Lazar Hrebeljanović - from military leader to saint

In the years leading up to the breakup Yugoslavia, when the calls became more frequent and stronger nationalist for their nation to return to its supposedly true and neglected "identity", and some Serbian historians tried to contribute to the restoration of the "Serbian vertical", i.e. the Serbian national consciousness, and some media experts stood out in particular, those among them who were convinced that the Serbs gained full national consciousness in the Middle Ages. The focus of their attention was, among other things, the cult writings about Prince Lazar, created after the Kosovo battle for the purposes of the prince's induction among the saints of the Serbian Church and church services in his honor. Works have appeared that will prove that in these writings can be found the sources of an entire national ideology, the "Kosovo ideology", and that it is exactly that set of ideas, representations and beliefs that has remained the backbone of the Serbian national consciousness until our time.

It went mainly in two directions. On the one hand, there was an effort to find secular ideas about social and political values ​​in the background of primarily theological representations and interpretations of the Kosovo battle in church writings about Lazarus, those in the name of which the heroes of Kosovo really fought for, and for which they gave their lives, while, on the other hand, the "Kosovo ideology" was revealed precisely in the theological, "sacred" sense of the death of the Serbs in the collision with the Ottomans in Kosovo, as a spiritual trial that they will continue to face, because it will become a permanent feature of the Serbian national "being".

"REAL HEROISM"

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Analyzing those places in A letter of praise to Prince Lazar patriarch Danilo III, in which the prince's war heroism comes to light, i.e. where there are "heroic messages that are not expected in the works of this literary genre", historian Rade Mihaljčić explains their presence as a consequence of the conflict between the genre conventions of cult writings and historical reality, which penetrates into these writings, as it were, independently of the intentions of their compilers or with their tacit consent. Although they "consciously ignore the fact that the prince entered the battle with a sword", and that is why the depiction of Lazarus' death is "contrary to reality", the truth about the prince's heroism could not remain hidden, "reality was not neglected". She somehow imposed herself: "Before the authors of the Kosovo writings floated the historical, living personality of the Serbian prince, the real heroism in Kosovo and the ideal figure of the ascetic and sufferer. It was not easy to adapt the historical event, well known to the contemporaries, to the canonical requirements. It is difficult to suppress the facts from consciousness. The events whose consequences determined the fate of the country and pressured contemporaries have not faded, let alone forgotten. The goals of the cult writings are unambiguously and clearly exposed, but they simultaneously contain heroic messages that are not expected in the works of this literary genre" (Mihaljčić 1989: 232). Therefore, the fact that mutually incompatible values ​​of heroic virtue and the ideal of martyrdom are found side by side in these writings is due to the fact that the echo of real events penetrated into the church discourse, that it was imposed there, that unknown historical facts were found there.

Thus, in Mihaljčić's opinion, Danilo III and other compilers of the cult writings about Lazar spontaneously, under the influence of the event, in the prince's portrait, in addition to the features that a holy martyr must have, spontaneously introduced something of his realistic human character, and in this way became chroniclers of the Kosovo battle as a historical event and witnesses of the "real" feat of Lazarus in it. For example, to the writer of the cult writing under the title Prologue "sometimes the historian's way of speaking is hijacked, for a moment the chronicler speaks in him. The genre he chose restrains him, but as a contemporary he is sometimes unable to hide what he has experienced, to resist events, to ignore the fact" (Ibid.: 142). This supposedly irresistible historical truth most often emerges in Danilov The letter. "In other cult writings", says Mihaljčić, "it is difficult to find some reliable statement, to squeeze out a historical fact, and in Danilov's The letter historical descriptions are more common and one gets the impression that the real, biographical part is not overshadowed by the highly cultic parts of the writings. The writer insensibly weaves the past into a cult text, reality into praise" (Iso).

Mihaljčić thinks that Danilo was even ready to sacrifice the rules of the genre for the love of factual truth. "Patriarch Danilo", he says, "respects the basic requirements of the literary genre to which his writing belongs, but, unlike other Kosovo writings, he respects information more, he does not neglect the fact" (Ibid.: 225). In his readiness to accept historical facts, as we learn a few pages later, he was not alone. Some other authors of church writings about Lazarus, who received news about the prince's real heroism in Kosovo, exceed the genre limitations of the text intended to celebrate the new martyr, which demand that he suffer and die without resistance. For them, Lazarus's armed resistance to the enemies of the Christian faith is a feat that earns him a place among the saints. It is important that the prince chose heaven because the way to it is not open only to martyrs. "That's why part of the authors of the Kosovo writings", explains Mihaljčić, "do not strive for the prince's passive death by beheading. Salvation, eternal life, can be gained by heroic resistance, defense of Christ's faith, but above all by determination for the kingdom of heaven. In this sense, heroic messages should be understood, which in this case are also at the service of church ideals" (Ibid.: 233-234). But, we will see, they serve other, non-church ideals much better.

When he makes a distinction between cult writings and chronicle records, Rade Mihaljčić does not take into account that in the Middle Ages, even during the Kosovo battle, the writing of chronicles was conditioned by a certain tradition, that the chronicle was also a literary genre that in its own way constructs an image of the event, that the chronicle does not have to be a more faithful representation of historical events than the one offered by a saint's life. This is somewhat unexpected, because Mihaljčić mentions chronicles and historical "novels" which, as established by earlier researchers of cult writings about Lazar (Trifunović 1968: 342), served as sources of formulas and topos for Danilo and their other authors when compiling the "heroic messages" found in those writings. Among those sources are Flavius History of the Judean Wars, the chronicles of the Byzantine writers George Hamartol (9th century) and Constantine Manasse (12th century) and Serbian Alexandrida. And Mihaljčić quotes Alexander's words to the soldiers that it is better for them to die gloriously than to continue living in shame, which in Danilov The letter uttered by Lazar (Mihaljčić, 1989: 147), which is one of the quotes that show that the prince's heroism described in this writing should be seen as an echo of the reading rather than a reflection of reality, i.e. that heroism is a bookish construct as well as the prince's sanctity, which is painted using the bricolage technique of quotations from the Holy Scriptures and other works of church literature.

