SOUTH SLAVIC EPICS Dr.Zlatan Colakovic, philologist, folklorist and field-collector, is the author of several books on Ancient Greek Tragedy and South-Slavic Epics and leader of the joint American-Croatian project of field-collecting epics. As a Fulbright Postdoctoral Fellow he specialized in Theory of Oral Literature at Harvard University (1984-1988), and is currently Government of Canada Postdoctoral Award Holder at the University of Waterloo. Introduction: Oral Traditional Literature flourished throughout the history of mankind in "Protean multiformity", proverbs, incantations, praise and blame songs, laments, hymns, story-telling, short or long lyric and epic poems .. Heroic Epos, the highest artistic product of illiterate singers of tales, sprang in pre-historic times, long before literacy was invented. It has greatly influenced the written literature. Among Southern Slavic peoples it has been recorded for over five centuries. The Southern Slavs of Muslim faith preserved the traditional oral myth-making until today. Their songs are lengthier than Christian, and artistically more developed. The best Muslim singers of tales create traditional songs lasting for many hours. They make their decasyllable verses, accompanied by instrument gusle or tambura, at an incredible speed of 10-20 verses in one minute. They believe that the stories they are retelling, learned from the older singers, are the "true history". The stories themselves have a mythic background, and are extremely ancient. Indeed, many scolars, including myself, believe that South Slavic Muslim Epics are pre-Homeric.

During the XIXth Century, Muslim epics were collected by dictation. In the Thirties of the XXth Century, the famous American Homerist: Milman Parry made an excellent collection of sound-recordings. Albert Lord and David Bynum continued Parry's work, and in the Fifties and the Sixties also made fine recordings. All the materials mentioned are kept at Harvard University. The Lord-Bynum Collection from the Sixties, amounting to over 90,000 verses, was transcribed and edited by myself.

In 1989, Marina Rojc-Colakovic (my wife) and I, made our own collection of sound and video tapes. Thus was the South Slavic Muslim epic poem finally preserved on film for the future. KOSTRES THE CHIEFTAIN Epic Poem Sung by Murat Kurtagic, the illiterate 76 year old singer of tales, on the morning of June 30,1989, in Rozaje, Montenegro, Yugoslavia. Duration: 2 hrs 40 min. of singing; Length : 2,183 verses. This is the word-for-word translation, whenever possible, from traditional language, which is a mixture of Serbian, Croatian and others such as Turkish, Persian etc. No attempt has been made to better the singer's text; however, I tried to preserve the rhythm of the original verse, the internal and external rhymes, unusual word order and other poetic devices, the senseless expressions "hey","Eh" and so forth, usually at the beginning of the verse, are the singer's exclamations. Murat Kurtagic: The song I intend to sing now, about Kostres The Chieftain and about Hrnjicic Mujo1, I heard from my grandfather Abdul-agha Kurtagic, when I was a small boy. Zlatan Colakovic: Please start. ... long instrumental introduction ... Aah, my gusle, of instrument of mine, I sing with you around the world. We know all that is taking place, Where someone dies, and where someone is born Then, we know what happened before, How the first people lived, Eh, what the memory they left behind. One morning as the day just broke Mujo the sirdar in his chamber awoke. As the dawn clapped its wings, Everything on the Earth illuminated. Mujo equipped himself on time, Hey, according to his religious custom. While bowing the early morning prayer, He prayed to God the Master. When he had finished it He sat amongst the windows On the golden soft pillow. And in the pillow feathers were stuffed. And his true-love prepared him coffee. Coffee drinks Master Mujo the sirdar. Coffee he drank, and finished it. It did not take so long a time When the knocker clanged on the door. The knocker heavy, the iron door, So the clang is heard from a far.

(tuning of the one-stringed gusle without pause) So the clang is heard from a far. Mujo the sirdar, when the knocker he heard, The sirdar has no servants, So he jumped on his swift feet, And down the white court he comes. When he crosses the courtyard, and comes to the gate, With the key he bangs, and opens the door. When he glanced at his door He caught sight of an unknown hero. He holds black horse of many duels. But foam covers completely the black horse, It was black, but became whitened. He saluted Mujo, And Mujo accepted his salutation. Let us see who the hero was? >From near he was not, he was from the far, The imperial messenger from Istanbul the flat, >From Istanbul the famous town. And to Mujo like this he spoke: "Mujo the sirdar, the head of Bosnia, Here is the firman of our tzar: Take the firman today, on time, To save your own head; >From the firman no one can escape." 1Hrnjicic Mujo is the famous Muslim hero who actually lived in Bosnia in the XVIIth Century.

This article was originally published in Cross Cultures Magazine in Volume 1 - Issue 3 - 1992. Unauthorized copying, distribution or other usage without express written permission of the publisher is prohibited.