Historical Myths and the Invention of Political Folklore in Contemporary Serbia Joel Halpern Karl Kaser

University of Massachusetts Amherst

From the SelectedWorks of Joel M. Halpern

1998

Historical myths and the invention of political folklore in contemporary Serbia Joel Halpern Karl Kaser

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons CC_BY-NC International License.

Available at: https://works.bepress.com/joel_halpern/218/ Karl Kaser (Graz), Joel M. Halpern (Amherst) ?

Historical myths and the invention of political folklore in contemporary Serbia

1) A Case Study In one of the years after 1389 the late-medieval Serbian despot1 Stefan Lazarević ordered the construction of a marble column on the Kosovo polje (Kosovo field) and to carve out the following inscription to memorize his father, who was assassinated here:

„Oh man, stranger or hailing from this soil, when you enter these Serbian land, whoever you may be ... when you come to this field called Kosovo, you will see all over it plenty bones of the dead, and with them myself in stone nature, standing upright in the middle of the field, representing both the cross and the flag. So as not to pass by and overlook me as something unworthy and hollow, approach me, I beg you, oh my dear, and study the words I bring to your attention, which will make you understand why I am standing here ... At this place there once was a great autocrat, a world wonder and Serbian ruler by the name of Lazar, an unwavering tower of piety, a sea of reason and depth of wisdom ... who loved everything that Christ wanted ... He accepted the sacrificial wreath of struggle and heavenly glory ... The daring fighter was captured and the wrath of martyrdom he himself accepted ... the great Prince Lazar ... Everthing said here took place in 1389 ... the fifteenth day of June2, Tuesday, at the sixth or seventh hour, I do not know exactly, God knows.“1

600 years later: For the first time the celebration of the centenary of these events could be conducted on the original stage. In 1889 the Kosovo field was still part of the Ottoman empire the army of which won the battle against a Serbian coalition army in 1389. First in 1912 the region was reconquered and integrated into the Serbian state. The defeat of the own army is not very often the reason for a powerful celebration. But so it was in the early summer of 1989. The Serbian government and the president of the republic, Slobodan Milošević, wanted to celebrate the 600st anniversary of the battle of Kosovo (June 28, 1389). The year of 1989 was a significant marker in Serbian contemporary history. First strong signs of a dissolution of ex-Yugoslavia went hand in hand with the unification of the then autonomous provinces of Vojvodina and Kosovo with the Republic of Serbia. In Kosovo lives an Albanian majority which comprises more than 90 percent of the whole population.2 The province of Kosovo, as historical legacy of the Serbian medieval kingdom overburdened with history and symbols, became in that year the stage of a spectacular political-historical

1 Serbian imperial title, originally the Byzantine title for a highranking imperial civil servant. 1 inscenation. What happened on the June 28, 1989 on the field of Kosovo cannot be understood with the pure knowlegde, which has been transmitted by the inscription. A Serbian myth was celebrated. This manifestation was propably the most powerful polical ritual in Serbian history. The dissatisfaction with the political situation in these years was propably the main reason for the possibility of reviving the Kosovo myth as a national myth: It mystifies „the nation“ as an eternal, devine and unhistorical category of community. The prepairations for celebration were rather difficult because over the whole province the state of emergency was declared after heavy riots and political protests of the Albanian population majority against the Serbian regime since the early eighties. The Albanian population therefor in general did not participate although this day was declared as a day off for the whole population and Albanian soldiers also probably took part in the battle on the Serbian side. Policemen and military units from all parts of the country were concentrated in order to provide an untroubled festival. It was a festival of the superlative: About 1,5 million Serbs, which arrived from all over the world, among them migrants to Australia, Canada and USA, gathered on the historic battle field. About 1.000 journalists were accredited. 6.000 motor coaches and about 40.000 private cars transported the people to the country´s southern province. They brought along transparencies and pictures that displayed historic battle scenes, portraits of the medieval Serbian rulers and of the then contempory Serbian president. Besides the Serbian president the then Yugoslav president and present Slowenian prime minister, Janez Drnovšek, and the Yugoslav prime minister, the Croat Ante Marković, participated.3 Mass media for weeks had informed the population about the historical and contempory importance of the event. In these months during the first half of the year 1989 a specific kind of political folklore was invented. This was invention not only from above but also from the roots. It was the general political climate in favor of collecting the splitted pieces of Serbian homelands that made people to concentrate on this historical event.4 Authors and scholars contributed to this nationalistic rhetorics and historical mythology. One of the most prominent Serbian historian of the second half of the 20th century and long-time president of the Serbian Academy of Sciences and Arts explained on occasion of the forthcoming event: The Battle of Kosovo may be regarded as one of the most important events

