Dear Political Leader, Prophetic Poetic Devotional

What and how we conceive of literature and literary criticism is rooted in a philological tradition, first formulated with the idea of nations in mind. Romanticism, which offered the triumphant literary depiction of the nation, was the prevailing literary style almost until the end of the century. The role that the novel played in national representation and dissemination in Western Europe was replaced, in many literatures in this region, by oral poetry and its imitation.

A poet in the 19th century regarded himself women poets in this period were exceptional as the conscience, if not the leader, of his nation. In that sense the nations of Central and Eastern Europe headed by Germany came close to being unique in their adoration of poets. This was perhaps best expressed in the rituals of the exhumation, transfer and reburial of their bones, a practice that accorded them a saintly status. Serbian literature is a case in point.

A tireless publisher and editor of magazines and periodicals, for which he often supplied the whole contents, Zmaj imparted the image of a poet as national activist and acted as a key figure in the cultural and political life of the Serbs in Hungary, Croatia and Serbia during the entire second half of the 19th century. Today, however, he is usually remembered only as a national poet and only on the margins of political events.

Often citing Victor Hugo as his ideal, Zmaj never distinguished between his poetic and political expression, believing this to be artificial. His ideas on the cluster of issues including language, people, state and religion will be reviewed in their historical context as well as against subsequent attempts to adjust or abandon them if they did not fit the dominant national narrative. This furnishes the fabric for the second part of the article.

Spirit and Spirituality

Using Zmaj and his oeuvre in this chapter, I shall highlight the many-sidedness and historical contingency of the identity construction. Within that context I shall question the common essentialist and deterministic views of a certain national culture and its political nationalism, be they critical or apologetic of its contents. This came from the name of one of the many journals he edited. For all Serbs this remained a name suggestive of his closeness to the people. He attended several high schools throughout the country and studied law at universities in Budapest, Prague, and Vienna before starting his career as a civil servant in southern Hungary.

He spent the rest of his life practicing medicine in predominantly Serbian towns in south Hungary as well as in Belgrade, Zagreb and Vienna. As a physician he was remembered as a champion of the poor for whom he did not charge his services. Still, Zmaj the physician could not prevent, in less than ten years of marriage, his five children and eventually his wife succumbing to the diseases rampaging at that time, particularly tuberculosis.

More than anything else, however, this tragedy gave Zmaj the sympathy of the common people who were still dying cruelly of known and unknown diseases, poverty, poor hygiene or from lack of proper medical care. He was an editor and publisher of numerous literary and satirical journals, a writer of short stories and plays and, most importantly, a poet. His massive poetic opus is heterogeneous in its themes and genres but also of varied and disputed artistic value. Whereas Roses is a lyrical diary or poetic novel about love and happy family life, Faded Roses is a book full of sadness and grief, stirred by the death of his wife and children.

In addition, Zmaj published the following poem collections: III, and Devesilje Even though Zmaj did not leave many expressly patriotic poems, he excelled in political and satirical poetry in which he expressed his political ideas and visions for the nation. Following European examples, the Serbian poets at that time saw themselves as speakers of the nation.

Literary clubs were transformed into the first national political organizations and parties. Here former lovers of literature practised their political skills with more or less success but always following the same path leading from literature to politics. He soon returned to editing political journals, a task he was much more experienced in doing. Hardly any other Serbian writer ever did so. For Zmaj, the Serbian language remained his symbolic homeland and the guiding principle of his nationalism. Without education in his mother tongue, but obsessed with its beauty, Zmaj paradoxically became one of the most remarkable philologists of the Serbian language, master of rhyme, creator of neologisms, and certainly its most ardent glorifier.

Zmaj was at the forefront of this movement. An important aspect of the movement was the purification of the language as many poets desperately sought and invented words to replace foreign imports. An ardent collector of folklore in all its forms, Zmaj is also remembered as having contributed over 3, words to the Dictionary of the Serbian Academy 16 volumes starting from These Serbian oral narratives were usually composed in decasyllable poetic line and sung to the accompaniment of a single-stringed instrument known as the gusle.

