Delivered for the first time at Cambridge, in the New Lecture Rooms, the Vice-Chancellor of the University in the chair.
The most suitable language for tragedy is silence. Serbia's tragedy needs no rhetoric, no language to describe it, to exalt it. For silence, and not rhetoric, makes tragedy greater. Serbia's silence to-day is as deep as her tragedy is dark. The most silent suffering is the most vocal suffering at the same time. The most silent suffering is like a screw boring into the conscience of the makers of the suffering. Such silent suffering is the severe judge of the world who makes all rich people poor, all proud humble, all pleasure bitter, all human progress abased. There is something wrong about this life. What may it be? I do not know, but suffering reminds us every day that there is something wrong with this world. Suffering from surrounding nature is not the worst,—nature can be governed by us; nor the suffering from God,—God can be touched by our prayer; but the worst of all is our suffering from ourselves. Thousands and thousands of serpentslive in Serbia. Yet all the serpents throughout the Serbian history, from the time of the Druids on this island till the time of Tennyson and Kipling, effected not such a poisonous devastation of men and cattle in Serbia as lately a host of invaders did, who boastfully regarded them-selves to be at the summit of human civilisation. It is despairing to see what use of her power, her "kultur," her science and her riches, Germany of to-day is making in Serbia, among a people who for half a thousand years struggled against the Turkish tyranny with the mottoFor Cross and Freedom, and who looked sometimes from their dark corner towards the German Kaiser, the knight of many Holy Orders, as towards the champion and redeemer of enslaved Christianity in the Balkans. Never suffered a nation from serpents as much as the poor nation of Serbs suffers to-day from "civilised" men. Don't you think indeed that there is something wrong about this life of ours? The Bible showed in its first sheets that there is something very wrong with us. By the killing of his brother, Cain fore-shadowed all the history of mankind. Even the first man on earth was not a balanced and happy creature. All our earthly time is filled up with a passionate convulsion in a struggle for life and light. Yet our confusion and unhappiness chiefly come from ourselves, and neither from naturenor from God. When will this suffering of man from man stop? We have been accustomed to speak hopefully about the twentieth century. We supposed that that century at least would show the serpents as greater enemies of men than men themselves. We see despairingly to-day that the serpents are innocent creatures in comparison with men. The tragedy of crushed and murdered Serbia is a crying proof of how the serpents are comparatively innocent creatures. Yet Serbia is silent in her tragedy. I myself would prefer to be silent too. But I cannot, being not only an unhappy survivor of a horrible shipwreck, but above all a priest and servant of God.
If our national pride bids us Serbs be silent in this shipwreck, my Christian honour and pride bids me cry out and protest. I am a surviving protest of my murdered country. Yet I am still a transitory protest, a protest only for a moment before God the Slow and the Righteous begins to protest Himself. My protest is in words, my words are from the air. But God's protest will be, as always, from the unquenchable fire, which burns bodies and souls. I indicate only the terrible protest which will come. Why am I protesting now before you, sons and daughters of Great Britain? Because you have been the champions of the Bible in theworld, i.e. the champions of justice, freedom and the brotherhood of men. Because your knights have fought for the Christian Cross and Freedom. Your island has been an Island of Salvation for all the refugees, who as champions of liberty must escape from their own countries—among others, Rousseau, Voltaire and Victor Hugo, even the sons of a very liberal nation. Your most famous generals and admirals have humiliated the greatest conqueror of the world and granted him a cottage on a small island in which to live, instead of the world Empire of which he dreamed. Your statesmen—I will mention only a few of them: Pitt, Bright, Gladstone—asserted repeatedly that the domestic and foreign policy of this country should be founded on Christian principles. Your women are famous in the world because of the fine and humane education that they give to their children in order to make every new generation a new proof to the world of how this island is obviously worthy of its great role on our planet. Your working people possess a healthy sense of both reality and idealism, and avoiding all extremes and extravagances, to which poverty necessarily leads the working class in other countries, are powerfully promoting human progress, the material as well as the moral. Your nobility, far from being corrupted and degenerated by their wealth, have filled theworld with astonishment from the beginning of this war by their extraordinary patriotism and willingness to sacrifice everything, including life itself, in the struggle for the honour and the unshakable ideals of their country.
That is why I am protesting before you, valiant sons and daughters of Great Britain, the heirs of the most valuable heritage that ever a nation could call its own. Serbian life in peace time is the most eloquent accusation and the mightiest protest against the crime of two great Christian Kaisers. These two Christian Kaisers conquered Serbia by their iron and mercilessness, and bound Serbia's throat so horribly that in Serbia there is now air and light only for the conquerors and not for the conquered. Breath-less and breadless, Serbia cannot protest, but I can. Well, I propose to describe to you to-night Serbia and the Serbians in peace time, in order to show you what life your smallest allies lived before the great storm came over their country. I will begin with
THE SERBIAN VILLAGE.
Why? Because the village is the very foundation of all that we possess in material, spiritual and moral good. After the Turks conquered Serbia, five hundred years ago, the Serbian population was forced by the conquerors by degrees to abandon the towns and to retreatinto the villages, and then to abandon even the villages in the plains, on the banks of the rivers, where the soil was the most fruitful, and to escape into the forests, mountains and less accessible country. The village thus became the very soil upon which has grown our democracy. That is the difference between our democracy and the west European, where the democrats movement started and developed in the towns. Driven into the forests and mountains by the common enemy, despoiled of freedom and riches the upper and lower classes, the learned and the illiterate, suffered the same abasement and injustice, did the same work, ploughed and sowed, struggled against the same evil, the Turkish yoke, and sang of the same hopes. Under such conditions was born our democratic spirit, which served wonderfully afterwards, in the time of liberation and freedom, as a base for our democratic institutions, social, political and ecclesiastical.
I said that our village is the very foundation of our material wealth. We have, so to say, no industry, but every one of our peasants has his own land. The land being fertile, our country never knew what hunger was. It was a pleasure to see the peasants in the spring ploughing their own soil; in the summer looking over the-golden harvest of their own; in the autumn contemplating the stores plenteously filled; in the winter feasting and resting in their own houses. If you should ask any of the Serbian peasants: "To whom does this house belong? or this field? or this harvest?" he would unmistakably reply: "To God and to me!"—so in the mind of our peasants God is the first landlord, and the second they themselves.