2 June 28 according to the new calendar 2 in world history... Ever since the fifteenth century, the writings of learned humanists have classified it as one of the turning points in world history.“5 The day of celebration began early: At 7 in the morning a liturgy in the monastary of Gračanica near the province capital Priština was celebrated, then the proper celebration on the historic battle field began. The Serbian public was actually moved by a mass hysteria. Accompanied by this kind of invented political folklore the events of 1389 were commemorized and political and ecclesiastical leaders draw conclusions for the contemporary Serbia and it´s future. In his speech the Serbian president left no doubts that he was the Messiah who will give back the holy and promised Serbian land to it´s people definitly that year, the land that got lost 600 years ago. Discord und betrayel, he said, had led into the catastrophy of 1389. Serbias socialist leader also have betrayed the people: „The concessions, which were made by so many Serbian leaders at the expense of their people - ethnically and historically - would not have been accepted by another people in the world.“ Discord and betrayel on the one hand, heroism on the other, on the positive: „Heroism is being celebrated in our poems, dramatic plays, literature and history. The heroism of Kosovo has already inspired since six centuries our creativity, has supplied our pride, thus we cannot forget that we all were a big army, brave and selfconscious, one of the few that stayed honorable in the defeat.“6 This idea of a Messiah or a historical heroe who will return back to earth in order to liberate the enslaved people is not new in Serbian literary tradition. So the Serbs under Ottoman domination expected by the end of the 16th century the Messianic return of their first medieval archbishop and mythic heroe, the Holy Sava (1219-1233). After several uprisings against the Ottomans the mortal remains of Sava were burned, what did not harm the widespread belief in his Messianic return to the earth. The people expected also the return of other mythical figures of Serbian history. One of these most prominent temporary „sleeping“ heroes is the historical figure of „Kraljević Marko“, the king´s son Marko, whose real name was Marko Mrnjačević and who lived in the 14th century. He was not really an important historical figure and he died as vassal of the Ottoman emperor in a military campain against the principality of Valachia. But he is nonetherless worshipped in many of the Serbian epical songs. He even was put in the historical context of the battle of Kosovo. The legend was spread the heroe disappeared only temporarily from his existence on earth. He would slumber in a cave or on an island to expect the proper opportunity to lead the Serbian people into freedom. The popular Serbian poet Radoje M. Domanović at the beginning of the 20th century

3 contributed with his narrative Kraljević Marko the second time among the Serbs“ in a very popular kind to this picture of the return of the Messiah. Kosovo plays an important role in the narrative. But at the same time he left space for a critical reflection of the myth and the Messiah, since a strong tension between myth and social reality can be recognized. But it becomes not definitly clear whether the author critizises the social role of myths or the „weakness“ of contemporary Serbs towards their heroic predecessors.7 Besides this picture of the sleeping heroe who will act at the proper moment which can be still actualized the question has to be formulated why discord and betrayal and a selfconfident army that was defeated honorable 600 years ago can be develope sufficient power which explaines the fact that one and a half million people undertake a pilgrimage to the historic battle field. This alone cannot explain the power of this historical myth and the character of invented political folkore by the end of the 20th century. This is why this paper is going to analyze four aspects of this phenomenon: (1) What happened in 1389? (2) How is it possible that a battle without significant historic impact becomes a national myth in the 20th century? (3) The historic battle was enriched by dramatic epic events. So, e.g., the military leader on both sides, the Serbian prince Lazar and the Ottoman sultan Mehmet, were killed. Nevertheless the battle ended with the defeat of the Serbian army. The question arises how Serbian collective memory is structured in order to actualize a defeat as a heroic and powerful event? Thus the basic question is what happened in 1389 and how was that what happened transformed and memorized? (4) How to invent political folklore?