SEARCH FOR TRUTH

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However, as a historian in search of positive facts, Mihaljčić is not satisfied with interpreting the contradiction between Lazar the martyr and Lazar the hero-warrior as a gap between the logic of two medieval literary genres, the martyr's cult writing and the knight's chronicle, but in the chronicle parts of these texts he looks for something without which his efforts would have been in vain - the possibility to learn the historical truth about what really happened on June 28 1389 in Kosovo, who and what kind of prince Lazar Hrebeljanović really was and what really moved him to a heroic deed whose true meaning can hardly be guessed in the church records.

In order to achieve this, he applies the method of triage of cult texts, their "filtering" with the aim of separating valid historical data from the general places of church discourse. It is painstaking work, but Mihaljčić thinks that it gives results worth the effort: "The originality, that is, the reliability of the data of the cult scriptures for the events they describe, is checked by unwavering methodological principles. However, it is necessary to reach this data, to find it in the text we use. First of all, from the cult scriptures, general places and biblical quotations are singled out. If the texts of the Holy Scriptures are taken literally, they are not difficult to recognize. However, the biblical texts were woven from memory, and often in short writings and poetic works, only biblical motifs were borrowed. The purified, remaining text in relation to the complete work is often subject to further criticism, another methodical filter that checks the credibility of other narrative, i.e. autobiographical sources. The author, his relationship with the person to whom the writing is dedicated, then the time and place of creation of the text, and their mutual dependence, as is the case with these Kosovar writings. This does not exhaust the questions that the researcher has in mind when criticizing, that is, checking the credibility of the narrative source" (Ibid.: 140).

The goal of this scrupulous search is not only the discovery of historical facts more or less hidden in church writings about Lazarus. Mihaljčić tries to shed light on the ideological and political significance of these writings, especially Danilo's Slova, as "an irreplaceable source for the study of the state, i.e. ruling ideology of the post-Kosovo era", because they testify to the fact that confirmation of the legitimacy of the authority of Lazar's successors was also sought in his kinship ties with the "holy" Nemanjić dynasty (Ibid.: 144).

But for him it is just as important, if not more important, to point out how in the images of the "real" heroism of Lazarus and his comrades - which in church writings is either relegated to the background or tended to be transformed into the story of the prince as a Christian saint - there is also the germ of different political ideas, the outlines of a new ideology at the time. Just as one reads about the war heroism of the Kosovar knights between the lines of church metaphors, behind the official medieval "ruling ideology", which dictated that Lazar be portrayed as a saint and a relative of Saint Nemanjić, one senses the germ of a new ideological discourse, in which heroic death on the battlefield begins to be interpreted outside the feudal theological-political context and becomes the backbone of the ideological system that Mihaljčić, together with some other interpreters of ideological aspects He calls the Kosovo battles and memories of them "Kosovo ideology". The core of this ideology, its basic value is war heroism, sacrifice for the earthly, not for the heavenly kingdom. But, due to genre conventions and the feudal understanding of legitimate authority, as authority with a sacred cover, in the cult writings about Lazarus, his warrior heroism had to remain in the shadow of his spiritual feat.

Mihaljčić thinks that this was done to the detriment of the prince's place in the Serbian collective consciousness, that because of the saint's halo added to him, he was left without an even brighter wreath, the wreath of eternal glory of a great military leader and statesman, that because of his chosen heavenly kingdom, his heroic fight for the Serbian state on earth was forgotten. And for that, Mihaljčić felt sorry for Lazarus: "With the act of martyrdom, which the writers of cult writings strive so hard for, the glory of the brave military leader darkened (...). The shadow fell on the statesman who was the only one who managed to gather the threatened, the shadow fell on the military leader who had the courage to lead an army beyond the borders of his country against an overpowering invader" (Mihaljčić 1989a: 191).

Mihaljčić finds the memory of the "real heroism" of Kosovo's warriors and the real motives that encouraged them to fight, much better preserved than in church texts, in legends, in oral tradition, in folk songs about the Battle of Kosovo. It is also the main source for understanding and interpreting the Kosovo ideology: "Heroism is the key motif of the Kosovo legend and the starting point, the core of the Kosovo ideology" (Ibid: 186). However, here too the hero and military leader Lazar paid the price of the honor by which the Serbian Church included him among its saints. "Since the holy prince was protected by the cult", writes Mihaljčić, "the tradition looked for examples of heroism on the other side, among the non-canonized participants of the Kosovo conflict (...) Therefore, the tradition attributed heroism to non-historical characters - Banović Strahinja, Srđa Zlopogleđa and Boško Jugović" (Ibid: 191).

Literatura:

Mihaljčić, Rade 1989a: Heroes of Kosovo legend.BIGZ, Belgrade.

Mihaljčić, Rade 1989: Lazar Hrebeljanovic. History, cool, surrender, SKZ and Knowledge, Belgrade.

Trifunović, Đorđe 1968: Serbian medieval writings about Prince Lazar and the Battle of Kosovo, Bagdala, Krusevac.

Continued in the next issue