Even during the last three years of war in Serbia there was plenty of all the necessaries of life, especially of wheat and cattle, of fruits and hay, of vegetables and wood.
But now—in Serbia all the wealth is in the past; it exists only in the memories of the de-spoiled, plundered, devastated, starved and silent slaves. In the German papers there was published a private letter from a German soldier in Serbia. "We are very well here. We have plenty of food and everything. Much more abundantly than we had on the Western front!" I am sure you understand well what this soldier meant and whence such an abundance in food supply "and everything" for the German invaders in Serbia came. Almost simultaneously a German army commander wrote to a man in a neutral country these words: "Not only I permit you to come into Serbia and help the Serbs, but I pray you come at once. Among the population in Serbia there is the greatest miseryand almost starvationen masse." What happened? The "civilised" subjects of Kaiser William would not kill the civil people in Serbia directly as the stupid Turks did, but indirectly in order to save the faithless honour of "civilisation." They drove away the population—that means the old and sick men, women and children—all other Serbs serving as soldiers and being in retreat; they drove the population away, took food, cattle, copper, warm clothes, carpets, covers, everything, and after this was done, allowed the people graciously to come back "to their homes and their customs," as the Kaiser declared. But to come how and where? Thousands died on the way back, thousands succeeded in coming back to their cold and breadless homes to die there; they are considered as the happier; and thousands fled with the Serbian troops into Albania and to the Mediterranean islands, where they died or are still dying from hunger, but because they died in freedom and not as slaves they are considered as the happiest.
We are beggars now. This is the first year in our history that we must pray to men for bread; until now we prayed only to God for daily bread, and God gave it to us abundantly. But we became beggars for bread only after the German civilisation showed itself to be a beggar, poor in moral, poor in truth and heart.
Now I will try to show you how the Serbian village
BECAME THE FOUNDATION OF THE SERBIAN SPIRIT.
No universities, no schools, no libraries, no written literature and no lectures for five hundred years! Imagine such a people. That is the Serbian people.
The only men who could write—the priests; the only library—the memory; the only education—the mother; the only university—nature; the only historians—the blind bards; the only friend and comforter—God! Imagine such a people and call them—Serbs.
Imagine the English people for half a thousand years without schools, without education, without universities, without historians, authors, friends and comforters! I am sure it is difficult for you to imagine your country even without Shakespeare, and without Oxford and Cambridge scholarships and the British Museum, not to mention other things. It may be of great interest to a psychologist as well as to a historian to know what kind of mental activity a people shows who are deprived of all that we to-day consider as an indispensable need of daily life. What may such a people be doing? Well, when by such a people are meant the Eskimos, it is clear: they hunt, eat, talk andsleep. But when by such a people is meant a people of the European, Aryan race—what then? The Serbs are a European, Aryan race. What did they do? Three things—they thought, sang and hoped.
Theythought. They thought about heaven and earth, about life and death, and man and animal, and about everything that affects human nature. They made comparisons and asked for the reason and purpose of everything. They drew their conclusions and expressed the results of their long observations. They thought a very, very long time before they uttered a short sentence. These sentences lived in the oral traditions, and have been transferred from one generation to another. These sentences are very like the Proverbs in the Bible, very like La Rochefoucauld or extracts and quotations from famous works. The Serbian sentences are striking. I have read a good deal by the great writers of Europe, but very often a popular Serbian saying strikes me more forcibly than a famous book.
Here is just one saying:
God is on the height, Satan is in the depth, man is in the middle. If God will, He can be above, below and in the middle. If Satan will, he can be below and in the middle. If man will, he can be like God everywhere, in the middle, or above or below.
Another:
A bird envied the serpent; thou knowest earth very well. The serpent envied the bird: thou knowest heaven very well. And both envied man: thou knowest heaven and earth. Man replied: "My knowledge and my ignorance make me equally unhappy."
Another:
Either snow or ice, or steam or fluid, water is always water. Either poor or rich, or ignorant or learned, man is always man.
Another:
Only a half-good man can be disappointed in this world. But a wholly good man never is disappointed because he never expects a reward for his good actions.
The Serbian peoplesangalso. Sitting around the fire in the long winter nights, the Serbian peasants sang their glorious past, their dark present and their hopes for the future. There is a Serbian instrument called thegusle, more interesting than the Greek lyre, because more appropriate for the epic songs. It looks also like the Indian instrumenttamboura. Well, as the ancient Greek bards sang their Achilles, using the lyre, and as the ancient Indian singers sang their Krishna with the help of the tamboura, so the Serbian epic singers accompanied with thegusle their songs on their hero of old, Marko. Marko was a historic person, a king's son. He was the never-weary champion of right and justice, the protector of the poor and oppressed, a believer in the victorious good, a man who left an impression on the coming generations like a lightning flash in the dark clouds. In every village house in Serbia there is a gusle, and almost in every family a good singer with the gusle. The blind bards sang on the occasion of the festival or a meeting.
The great Pitt, when once asked from whom he learned the English history so well, replied: "From Shakespeare." To the same question we Serbs can reply: "From our national poetry." It is very rare for a people in the mass to know their past as well as the Serbs know their own. The Serbs regard their history not so much as a dry science, but rather as an art, a drama, which must be told in a solemn language. They knew their history, and therefore they sang it; they sang it, and therefore they knew it better and better.
The Serbian men sang, but not only the men, the women sang as well. When the harvest was being gathered during July and August, the women and girls sang in the fields or under the fruit trees. In our country we have the sun abundantly, and the outdoor singing responds fully to the luxuriance of light. What shall Isay then about our women's singing in the autumn in the dry and soft moonlight? It is the time of spinning on the distaff. The tired men go to bed, but the women sit down in a circle in the houseyard in the open place. They chat and they sing without stopping their spinning. They sing two and two, in duet, but so that a new duet is begun when the other finishes. This duet singing is not only in one family, but in many at the same time, in different parts of the village. Moonlight—we have wonderful clear and white moonlight in Serbia—silence, singing from every side, from every house, from girls, nightingales and other birds. The whole of the village is the stage, hundreds of singers, moonlight and open starry space—I am sure you would be much more fascinated by such a Serbian rustic opera than by many modern operas on a stage in London. And now—there rushed into Serbia
THE KAISER, WHO DOES NOT SING,
and our singing stopped. Under the Turks the Serbian people sang. You can find in the British Museum ten big volumes of the Serbian national poetry which was composed during the time of the Turkish rule in Serbia. This rule was very hard and very dark indeed, but still we considered ourselves as the champions of the Cross against the Crescent, and we imagined that weshould be the bulwark of Christian Europe, i.e. of Central Europe in the first place. Therefore we endured the struggle with the Turks, singing and hoping. And now—the twoChristianKaisers, with a fox from Sofia, have crushed Serbia more completely than she ever was crushed by the Turks. "Come back to your homes and your customs," so the Kaiser William invited the Serbian refugees.
