Pavle Lazarevic

5/12/2018
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Preserving traditional music culture during the occupation and oppression

“There are four characteristics of a nation – language, religion, culture and history.”1

Traditional music culture plays a great role in districting nations as well, since we are

often able to recognize ethnicities based on the different music performed. Today among

many nations, there is a danger that traditional music culture will perish due to

globalization and lack of attention to traditional values. Serbia is one of those nations.

However, Serbia experienced this problem six centuries ago. Serbian history is full of

turmoil since through centuries Serbs were occupied by stronger countries and they were

at risk to lose national identity. (Corovic, 2001) Despite all the problems and unfavorable

situations, Serbs were able to save their national identity together with the traditional

music culture. In this essay, I am going to explain how Serbs successfully preserved

traditional music culture during the Ottoman occupation and oppression.

In order for the reader to understand why religion, Orthodoxy, is very important to Serbs,

the reader must gain some basic knowledge on Serbian history. Serbs are part of a larger

ethnic group called Slavs. During Roman Empire, before 4th century A.D, the Slavs lived

in the north of Carpathian Mountains- today’s territory of Ukraine, Poland and Belarus.

During the Migration period, better known as Barbarian invasion, Slavs together with

Germanic and Hunnic people inhibited some territories of Roman Empire. Based on the

direction of migrations, Slavic people were divided in three smaller groups: South Slavs,

East Slavs, and West Slavs. Serbs which were part of the South Slavs, settled in the

1
Definition of the nation taken from Ernest Renan's “What is a Nation?”

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Balkan Peninsula, originally the homeland of Illyrians. (Schevill, 1922) At the beginning

of their arrival to Balkan, South Slavs lived in tribes; they did not have an organized

country. In 10th century, two tribes, Serbs and Croats, gained more power and were able

to create the first Slavic countries in Balkan Peninsula, according to the documents

written by Byzantine Emperor Constantine VII Porphyrogenitus. However, these

countries were not stable, since their rulers were changed very often, and there was no

clear social organization. (Corovic, 2001) In this period, Slavs were polytheists. They

worshiped Gods in similar way as Ancient Greeks and Romans; there was a single

goddess for every event such as thunderstorm, fire, entertainment etc. Some of deities of

Slavs were: Perun, a god of thunder, Dazbog, a god of sun, Vesna, a goddess of spring

etc. (Vasiljev, 2001) Two huge countries, Byzantine Empire on East, and Republic of

Venice on West surrounded countries of Serbs and Croats. In order to gain safety,

independence and protectorate of these two countries, Slavic tribes decided to accept

Christianity as their main religion. Serbs accepted Eastern Orthodox Church because they

shared the borders with Byzantine Empire, and Croats accepted Roman Catholic Church

because they were closer to Republic of Venice. (Corovic, 2001)

The stability of Serbian state got improved, when leader of Serbian country, called Raska,

became Stefan Nemanja, the founder of the Nemanjic dynasty that ruled Serbia during

the period 1166-1371. This period is known in Serbian history as the golden age of

Serbia. During their rule, Serbia became a kingdom in year 1217, and an empire in year

1346. Ratsko Nemanjic, also known by his monastic name Sava, was the first Archbishop

of Serbian Church and he was the main reason why Serbs started to respect and love their

religion; he preached that Orthodoxy is the only right way to worship the God. Also,
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during the regime of the Nemanjics, many religious object, monasteries and churches,

and monuments were built; some of them exist even today. Monasteries, in Medieval

times were education centers, and with an increase of monasteries, average Serbian

person became more educated than before. With the fall of Serbian Empire and

Dissolution of Nemanjic dynasty, Serbia became weak again. (Schevill, 1922) At the end

of 14th century, the Ottoman Empire, a very strong Muslim country, conquered the most

territories of Anatolia, also known as Asia Minor, and their next conquering goal was

Europe. The first line of the defense of Europe was Serbia, which had status of

Principality during that time. In year 1389, in Kosovo, back then the Southern part of

Serbia, a huge battle between the Serbs and the Ottomans happened. This battle in history

is known as the Battle of Kosovo. There was no victory in this battle since both leaders,

Serbian prince Lazar, and Ottoman Sultan Murad, and most of the soldiers died.

