Full page photo print

More documents

Recommendations

Info

146 SMAIL an~iclThe Cultural Achievements of Bosnian Muslims When thc old man saw it Mustar-Aga; Loud he screamed with voice of troubled anger; "Look to this, ye bidden for the wedding! He, the robber! bears away my maiden; See her, see her borne away for ever", But one answer met the old man's wailings: "Let the hawk bear off the quail in safety,- Bear in safety - she was born to wed him; Thou, retire thee to thy own dwelling! Blossoms not for thee so fair a maiden! "I6 Muslim heroic songs are often unusually long because of the Muslim way of life. In the long nights of RamadBn, the month of fasting, during which pious Muslims are at their most sociable after having abstained from food and drink all day, long songs that could fill the evening were needed, and thus emerged. With the increasing decline of the older social institutions, the heroic song was condemned to fade from social life. It seems unlikely that it will again flourish as it did in the seventeenth century when, throughout the Ottoman Empire, Muslims were beginning their struggle to maintain a European existence, and when a national consciousness began to emerge among Bosnian Muslims. Lyric Folk Poetry In the Balkan lands, where poetry and the epic were virtually synonymous, lyric poetry was hardly understood or appreciated. Yet despite the fact that the Bosnian and Herzegovinian Muslims poured their greatest love and gifts into the cultivation of epic poetry, ballads and romances also developed. Their contrast with the epic is twofold. Whereas epic songs are sung to the accompaniment of the tamburitza or the gusle, these ballads and romances are recited simply and naturally, without melody or instrumental accompaniment. Then, too, they focus on feminine concerns. l7 Their content accounts for their virtual absence from all but the Muslim Croatian culture. These songs of the lives of women are found only in the "western domain of the Serbo-Croatian language" IX because of the comparatively higher social status enjoyed by the women in these territories. In the Bosnian- Muslim milieu, the chivalrous treatment of women, who are veritably coddled as young wives and highly honoured as aged mothers, is in sharp contrast with the attitudes of the Orthodox hinterlands of the East." The medieval, oriental non-Islamic conception of woman as something intrinsically evil, as the vessel of sin, was always entirely foreign to Muslim culture in contrast to Byzantine culture where the concept of woman's defectiveness reigned for a long time." The Muslim woman had her hereditary rights from time immemorial according to the Shari'ah (the canon law), and was not dependent upon the goodwill of the father or brothers.
Islamic Studies 3 6 : 2, 3 ( 1 9 9 7 147 In the early days, most of the Muslim folk songs, as well as most other literary works, were composed in the melodic Ikavian speech common to both Muslims and Catholics. The Muslim ballads and romances deal with the inner conflicts between mother-love, pride, love for one's husband, and the longing for security. These conflicts arise mainly from the specific morality of the Muslim Bosnians2' and, above all, from the inculcated modesty of their women, particularly those belonging to the aristocracy. These Bosnian ballads also testify to a refined lyric sense, are dramatic, and offer deep psychological insight. Their plots are highly original, and their wealth of expression and euphony is counted among the richest in South Slavic folk poetry. The first Bosnian ballad to become known in a foreign country was Hasan-Aginica, which was introduced into world literature by Herder and Goethe as Klagegesang von der edlen Frauen des Asan Aga (The Lamentation of the Noble Wife of Hasan-Aga). It had already been published in Venice in 1744 by Alberto Fortis in his travel reminiscences, Viaggio in Dalmazia. This ballad, the "pearl of South Slavic folk poetry", aroused the interest of the cultural world in South Slavic folk poetry. Many famous poets admired its beauty and translated it into their languages. Its most famous German translation or paraphrase, namely Goethe's "Lament of the Noble Wife of Hassan Aga", can be found among Herder's Volkrlieder. Some other translators were: Prosper Merimee, Walter Scott, John Boyd, George G.N. Byron,'* Alexander S. Pushkin, Michail J. Lermontov, Ernst Ludwig Gerber, Jakob Grimm, Friedrich August Clemens Werthes, Therese Albertine Louise Robinson (pseud. Talvj), Wilhelm Gerhard, Charles Nodier, Anne Elisabeth Voiard, Auguste Dozon, Sir John Bowring, Ferencz Kazinczy, Frantiiek-Ladislav Celakovsky, Karel Hynek Macha, Georg FeriC (Ferrich), France Preieren, Samuel Roinay, Johann Ludwig Runeberg, and Camilla Lucerna. Thus besides the original, there exist translations in German, English, French, Russian, Italian, Malay, Slovenian, Hungarian, Czech, Latin, and Swedish. Poets and scholars of standing like Goethe, Scott, Byron, Michael Lermontov, Alphonse de Lamartine, Adam Mickiewicz, Jernej Kopitar, Matthias Murko, Gerhard Gesemann, and many others were filled with delight by this ballad. Herder had the boldness to liken this "noble song" of the misjudged wife of the Slavic Muslim to the magnificent creations of women's tragedy by Shakespeare-to Desdemona and Ophelia. "The incomparable feeling for the germs of humanity and its first springs, the sense of touch and tone which showed him the inner form and the actions of all true songs despite the darkness in language, has won this elegy a place for its quality of judgement of the heart" .23 An English translation of this ballad follow^:'^ THE WIFE OF HASAN AGA What shows white in the wood? A flock of swans or a bank of snow? Swans would have flown and a snow bank would have melted long ago. It is not snow, nor a milk-white swan, but Hasan Aga's tent;
Page 1 and 2: Islamic Studies 36: 2, 3 ( 1 997) T
Page 3 and 4: 140 MAIL BALICIT~B Cultural Achieve
Page 5 and 6: Islamic Studies 36:2, 3 (1 997) 141
Page 7 and 8: Islamic Studies 3 6 : 2, 3 ( 1 9 9
Page 9: Islamic Studies 36:2, 3 (1 997) And
Page 13 and 14: lslernic Studies 36:2, 3 (1 997) 14
Page 32 and 33: 168 SMAIL BALICIT~~ Cultural Achiev
Page 34 and 35: 170 SMAIL sn~~ClThe Cultural Achiev
Page 36 and 37: SMAIL e~~lClThe Cultural Achievemen
Page 38 and 39: 174 SMAIL sn~dlThe Cultural Achieve

Full page photo print

You also want an ePaper? Increase the reach of your titles

Delete template?

Save as template?