"To your customs!" But, ohillustrissime Caesar,we could reply, our first and best custom is to sing. Tell us, how we could sing now? You know, oh Kaiser, because you preached the Bible also, you must know the Biblical com-plaints of the Israel of old: "By the rivers of Babylon, there we sat down, yea, we wept, when we remembered Zion. We hung our harps upon the willows in the midst thereof. For there they that carried us away captive required of us a song, saying, Sing us one of the songs of Zion? How shall we sing the Lord's song in a strange land?" You are now playing a real Babylonian role towards us Serbs, i.e. towards a people who fought for the Cross, who sang freedom and who were crucified for justice. You are not a better man than any peasant from the Serbian villages. Do you want a proof? The Serbian peasant can sing, and you cannot. You cannot sing, not because of your diseased throat, butbecause of your evil conscience. You stopped the singing in a country of songs, oh ill majesty! How could we now sing our songs while our homes are transformed into empty caves? How could we sing, seeing our bread in strangers' hands and cold stones in ours? How could we sing now, when all our past protests against you and all our dead are disturbed in their graves? You covered our country with sins and crimes, and it is not our custom to sing of sins and crimes, but of virtues. When will you show us your virtues? You have shown us until now only your iron and fire, your brutality and brutality, and again brutality and brutality,—and, did I say?—iron and fire. That is the essence of your religion and science, of your soul and glory. We will despise all that you brought into our country. Let us be silent, Sire, and you may continue to show your Mephistophelean civilisation, and after you have crushed all those who are weaker and smaller than you, Sire, open your lips and preach upon their ruin to your admirers:cantate Domino!But we will not sing after our custom of old in your presence. We prefer to be silent and to wait for God's judgment.
The Hidden Moral Treasures of the Serbian people are now shining, as always, throughout all the times of darkness and suffering.
You will remember from the beginning of the war all the declarations of the Serbian government about the Serbian loyalty to the end. Some among you might have thought: such declarations are dictated by political reasons. No, such declarations have been only a poor expression of what we all in Serbia thought and felt. Loyalty to friends, devotion to our pledged word, fidelity to the signed and unsigned treaties were always considered in Serbia as sacred duties in the conscience of the people. Our morale is not something that was learned in the schools—do not forget we had no schools for centuries—but rather an inherited treasure which every man was obliged to keep in great brilliancy. It is not a morale supported by learning, sophisms and quotations, it is an elementary power which is not a possession, but which has possession of everybody. Our Prime Minister uttered the other day these words: "Better to die in beauty than to live in shame!" Fifteen hundred years ago similar words were uttered on this island of yours by a knight of Beowulf's escort: "Death is better than a life of shame." Every child in Serbia thinks the same as our Prime Minister about the value of life and death.
"Better to die than" to live so and so, or than to do this or that—hundreds of the Serbian proverbs begin with those words. In proverbsis expressed our moral wisdom, in proverbs and poetry. Yet our proverbs are poetry as well. The morale is regarded not so much as a teaching, rather as poetry, like history. History and morality are things which shall be sung, history and morality are such dignified topics that they must be expressed in a dignified, solemn language. Poetry is the very essence of things. It is the most earnest thing in the world. That is our opinion.
The Serbs read the Bible very little, although they had the Bible in their own language and used it in divine service before you used it in the church of your own. The Bible was listened to in the church, but poetry at home. As Shakespeare can be called your second Bible, so, and still more, our national poetry for us has been indeed a second Bible. Our poetry has been our history, our moral, our beauty, our hopes, our education, our encouragement—our Bible. By our poetry, as by the Bible, the morale is not only taught but inspired. What is this morale, taught by Serbian poetry and proverbs, when uttered in a dry form?
"Dear God, we thank thee for all," that is the usual beginning of every poem.
Love? Love is better than justice.
Justice? Justice is better than injustice.
Injustice? It must be punished.
Suffering? It must be relieved.
Patience? That is the great virtue of the sufferers.
Honour? Better to die than to give up honour.
Dishonour? It means as much as death.
Mercifulness? It shines like the sun over the world.
A beggar? He puts your heart to the test.
Death? God is behind death and therefore death is no evil.
Prayer? It shall be used always, but it never helps unless we do our best.
Humility? It is always rewarded by love.
Fearlessness? It is commended very strongly.
Cowardice? It is repudiated and despised to the utmost.
Obedience? Youth must be obedient and respectful towards old people.
Chastity? Better to burn down a church than to take or to give away chastity.
Protection of the weak? Marko protected weak people and animals. That is a great merit.
Chivalry? Always; towards friends and enemies.
Work? Without work prayer does not help.
Freedom? Man is man only in living in freedom and in fighting for freedom.
Wealth? It is no virtue, and if it does not support virtue, it is a vice.
God? He is the Lord of the World and thy steady companion.
Such morals have been preached, yea, sung by our ancestors, and by ourselves. Certainly we have sinned often against these morals, but in our sins and in our virtues they have been always regarded as a standard of all that is good and beautiful.
SINNING SERBIA.
