Page:The Ballads of Marko Kraljević.djvu/29

 then than they did half a century before. Since then, however, the political destiny of the Serbs has brought home to the world the great qualities of these people, their unswerving loyalty to their friends, their indomitable courage in disaster, their moderation in the hour of victory.

By its own intrinsic excellence the Serbian folk-poetry takes a very high place indeed, but there is another reason in a different order of ideas why the ballads should be read and studied. All the members of the Serbian race, so long politically held apart, are now united in the new Kingdom of the Serbs, Croats and Slovenes. The rivalries of the component parts are certainly bitter; the forces of disintegration are powerful and even dangerous but the Serbian race has become the Serbian nation, a gifted and imaginative nation with a future of brilliant promise before it. To understand this people, to grasp the circumstances that have shaped their mentality, has become a matter of practical importance, and to this end there is no surer guide than the national poetry: it leads straight to the people's heart. "You may still find many an illiterate person in Serbia, but you will not find one who would not be able to tell you something about Stephan Nemanya, the first king of mediaeval Serbia, about his son St Sava, Tsar Doushan, his young son Ourosh, King Voukashin, the Royal Prince Kralyevitch Marko, Tsar Lazar, and the heroes who fell in the famous battle at Kossovo ." That is truly said, and of all the old traditional heroes Marko is the best-beloved. There is no key to the soul of Serbia like a wise and sympathetic study of the ballads of Marko Kraljević.