The taste and expectations of the audience directed authors such as Zmaj to adjust and harmonize their genres and forms with those of folk poetry even when its origins were far apart in time, space and cultural background. Along with the meter and verse, Zmaj also employed the lexica and idiomatic as well as the poetic syntax and expression of folk poetry.

The result was many lapses and errors in form, syntax and word choice. Recorded as having said that Serbian is not an earthly but a heavenly language, Zmaj stayed aloof of the debate waged throughout the 19th century about the proper grammar, orthography and lexica of the newly-codified vernacular language. Further, he rejected demands for linguistic purity among Serbian and Croatian writers, which later paved the way for the formation of their separate national literatures and identities.

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In his idealism Zmaj was a hostage of the Romanticist ideal for which, according to Joshua Fishman, the language was the key to unlocking ethnic greatness: In the early s, when the status of Croatia within Hungary was renegotiated to the detriment of Croatian autonomy, Zmaj, together with other fellow Serb siberals from Hungary, vociferously demanded the closest possible political links between the Serbs and Croats in order to resist Hungarian interference.

He placed his poetic talent in the service of that aim, extolling brotherhood, unity and harmony between Serbs and Croats. But as the years went by, such voices of prominent Serbian and Croatian artists and poets had little effect because the political and clerical representatives of the two peoples could not reconcile their interests, choosing instead separate political and national paths.

Whereas almost all Croatian parties and groupings denied any separate national rights to the Serbs in Croatia, the Serbian leaders, by supporting the Hungarian government party, made any progress towards Croatian statehood impossible. Tender a hand to the suffering Croat, Tell him he has a brother in need; Let brotherly love show its benefits true, And then let them decide what they want to do. In spite of this misapprehension, Zmaj remained instrumental in attempts to overcome the bitter relations between Croats and Serbs. Because of his record in promoting cooperation and accord, he was courted by the Croatian bishop Strossmayer and other prominent Croatian opponents of Hungarian rule.

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They asked him to persuade the Serbian liberal leaders to join an electoral coalition. Zmaj responded positively through a number of intercessions, but also worked on his own, agitating among the Serbian and the Croatian youth. He was fearful that some heedless nationalist youngsters could spoil the efforts of elders at reconciliation. In , with the financial help of the Montenegrin Prince Nikola, Zmaj tried to launch a journal named Jugoslavija , the first ever with such a name.

Its aim was to propagate the union of the Balkan peoples and lands, but this effort failed before the first issue even appeared. None of these attempts in the s bore any success. Furthermore, party machinations and squabbles, coalitions for material gains or a single deputy position pushed Serbian and Croatian parties away from any collaboration for decades. At the time this term was odd but was later accepted in Socialist Yugoslavia as the official name for the language spoken by Serbs and Croats. Zmaj also opined that differences in upbringing, characteristics of the people, and views and preferences were the result of foreign rule over centuries.

Furthermore, he claimed that since it was scientifically proven that Serbs and Croats spoke the same language, this would sooner or later extinguish inflamed passions and reconcile disparate positions, despite all the efforts of Vienna to poison their relations. The activists of the extreme Right, the so-called Frankists, staged demonstrations and attacked Serbian institutions. Their attempts to violently disrupt the celebrations were deterred by representatives of the Serbian and Croatian youth of Dalmatia, in what turned out to be the first demonstration of the future, albeit short-lived movement, in which the struggle of the two peoples was conjoined.

After the ill-fated anniversary Zmaj withdrew to Sremska Kamenica, a town just across the Danube from his native Novi Sad, and until his death mostly wrote poems for children. In the following years it became a favorite political activity and was transformed into a widespread movement among the South Slav cultural elites, ending up with the creation of the Yugoslav state after the First World War. Zmaj was ready to accept a certain individuality for Croats for the sake of unity, especially in view of foreign threats.

