IS IT POSSIBLE TO GIVE UP THE SYMBOL OF THE SERBIAN PEOPLE’S NATIONAL IDENTITY?
IS IT POSSIBLE TO GIVE UP THE SYMBOL OF THE SERBIAN PEOPLE’S NATIONAL IDENTITY?

Summary/Abstract: What is it that a philologist can say about Kosovo? Very little in terms of politics, but probably more than anyone else, if valid arguments have to be substantiated, about the significance of Kosovo1 for the Serbian culture, and for the Serbian literature and language in particular. Kosovo is the fundamental criterion in the classification of the Serbian folk epic poems that were recognized by Europe as the greatest contribution to the European culture of the 19th century. Kosovo is the epic classification watershed: what stands in the centre is the Kosovo Cycle (kosovski ciklus), while other cycles are timelined in relation to that one – as the Pre-Kosovo and Post-Kosovo Cycles (pretkosovski and pokosovski ciklus). It has been the Kosovo Cycle only which bore comparison to The Iliad. There have been a number of attempts to create a LAZARICA as an epic about Kosovo with the basic subject of Lazar’s choice elaborated in the poem “The Fall of the Serbian Kingdom” („Propast carstva srpskog“): O God Almighty, what’s the choice now I should make? Which kingdom should I now prefer? ...The earthly one’s a fleeting matter, The Kingdom of God an everlasting realm.

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