Serbia in Light and Darkness: With Preface by the Archbishop of Canterbury, (1916)Velimirović, Nikolaj
History
Serbia in Light and Darkness: With Preface by the Archbishop of Canterbury, (1916)
Velimirović, Nikolaj
Proverbs, Serbian; Serbia; Serbian poetry -- Translations into English
But now--in Serbia all the wealth is in the past; it exists only in the
memories of the despoiled, plundered, devastated, starved and silent
slaves. In the German papers there was published a private letter from a
German soldier in Serbia. "We are very well here. We have plenty of food
and everything. Much more abundantly than we had on the Western front!"
I am sure you understand well what this soldier meant and whence such an
abundance in food supply "and everything" for the German invaders in
Serbia came. Almost simultaneously a German army commander wrote to a
man in a neutral country these words: "Not only I permit you to come
into Serbia and help the Serbs, but I pray you come at once. Among the
population in Serbia there is the greatest misery and almost starvation
_en masse._" What happened? The "civilised" subjects of Kaiser William
would not kill the civil people in Serbia directly as the stupid Turks
did, but indirectly in order to save the faithless honour of
"civilisation." They drove away the population--that means the old and
sick men, women and children--all other Serbs serving as soldiers and
being in retreat; they drove the population away, took food, cattle,
copper, warm clothes, carpets, covers, everything, and after this was
done, allowed the people graciously to come back "to their homes and
their customs," as the Kaiser declared. But to come how and where?
Thousands died on the way back, thousands succeeded in coming back to
their cold and breadless homes to die there; they are considered as the
happier; and thousands fled with the Serbian troops into Albania and to
the Mediterranean islands, where they died or are still dying from
hunger, but because they died in freedom and not as slaves they are
considered as the happiest.
We are beggars now. This is the first year in our history that we must
pray to men for bread; until now we prayed only to God for daily bread,
and God gave it to us abundantly. But we became beggars for bread only
after the German civilisation showed itself to be a beggar, poor in
moral, poor in truth and heart.
Now I will try to show you how the Serbian village
BECAME THE FOUNDATION OF THE SERBIAN SPIRIT.
No universities, no schools, no libraries, no written literature and no
lectures for five hundred years! Imagine such a people. That is the
Serbian people.
The only men who could write--the priests; the only library--the memory;
the only education--the mother; the only university--nature; the only
historians--the blind bards; the only friend and comforter--God! Imagine
such a people and call them--Serbs.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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