Serbia sinned and repented her sins, and again sinned. Put yourselves, gentlemen, in the chair of a judge, and I will confess to you all the sins of Serbia. Serbia sinned and suffered. Her sins have been her hell, her sufferings—her purgatory. I don't pray you to forgive Serbia, but only to compare justly her sins with her sufferings. The Serbs sinned against all the ten commandments, it is true, but still regarded the ten commandments as the standard which is better than anation's doings. Although the people said beautifully: "A grain of truth is better than a ton of lies," still the lie, like a parasite, had its nest in Serbia as elsewhere. Although the people said: "It is better to be blind with justice than to have eyes with injustice," still injustice had its seed, its growth and fruits among the same people. Although Cain's sin has been abhorred by the conscience of the Serbs, still this sin of taking the life of a brother has defiled the very soil of Serbia, which has been so much sanctified by the sufferings and unselfish sacrifices of her people. You will not find certainly in Serbia the refined vices which are practised in the shadow of great civilisations, but you will find quite enough great and small sins, which the Serbian conscience does not justify any more than yours.
THE SERBIAN AND THE BULGARIAN SPIRIT.
Besides, I will confess to you one great sin of the Serbian people. It is an exaggerated love for independence. It is a virtue as every honest love is a virtue, but it becomes a sin if exaggerated. It is a brilliant quality like the sunshine in the time of fighting against the common enemy, but it is a sin in peace time when organised efforts for the social welfare are required. This spirit of independence, the independence fromenemies as well as from friends, has considerably disturbed our social life and progress-during the last century. Now, by this greatest of our sins and greatest of our virtues as well, we Serbs differed chiefly from our neighbours. The people in Great Britain have been accustomed to look towards the Balkans as towards a country with one and the same spirit. This is a great mistake. There are chiefly two spirits: the Serbian and the Bulgarian,i.e.the spirit of independence and the spirit of slavery. The Serbian spirit resisted until the end stubbornly and tenaciously against the Turks conquering the Balkans five centuries ago. The Bulgarian spirit surrendered without any resistance. "The Kral of Bulgaria did not wait to be conquered, but humbly begged for mercy"; so writes an English historian.[3]The rebellious spirit of the Serbs arose first in the Balkan darkness a hundred years ago against the tyranny and the despotic wickedness of the Turkish rulers, and liberated the Serbian fatherland. The Bulgarian spirit waited until strangers came and liberated the Bulgarian country. Those strangers have been: Russians, Serbians, Roumanians and Mr. Gladstone. The Bulgarian spirit has been since 1878 under the rule of the German kings, as slavishly subordinate as it was for five hundred yearsunder the rule of the Turkish viziers and pashas. It was pure ignorance which made some people exclaim some months ago: "It is King Ferdinand's war against Serbia and the Allies, and not the Bulgarian people's. The Bulgars will never fight against the Russians, their liberators." Yet the fact is and will remain: the Bulgarian people have only one thought, i.e. the thought of their ruler, be it Ferdinand or somebody else, and they have only one will, i.e. the will of their ruler. They will fight against the Russians as fiercely as they fought against the Turks yesterday, and against the French and British to-day, if it is only the plan and will of their ruler.
This slavish spirit, which is a disgrace to a nation in the most tragic and decisive events of the world's history, makes the Bulgarian people in peace very happy and fit for peaceful organised work, when obedience and subordination are required. This slavish spirit is the greatest virtue and the greatest sin of the Bulgarian nation.
Yet, I am speaking of our own sins, and I confess that our greatest sin has been the too greatly developed love of personal independence. It is the truest spirit of the Serbs. From this spirit originated all our fortunes and all our misfortunes. From the point of view of this spirit consider, please, all our sins in modern times:the killing of our kings, the internal disturbances, and all the irregularity in the political and social life of our country, and you will understand us better; and if you understand us better, I am sure you will forgive us more easily.
SERBIA IN PRAYER.
Serbia has sinned, Serbia has prayed. If you put on one side of the scales Serbia's sins and on the other Serbia's sufferings and prayers, I am sure the latter will send the balance down.
Again I must come back to the Serbian village. Prayer is there considered not only as an epilogue to a sin but as a daily necessity. The first duty after one's ablution in the morning is prayer. That is a sanctified custom. Many songs on our national hero, Marko, begin as follows:
"Marko got up early in the morning,Washed his face and prayed to God."
"Marko got up early in the morning,Washed his face and prayed to God."
And all the songs begin, I repeat it, with the verse:
"Dear God, we are thankful to Thee for all."
"Dear God, we are thankful to Thee for all."
But not only the songs begin with prayer, every work and every pleasure begins with prayer as well, every day and every night, every feast, every rest and every journey. This custom has been partly broken and abandoned only in the towns under the influence of the central Europeanmaterialistic civilisation. In the villages unbelief is unknown. In our green fields, under our dark-blue heaven, in our little white houses and wooden cottages, on the banks of our murmuring brooks and magnificent rivers, atheism is unknown. Every family in a house is regarded as a little religious community. The head of the family presides over this community and prays with it. When I tell you that, I tell you my personal experience. I was born in a village, in a family of forty-five members. We prayed together every Saturday, after the weekly work was over. In the evening my grandfather, the head of the family, called us to prayer. We had no chapel in the house. In bad weather we prayed in the house, in fine weather out of doors, in the yard. The starry heaven served as our temple, the moon as our guardian, the silent breath of the surrounding nature as our inspiration. My grandfather took a chalice with fire and incense, and sprinkled every one of us. Then he came forward, stood before us and bowed deeply, and his example was followed by us all. Then began a silent prayer, interrupted only here and there by a sighing or by some whispering voice. We crossed ourselves and prayed, looking to the earth and looking to the stars. The prayer ended again with deep bowing and with a loud Amen.
When I recall this prayer in my memory, I feel more piety, more humility and more comfort than I ever felt in any of the big cathedrals in either hemisphere where I have had the opportunity of praying. This prayer of the Serbian peasants, beautiful in its simplicity and touching in its sincerity, survived generation after generation, and has been victorious over all crimes that the strangers of the Asiatic or of the European faith have committed on us. Our tenacious and incessant prayer is an evident sign of our tenacious and unbroken hope. We pray because we hope; we hope still more after we have prayed.
