Serbia Crucified: The Beginning:
If what Lieutenant Krunich has written were really and altogether what it seems to be in part—if it were in any abstract or pretentious way a treatise on the national spirit of Serbia, an interpretation, or a formal plea,—one would have to set it down simply as a very naive book. Especially in the earlier chapters, there is, indeed, an overflow of emotion that strikes one as somewhat primitive or childlike—an unrestrained glorification of Serbia, a vehement, heartfelt hatred of Bulgaria, a loathing almost physical for Serbia's enemies and especially for Germans. The effect of unsophistication is increased by a somewhat overwrought and ecstatic style.
Different peoples, to be sure, have different temperaments. To the Anglo-Saxon, the melting of the soul into an intense feeling of mingled hatred and pity may seem a kind of moral deliquescence. In the Serbian, this very state appears to be consistent with the sternest, most deliberate heroism, if not the normal accompaniment of it.
One night, after five days' fighting before Nish, Lieutenant Krunich was lying in the grass outside the trench.
"Suddenly, in the midst of this silence, this beauty ... a voice, a songl A beautiful manly voice on the Bulgarian side is softly and sadly singing a song. My God, a Bulgarian is singing! My whole being, intoxicated by the sweetness of this night, now fell into such an emotion under the influence of this voice, this song, that I became oblivious of place and reality. . . . 'La Toscal' I exclaimed loudly. 'A Mario in his last moments, in a sea of most dreadful human unhappiness, feeling the sighs of the dead instead of the embrace of happy love, seeks with the last shriek of his heart his happy dreams 1 The dreams of love! And this Mario now is a Bulgarian! A traitor, murderer 1 No, no, I cannot believe it! . . . What desires this man, this unhappy Bulgarian?' I asked myself. I felt a powerful struggle which surged more and more through my being. I can never psychologically explain those moments. ... I felt only as if a strange power had risen with a dreadful right in my soul, to destroy the song, this confession of a murderer, this sacrilege of the last beauty of a Serbian dream."
But if the mood of this personal record is quite different from anything that one would expect to find in an English, French, or American fighting man, it is in this very fact that the strength of the thing ultimately proves to lie. And the strength of it is, ultimately, very great—so great, indeed, that extremely tender-minded people cannot be advised to read Lieutenant Krunich's story. The reader must expect to be wrought up—not merely horrified as by blood and crime, but stirred in a more actively emotional way.
Chivalrous devotion to country, sensitiveness of soul—these are united in Lieutenant Krunich's way of reacting to war with a terrible clearness of vision and a raw sense of reality. In brief, no one else has drawn war-pictures quite so fearfully appealing as has this Serbian officer. Poor writing there is, doubtless, in the narrative, but there is also sincerity and power. The death of a dear friend, horribly wounded, in a hospital; the frantic protests of a feeble old sexton who tries to protect a graveyard from desecration by trench-diggers; the inconsolable sorrow of a company of Serbian soldiers for the death of a homeless child whom they have adopted and hungrily loved; the helpless pain of aged men and women; the unutterable grieving of a mother over a mutilated body,—these things are made not merely catastrophic, but as home-felt as the sufferings of a child. The violation of Serbian soil itself is described not merely as an affront to manhood, but almost as the dishonoring of a woman.
The book induces an acute, painful pity and a strong abhorrence of those who caused the war. In reading it, one forgets the larger aspects of the struggle and becomes simply an outraged human being.
–The North American Review, Volume 207 [1918]
"1100651585"
Different peoples, to be sure, have different temperaments. To the Anglo-Saxon, the melting of the soul into an intense feeling of mingled hatred and pity may seem a kind of moral deliquescence. In the Serbian, this very state appears to be consistent with the sternest, most deliberate heroism, if not the normal accompaniment of it.
One night, after five days' fighting before Nish, Lieutenant Krunich was lying in the grass outside the trench.
