Milovan Vojičić's epic songs about the Kosovo battle 1389 in the Milman Parry collection of oral literature

Sonja, Petrović

Prilozi za knjizevnost, jezik, istoriju i folklor

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http://www.doiserbia.nb.rs/Article.aspx?id=0350-66730975021P

2009-2020/02/11/14:24:14

In "The Milman Parry Collection of Oral Literature" on Harvard University out of 131 epic songs recorded from Milovan Vojičić, several are dedicated to the popular theme of the Serbian and Balkan epic - the Kosovo Battle 1389 (Prince Lazar and Miloš Obilić, The Defeat of Kosovo, Тhe Kosovo Tragedy, The Kosovo Field after the Battle, The Death of Mother Jugovići, The Death of Pavle Orlović at Kosovo, noted in 1933-34 in Nevesinje). The paper examines Vojičić’s Kosovo songs from the perspective of textual, stylistic and rhetoric criticism, poetics, and memory studies. An analysis of Milovan Vojičić’s Kosovo epic poetry leaves an impression of an active singer who has internalised tradition, and on this foundation composes new works in the traditional manner and "in the folk style". Vojičić is a literate singer who was familiar with the collections of Vuk Karadžić, Bogoljub Petranović, the Matica Hrvatska, and the songbooks of the time. He did not hesitate to remake or rewrite songs from printed collections or periodicals, which means that his understanding of authorship was in the traditional spirit. Vojičić’s compilations lie on that delicate line between oral traditional and modern literary poetry; he is, naturally, not alone in this double role - the majority of the gusle-players who were his contemporaries could be similarly described. In the body of Kosovo epic poetry Vojičić’s songs stand out (The Death of Pavle Orlović at Kosovo, The Kosovo Tragedy), where he abandons the printed model and achieves the kind of originality which is in fact part of tradition itself. Vojičić highly valued oral tradition and the opportunity to perform it, as part of the process of creating an image of himself as a folk gusle-player in modern terms. For this reason, his repertoire includes both old and new themes. They are sung according to the epic standard, but also in accordance with the modern standard of epic semi-literary works. In Vojičić’s world, oral tradition is an important component in viewing the historical past, and in perceiving reality and the singer’s place in it. The epic is a form of oral memory and the guardian of remembrance of past events; however it also provides a space for surveying and commenting on modern historical situations in a popularly accepted manner, at times in an ideological key, as seen in songs which gather together major historical events. This perception of the epic tradition and history is mirrored in the heterogeneity of the corpus and in the repertoire of songs, and is all a consequence of vastly changed conditions of origin, existence and acceptance, i.e. the consumption of oral works in the first half of the 20th century, in a process of interaction between literature and folklore.

folklorno i književno stvaranje, kosovska epika, Milovan Vojičić, zbirka Milmana Perija