2) What happened on the Kosovo battle field in 1389? If we consider the events of the year 1389 soberly, the prominent place of remembrance does not become clear. What was the historical background? Since the beginning of the 13th century a Serbian feudal state under the leadership of the dynasty of the Nemanjići can be established. The country extended its territory towards south and southeast at the expense of the Byzantine empire and smaller Albanian principalities. Also the field of Kosovo was a victim of expansion. In the time of one of the most successful Serbian emperors, Stefan Dušan (+ 1355), a considerable portion of the European part of the Byzantine Empire was conquered. By the middle of the 14th century Serbia became besides the Hungarian kingdom and the Byzantine empire one of the most powerful countries in the Balkans. These Christian powers were threatened by the Muslim Ottomans who, coming from Asiatic Anatolia, conquered land after land in the Balkans. 18 years before the battle of Kosovo the Serbian army had suffered a

4 heavy defeat. This was one of the consequences of the increasing feudalization of Serbia, since after emperor Stefan Dušan the leadership of his successors was not accepted by the high ranking nobles. Serbia´s central power was considerably weakened and the power of regional noblemen strengthened. One of these regional potentates was a certain Lazar Hrebljanović, who was able to establish on the northern fringes of the country an independent principality with the capital fortress of Kruševac, which was situated not far from the field of Kosovo. In the spring of 1389 the Ottman sultan Mehmet decided to make further territorial advances. The Serbian prince Lazar responded with the recruitment of an allied army, which included also Bosnian troops and Albanian units. The two armies were lead by the rulers which were both about 60 years old. The two armies met in the morning of June 28 on the field of Kosovo. We don´t know details about what happened, no report of a witness of the events exists. What we really know is meagre. We have no details about the procedure of the battle, the strength of both the armies and about the number of victims. Facts are that the two military commanders were killed and that the Serbian army again suffered a heavy defeat. In Western Europe people for the half of the following year believed the opposite, because wrong messages were spread out; only after years the truth came out. The battle of Kosovo represents a defeat of the Serbian army, but only one in a series of defeats before and after 1389. The only dramatic effect of the Kosovo battle is the fact that both emperors and commanders were killed. The Ottoman sultan Murad was probably assassinated by a Serbian nobleman with a dagger, who was able to get close to him. Lazar was captured and probably executed by one of Murad´s sons and successor. As it is very often the case with defeats, betrayal lies in the air, which the Serbian president refered to 600 years later. Considered the battle soberly, it was, of course, not a turning point in world history. The only consequence was the formal recognition of the Ottoman supremacy by the surviving Serbian political leaders without having foreign troops stationed in the country. Only half a century later, in 1439, larger parts of the Serbian lands were conquered by force and finally occupied. Another quarter of a century later, in 1463, the last Serbian stronghold, Smederevo at the Danube river, was taken over by the Ottomans. Between the first Serbian defeat against the Ottomans in 1371 and the final one in 1463 almost one century passed. Among a series of battles also Kosovo happened. Why the battles of 1371, 1439 or 1463 did not become national myths and reason for mass events in the 20th century but Kosovo 1389?

