Camoenae Hungaricae 3(2006) - Irodalomtörténeti Közlemények

Camoenae Hungaricae 3(2006)
away from extremities and he only progressed as far as adopting the position of duplex
veritas: as a politician and a diplomat serving the Habsburgs, he continued to think of the
Carpathian Basin and the Balkans as belonging under the legal administration of Regnum
Hungaricum, but as a scholar, Vitezović’s Illyria (or Croatia) project might have been
more fertile a ground for him. During his border survey activities, he reheated the decade-old
idea of Fragmenta, a publication of a great collection of Balkan source materials,
and included a new “group of sources” among those to be explored. As he wrote in
his 1721 report cited before, “In the course of my travels of the border regions I realised
that a work containing many centuries of the history of Illyria could be compiled by producing
a collection of old Illyrian songs, more precisely the old historical songs that one
may hear sung by blind bards and the new songs they also produce. I have been greatly
impressed by the graceful dexterity this nation demonstrated in this and by the fact that
blind minstrels living near the borders, upon being advised of the debate between myself
and the Turks, would week to week prepare these songs in their own poetic metres then
come to sing them before my tents and the tents of the Turks, sometimes accompanying
them by dancing. Cavaliere Ritter who versifies in both Latin and Illyrian has confirmed
this conviction of mine, showing me a book containing a collection of historical songs,
which describe many historical events which have been lost due to the lack of writers or
preserved writings and are remembered solely by the blind bards who hand them down to
their blind offspring. Now that the imperial troops captured most of Serbia and Wallachia,
I can realise my plans to benefit of our modern literature and collect and publish all
these fragments—especially those which bring us news of the countries which have been
excluded for centuries from communicating with our learned nations.” 70
The current location of the book, containing the historical songs and naïve epic fragments
on which Vitezović was relying, remains unknown. Researching this would be an
interesting task for literary historians, but for the purposes of the present research we
must make do with the currently available documents, from which one significant conclusion
can certainly be drawn. The second great layer of the Marsili papers, those produced
70 “Nell’occasione prementoata dei miei viaggi Limitanei m’occorse d’imparare che era possibile unire una
Storia dell’Illirico da più secoli, unendo una Raccolta delle Canzoni, ò Cantilene illiriche antiche, che da
Ciechi s’imparano, e d’altre nuove, che si compongono da loro, e di questa facilità naturale di tal Nazione ne
restai persuaso, et che di settimana in settimana li Ciechi circonvicini a i Limiti informandosi de i Contrasti, e
successi frà Turchi, e me facevano col loro metro composizioni in Illirico, che venivano di poi a cantare avanti
le mie Tende, e de’ Turchi accompagnando tutto con suono, ed anche alle volte con Danze. Il Cavagliere Riter
Poeta Latino, ed Illirico mi confermò questa Verità, mostrandomi in un Libro una numerosissima Raccolta di
tali Cantilene, che davano tante notizie istoriche, che per mancanza di scrittori, o della conservazione de scritti
antichi s’erano perdute, e solo conservate per questo mezzo de Ciechi che le lasciarono a i successori privi
della Vista. In ora che l’armi di Cesare hanno occupato una gran parte della Servia e Vallachia potrà esere
ridotto a perfezione questo mio Abbozzo in vantaggio della nostra moderna Letteratura tutta intenta a raccogliere,
e pubblicare sifatti fragmenti, e massime che ci danno notizie di paesi, che da più secoli sono stati
senza commercio con le nostre Nazioni colte, ma per il decantato tenore impressoli da Turchi, veruno ardì
nemeno pensarvi.” Lettera di prefazione, 185–186. Marsili, writing about the rulers of Bosnia, makes a note
of the significance of oral epics in the sustenance of historical memory in the Monarchia Ungarica: BUB Ms
28 (Ad tabulam genealogicam regum Bosnae apodixis), 27.
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