ROMANCA CONDE OLINOS ILI CONDE NINO, KAZIVANJE O NESRETNIM LJUBAVNICIMA U JEVREJSKO-ŠPANJOLSKOJ KNJIŽEVNOSTI BOSNE I HERCEGOVINE
ROMANCERO: CONDE OUNOS OR CONDE NINO, A TALE OF UNHAPPY LOVERS IN JEWISH-SPANISH LITERATURE OF BOSNIA AND HERZEGOVINA

Summary/Abstract: The theme of unhappy and persecuted lovers who cannot find peace even after their death is a very old one in European and Eastern literature. Fine plants grow on the grave(s) of the dead lovers striving to unite and gently intertwine as a symbol of eternal love, even a post mortem love of two young people. But even that is forbidden by those who were separating them in life. The best known variant of this motif is the story of Tristan and Isolde's unhappy love. In Spanish and Jewish-Spanish folk literature, however, this motif is known under the title Conde Olinos or Conde Nino. The most beautiful version dates from the 15th century but it is very damaged and frag-mented, so that Ramon Menedez Pidal reconstructed a single text from nu-merous various versions, which should be the closest to the damaged original. Also, in folk literature of Bosnian Jews several versions of the theme remained, known under the title La Sirena. However, they are all in fragments representing Eastern adaptation of this motif. But the things changed when Samuel Elazar, a collector, registered a version of this motif, in 1968, from Merjam Baravram, a housewife from Sarajevo who was 73 at the time. Her version is integer, and by the number of transformations of dead lovers unsurpassed in literature. Its beauty is enchanting, and this is a real gem of Spanish romancero.

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