Everything can be disturbed in Serbia except prayer. The invasion of the Kaiser's troops in Serbia disturbed and perturbed everything in Serbia, but the prayer of the Serbian people still continues. Enslaved in Serbia, dispersed as the refugees are all over the world, we pray to the God of Justice, now as always. Our prayer means our hope. The Kaiser's subjects and the Bulgarian slaves can kill everything in Serbia—and the purpose of their coming into Serbia is killing—but they never can kill our hope. Martyred Serbia, your loyal ally, oh noble sons and daughters of Great Britain, is now silent and powerless. Enemies and friends can now laugh her to scorn. She will remain silent. I am sure you will respect this silence of the Crucified. Iam sure everyone of you will do his best to redeem Serbia. Well, Serbia can now give, after all, her cause to God and can wait the end hopefully. She can now say to the Kaiser, her conqueror and lord, the words of one of your great poets:
"I have lost, you have won this hazard yet perchanceMy loss may shine yet goodlier than your gainWhen time and God give judgement."
"I have lost, you have won this hazard yet perchanceMy loss may shine yet goodlier than your gainWhen time and God give judgement."
A C Swinburne (Faliero).
Delivered before the English Soldiers.
I propose to-night, gentlemen, to describe to you Serbia, my native country, my dream of the past, my dream of the future, and one of your Allies, loyal and faithful in life and death. I will try, of course, to give you only some glances at and slight insight into what Serbia has represented with her soul, her efforts, ideals and hopes. The time is short, yea, our time to-day is more empty than the events which surprise us every day, every night, and overwhelm us like an avalanche of snow and ice from the Alps. How poor and insufficient is our human language to-day, even the language of the most eloquent mortals from this island like Burke, Macaulay and Carlyle, to describe the events which our eyes are seeing and our ears listening to at the present moment! Do not expect from me an equivalent description of Serbia, which has been one of the greatest factors in this world-war during many months, and which hasdisturbed your hearts for so long and attracted thousands of your sons and friends over the seas, to take the sword from Serbia's mangled hands and continue the struggle for the same cause for which she fought until death. All that I can tell you consists in some poor instances and remembrances which will be sufficient to show you that Serbia has been worthy to live and to be your ally, and consequently that she is worthy of your great sympathy with her and of your helping her resurrection.
Serbia has been at war since 1912.
IN AUTUMN 1912
King Peter of Serbia consecrated his church of white marble, built in Topola, the birthplace of his grandfather, Karageorge, the protagonist of Balkan liberation. On the same hill, on which Karageorge took the resolution to begin one of the greatest things that ever happened on the troublesome Balkan soil, on the hill of Oplenaz, Karageorge's grandson, King Peter, erected a beautiful church and then declared war on Turkey. It was one of many wars that we had with Turkey, one of many—known and unknown to you—during five hundred years. We have had our old accounts with the Turks. We despised them as the slaves will despise their lords, and they despised us as the lords will despisetheir slaves. Yet we respected their virtues, and they recognised some of ours. With the sword they conquered our country, and we knew that only with the sword we could reconquer it from them. Our Christian drama with the Turks in the Balkans began with blood, and we all believed it must finish with blood. In our bloody conflict with the Turks we, the Christians, lost three kings—one of them was King Constantine of Byzantium, and two were the Serbian kings, Vukashin and Lazare—during a period of seventeen years. As well as Serbia and Greece, Roumania also offered great resistance to the Turks. It is a historic fact, that after the decisive Balkan battle on the field of Kossovo, the Roumanians also fought against the Turks. In the battle of Rovina between the Turks and Roumanians, our epic Serbian hero, Marko Kralevich, the last king of Macedonia, called Marko of Prilep, also participated, and was killed there. He was the third Serbian king killed in the defence of Christian freedom in the Balkans. That was the time when the Albanians, too, showed their virtues more than ever before. Under Skender-beg, the prince from Croya, they resisted the Mussulmans very bravely. But they fell into slavery in the same way as Serbia, Greece, Roumania and Croatia. The only country in the Balkans which surrendered withoutany resistance was Bulgaria. The only country in the Balkans that never was conquered by the Turks was Montenegro. Poor Montenegro, a skeleton of rocky mountains, has shown during five hundred years more heroic beauty and idealistic enthusiasm than many great empires in Asiatic and European history, which fought their selfish battles for power and comfort, and have been respected and adored merely because of their numbers and dimensions.
Now, in the year of our Lord, 1912, two Serbian kingdoms, Serbia and Montenegro, with two other Christian kingdoms, Greece and Bulgaria, declared war on the Turks. The Roumanians were with their sympathies on the side of the Christian allies. The Albanians, degenerate and disorganised, very different from Skenderbeg's contemporaries, standing now under the influence of Austria, were pro-Turks and against the Christian warriors.
Shall I remind you of the results? I suppose the surprising fact is fresh in your memories even now that only two months after the Balkan war had been declared the delegates of the belligerents for peace stayed in Hyde Park Hotel in London. Turkey lost and the Christians won.
The Serbian troops crossed the frontier and fighting proceeded in three different directions, towards Skoplje and Prilep, towards Adrianopleand towards Scutari. A foreigner never can realise what a Serbian soldier thought and felt at that time. Skoplje had been the centre of our mediaeval kingdom; in Prilep lived and ruled king Marko, our national hero; under the walls of. Adrianople King Vukashin, Marko's father, was killed resisting the Turkish invasion; Scutari was the last free dominion of the Serbian kings Balshic before universal darkness covered the whole of the Balkans, except Montenegro. In every direction the Serbian soldiers faced their own history. Their past glory has been revived; their heroes of old excited their imagination; many saw them in visions or in dreams, all imitated them in heroic deeds and in sufferings.
