Monografija - prvo izdanje - niska rezolucija

Military courage and
civilian cowardice
A spirit of army and bravery in Serbs is ingrained, naturally, in the
A earliest childhood: to a four-year-old boy, who has just learned how
to walk, his mother repeats that he has to be a hero, not to cry when beaten
but to try and take revenge, and thus the boy, in child’s fight, takes a stone
and waits for his enemy, without crying. That kind of spirit the fathers
teach their children, in the form of the church catechism, the history of the
fall of the Serbian Empire in the field of Kosovo, emphasising especially
that to Miloš Obilić belongs the glory of all times, to Vuk Branković – the
curse, and that the Turks and Germans – should have their heads cut off.
In one word, the inclination toward military life is not in the essence
of the Serbian people, but the people are brought up in a military
spirit for the reason of the necessity to keep this spirit alive because of
the external circumstances, especially the instability of the territorial and
political relations of Serbia.
Of course, a development of the country in the sense of the civic
state is disturbed by such a position. Because of this, and even with the
military courage of the Serbs, you won’t come across an adequate amount
of elements of civic bravery.
Beneath an external cover of civilisation, appear very harsh customs
that demand punishment and vengeance, that humiliate a woman
to the level of a worker who is given by ones and taken by others, never
taking care about her wishes. There are many people whose life goal is
enjoyment, that is, delight in life, but in the narrowest material sense.
And the antidote for this is found in many phenomena of contemporary
life of the Serbian people, like, for example, in caring bonds between
brothers and sisters, in loyalty in friendships, in (to the ultimate
degree) ideal relationships and half-sisterhood relatives, in an extraordinarily
compassionate approach towards the poor and weak. There is a lot
of that natural artistic feeling in Serbia, so much graciousness, so much
liveliness and strength – and all of this is disguised and expressed in the
warrior disposition of the people and its rulers who wander themselves
and confuse their people even more.
Rescue Serbia from a heavy obligation to be on guard eternally, in a
watchtower where it should watch over its own borders, and then you will
see what this country has to offer and what the Serbian people can show. Serbia looked to me as a half-military camp that
was situated on the remnants of a country that flourished once, and its people seemed to me like humans who stopped in
one moment of their history, but who will have a brighter future. “
Пандур, 1879, акварел Ђ. Миловановић
Policeman, 1879, watercolor, Đ. Milovanović
Pavel Apolonovich Rovinsky (Vesnik Evrope, 1876)
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