However, in this battle Serbia lost almost all its army and nobility, while Ottoman Empire

had still a lot of army in other parts of their territories. Therefore, the next invasion of

Ottoman Empire in 1459 was successful, and Ottomans triumphantly conquered most of

the Balkan Peninsula. After this event, Serbia stayed under Ottoman Empire until 1878,

when it finally gained independence at the Berlin Congress. (Emmert, 1991)

During the Ottoman occupation, Serbian people went through many difficulties. The

main reason was because Serbian were Christians, while Ottomans were Muslims. After

Ottoman Empire enforced its power in Serbia, Serbs had two choices: either accept Islam

as their religion and gain some benefits, or remain Christians and deal with abuse. Some

of those abuses were high taxes, called “Harac”, forced free labor, destruction of religious

and historical monuments etc. However, the most painful event for Serbian families was
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called “Danak u Krvi”. At this event, Ottomans would come to Serbian families, and if

they a Serbian family had a young boy, he would be taken away in Istanbul, back then the

capital of the Ottoman Empire. Then these boys would be raised as Ottomans and their

purpose was to become part of Janissaries, the elite army of Ottoman Empire. (Cosovic,

2017)

At the beginning of the Ottoman occupation, the majority of Serbs remained Christians

due to the strong connection to Saint Sava and Nemanjics. (Corovic, 2001) However,

with the passing of time, due to all the abuse and torturing, Serbians started to pay

attention in creating new epic poems. These poems mostly encouraged other Serbians to

keep up with the abuse and preserve their national identity. Epic poetry before the

Ottoman’s occupation had different motives than the one during the occupation, such as

were miracles, legends, fairies, demons, dragons, and other mythical creatures that Serbs

had preserved from their polytheistic religion. However, with the arrival of the Ottomans,

the main motives became the resistance against Ottomans, and the creation of heroes who

symbolized the strength and will for fight. Many events and battles between Serbs and

Ottomans are described in epic poems such as The First Serbian Uprising, the Battle of

Kosovo, the Battle of Cokesin etc. Two most popular heroes in Serbian Epic poetry are

Milos Obilic and Marko Kraljevic. Obilic is a fictional character, and responsible of the

death of Sultan Murad during battle of Kosovo. Obilic symbolizes the courage, strength

and strong will. Even today, it is very common that Serbs say to someone that he is

“Obilic” if the person is strong and fearless. On the other hand, Marko Kraljevic was a

real figure, but he was no hero, rather an Ottoman vassal who fought for Ottomans in

many wars. From this fact, we deduct that epic poetry does not realistically reflect
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historical events but it encourages people to fight against Ottomans. (Lisanski, 2014)

These epic poems were orally transferred from one generation to another, since the

people were illiterate and could not write. Hence, many epic poems were modified, and

today’s poems are way different than the original ones. (Golubovic, 2008)

Epic poems are performed by a single man who knows them by heart and is able to play

“gusle”, a traditional Serbian instrument. The music performer is called guslar, which is

derived from the word gusle. The gusle is a single stringed chordophone, whose sound is

produce by the bow. The origin of the gusle is not known but there are two theories –

either it is a Slavic instrument that was brought to the Balkan Peninsula when South

Slavs migrated according to Greek historian Theophylact Simocatta or an instrument of

Illyrians, natives of Balkan Peninsula, which was adopted by Serbs due to assimilation.

(Goransson, 2013) The gusle consists of three parts: “varjaca”, a wooden resonance box

covered with an animal skin, a neck, and an intricately carved head. The most common

wood for the production of the gusle is maple, while the most common animal skin is the

goat skin. The string and a bow’s string are made of horsetail. The head is usually

ornamented by a goat or eagle. Goat is a symbol of freedom among Serbs, while eagle is

a general Serbian symbol adopted from Byzantine empire. The eagle can be seen on all

coat of arms of Serbia, from Nemanjic’s dynasty until today. When the bow is pulled

over the string, a dramatic and sharp sound is created. (Stevenson, 1915) According to

Djordjije Koprivica, today’s the most famous guslar, this sound is very expressive and

difficult to master. The way of singing text is specific as well. It can be best described as

a mix between storytelling and deep voice singing. However, the most difficult part of

performing gusle is to memorize the text of poems, since the length of poem can range
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from a hundred decasyllable verses to couple of thousands decasyllable verse. To be

considered a good guslar, a guslar should be able to perform more than fifty poems. This

difficulty was clearly present when poems were orally transferred, because guslars would

learn the text only by listening. (Golubovic, 2008)

During the Ottoman occupation, guslars were publically prohibited, so performances

were organized privately in houses with the absence of the Ottomans. These

performances become more frequent during The First Serbian Uprising and The Second

Serbian Uprising in 19th century. These two events included many battles with Ottomans

and their main goal is gaining the independence from the Ottoman Empire. (Lisanski,

2014) According to texts written by Vuk Stefanovic Karadzic, a Serbian philologist and

linguist, the most prominent guslars of the 19th century were Filip Visnjic, Starac Milija,