3) The framework for mythmaking: myth as historic capital Not every European society has a predisposition for a stable commemorance of historical myths. What is the concrete theoretical and historical framework for mythsmaking? We think that in this concrete case extraordinarily high portions of historic capital was accumulated, which, at a certain level, turns into a nationals myth. Myth has very much to do with what I want to call „historic capital“ which is considered here as a variant of what P. Bourdieu calls on the basis of M. Mauss´s considerations „symbolic capital“8. In short, symbolic capital is denied or negative capital, which is accumulated within a given cultural framework in which economic capital is not aknowledged. In a historical perspective in certain situations historic capital, which is also non-economic capital, can be accumulated. This can, e.g., happen among patrilineally oriented descent groups, which accumulate capital in form of honor of the predecessors, which is transmitted from one generation to the other. As it is easily the case with non-economic capital, the historic variant can cross the border to the irrational. This is why we can consider this kind of historic capital very often also as mythology. A myth is not based only on a single historical event but is accumulated historic capital and has to be seen linked to the further historical fate of the people or nation. The status of the myth is reached when the historical narrative is going to be sacred - history as holy story of a group or a nation. The historical myth therefore can be easily actualized, especially on occasion of anniversaries. This historic capital is a not unimportant ideological weapon, which is ever and ever being used from the Serbian side against the Albanians. The mythological state can be considered achieved, when the accounted story is being sacralized and becomes a holy account. The story is not just accounted, but is celebrated like the holy Mass. The myth finally is a form of historical remembrance. Remembrance is only to a certain extend connected to historic reality. Mythological remembrance ignores the sometimes meagre historic reality and creates a new, an elevated reality. This difference creates myth. Myth represents historical continuity and enforces the ethnic community. All those who are initiated feel strongly linked to the historic actors, so strong as if there is no difference in time. In this remembrance the Serbian nation is constructed as a spiritual kinship group which - similar to a community on a biological basis - exists since ever. This rembembrance stores certain events, historical figures and locations which symbolize the Serbdom in its fight for survive. The Kosovo field is such a location:

6 „Who cries around and denies that Kosovo is not Serbian, where our churches and monasteries as witnesses of history are.“9

Who at a certain moment to a certain aim appears on the Kosovo field stands in a direct continuity of the historic events, especially when the official speaker, the Serbian president, emphasizes that the erstwhile battle is filled with a new meaning: „Our most important battle today is related to the creation of economic, political, cultural and social prosperity ...“.10 This linkage of mythological historical event and the presence is of interest because of two reasons: First, ancestor consciousness is involved, since this is nothing other than the classical epiphany and invocation of the ancestors. In our case these ancestors are the people who lost their lifes on the Kosovo battle field. Second, the popular poetry - evocated by the political propaganda or not - a connection is established between the Serbian president Slobodan Milošević and the events 600 years ago. One of the poems on his honor says:

„Slobodan, you sharp sword, takes the battle because of Kosovo soon place? Call we Strahinić, brave and wise, the nine Jugovići, the old Jug or Boško, who carries our banner and mows the Kosovo field with his saber. Will flow warm blood in streams, where every year peonies sprout? If the worst come to the worst, then just say one word, rifle bullets alike we will then be there“.11

This kind of thinking in terms of historical mythology is Western usually societies not inherent. For the mentality of the Serbian people it plays obviousely an important role. Here we can explicate only the two most important preconditions for the existence of historical myth. There is, first, the cyclical perception of time. Different to the lineal time perception of the Western societies, which conceptualizes the historical events in a chronological order and aim directed. In societies with dominating cyclical time perception the lineal idea of chronological progress is pushed into the background. This makes the temporal approximation of historical events to the presence easier: history is presence. History is alive an therefor also the myth.

7 In this cyclical time perception the past incribes itself into the life and psyche of the successing generations. In short: „The Kosovo field is the nature of the Serbs ...“.12 The historical mythological poems are using very often kinship terminology to express the connection of the ancestors to their successors in the presence. The ancestors are called „greatgrandfathers“ and the contemporaries „sons“ and „daughters“, which address themselves as „brother“, „sister“, „little son“ oder „my children“. Serbia is the common house for all Serbs and the mother the ancestral mother:

„A little stone to the stone, a Serb to the Serb, a brother to the brother, them were given birth by the mother, the mother Serb.“13

The second precondition is a strong genealogical remembrance. This kind of remembrance is based on illiteracy. History is nothing for reading in books, but a knowlegde that is given orally from one generation to the other. Historiography destroys earlier or later romantic myths, since the written version of the history, which includes the usage of historical scholarly methods, show a tendency towards demystification.14 Both of these preconditions for the accumulation of historic capital are given in the Serbian case. Generally speaking the form of historic or symbolic capital varies. Therefor it makes sense to concentrate on one example. Because one cannot make capital out of every example one chooses.

