“A Muse of the Salon”. A rediscovered poem from Laza Kostić and Serbian entertainment in the era of Romanticism
“A Muse of the Salon”. A rediscovered poem from Laza Kostić and Serbian entertainment in the era of Romanticism

Summary/Abstract: The present article aims to analyse and contextualise a poem by Laza Kostić, published in 1865 in the magazine Srbski letopis [Serbian Chronicle] under the title Beseda. Both its title and the definition of its genre – an “allegorical drama without dialogues” – were seen as unusual by its contemporaries, provoking a lively debate in the press. This article attempts to analyse the poem in the context of the ambitions of young Serbian intellectuals to reform radically Serbian self-representation and entertainment in the age of national Romanticism. The paper relates the structure and topics of the poem Beseda to the so-called Serbian beseda [srpske besede] festivities, continuously organised since 1862. These events included music, choral performances, recitations, and dances, their ticket proceeds were donated to charitable goals. This study traces how this genre arrived from Prague through Vienna to Pest and travelled onward to Novi Sad, and other cities within the Habsburg Empire with sizeable Serbian populations. The textual analysis of the poem focuses on the allegory of Beseda, its meanings and metamorphoses throughout the acts and scenes. The symbolism of the “allegorical drama” connects contemporary music, recitations, and dances from nineteenth-century bourgeois salons with (purportedly) ancient Serbian folk poetry. Beseda, as a fairy or muse, introduces various scenes from mythical medieval history, incorporating female figures of Emperor (Tsar) Dušan’s ‘golden age’, the episodes from the Kosovo cycle and the subsequent downfall of the Branković dynasty. The analysis pays special attention to the tragic figure of Mara Branković and the intertextual parallels with Károly Obernyik’s historical tragedy, Brankovics György. Like many beseda festivities of the 1860s, Kostić’s text promotes the Serbian National Theatre as a crucial Serbian national issue. The poem and the author’s commentary can be seen as part of an intensifying discourse on forms of urban entertainment which are suitable for national self-representation. The paper briefly reflects on this aspect of Kostić’s work, presenting Beseda as a cultural paradigm, which was adopted by the United Serbian Youth movement, one year afterward.

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