Belgrade: The Centre for Empirical Cultural Studies of South-East Europe
Abstract
The article approaches the question of political views promoted by oral tradition
through Carl Schmitt’s notion of politics as the distinction between friend and
enemy. It focuses on four versions of “Perović Batrić”, a comparatively short Montenegrin
song with a typical subject of blood revenge, documented during the
first half of the nineteenth century in Serbia, Montenegro and Herzegovina. It is
demonstated that the only version documented without any impact of the ruling
Montenegrin Petrović family from Cetinje displays explicit antagonism between
the Montenegrin and Herzegovinian Orthodox Christian tribes and has no explicit
antiturkish sentiment. In addition, two other versions written down from Montenegrin
singers influenced by Cetinje as the political centre show the consolidation
of political perspective and emphasize the hostilities between the Montenegrins
and the local Turks. True political character of the enemy in the Schmittian sense,
it is argued, is finally recognized only in the version of “Perović Batrić” edited by
the Montenegrin bishop-prince Petar Petrović Njegoš II. In this song, the hostility
towards Batrić’s adversary Osman follows not from his tribal conformity or his
distinctive personality, but from his “Turkishness” as such. It is therefore argued
that this recognition of the specifically political character of the enemy occurred
under the increasing influence of Cetinje (as the political centre) on the representation
of the oral tradition and that nationalistic elements in oral tradition mainly
became associated with it, and inserted into it, during the process of publication
and canonization of the oral tradition in the first half of the nineteenth centur