Tesan Podrugovic, Djura Milutionvic and Rista Vukanovic. The most famous of them all

is Filip Visnjic. He was very famous for his outstanding voice, his wide knowledge of

poems, but also the fact that he was blind. Vuk Stefanovic Karadzic, who was also the

major reformer of the Serbian language, would attend performances of these guslars and

write down the lyrics. It took him around thirty years to collect around one hundred epic

poems. He published the first collection of epic poems in 1845. This collection is also

the only collection of epic poems in Serbian history, therefore all today’s epic poems that

are performed can be found in this collection. (Stevenson, 1915)

With gaining the independence of Ottoman Empire at Berlin Congress in 1878, the usage

of epic poems got less frequent. (Golubovic, 2008) The decline is easily observed in

present times, since many young generations do not have any knowledge about gusle or

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epic poetry. Some of the reasons of this decline are high unemployment rate, bad

education, low average salary, corruption in the countries where Serbs are constitutional

people. Those countries are Serbia and Bosnia and Herzegovina. Because of the above

mentioned adversities, Serbs do not have a lot free time; their main concern is to earn

enough money to provide a decent life to their families. Also, they do not give any

special significance to education and especially to traditional music culture. However, the

festivals of folklore music still exist. One of the most famous and biggest festivals are

“Festival of guslars and epic poetry of Serbia” and “Festival of guslars of Serb Republic”.

(Lisanski, 2014) There are also smaller festivals, called “smotra guslara”, that are

annually organized in smaller towns. For example, in my hometown Pale, there are two

“smotra guslara” each year. These festivals may sometimes have a competitive character.

The guslars who perform during these events wear traditional costumes whose style is

similar to the ones that guslars during the occupation of Ottoman Empire wore. The

typical traditional costume consists of pants called “caksire”, a vest called “jelace”, shoes

called “opanci”, and a hat called “subara”. (Goransson, 2013)

Also, it is very common that Serbian families keep the gusle as a souvenir in their home.

(Golubovic, 2008) That is a case in the United States as well. Family Petakov, that moved

to the States in late 20th century and lives in the Boston area, has a gusle in their home.

During the Serbian gathering in the St Sava Serbian Orthodox Church in Alewife, I had

an opportunity to have a conversation with twenty-five years old Aleksandar Petakov. He

said that it was hard to preserve the Serbian culture and language in the US. He

mentioned that third generations of the Serbian immigrants usually do not speak Serbian,

nor do they know anything about Serbian history, and consider themselves to be
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American. For him, gusle symbolizes his origins, and Aleksandar is very proud that he

has something that reminds him of his homeland. His wish is to learn basics of gusle, but

he has never had opportunity to meet anyone who would be able to give him lessons.

From the above arguments and the facts, we can conclude that Serbs had a difficult time

to preserve the traditional music culture and the national identity in general. More than

four hundred years of the Ottoman occupation did not result the extinction of Serbs, on

the contrary it caused Serbs to feel a stronger connection to their traditional value and the

heroic successes of their ancestors. Traditional music culture, especially epic poetry was

one of the most important factors that Serbs preserved their cultural and ethnical heritage.

I am very satisfied that I decided to explore this topic for my final project. I learnt a lot

about my people and I became more proud that I am Serb. I hope that Serbs will find a

way to overcome the present adversities mentioned above and that they will be able to

successfully preserve their culture heritage for many years in the future.

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Bibliography:

Corovic, V. (2001). Istorija srpskog naroda. Belgrade: Janus.

Cosovic, M. (2017, January 14). POLEMIKA: Nasilne islamizacije je bilo, “danak u

krvi” je primjer. Retrieved from Analitika:
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danak-u-krvi-je-primjer. Accessed 05.08.2018.

Emmert, T. A. (1991). Kosovo: Legacy of a Medieval Battle. Minneapolis: Minnesota

Mediterranean and East European Monographs.

Golubovic, D. (2008). Pjevanje uz gusle. Belgrade: Srpski genaloski centar.

Goransson, M. B. (2013, November 04). A Cultural History of Serbia. Retrieved from

Balkan Insight: http://www.balkaninsight.com/en/article/a-cultural-history-of-
serbia. Accessed 05.12.2018.

Lisanski, Z. C. (2014). Srpske pamtise i sabornice gusle. Belgrade: Magic Map,

Belgrade.

Schevill, F. (1922). The history of the Balkan peninsula from the earliest times to the
present days. New York: Harcourt Brace.

Stevenson, B. L. (1915). The Gusle Singer and His Songs. American Anthropologist, 58-
68.

Vasiljev, S. (2001). Slovenska mitologija po I stampanom izdanju - Srbobran, 1928.

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