A Serbian epic as a call to exterminate the “Race Betrayers”: The Mountain Wreath by Petar Petrovic Njegos
Abstract
The world history witnessed a really dramatic
civil war in 1990s in the Balkans. Peoples that lived together for hundreds of
years experienced the most violent results of nationalist ideology with the
demise of Yugoslavia. Serbs are one of
the nations that involved in this civil war an in this period, their conflicts
with especially Bosnian Muslims and Croats provided that the term “Serbian
nationalism” is heard a lot in the world. Similarly with many other nations in
history, the emergence and development of the idea of nationalism for Serbs
started in 19th century. Serbs, who lived under the rule of empires, especially
the Ottoman Empire, carried out the first rebellion against the Ottomans in
1804 and in this period, Serbian intellectuals were also attempting to create a
national consciousness at the same time. These attempts to create a national
language and literature would help this consciousness to improve and they would
show their effect in that time and in the following century, as well. Even in
the fall of Yugoslavia, the effect of this national mythology developed as a
result of these efforts is seen clearly. One of the most important of these
works written in 19th century is the poetic drama of Petar Petrovic Njegos.
When the subject-matter of the work is analyzed, it is seen that the most
common myth of Serbian nationalism, the Kosovo Battle, and the enmity against
the ones told to have betrayed the Slavic race by converting to Islam are
strongly emphasized. The work with this feature forms the basis of Serbian religious-nationalist
literature and it would show its influence continuously in future times in the
following works within this literary tradition.
Keywords
Kaynakça
- Anzulovic, B. (1999). Heavenly Serbia: From Myth to Genocide, New York University Press, New York and London. Glenny, M.(2001). The Balkans: Nationalism, War and the Great Powers, 1804-2012, Penguin, London. Greenawalt, A. (2001). “Kosovo Myths: Karadzic, Njegos, and the Transformation of Serb Memory”. Online: http://digitalcommons.pace.edu/lawfaculty/339/. Lord, A. (1963). “Nationalism and the Muses in Balkan Slavic Literature in the Modern Period”, Ed. Charles and Barbara Jelavich, The Balkans in Transition: Essays on the Development of Balkan Life and Politics since the Eighteenth Century, pp.258-297, University of California Press, California. Jelavich, B. (1983). History of the Balkans, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge. Judah, T. (2000). The Serbs: History, Myth, and the Destruction of Yugoslavia, Yale University Press. New Haven. Judah, T. (2008). Kosovo: What Everyone Needs to Know, , Oxford University Press, New York. Milica Bakic-Hayden, M. (2004), “National Memory as Narrative Memory: The Case of Kosovo”, Ed. Maria Todorova Balkan Identities: Nation and Memory, pp.25-40 Ed., New York Unv Press, New York. Naimark, Norman M. (2002). Fires of Hatred: Ethnic Cleansing in Twentieth Century Europe, Harvard Unv. Press, Cambridge. Njegos, P. (1847). The Mountain Wreath, Serbian Europe, Belgrade, Online: https://www.rastko.rs/knjizevnost/umetnicka/njegos/mountain_wreath.html Karpat, K. (2015). Balkanlar’da Osmanlı Mirası ve Milliyetçilik, Çev. Recep Boztemur, Timaş Yay. İstanbul Sells, Michael A. (1998). The Bridge Betrayed: Religion and Genocide in Bosnia, UC Press, Berkeley. Todorova, M. (2010). Balkanlar’ı Tahayyül Etmek, Çev. Dilek Şendil, İletişim Yayınları, İstanbul. Wachtel, A. (1998). Making a Nation, Breaking a Nation: Literature and Cultural Politics in Yugoslavia, Stanford Univ. Press, California.
Ayrıntılar
Birincil Dil
İngilizce
Konular
Sanat ve Edebiyat
Bölüm
Araştırma Makalesi
Yazarlar
Ümit Hasanusta
*
Bu kişi benim
0000-0002-8131-7661
Türkiye
Yayımlanma Tarihi
21 Eylül 2019
Gönderilme Tarihi
27 Mart 2019
Kabul Tarihi
20 Eylül 2019
Yayımlandığı Sayı
Yıl 2019 Sayı: 16