From Guslars to Garašanin: Comparing the Influence of Oral Folk Literature on Croatian and Serbian National Movements from 1830 to 1865

In March of 2016, a United Nations tribunal sentenced former Bosnian Serb leader Radovan Karadžić to forty years in prison for ten counts of genocide, war crimes, and other crimes against humanity during the Bosnian War from 1992 to 1995. The white-haired Serbian nationalist, like his Serbian counterpart Slobodan Milošević, caused the deaths of thousands of non–Serb Bosnian citizens. At the tribunal, however, he declared that “the entire Serb people stand accused,” and he defended his actions as the “expression of the national will of a long-suffering people.”1 With this phrase, Karadžić, who evaded capture by international police for twelve years, invoked the Serbian people’s suffering since their defeat at the Battle of Kosovo in 1389, more than 600 years ago. This battle and the ensuing Serbian subjugation to the Ottoman Turks is recorded in one of Serbia’s most famous and influential works – Vuk Karadžić’s four volumes of Srpske narodne pjesme (Serbian Folk Songs) produced between 1823 and 1833. These folk songs and epic poems recounted the trials and tribulations of the Serbian nation under Ottoman rule, led by traditional heroes such as Prince Lazar, Miloš Obilić, Marko Krajlević, Karadjordje, and Miloš Obrenović. By invoking these heroes and the Serbian past, Karadžić claimed to be the “spiritual reincarnation of Serb heroes of a bygone age ... spinning new myths for his people to help propel them forward for generations to come, just as he had been borne aloft by the old legends of Serb suffering... .”2 Karadžić ‘s case may be newsworthy now, but he is just one example of Slavic political leaders who use oral literature to strengthen their cases for national Balkan states, often based on tenuous historical facts and in conflict with the national programs of other South Slavic peoples. Many historians have traced the influence of oral literature across the Balkans to the Romantic era of the early nineteenth century. Thus, in nearly every survey of nineteenth century Eastern Europe, the Balkans, or the Austro-Hungarian Empire, historians mention in passing some variation on the theme of these legends providing