Here succumbed the Saint King Lazare! exclaimed our soldier in the field of Kossovo. Here fell the Duke Milosh after he killed the Turkish Sultan Murad! Here lived Marko of Prilep! From this fortress he protected the remnants of the Serbian people and their past glory after the fatal battle of Kossovo! Here on the stones the hoofs of Shiraz, Marko's cherished horse, are to be seen. There are churches built by King Urosh, or Stephen, or Milutin, or Dushan, or Lazare! Here on the Mariza River fell Vukashin with sixty thousand of the most splendid Serbian warriors defending the freedom of theBalkans. There on Scutari stand lofty walls constructed by the same King Vukashin. This is the way by which the Byzantine princesses had come to be the wives of our kings or dukes. There is the town where King Dushan, in allegiance with Kantakusen and the Greeks, fought against the first Turkish invaders. On this lake of Ochrida was a beautiful church with a Serbian archbishopric. That is the mountain where thevillas(fairies) lived and from which they flew down to help our heroes or to preserve the Serbian down-trodden rights. In this town King Nemanja met the Crusaders from the West proceeding to the East and gave them hospitality. In that town our greatest king proclaimed the famous codex of laws,Zakonik, which is comparable with the best codexes of that kind. Here are the tombs of our patriarchs, who led and protected the nation during centuries of oppression and slavery. There are the towers built from the skeletons of the Serbian leaders, who were slaughtered for their ideals of freedom; and there again is the spot where were hanged severalvoivodasandbishops. Bones upon bones, blood upon blood, sin upon sin, heroism upon heroism! Kossovo, Scutari, Kumanovo, Skoplje, Prilep, Bitolj, Adrianople—all these names were well known by every Serbian soldier. In their childhood and boyhood they sang these verynames, they sang them and knew the historical events and heroes connected with them. And so they came now not as guests and strangers, but they returned home after a long absence. It seems to every one of them like a dream: the land which has been for generations and generations the topic of poetry now stood before the Serbian warriors as a reality. The Serbian brothers from Austria-Hungary came to Macedonia, kissed the sacred soil, and each one took a handful of the sacred dust from the tombs of our kings and heroes of old. Two months after the outbreak of war King Peter returned to Topola and prayed gratefully in his white church to God and to Saint George. This democratic king, who has been elected by the Serbian Parliament (Skupshtina), thanked God that he with his people had finished the work of liberation from the Turkish yoke, which work was started by Karageorge, his grandfather, who also was elected by the people to be their leader.
IN SUMMER 1913.
The war with the Turks was a short one. Yet the war with the Bulgars was still shorter. The Bulgars attacked us in a dark night. Austria suggested such an attack, and this quite suited the Bulgarian spirit. It is a slavish spirit, full of slavish ambitions and slavish abject methods.
When I tell you that, believe me, I tell it neither as a chauvinist nor even as a Serbian patriot, but as a man who has studied very carefully the history and psychology of the Balkan peoples.
The Bulgarian attack against the Serbian army was resisted not only by the Serbs, as the Bulgars hoped, but by the Greeks and Roumanians as well. I visited the battlefield afterwards. I have been in Stip, a town on the Bregalniza river, where the attack began. I saw the tree on the bank of the river, under which the Serbian and Bulgarian officers rested together the very day before the treacherous night. The Bulgarians smiled and chatted with their Serbian colleagues; they spoke about the everlasting brotherhood between the Serbian and Bulgarian nations; they ate and drank from the same plates and glasses with the Serbs, their allies, while the order of the night attack lay in their pockets. It happened nineteen hundred years after a treacherous apostle ate and drank in the same manner with his Master.
The unnatural ambitions of the Bulgars were repudiated by all the Balkan nations. Therefore the Bulgars saw one day against them, not one enemy as they expected, but three. Serbs, Greeks and Roumanians marched together towards Sofia. The Bulgars asked for peace. In the conference of Bucharest, as youremember, the new frontiers of the Balkan States were marked. Serbia came out from this war victorious, it is true, but with a broken heart, for she had been forced to fight against her ally of yesterday—with a broken heart, with many thousands of her best sons killed and crippled, and with still many more swept away by cholera, which was raging in the summer of 1913.
THE HOME OF THE SERBIAN SOUL
is Macedonia. It must have been once a charming country worthy of the great men like Philip and Alexander, worthy of Saint Paul's mission to it, worthy of Byzantium's effort to save it from the Slavs, worthy of all the Turkish sacrifices to conquer it, worthy of several Serbian kings who gave their lives defending it. It was a rich and beautiful spot on this earth. It was the centre of the Serbian mediaeval state and power, the very heart of the Serbian glory from the time when the Serbs became Christians till the tragedy of Kossovo, and after this tragedy till the death of King Marko of Prilep in the beginning of the fifteenth century. Even during the time of slavery under the Turks, Macedonia was the source of all the spiritual and moral inspirations and supports of the enslaved nation. It happened only accidentally that the northernpart of Serbia, was liberated a hundred years ago while Macedonia remained still in chains. In the north, in the dense forests and the mountains around Belgrade and Kraguievaz, the guerilla war started a great insurrection which succeeded.
This guerilla war meant a gradual destruction of the Turkish dominions in the whole northern part: in Shumadija, Bosnia, Croatia and Dalmatia. But I say the guerilla war in Shumadija, around Belgrade and Kraguievaz, was a success. Karageorge liberated a part of the Serbian country in the north, and this part was finally recognised by the great powers of Europe and calledSerbia. But neither Karageorge nor anybody in Serbia has forgotten Macedonia. Macedonia was not only a part of our history, but it has become a part of our soul. The principal and the greater part of our national poetry, which means our Shakespeare and which meant our Bible, describes Serbian Macedonia, her heroes, her historic events, her struggle with the Turks, her slavery, and her customs and hopes. Serbian children know the names of the towns like Skoplje, Prilep, Ochrida, and the heroes' names, Urosh, Stephen, Milutin, Dushan, Marko and Ugljesha, before they learn in the school to write these names. Our national poetry is our national education, our education is our soul. Macedonia representsa great part of our poetry, which means that she forms a great part of our soul. To say Macedonia does not belong to Serbia means the same as to say, the Serbian soul does not belong to the Serbians. Could you imagine England without Stratford, the birthplace of Shakespeare? I don't think you could. So we cannot imagine a Serbia without Prilep, the source, yea, the birthplace of our national poetry. Every people must have some sacred soil in their country, a part more sacred than other parts, which binds them more to their fatherland, which excites their enthusiasm, and which obliges them to defend and to die for it. I was born in Northern Serbia, in a town which has been very important in our modern history. But I must tell you that it was not Valve, my birthplace, which inspired me to be a Serb in soul, but rather Prilep, Skoplje and Ochrida, the places where our spirit and our virtues of old flourished, together with Kossovo, where our national body was destroyed. Valevo has been very little mentioned in our national poetry, Valevo and even Belgrade, in comparison with Macedonia. Northern Serbia has been in our Middle Ages more a part of our body than of our soul. But Macedonia.... A Bulgarian diplomat formerly in Rome once ironically told a Serbian sculptor in a discussion about Macedonia: 'We Bulgars know that King Marko of Prilep isa Serbian. Well, give us Prilep, that is what we want, and keep King Marko for yourselves!" That is the true Bulgarian spirit. The Greeks have understood us better. They have many brothers of their own in Monastir and Ochrida, and still they recognised the Serbian rights in the central and northern parts of Macedonia, claiming for themselves only the southern part, and giving to the Bulgars the eastern part of it. Yet they could claim Macedonia not with less rights than the Bulgars did. Why? Because Macedonia never was the centre of a Greek Empire, as it never was the centre of a Bulgarian Empire. It was a provincial country of the old Byzantine Empire. It was a country temporarily conquered by the Bulgars, the centre of the Bulgarian kingdom being Tirnovo and its neighbourhood. But it was quite a centre of all the best things that we Serbs created and possessed in our past. Our national soul cannot live without this part of our national body. I remember a conversation in Nish between a French sailor and a Serbian writer. The French sailor said: "But you will perish if you do not give Macedonia to the Bulgars?" The Serbian writer replied quietly: "Let us perish for the sake of our soul!" An English gentleman asked me the other day: "Why have you been obstinate in not yielding Macedonia to the Bulgars, while we even areready to yield to the Greeks, offering them Cyprus?" "Yes," I said, "we can well appreciate your sacrifice, but still Prilep for us is rather what Stratford—and not Cyprus—is for you. And even I, not being an Englishman, could never agree that you should offer Shakespeare's birthplace to anybody in the world."
