“God” in South-Slavic Folk Songs

Abstract

As an introduction to the topic what is presented is in the form of an overview as to which songs and in what thematic contexts God is sung about in south-Slavic folksongs. The songs can be divided into two groups of themes: songs about the welfare of the Christian community – for example, God as the protector of the Christian community, as the examiner of believers, as the helper in the fight against the Ottomans (and the accompanying threat of forced conversion to Islam), or as an essential element in images of paradise. Another theme is found in some songs in which God governs the lives of individual people or intervenes in their lives – for example, God helps lovers by means of a miracle, God fulfills someone’s wish to have children (often in combination with the conceptia magica – the wondrous conception), God awakens people to life or transforms them into animals or trees. Yet God also punishes, for example, the incest between brother and sister. God in the south-Slavic folk song is master of life and death.

Further to this, God is portrayed in the songs (probably syncretic) in a way such that the image of God is not clearly Christian. Based on these songs, what is discussed here is whether the God depicted in the south-Slavic folk song has possibly more to do with an ancient god of death or an occult being.

A widespread motif in the south-Slavic realm is that of God or Petrus building a castle in the clouds using dead people. The songs that constitute the beginning of this chain of motifs probably are those with Vila/Fee as the principal actor, someone who shares similarities with Charos from Greek folk literature in making use of dead humans as building material for a tower or a tent. As Charos, the daemon of death, does, God (in a Macedonian variant) calls all the fairies, viles and winds together to go on a hunt for him and seek souls in order to ensure the completion of his church in heaven. And in a Bulgarian variant, God sends out his sister, the plague, as the Murdering One, to procure souls for him. Also from a Greek Charos folksong, the motif of a serpent praying is borrowed, with the snake asking God to kill a young girl sleeping in the grass so that it can nestle in her hair and feed on her. What is also amazing is the request of a hajduk who asks God to ensure it is dark so that the hajduk can make love with the girl he desired and God grants his petition. And in the Serbian epic poem “Death of Marko, the King’s Son” as well, the question is asked, what kind of God is characterized as “old Bloodshedder”, as executioner?