4) How to create a myth? As already stated, the battle on the Kosovo field was a relatively unspectacular event. But this case allows us to reconstruct how piece for piece of historical capital was accumulated and became the bases of the historical myth.15 • The myth of Kosovo is not based primarily upon the battle as such, but on the figure of prince Lazar (and a second one, Miloš Obilić, who is excluded here). His mortal remnants still exist and symbolize an impressive connection with the past. Until 1391 the remains of his body were first saved in a monastary near Priština, also not far from the place, where the battle took place. Then they were tranfered to the monastary Ravanica in Southern Serbia. Before this region was conquested by the Ottomans Lazar´s remnents were brought to the then save monastary Vrdnik in the region of Fruška gora, northwest from Belgrade,

8 where they could rest for centuries. But in 1941, when this region was threatened by Croatian ustashi Lazar was transported to Belgrade, where he found his final place in front of the main altar of the Orthodox cathedral, where the remnents can be visited. • One of the important decisions in the case of the Kosovo myth was that the Serbian Orthodox Church resolved few years after Lazar´s death to canonize him, to worship him and to reserve him a place in the holy calendar. Every year on the day of his death liturgical devine services were held all over Serbia, which has to be considered the core of the ecclesiastical worship. So a regular remembrance of him and his real or fictive deeds was institutionalized. This included all faithful people, that means the whole population. Again and again this remembrance was actualized. • Significant was also that Lazar was not only canonized but raised in the status of a martyr. The central topic of his martyrdom was the conviction that he gave his life for the people and the church. He sacrificed himself in order to save Serbia. Already on the evening before the battle took place he was aware that he would die. In the perspective of the later generations this made him a real heroe, because, being aware of his certain death, he did not hesitate to take his sword. He, who was chosen to follow his emperor-forefathers, put his life in god´s hands, who decided over his fate. This is why the defeat of the Serbian army was a dramatic event, but such a defeat can be turned into a victory when soldiers and a martyr died in order to save the people. Generally spoken, in this view the battle of Kosovo represented a victory of Christianity over Islam. • After the final occupation of the remnents of that what was considered as Serbia´s holy lands the autochtonous Serbian Orthodox Church organization was dissolved in the 1530ies and integrated into the archbishopry of Ohrid. As a consequence the Greek clergy got a predominant position in the higher hierarchy of the Serbian church administration; it was not interested to worship any longer a Serbian prince. This did not mean the end of the ritual worship of Lazar, but its character changed. Lazar became even more popular among the ordinary people. The reason was that after Ottoman occupation a mass of the Serbian population migrated out from the plains and valleys into the remote mountainous zones of the Balkans. At a rough estimate16 about 300.000 people migrated into the mountain. First after generations their successors returned back to the plains by the end of the 18th and in the 19th centuries. This was a real dramatic event in the lifes of the people. What people after generations recollected was that the battle of Kosovo was the reason for the flight of their grandgrandfathers. In this oral tradition Kosovo became the turning point in the

9 collective consciousness, it marked the transition from liberty to slavery, from homeland to foreign regions. The course of history turned Serbian society from a more or less literal into a predominantly illiteral society of sheep and goat breeders. Epic songs became the main medium of historical information, which transformed more and more into mythology in the center of which stood Lazar and the battle of Kosovo. These songs, many of them combined as „the Kosovo-cycle“, were orally transmitted from one generation to the other and created the basis for the central Serbian national myth. The compositions are very simple, one line consisting of ten syllables, the deseterac, one section consisting of 14 to 16 lines. The first written collection of songs was published at the beginning of the 18th century. These songs from Montenegro and the bay of Kotor, named „Stories about the battle of Kosovo“, became very popular. The most important collection of Kosovo poetry was conducted by the famous philologist Vuk Stefanović Karadžić in the first half of the 19th century. He transformed orally transmitted songs into written poetry: „The emperor and the empress Milica“, „The fall of the Serbian empire“ or „The Kosovo girl“. This is the basis of the Kosovo myth. In this context the famous Montenegrin bishop, poet and politician, Petar Petrović Njegoš, who lived in the first half of the 19th century, has to be mentioned. His „.Gorski vjenac..?dont know in English....“ became very popular. He was one of the greatest interpreters of the Kosovo epic poetry. The mythological remembrance of Kosovo dominates.17 Until now these epic songs are very popular throughout the country. The fact that Kosovo is since 1912 again province of Serbia but with an Albanian majority, which creates permanent troubles for both Serbs and Albanians, keeps the Kosovo myth alive. • In the 19th and 20th centuries additional elements were contributed to the myth of Kosovo. This includes a flood of publications, poems, songs, dramatic art, the number of which cannot even be overviewed. This is completed by the magic of the day of Lazars death, the 28th of June. Many important things in Serbian and ex-Yugoslavia´s history occured on this day. One of the most dramatic events was the assassination of the Austrian successor to the emperors´ throne in Sarajevo/Bosnia in 1914 which led directly to the World War I. Austria-Hungary had taken over the land with its Serbian majority form the Ottomans in 1878. Significant tensions between the Austrian administration and the Serbian political leaders belonged to the constant pattern of conflict in the country. The assassin was a young Serbian student. Knowing about the Kosovo myth one can imgagine the symbolic component of this act.