This despite the fact that linguistically, Serbian and Croatian were, in the opinion of most people and experts, one language, and the fact that their speakers lived on adjacent territories. Contrary to the theory that language is the most important and organic component of an ethnic cluster, it was not the ultimate or crucial factor in unification or ethnic homogenization in many cases throughout Europe.

Instead, the idea of peoples as communities of ancient historic statehoods in many case held sway. Furthermore, because of the belief in its unchanged existence over time, folk poetry served best to evoke the mythologized past. In a development that is not unique in this part of Europe because of the lack of independent political fora, poets took on political functions. They found folklore to be a useful political means in their struggle for an independent culture and, indirectly, independent national existence. Celebrating the vitality of the people and past glory, Romanticism justified revolutionary nationalist aims expressed in poetic terms of awakening, rise and revival.

This congress left the Serbs scattered in four states. Following the example of Germany and Italy, where national unification came only after cultural unity was achieved, Zmaj continued his mission hoping that cultural unity would eventually bring about a political one. Writing to his publisher, Zmaj explained his poetry and editorial work as enlightening and educating children but also as building cultural and national ties across political borders.

This would connect spiritually the Serbs in Hungary, Serbia, Slavonia, Dalmatia, Montenegro and Bosnia and keep their spirit of freedom alive so that they could respond to future developments and social progress. Political concerns influenced his stylistic and thematic choices, ushering in a poetry of expressed patriotism and positive self-reliance.

The ideas of literati such as Zmaj clearly contributed to the emergence of the particular Serbian view of political liberalism. Similarly the idea of folk poetry as the manifestation of the true spirit of the people was translated into the political vision of popular democracy. The major elements of liberal doctrine—parliamentary government, equality, rule of law and responsible executive—were considered derivative of the crucial notion of popular sovereignty. On the other hand patriarchal institutions such as the extended family, rural community, local self-government, collective work, and the collectivistic ethos which they nurtured, were politically instrumentalized.

His political preferences determined the idealized images of the people Zmaj conveyed. In it he rendered unforgettable scenes and characters, and it was for this that he was said to be the inventor of childhood in Serbian literature. In them Zmaj published his own political manifestos, pledging to promote truth and justice, extol diligence, solidarity and the common good while castigating and ridiculing duplicity, charlatanism, egoism, conservatism, superciliousness, malice and disunity.

In his programmatic poetry Zmaj tried to follow Victor Hugo who denounced social evils in his prose and journalistic accounts. But, as it is often the case, social commitment does not necessarily mean artistic accomplishment. Zmaj voluntarily sacrificed his vocation as a poet on the altar of politics and the nation. Zmaj dedicated the Hungarian edition of his poems to the idea of Hungarian-Serbian brotherhood, expressing his hope that mutual sharing and learning about the life and the spiritual treasury of the two peoples would overcome damage done by the sad past and present politics.

These were his formative years when, after years of Austrian absolutism, the Serbs hoped their interests would be better protected under the Hungarian liberals than they had been by the conservative Crown. Proclaimed in , it demanded the equality of peoples in Hungary, respect for their existence and differences as well as for their language and identity. Relationships between the two political elites soon deteriorated and Zmaj was caught between his fervent Serbian nationalism and his loyalty to the Hungarian state.

The closest he came to explaining his view of the position of the Serbian minority in Hungary was in when he rejected criticism about his reporting on Hungarian politics and cultural events in his magazine for children, Neven: We are in Hungary, political conflicts are temporary and might change tomorrow— but we will stay here so why not let our children know about their immediate environment!? Because it is not Serbian!? I believe I am a good Serb but I will not go as far. I want my young audience to be Serbs, but not only Serbs and nothing more.

The Serbian narrative of liberation from foreign domination and of unification in a nation state had to be reconciled with the fact that the Serbs in Hungary, who were culturally and economically the most advanced of all Serbs, were not irredentist and did not agitate for violence in achieving their political goals.

Not surprisingly, the Hungarian government treated them as the least dangerous of all nationalities. The Serbian parties were deeply divided and were losing one election after the other, while many prominent Serbs supported the Hungarian Government right up until the First World War. In addition, many Serbs performed military, police and administrative functions. By so doing, the loyalty of Zmaj or other cultural nationalists to the Hungarian state never entered the picture—nor did their Hungarian patriotism.