"Suddenly, in the midst of this silence, this beauty ... a voice, a songl A beautiful manly voice on the Bulgarian side is softly and sadly singing a song. My God, a Bulgarian is singing! My whole being, intoxicated by the sweetness of this night, now fell into such an emotion under the influence of this voice, this song, that I became oblivious of place and reality. . . . 'La Toscal' I exclaimed loudly. 'A Mario in his last moments, in a sea of most dreadful human unhappiness, feeling the sighs of the dead instead of the embrace of happy love, seeks with the last shriek of his heart his happy dreams 1 The dreams of love! And this Mario now is a Bulgarian! A traitor, murderer 1 No, no, I cannot believe it! . . . What desires this man, this unhappy Bulgarian?' I asked myself. I felt a powerful struggle which surged more and more through my being. I can never psychologically explain those moments. ... I felt only as if a strange power had risen with a dreadful right in my soul, to destroy the song, this confession of a murderer, this sacrilege of the last beauty of a Serbian dream."
But if the mood of this personal record is quite different from anything that one would expect to find in an English, French, or American fighting man, it is in this very fact that the strength of the thing ultimately proves to lie. And the strength of it is, ultimately, very great—so great, indeed, that extremely tender-minded people cannot be advised to read Lieutenant Krunich's story. The reader must expect to be wrought up—not merely horrified as by blood and crime, but stirred in a more actively emotional way.
Chivalrous devotion to country, sensitiveness of soul—these are united in Lieutenant Krunich's way of reacting to war with a terrible clearness of vision and a raw sense of reality. In brief, no one else has drawn war-pictures quite so fearfully appealing as has this Serbian officer. Poor writing there is, doubtless, in the narrative, but there is also sincerity and power. The death of a dear friend, horribly wounded, in a hospital; the frantic protests of a feeble old sexton who tries to protect a graveyard from desecration by trench-diggers; the inconsolable sorrow of a company of Serbian soldiers for the death of a homeless child whom they have adopted and hungrily loved; the helpless pain of aged men and women; the unutterable grieving of a mother over a mutilated body,—these things are made not merely catastrophic, but as home-felt as the sufferings of a child. The violation of Serbian soil itself is described not merely as an affront to manhood, but almost as the dishonoring of a woman.
The book induces an acute, painful pity and a strong abhorrence of those who caused the war. In reading it, one forgets the larger aspects of the struggle and becomes simply an outraged human being.
–The North American Review, Volume 207 [1918]
Serbia Crucified: The Beginning:
If what Lieutenant Krunich has written were really and altogether what it seems to be in part—if it were in any abstract or pretentious way a treatise on the national spirit of Serbia, an interpretation, or a formal plea,—one would have to set it down simply as a very naive book. Especially in the earlier chapters, there is, indeed, an overflow of emotion that strikes one as somewhat primitive or childlike—an unrestrained glorification of Serbia, a vehement, heartfelt hatred of Bulgaria, a loathing almost physical for Serbia's enemies and especially for Germans. The effect of unsophistication is increased by a somewhat overwrought and ecstatic style.
Different peoples, to be sure, have different temperaments. To the Anglo-Saxon, the melting of the soul into an intense feeling of mingled hatred and pity may seem a kind of moral deliquescence. In the Serbian, this very state appears to be consistent with the sternest, most deliberate heroism, if not the normal accompaniment of it.
One night, after five days' fighting before Nish, Lieutenant Krunich was lying in the grass outside the trench.
"Suddenly, in the midst of this silence, this beauty ... a voice, a songl A beautiful manly voice on the Bulgarian side is softly and sadly singing a song. My God, a Bulgarian is singing! My whole being, intoxicated by the sweetness of this night, now fell into such an emotion under the influence of this voice, this song, that I became oblivious of place and reality. . . . 'La Toscal' I exclaimed loudly. 'A Mario in his last moments, in a sea of most dreadful human unhappiness, feeling the sighs of the dead instead of the embrace of happy love, seeks with the last shriek of his heart his happy dreams 1 The dreams of love! And this Mario now is a Bulgarian! A traitor, murderer 1 No, no, I cannot believe it! . . . What desires this man, this unhappy Bulgarian?' I asked myself. I felt a powerful struggle which surged more and more through my being. I can never psychologically explain those moments. ... I felt only as if a strange power had risen with a dreadful right in my soul, to destroy the song, this confession of a murderer, this sacrilege of the last beauty of a Serbian dream."
But if the mood of this personal record is quite different from anything that one would expect to find in an English, French, or American fighting man, it is in this very fact that the strength of the thing ultimately proves to lie. And the strength of it is, ultimately, very great—so great, indeed, that extremely tender-minded people cannot be advised to read Lieutenant Krunich's story. The reader must expect to be wrought up—not merely horrified as by blood and crime, but stirred in a more actively emotional way.
