; Терзић 2012: 269–305].
The expulsion of Serbs from Kosovo and Metohija, however, continued in socialist Yugoslavia, too. It turned out that, after decades of official atheism, Kosovo lore did not inspire only artists. The protests of the Kosovo Serbs in the 1980s, in response to a new Albanian uprising in 1981, quickly turned into a mass movement for changing Serbia’s unenviable constitutional position within the Yugoslav federation, which prevented it from governing Kosovo and Metohija [Терзић 2012; 307–500; Bataković 2012: 103–222; Bataković 1992, 9–34; Богдановић 1990: 301–314].
The Serbian Orthodox Church also played an important role in those processes. It had long been warning about the expulsion of Serbs and endangerment of Serbian spiritual and cultural heritage in Kosovo and Metohija [Епископ Атанасије 2016; Јањић 2016: 39–49; Патријарх Павле 2014: 48–80]. Furthermore, it had preserved the interpretation of Kosovo lore as the Kosovo Covenant, close to the original meanings of the cult of Prince Lazar. The cult was particularly revived in the 20th century by Nikolaj Velimirović and Justin Popović. Writing about “our gospel of Lazar, of St. Vitus, of Kosovo,” Justin Popović explained that it meant “to sacrifice the temporary for the sake of the eternal, the earthly for the sake of the heavenly”:
“This is none other than our own, people’s edition of the Gospel of Christ, because the main law of the Gospel of the God-Man is this: ‘If a grain of wheat does not fall onto the ground and does not die, it remains one; if it dies, it gives a plentiful harvest’” [Поповић 2016: 453; такође: Епископ Николај 2013: 143–173; Епископ Николај 1983: 321–388].
The first pebble that would then start the avalanche of the Yugoslav crisis and the destruction of Yugoslavia, thus, broke off in Kosovo. With NATO’s aggression against FR Yugoslavia in 1999, followed by the until then biggest ethnic cleansing of Serbs from Kosovo and Metohija, property theft and the destruction of cultural monuments of their material culture, the Kosovo problem again grew beyond the framework of the Serbian–Albanian conflict [Bataković 2012: 131–332]. This time, it caused a great global crisis the consequences of which, as it is evident today, would long be felt in international relations.
[10] Saint Peter of Cetinje, A Brief History of Montenegro, in: [Свети Петар Цетињски 2015: 523]. Petar II Petrović Njegoš sent the same text of the history of Montenegro, expanded to include the time of Petar I Petrović and data on the country and population, to Russian officials: Описание Черногории с кратким начертанием историии чернагорского народа (Description of Montenegro with a Brief Outline of the History of the Montenegrin People), in: [Петрович Негош 2013: 106–148].
[11] For the Communist Party of Yugoslavia’s conflict with the “Greater Serbian idea” s. [Gligorijević1992].
***
The duration of Kosovo lore and its essential link to the Serbs’ national identity can to a great extent be explained by the historical model offered by the works of Anthony Smith. Not only Serbian historical sources, but also the works of Anthony Smith, Eric Hobsbawm and other writers, testify that a “proto-national” identity, based on the church cults of national saints and on lore, can be found with the Serbs, similar to the English or Russians, already in the Middle Ages. In the time of Prince Lazar and the Battle of Kosovo, the myth of “ancestry” and “the golden age” was placed in the time of Saint Simeon and Saint Sava, “firm champions of their fatherland”; in subsequent times, the Serbs would seek their “ancestry” and “golden age” not only in the time of Saint Sava and Saint Simeon, but also in the time of Prince Lazar and his feat.
Kosovo is for the Serbs what Smith calls “holy land.” A great, fateful battle was fought there; heroes, martyrs and prophets lived, died and were buried there. The cult of Prince Lazar had from its very beginnings been the cult of the holy ruler – martyr. All of his fallen warriors were also “holy martyrs” and “sacrifices for faith and the fatherland”.
Judging by the source material, the Serbs were a covenantal community already in the Middle Ages, where they undoubtedly, in the spirit of the feudal period, retained the characteristics of a hierarchical nation. The covenantal perception of common origin, accompanied by comparisons with Old Testament leaders of the Jewish people and calling the Serbs “New Israel”, was tied already to Saint Sava and Saint Simeon. Lazar’s Kosovo Covenant, as rejection of the Kingdom on Earth and the choice of the Kingdom of Heaven, would only be confirmation of the older covenant of Saint Sava and the New Testament of Jesus Christ. The lore of the collapse of the Serbian empire and Turkish occupation as punishment for the sins of the ancestors also suits the typology of “covenantal peoples,” which, like in the Old Testament, believe in God’s punishment for abandoning the Covenant.
All the key motifs of the Kosovo Covenant were created already in the 14th and 15th century, and then by the end of the 15th century defamation, betrayal, and the heroism of Miloš Obilić were added to it. As treason was in the 16th and early 17th century tied to the name of Vuk Branković, the Covenant was fully shaped.
The main foothold of the Kosovo Covenant in foreign empires was the Patriarchate of Peć. In the language of Anthony Smith, if in the Middle Ages a covenant was joined with the hierarchical understanding of nation, after the collapse of Serbian states and nobility, with the continuation of religious wars, as believers of a different religion in the Muslim Ottoman Empire and Roman Catholic Habsburg Empire the Serbs led by the Church remained primarily a covenantal nation.
In later centuries, with the liberation of Montenegro and Serbia and Vuk Karadžić’s reform, the epic, heroic interpretation of Kosovo lore suppressed its Christian, clerical, covenantal meaning. Behind the covenantal the republican nation loomed, too. In the spirit of the Enlightenment and Romanticist cult of science, in the 19th century, an age of great polemics on the historical foundation of Kosovo lore, a third, historiographic interpretation was created, which searched for exact facts and dismissed lore as completely useless. Within this tradition, voices appeared seeking a comparative study of lore and historical facts.
The decisions that were made in the two world wars confirmed the strength of Kosovo lore, perceived as a struggle for the Kingdom of Heaven and Heavenly Justice, in which, due to the greatness of the cause, no one asks about the price. The Kingdom of Yugoslavia tried to incorporate the Vidovdan idea in the foundations of its official cultural pattern. Socialist Yugoslavia also rested on the epic, heroic interpretation of Kosovo lore. At the same time, the Serbian Church nurtured a continuous tradition of covenantal understanding of Kosovo lore, which can be traced up to the present day.
The last decades of the 19th and first decades of the 21st century confirmed the power of Kosovo lore. It remains to be seen what the effect of NATO’s attack on FR Yugoslavia and the occupation of Kosovo and Metohija will have on Kosovo lore, but also on the fate of the Balkan peoples.
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