Pugnacious critic of the Hungarian Government and defender of national, political and cultural rights of the Hungarian Serbs, Zmaj attacked with equal ferocity both the government and ruling monarchs of Serbia and the conservative Serbian Church hierarchy within the Monarchy for their corruption, misuse of power, authoritarianism, etc.

He insisted that a good image of Serbia was crucial in the struggle for selfdetermination and independence of Serbs in Austria-Hungary. For Zmaj, however, the wish to promote a different image of Serbia was no substitute for universal democratic values, which he believed were so blatantly disregarded in Serbia.

This might also explain why, despite his pronounced opposition to the Hungarian state and growing discontent with the conditions for Serbs there, Zmaj never seriously considered moving to Serbia. His stay in Belgrade on a Serbian state invitation and with the prestigious position of dramatist of the National Theatre did not last long. After two years he left for Vienna, disillusioned by intrigues around him and disappointed at not being able to get Serbian citizenship or edit a journal in Belgrade. As a child of Romanticism, he believed in harmony and the essentially good nature of the people.

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The ones he deemed responsible for the aberrations Zmaj easily castigated as traitors. In the s, when it became evident that the Liberal block in Hungary could not hold itself for long, Zmaj agitated vocally to prevent the split. He belonged to a party that he believed was representing the interests of the whole Serbian national movement, democracy and freedom, and could hardly conceive of a plurality of adversarial political parties.

Eventually he took the side of the more radical faction, the young Socialists, who later became known as the Radicals. This decision cost Zmaj the loss of many of his previous friends and party colleagues who remained in the Liberal party after the split.

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Old and sick, Zmaj became a Radical deputy and they used his name and fame abundantly in their promotion and daily political squabbles. Throughout his life, Zmaj preached unity among Serbs but ended up being accused by one of his formerly closest friends of have fallen in the mud of human evil and malice. Instead, it excelled in myth making, attacking critical historiography and denouncing intellectuals as traitors.

Here, as in so many other cases, Zmaj is a good example of how nationalism checked liberalism in Serbian nation building. In the case of women, for example, Zmaj preached that they should be innocent, clean and caring and fulfill their traditional roles. He denied them the right to vote but supported their public activity as long as he considered it to be good for the nation.

Similarly Zmaj was a declared pacifist but had a different stance towards the Ottoman Empire. There, his fellow Serbs had all the right to rebel with arms and throw off the Turkish yoke they had borne for centuries. Whether his own or translations from German and Hungarian originals, these poems testify to the prevailing anti-Semitic atmosphere of the period to which Zmaj, a declared enlightener and philanthropist, also subscribed.

Despite that, it is an issue which was later completely obliterated—illustrating how contingent nationalist ideas and national identities can be. Have we ever been guilty of the same pattern of thought? I suppose the reason this story has remained so popular in so many cultures and over so many years is because of its universal application. I am reminded of a story about a couple who had been married for 60 years. They had rarely argued during that time, and their days together passed in happiness and contentment.

They shared everything and had no secrets between them—except one. The wife had a box that she kept at the top of a sideboard, and she told her husband when they were married that he should never look inside. As the decades passed, the moment came that her husband took the box down and asked if he could finally know what it contained. The husband was moved to tears by this sweet story. He marveled that during 60 years of marriage he had only disturbed his wife enough for her to knit two doilies.

Not only does this story teach an interesting way to deal with disagreements in marriage, but it also illustrates the folly of jumping to conclusions based on limited information. Today I would like to speak of truth. As I do, I invite you to ponder a few important questions. During the closing hours of His life, the Savior was brought before Pontius Pilate.

The elders of the Jews had accused Jesus of sedition and treason against Rome and insisted that He be put to death. Every one that is of the truth heareth my voice. However, I suspect that he was well educated and had seen much of the known world. I hear in his words the voice of a man who may once have been an idealist but now—after a great deal of life experience—seems a little hardened, even tired. Now, can anyone know the truth? Some of the greatest minds that have ever lived on this earth have attempted to answer that question.