Perhaps the Bulgars would not have attacked us in this war if we had given Macedonia to them, although it is not certain, because the frontiers of their ambitions are in Constantinople, Salonica and on the Adriatic. Still Serbia could not barter her soul like Faust with Mephistopheles. Five hundred years ago the Serbs and Greeks defended Macedonia from the Turkish invasion. In 1912 it was Serbia with Greece again who liberated Macedonia from the Turkish yoke. Bulgaria never defended Macedonia from the Turks. Her first fighting for Macedonia was in 1913 against Serbs, Greeks and Roumanians. And Serbia sacrificed not only many things and many lives for Macedonia, but twice even her independence—once five hundred years ago, and for the second time at the present moment.Yes, Serbia is now killed because of Macedonia.Indeed, all Serbia's fighting and suffering have been because of Macedonia. She fought against the Turks because of Macedonia. She fought against the Bulgars because of Macedonia. Andshe now is losing her independence because of Macedonia. Because she could not give Macedonia, which means her glory, her history, her poetry, her soul, she is now trodden down and killed. Serbia could not live without Macedonia. Serbia did what she could—she died for Macedonia. And if one day, God willing, from this blessed island should sound the trumpet for the Resurrection for all the dead, killed by the German sword, I hope Serbia will rise from her grave together with Macedonia, as one body and one soul.
Serbia and the World-War.
In three years Serbia got three decisive victories which attracted attention to her in both hemispheres. She got a decisive victory at Kumanovo, against the Turks, in 1912. She got the second decisive victory on the Bregalniza, against the Bulgars, in 1913. She got a third decisive victory at Rudnik, against the Austrians and Magyars, in 1914. But finally she perished, in 1915, under the blow of the allied Turks, Bulgars, Austrians and Magyars with their common lord and leader against Serbia, the Germans.
Why?
"Because she caused this world-war. That is a just punishment which she well deserves," so say the Germans and their dupes. And sayingso, they think of the assassination in Sarajevo. A Serbian boy killed the Crown Prince of Austria. Therefore Austria pretended to think that Serbia must lose her independence. To punish Serbia for the crime in Sarajevo, Austria sent the famous ultimatum to Serbia in the summer of 1914, asking nothing less than what Shylock asked from Antonio—his life. To punish Serbia, Germany made an alliance with the Bulgars, and sent her troops and her iron—the best product of their culture—to destroy the Serbian state, to devastate the Serbian country, and to take more than a million of human lives for the life of the Austrian Crown Prince. And this has been done with an unprecedented perfection. And this destructive deed has been praised with eloquent words in all the parliaments, churches, schools and papers all over Central Europe.
We could reply to this German accusation: "Did not your greatest national poet, Schiller, glorify William Tell, who killed Gesler, the Austrian tyrannous ruler in Switzerland? Why do you, who adore Schiller, and who praise William Tell's deed, blame the Serbian boy, Princip, who did the same thing in killing Franz Ferdinand, the tyrant of Bosnia, his fatherland? And after all, shall a whole nation, which was as surprised by the affair in Sarajevo as anyone in the world, be crushed because of the crime ofone man? Is that the principle of Frederick the Great, or Leasing, or Kant and Schiller?"
The Magyars said through their leading men: "Serbia must be punished not because of the affair in Sarajevo, but because she is making a propaganda to liberate and unite all the Southern Slav people, which means a great blow for the Magyar interests and for the crown of Saint Stephen." Therefore the Magyars, rushing into Serbia in the first invasion, in August 1914, devastated a northern district of Serbia, the district of Drina, in such a way that only the Bulgars could compete with them. Henri Barby, the French publicist, has visited this district after the invasion. His description of the Magyar atrocities and the original pictures taken on the spot of the crimes committed make one ashamed to be the contemporary of such a nation.
We could reply to the Magyar accusations: "Not so much is it that Serbia has been making a propaganda to liberate her brothers from your yoke, as that they themselves have made this propaganda. Before the Crown Prince was killed in Sarajevo there were several outbursts in Agram on the Bans of Croatia, who were Magyar agents and tyrants just as Gesler was in Switzerland many hundred years ago. All the outbursts and all the tragi-comic high trials in Croatia, Bosnia and Dalmatia, all the successes of the HapsburgMonarchy in the south and all the protests prove two things:
First, that the Southern Slavs, Serbia's brothers, have suffered and have been abased very much by the Magyar's brutal rule, and
Second, that they have grown to be free and to live independently from a nation which showed itself very inferior in many respects to the nation ruled by it.
The Bulgars even mocked the Serbs for allying themselves with the "degenerate" French, with the "faithless traders," the English, and with the "barbarians," the Russians. They mocked us that we have not been "real" politicians, that we have been stupid and could not foresee the German victory. They accused us even in their declaration of war of being "the felons" who caused the "world's conflagration." And they regarded as their mission to rise "in the name of civilisation" to punish "a criminal nation."
