The Serbian Parliament has just adopted the law on national and other holidays, among which Saint Sava - Day of Spirituality on January 27 and Vidovdan - commemoration of the Battle of Kosovo on June 28 will be celebrated.
Who is the holy Vid whose cult developed (and continues to this day) alongside the Kosovo myth?
Based on Veselin Čajkanović, Vid or Svetovid ("strong Vision") is a well-known Slavic war deity. Vid is the name of our supreme god, and perhaps the oldest Greek chthonic god Avides. Indicative, when it comes to the side of this cult, are also the mythical remains of vegetation cults related to the Battle of Kosovo (Kosovo peony). The very name of this saint - Vid (preserved in numerous folk names: Vidosav, Vidak, Vidosava, later Vidovdanka) determined, for the most part, the nature of the rituals that were performed on the day dedicated to him. It was, for example, very important what would be seen that day. On Vidovdan you could also see the future; therefore Vidovdan was also considered a day of divination and divination, performed, most often with the help of the grass vid, vidac, vidova grass.
The possibility has been raised that due to the homonymy of the name of the Old Slavic god (Sveto) Vid(t) and the little-known Christian martyr from the third century Vitus, who died on the same day as Prince Lazar, the older cult was replaced by a new one. Namely, the Church tried to suppress the pagan saint Svetovit with the Holy See.
In earlier times, the Orthodox Church dedicated June 28 according to the old, or June XNUMX according to the new calendar, to the Old Testament prophet Amos and shortly after the Battle of Kosovo to the canonized Prince Lazar (whose glory, according to tradition, was precisely this prophet). Saint Vid, i.e. Vidovdan, as a holiday and historical day appears in the calendar of Serbs already in the XNUMXth century; in Bosnia and Herzegovina, the custom of holding a divine service on Vidovdan dedicated to Emperor Lazar should have been nurtured since the Turkish era, and the celebration of local importance was also recorded in some Muslim villages below Jahorina (Turovo, Trebečaj).
The idea of liberation in the South Slavic area was also followed by the Kosovar thought through Vidovdan and the Kosovar heroes. However, as a church and national holiday, Vidovdan is a result of recent dates, and the long way to its inclusion in red letters in the calendar goes together with the creation of a new Vidovdan cult. In 1879, the article "Vidovdan" appeared in Belgrade (and a little earlier the magazine of the same name) in which it is said: "Vidovdan should become a day of public repentance, fasting and prayer. We remember our heroes, but we also remember God."
During the celebration of the 1879th anniversary of the Battle of Kosovo in (since 1890) independent Serbia, the government made a decision to hold a memorial service for Prince Lazar and the heroes who died in Kosovo on Vidovdan. In the calendar part of the state schematism for 15, it was indicated, for the first time, that Vidovdan is a national holiday and that "15. June (...) commemorates the Serbian fighters who died for their faith and homeland". And in the calendar, two years later, under June XNUMX, "pr. Amos and Lazarus (day of vision)", was printed for the first time in red letters.
Vidovdan, as a Kosovo symbol, comes into the spotlight as the day of the final showdown with the Turks and the Kosovo myth is gradually transformed into the Vidovdan cult and Vidovdan - the day of heroic reflection and victory over evil - becomes a symbol of bloody merciless revenge against everything Turkish (Muslim). In the calendar for 1914, Vidovdan is one of the nine official holidays of the Kingdom of Serbia, and "since 1913, on the day of its celebration, the memory of fallen warriors will be regularly evoked and food and drink will be distributed for their souls, as in mythical times." Finally, let's recall the prophetic words of Miodrag Popović, uttered a quarter of a century ago: "The Vidovdan cult, which mixes historical reality with mythical reality, the real struggle for freedom with preserved pagan tendencies (revenge, slaughter, offering a sacrifice, reviving a heroic ancestor), it potentially contains all the characteristics of environments with untamed mythic impulses. As a certain stage in the development of national opinion, it was historically necessary. But, as a permanent state of mind, the Vidovdan cult can be fatal for those who are unable to extricate themselves from its pseudo-mythical and pseudo-historical webs. In them, contemporary thought, the spirit of man, can experience a new Kosovo, an intellectual and ethical defeat."