Chivalrous devotion to country, sensitiveness of soul—these are united in Lieutenant Krunich's way of reacting to war with a terrible clearness of vision and a raw sense of reality. In brief, no one else has drawn war-pictures quite so fearfully appealing as has this Serbian officer. Poor writing there is, doubtless, in the narrative, but there is also sincerity and power. The death of a dear friend, horribly wounded, in a hospital; the frantic protests of a feeble old sexton who tries to protect a graveyard from desecration by trench-diggers; the inconsolable sorrow of a company of Serbian soldiers for the death of a homeless child whom they have adopted and hungrily loved; the helpless pain of aged men and women; the unutterable grieving of a mother over a mutilated body,—these things are made not merely catastrophic, but as home-felt as the sufferings of a child. The violation of Serbian soil itself is described not merely as an affront to manhood, but almost as the dishonoring of a woman.
The book induces an acute, painful pity and a strong abhorrence of those who caused the war. In reading it, one forgets the larger aspects of the struggle and becomes simply an outraged human being.
–The North American Review, Volume 207 [1918]
Different peoples, to be sure, have different temperaments. To the Anglo-Saxon, the melting of the soul into an intense feeling of mingled hatred and pity may seem a kind of moral deliquescence. In the Serbian, this very state appears to be consistent with the sternest, most deliberate heroism, if not the normal accompaniment of it.
One night, after five days' fighting before Nish, Lieutenant Krunich was lying in the grass outside the trench.
"Suddenly, in the midst of this silence, this beauty ... a voice, a songl A beautiful manly voice on the Bulgarian side is softly and sadly singing a song. My God, a Bulgarian is singing! My whole being, intoxicated by the sweetness of this night, now fell into such an emotion under the influence of this voice, this song, that I became oblivious of place and reality. . . . 'La Toscal' I exclaimed loudly. 'A Mario in his last moments, in a sea of most dreadful human unhappiness, feeling the sighs of the dead instead of the embrace of happy love, seeks with the last shriek of his heart his happy dreams 1 The dreams of love! And this Mario now is a Bulgarian! A traitor, murderer 1 No, no, I cannot believe it! . . . What desires this man, this unhappy Bulgarian?' I asked myself. I felt a powerful struggle which surged more and more through my being. I can never psychologically explain those moments. ... I felt only as if a strange power had risen with a dreadful right in my soul, to destroy the song, this confession of a murderer, this sacrilege of the last beauty of a Serbian dream."
But if the mood of this personal record is quite different from anything that one would expect to find in an English, French, or American fighting man, it is in this very fact that the strength of the thing ultimately proves to lie. And the strength of it is, ultimately, very great—so great, indeed, that extremely tender-minded people cannot be advised to read Lieutenant Krunich's story. The reader must expect to be wrought up—not merely horrified as by blood and crime, but stirred in a more actively emotional way.
Chivalrous devotion to country, sensitiveness of soul—these are united in Lieutenant Krunich's way of reacting to war with a terrible clearness of vision and a raw sense of reality. In brief, no one else has drawn war-pictures quite so fearfully appealing as has this Serbian officer. Poor writing there is, doubtless, in the narrative, but there is also sincerity and power. The death of a dear friend, horribly wounded, in a hospital; the frantic protests of a feeble old sexton who tries to protect a graveyard from desecration by trench-diggers; the inconsolable sorrow of a company of Serbian soldiers for the death of a homeless child whom they have adopted and hungrily loved; the helpless pain of aged men and women; the unutterable grieving of a mother over a mutilated body,—these things are made not merely catastrophic, but as home-felt as the sufferings of a child. The violation of Serbian soil itself is described not merely as an affront to manhood, but almost as the dishonoring of a woman.
The book induces an acute, painful pity and a strong abhorrence of those who caused the war. In reading it, one forgets the larger aspects of the struggle and becomes simply an outraged human being.
–The North American Review, Volume 207 [1918]
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Product Details
| ISBN-13: | 9781663529008 |
|---|---|
| Publisher: | Barnes & Noble Press |
| Publication date: | 07/08/2020 |
| Pages: | 314 |
| Product dimensions: | 6.00(w) x 9.00(h) x 0.70(d) |
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