10 After World War II instead of the meanwhile destroyed marble cross with the mentioned inscription a tower was constructed, in order not to forget the mythical place. In Serbian historiography of the second half of the 20th century „the battle of Kosovo [became] one of the most important events of world history“18 . Coming to a preliminary conclusion one has to ask why the mythology is still powerful in contemporary Serbia and why this historic-symbolic capital can be activated in a society which is not any longer a premodern but a relativly modern and developed producer and consumer society. One has to assume that in the 1980ies the politics of socialistic modernization has overcome with the cyclical time perception, genealogical memory and the historical mythology. Maybe the political crisis in ex-Yugoslavia since the early eighties was responsible for a temporary domination of traditional elements, of elements that lead far back to Serbian history. Therefore we should discuss this problem within the conceptional framework of the synchronism of the asynchronic in modern Serbia and modern society in general. In any case we should be careful not to identify the potential of actualization of historical mythology with the retrogression of a whole nation into a stormy medieval heroism.

5) How to combine myth and political folklore in contemporary Serbia? A good point of departure to discuss this question prepairs the Serbian ethnologist Ivan Čolović. He connects the revival of the historical myths since the end of the 1980ies to the established political folklore. The first music cassetts of the new genre were issued during the months before the anniversary by the music house „Beograd Ton“. One of the title songs was „Oj Serbia, your pieces will soon become a whole“. This and a series of political popular songs of the following years was inspired by the „new“ politics of the Milošević-regime. Many authors participated in the revival of the national-patriotic retorics and mythology, in the inscenation of political folklore.19 One of them was Zoran Mišić, a famous poet, established once again a bridge between myth and historic capital in his own way:

„The epic of Kosovo is founded not only on the conqueror´s pride, but on the pride of those who defeat the conqueror with a spiritual weapon. Because of this, it does not endanger anybody, nor threaten anybody. The myth of Kosovo goes far beyond the limits of a national myth; by its essence it ranks with the highest creations of human spirit, collected in the imaginary museum of a unique European culture.“20

In order to understand the invented political folkore one has to take into consideration that from the beginning of the modern Serbian state in the first half of the 19th century and the