Shakespeare seemed especially intrigued with it.

Now, never in the history of the world have we had easier access to more information—some of it true, some of it false, and much of it partially true. Consequently, never in the history of the world has it been more important to learn how to correctly discern between truth and error. Part of our problem in the quest for truth is that human wisdom has disappointed us so often.

Eating a tomato will not cause instant death. And, of course, man actually can fly—even break the sound barrier. So he convinced himself to believe a new truth and helped the Moabites get the Israelites to curse themselves through immorality and disobedience.

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The apostate Korihor, after leading many away from the truth, confessed that the devil had deceived him to the point where he actually believed that what he was saying was the truth. Needless to say, there are many examples in the Book of Mormon that contradict both of these stereotypes. Part of the reason for poor judgment comes from the tendency of mankind to blur the line between belief and truth. We too often confuse belief with truth, thinking that because something makes sense or is convenient, it must be true.

Unfortunately, this tendency can spread to all areas of our lives—from sports to family relationships and from religion to politics. A tragic example of this tendency is the story of Ignaz Semmelweis, a Hungarian physician who practiced medicine during the midth century. Early in his career, Dr. Semmelweis learned that 10 percent of the women who came to his clinic died of childbed fever, while the death rate at a nearby clinic was less than 4 percent. He was determined to find out why. After investigating the two clinics, Dr. Semmelweis concluded that the only significant difference was that his was a teaching clinic where corpses were examined.

He observed doctors who went directly from performing autopsies to delivering babies. He concluded that somehow the corpses had contaminated their hands and caused the deadly fevers. When he began to recommend that doctors scrub their hands with a chlorinated lime solution, he was met with indifference and even scorn.

But Semmelweis insisted, and he made it a policy for doctors in his clinic to wash their hands before delivering babies. As a consequence, the death rate promptly dropped by 90 percent. Semmelweis felt vindicated and was certain that this practice would now be adopted throughout the medical community. But he was wrong. Even his dramatic results were not enough to change the minds of many doctors of the day.

The thing about truth is that it exists beyond belief. It is true even if nobody believes it.

Of course, this is just a simple aviation analogy. However, there is indeed such a thing as absolute truth—unassailable, unchangeable truth. This truth is different from belief. It is different from hope. Absolute truth is not dependent upon public opinion or popularity. Polls cannot sway it. Not even the inexhaustible authority of celebrity endorsement can change it.

I believe that our Father in Heaven is pleased with His children when they use their talents and mental faculties to earnestly discover truth. Over the centuries many wise men and women—through logic, reason, scientific inquiry, and, yes, through inspiration—have discovered truth.

These discoveries have enriched mankind, improved our lives, and inspired joy, wonder, and awe. Even so, the things we once thought we knew are continually being enhanced, modified, or even contradicted by enterprising scholars who seek to understand truth. As we all know, it is difficult enough to sort out the truth from our own experiences.

The adversary has many cunning strategies for keeping mortals from the truth. Some he entices to believe that there is an absolute truth out there somewhere but that it is impossible for anyone to know it. For those who already embrace the truth, his primary strategy is to spread the seeds of doubt. For example, he has caused many members of the Church to stumble when they discover information about the Church that seems to contradict what they had learned previously.

If you experience such a moment, remember that in this age of information there are many who create doubt about anything and everything, at any time and every place. You will find even those who still claim that they have evidence that the earth is flat, that the moon is a hologram, and that certain movie stars are really aliens from another planet. Sometimes untrue claims or information are presented in such a way that they appear quite credible.

However, when you are confronted with information that is in conflict with the revealed word of God, remember that the blind men in the parable of the elephant would never be able to accurately describe the full truth. What may seem contradictory now may be perfectly understandable as we search for and receive more trustworthy information. Because we see through a glass darkly, we have to trust the Lord, who sees all things clearly.