We Serbs have nothing to reply to this Bulgar mockery, since they distinctly claimed that they are not Slavs but Mongols; since they condemned the English, French and Russian civilisations, and declared themselves to be the champions of the true civilisation. I will tell you only how they fulfilled their "mission" in defending the human civilisation from the Serbs. I will not speak myself, but I will repeat what a well-known English gentleman reported from Salonica:
"About five o'clock in the afternoon, while we still waited for orders where to take our guns, we saw coming out of the town towards us a long, straggling procession of Serbian soldier prisoners, about 300, surrounded by a strong escort of infantry. They were of all ages, some young boys of 15, some old men, bowed of back, with grey in their beards, hungry-looking, ragged, bearing the marks of their long fight in the pass. They shambled along, evidently without any idea as to what their fate was to be, till they came close to where this newly-dug pit lay open. There the command to halt was given, and they stood or sat, surrounded by their guards, for about an hour.
"At the end of that time another body of men could be seen coming out of the town. They were Bulgarian cavalry, about eighty of them, with a captain in command. At a deliberate walk they came on towards the throng of prisoners and guards at the pit-side. When they were still several hundred yards away, a young Serbian soldier evidently grasped what was preparing. Making a sudden dart, he sprang through the cordon of guards, and was off, running at a surprising speed. The guards shouted, but their rifles, though with bayonetsfixed, were not loaded, and it looked for the moment as if he might get clear away. Then the captain of the cavalry troop caught sight of him, turned round in the saddle, and shouted an order to his men. Half a dozen spurred their horses, and left the ranks at a gallop. It was a short chase. Hearing the thud of the horses' hoofs behind him, the young Serbian turned his head for an instant, then ran on faster than before. The galloping cavalry were soon close up with him. As the first man, with a shout, raised his sword, the fugitive doubled like a hare, and was away at right angles. Two more horsemen were close behind, though. The first rode him down; the second leaned out of his saddle and pierced him through, as he scrambled to regain his feet. By this time the guards with the rest of the Serbians had loaded their rifles, and stood round them in a ring, with levelled bayonets, while, huddled together, their prisoners embraced each other or sank in apathy to the ground.
"The cavalry captain rode up to the miserable throng. 'Each man will bind the eyes of his neighbour,' he shouted in Serbian. They did so. It took a long time, and was a pitiable sight. Some young boys were crying. Many of the men shouted defiance at the guards, who looked expectantly on, and at the cavalry, whose swordswere drawn ready for the butchery. They blindfolded each other with strips torn from their waistcloths, or whatever else they had. 'Now kneel down,' came the harsh order, and one by one the victims crouched on the ground. The captain turned again to his troopers. 'Start work,' was the order he gave. The infantry guards, still keeping a circle to drive back any who might try to flee, drew off a little to give more room, and passing through the intervals of their line, the Bulgar cavalry rode in among the kneeling throng of prisoners at a canter. With yells of cruel delight they pushed to and fro, slashing and thrusting at the unarmed victims. Some of the Serbians tried to seize the dripping sabre blades in their hands. An arm slashed off at the shoulder would fall from their bodies. Others, tearing off the bandages that blindfolded them, attempted to unhorse their executioners, gripping them by the boot to throw them out of the saddle. But even the 300, though brave, could do nothing against eighty armed men.
"I could see the living trying to save themselves, crawling under the little heaps of dead. Others rushed towards the line of infantry, surrounding them, as if to break through to safety, but the foot soldiers, intoxicated by the sight of the deliberate bloodshed going on before their eyes, ran to meet them with their bayonets, andthrust them through and through again with savage cries. 'We are doing this in charity,' shouted some of the Bulgarians. 'We have no bread to feed you, so if we spared you it would be to die of hunger.' The massacre went on for half an hour. At the end of that time there was little left to kill, and the troopers were tired of cutting and thrusting. A few of them dismounted, and, sword in hand, walked here and there among the bleeding groups of dead, pricking them to see if any still lived. Some, though badly wounded, were still alive, but the Bulgarian captain did not give time for them all to be finished off, and at his orders the whole pile of murdered prisoners, whether breathing or extinct, were pushed by the infantry into the grave dug earlier in the afternoon, and earth shovelled at once on top of them."[4]
"England betrayed the White Race!" So exclaimed the other day Herr Dernburg, the former German minister for the colonies. Why? Because England mobilised all the races, including the black and yellow, Negroes, Indians, Maoris and Japanese, against the Germans. Herr Dernburg thinks that England has very much damaged European civilisation by so doing. That is a very curious conception of the present worldsituation. I could reply to Herr Dernburg's objection:
First, the history of mankind does not report that the Negroes enslaved anybody and kept him enslaved through a bloody régime five hundred years long as the Turks, the German allies, did with the Balkan Christians.
Second, I never have been told that the Japanese are more barbarous people than the Magyars.
Third, I doubt very strongly that there is any madman in the world who will even try to make a comparison between the noble soul of India and a blood-thirsty subject of Ferdinand of Coburg.
And fourth, if Kaiser William with the Prussian junkers should govern Europe through the superman's philosophy and Krupp's industry, let us hurry to open the door of Europe as soon as possible for the Chinese and Japanese, for Indians and Negroes, and even for all the cannibals, the innocent doves, who need more time to eat up one fellow-man with their teeth than a trained Prussian needs to slaughter ten thousand by help of his "kultur."
If England is doing anything right she doubtless is doing right in mobilising all the nations, yea, all the human beings upon this planet, cultured or uncultured, civilised or uncivilised,of every colour of skin, of every size, to protest in this or another way against a military and inhuman civilisation which is worse than the most primitive barbarism of man. All the races of the world who are fighting to-day with England against Germany may not understand either each other's language or customs, religion or traditions, but they all understand one thing very well,i.e.that they must fight together against a nation which despises all other nations and tries to conquer them, to govern them, to suppress their language, their customs, their traditions and their belief in their own worth and mission in this world.
ONLY SOME ANECDOTES.
A Serbian detachment from the VIIth regiment had been ordered one night to cross the river Sava to make explorations about the positions and vigilance of the enemy. The soldiers prepared themselves to fulfil their task with silence and depression. The commander of the detachment remarked that and said: