The Serbs Chose War, Ruth Mitchel 9. MY BROTHER VUKOSAVA IN BUDVA OF THE BEAUTIFUL BEACHES my room was built in the ancient, massive city walls. Its balcony (now destroyed by the explosion of an Italian mine) directly overhung the blue Adriatic. Across a small bay lay a hill of silvery, twisted olive trees. Beside me was a miniature monastery like a toy, with a tiny Orthodox church at least seven hundred years old. It was like something off a wedding cake, built up in layers of pink and white marble, with a graceful little threefold open-arch bell tower where the bells hung free to the winds. At the proper times the schoolboys used to take turns at jumping madly up and down on the bell ropes. In front of the church drooped a few palm trees; beside it stood a cocky little fortress with a huge flag blowing bravely out to sea. And behind all this rose the towering Montenegrin mountains, usually crowned with snow. The winter after the war broke out in Europe I was absolutely alone in the hotel. My room was furnished with colorful Serbian rugs, bright as stained-glass windows, and with some fine antique weapons and brocades I had gathered. Each day the children would bring me some little gift: a shell, a special fruit, a half-dead starfish, a turtle, or something they had made, so that I should not feel lonely. How happily I used to run along the hall to see what it would be today! To my room came also their old teacher, Professor Milosavljevich. He came every day for almost a year, and we translated together seventeen volumes of ancient songs and epics, bought, borrowed and even stolen by well-wishers. This is how we worked. Besides his own language the old gentle man had only a faint and evanescent knowledge of German, which I speak as easily as English. Into this German, which he almost invented as he went along, the professor rendered the resounding phrases of his country's wonderful tales. These he loved so well that he could not resist booming them out first in the original, his large foot beating time to the heroic rhythm. Then they were turned into what he happily believed was German, and after that I wrote it all down in English, profoundly thankful that the epic language of all countries has much similarity. The firelight shone on his eager, rosy face and silver hair; the wintry sea boomed and clashed under the window; the bells of the little church, where the very men of whom I was hearing had perhaps once prayed for victory, sang to the merry hopping of small boys. And I- I listened with inexpressible delight to the splendid deeds of heroes of long ago. To Professor Milosavljevich I am profoundly indebted for sharing with me the epic lore of his race; to him and to my good friend, M.P. In Belgrade, when I was convalescing after a bout with pneumonia, there came day after day to read to me a man who was himself a reincarnation of the greatest of those ancient heroes. Serbs of breeding all know their pedigrees for many generations, and my friend M.P. was a direct descendant of the old Nemanye kings. He so exactly reproduced the type of the old fighters that his features were used by Mestrovich, the Slav sculptor, as the model for his own conception of King's Son Marko. This huge man, holding an equally outsize volume, translated those beautiful epics fluently hour after hour into the most exquisite French, his expressive face reflecting dramatically the emotions of his own ancestors about whom he was reading. It was magnificent; it was unique. Unlike those of other Western countries, these Serbian heroic songs are not dead, entombed in books for the pleasure of the few, an echo of remote unreality. They are as alive, as real to living men today as ever they were in the past. Now, at this moment, they are being sung by Mihailovich's fighters in the high mountain passes of Montenegro, in the deep Bosnian forests, in the little hidden cabins lost in the drifting snow. As I write, rough skillful fingers are touching the strings there in wild lands where no German dares to tread. First a song of Serbian heroes-and then: "Tamo daleko . . . [So far, so far, my love . . .]" And in spite of all the comfort, all the safety here, how bitterly I wish that I were there with them! One evening I was visiting the family of M.P. in one of the most savage parts of Montenegro, now the very heart of Chetnik resistance, the Sanjak of Novi Pazar. There were in our party several high officials of the Yugoslav Government, of whom my friend was one. We were sitting on rough benches in the great beamed and smoke-darkened kitchen with a group of beautifully costumed retainers and peasants. Their dark, fierce faces showed, now bright, now shadowy, in the flickering light from the open central fire. Our host, M.P.'s older brother, was a perfect viking of a fellow, the leader of the Sanjak Chetniks. He was famous as a great fighter, years ago, against the Turks. As a matter of course he called for his gusle (a sort of two-stringed guitar), whose head formed a roughly carved horseman. Then in his deep, harsh voice he began to sing. He sang one of his own family songs. He sang of how his great-uncle killed a notorious, bloody tyrant, Suleiman Pasha. He sang of deeds that were as natural to himself as breathing. The circle of eyes, including those of my fine educated gentlemen from Belgrade, gleamed with pride. The firelight flashed on the jeweled royal decorations hanging at M.P.'s throat and on his breast and on his magnificent gold-embroidered Montenegrin dress. He had that afternoon made a great speech to about 40,000 of his countrymen concerning-of all anachronisms-a railroad at last to Montenegro. Huge, handsome, accustomed to the ceremonies of royal courts, his eyes were almost wet, were humble with admiration of his great wild elder brother who was voicing the deepest instinct of their race: unflinching resistance to oppression. What, I thought, could the cultured, civilized countries, with their rich cities, their artificial theaters and delicate, emasculated concerts, their everlasting bars, offer in exchange for this vivid, fierce, primitively human reality? You may be certain that this singer of great songs has gone out into the mountains to take his German and Italian heads. And with him went his two sons, one a professor. At the age of sixty he is out in the great snows of the Sanjak, fighting again for freedom, as his ancestors before him have fought. I can think of nothing I wish more than to grasp again one day the tough hand of this, my Chetnik brother. I say "my brother," for it was not long before he became just that. We had a long talk as we marched over his rough uncultivated lands, chasing his wild sheep-Vukosava, the old chief of the Sanjak Chetniks, and I. He explained to me the history and purpose of the organization. Knowing of my life in the Albanian mountains and seeing my pleasure and ease in the "discomforts" of his own wild territory, he laughingly said: "You yourself would make a good Chetnik-a real Chetnik if ever I saw one. Why don't you join us ?" I replied soberly that I would think it over but that I was doubtful if I could measure up to the necessary standard. He stopped laughing and looked at me for some time thoughtfully. I can see him now, gray, tall as a totem pole, with eagle eye and eagle nose, incredibly gaunt against the gray mountainside. "If Serbia needed you-would you fight ?" he asked suddenly. "My father was a fighter in the American Civil War," I said. "He gave me his sword before he died. It has always hung above my bed. My two brothers fought in the last war for America. One died fighting. The other is known to my countrymen as 'Fighting General Billy.' My son fights in this war for England. I will fight," I said; "I will fight gladly for Serbia if Serbia should ever need my services." He clapped me on the back with a blow that almost sent me reeling. "You'll do," he shouted, making the very rocks re-echo. "Boga mi [By God], you'll do for us. I'll stand your toom [sponsor] myself," said the old chief, Vukosava. Shoulder to shoulder-though my shoulder only came to his elbow -we tramped back singing, as sings every marching Chetnik: "Sprewte, se spremte, Chetnitsi, silna che borba da bude Iz ove nase pobede, radja se sunce slobode . . ." Previous Chapter | Content | Next Chapter The Serbs Chose War, Ruth Mitchel