11 political life the Serbian village, the Serbian peasant with his set of values and traditional mythology belonged to the main symbols of politics. Rural symbols, like the opanka, the gunjac or the gusla have always played a significant role in political communication.21 S. Naumović knows five reasons for this: 1) Serbia has overcome its rural status not before the second half of the 20th century, 2) it was therefor the population of the countryside which shaped the modern Serbian national state, 3) the Serbian farmer laid the foundation of economic wealth through the production and export of agrarian goods, 4) the agrarian strata of Serbian society has never been politically rewarded for their efforts and accomplishments, 5) by using rural symbolism to demonstrate Serbia´s greatness the rural strata of society could be easily pacified so that they accepted the political dominance of the urban strata. In this political rhetorics the famer is not only the transmitter of the Serbian myth but he represents himself his own myth. He stands for the golden age in Serbian history, for uprisings and wars of liberation; for a democratic spirit which is the result of a patriarchal and egalitarian culture; for the modest cultural heroe upon which all the cultural, economic, political and military achievements of the nation rests. Thus political folklore of the 1990ies is invented, but invention rests upon a solid and emotionalized basis, the Serbian village and the village population. The elements can be grouped into three categories: To the first group belongs the folkloric rural language and its figures. This is a powerful category since in the 19th century the language of the ordinary people was codified and not the artificial educated language of the poets. To the second category belong elements of popular culture: elements of material culture as already mentioned above, then social organizations of the peasantry like the zadruga, popular religion, the patriarchal ethos and the popular musik. The third category is represented by psychical characteristics of the peasantry: the creative genius of the peasants and his high mental capabilities go hand in hand with high moral qualities. Dobrica Ćošić, poet and former president of the new Yugoslav Republic formulates the emotional occupation of the Serbian peasant as ideological symbol in a very significant way: „Deep down in my soul it came to a big split: The truth belonged to the village and the peasants, the untruth to the town and its inhabitants... To be more precise: I became a communist because of the rural poverty and because the poverty of the peasant women ... There was no female martyr which was like a peasant woman. There was no social humiliation, which was like the humiliation of the peasant women: emotional and related to work and nature. It was because of these female martyrs that I joined the revolution, about which I thought it would have changed their lifes. Thus it was not the working class and the expropriation that inflamed me for the movement.“22

It seems to be clear that the Serbian peasantry is the mediator in the process of the usage of the historical myth for the inscenation of the political folkore in contemporary Serbian society...... uff, I am burned out......

1 Alex N. Dragnich and Slavko Todorovich: The Saga of Kosovo, Columbia University Press, New York 1984:18p. 2 For the socalled Kosovo problem see, e.g., Dragnich and Todorovich; Branko Horvat: Kosovsko pitanje, Mladost, Zagreb 1989; Arshi Pipa and Sami Repishti: Studies on Kosova, Columbia University Press, New York 1984. 3 „Vjesnik“, June 28/29, 1989. 4 Ivan Čolović: Bordell der Krieger. Folklore, Politik und Krieg, Osnabrück 1994. 5 Alek Vukadinović (Ed.): Kosovo 1389-1989. Serbian Literary Quarterly 1989. Special edition on the occation of 600 years since the Battle of Kosovo, Srboštampa, Beograd 1989:9p. 6 „Vjesnik“, June 29, 1989. 7 Traian Stoianovich: Balkan Worlds. The First and Last Europe, Sharpe, Amonk 1994:168pp. Radoje Domanović: Izabrane pripovjetke, Zagreb 1946. 8 Pierre Bourdieu: Sozialer Sinn. Kritik der theoretischen Vernunft, Frankfurt/Main 1993:205-21; Marcel Mauss: Die Gabe. ´Form und Funktion des Austauschs in archaischen Gesellschaften´, in: Marcel Mauss: Soziologie und Anthropologie, Vol. 2, Frankfurth/Main 1989, 11-144. 9 Čolović:154. 10 „Vjesnik“, June, 29, 1989. 11 Čolović:22. 12 Čolović:142. 13 Čolović:143. 14 Jacques Le Goff: Geschichte und Gedächtnis, Frankfurt/Main; Jack Goody: Die Logik der Schrift und die Organisation der Gesellschaft, Frankfurt/Main 1990. 15 The following is based on Emmert. 16 Emmert:82. 17 Albert Lord: `The Battle of Kosovo in Albanian and Serbocroatian Oral Epic Songs`, in: Arshi Pipa and Sami Repishti (Ed.): Studies on Kosovo:65-83. 18 Vukadinović:9. 19 Čolović. 20 Zoran Mišić: ´What is The Kosovo Commitment´, in: Alek Vukadinović (Ed.): Kosovo 1389-1989. Serbian Literary Quarterly 1989. Special edition on the occation of 600 years since the Battle of Kosovo, Srboštampa, Beograd 1989:168. 21 Following ideas are based on Slobodan Naumović: , in: Godišnjak za društvenu istoriju, Beograd 2,1/1995, 39-63. 22 Slavoljub Ćukić: Čovek u svom vremenu. Razgovori sa Dobricom Ćošićom, Beograd 1989:16p.