THE BALKAN PEOPLES IN ART AND INDUSTRY
The five centuries of Turkish domination, during which all the arts and most of the crafts were neglected in the Balkan Peninsula, killed nearly completely the ancient civilisations of the Greeks, the Serbs, and the Bulgars. But a few traces of the old culture survive to this day as mournful and tattered relics of the greatness of those departed Empires. The old Bulgarian Empire, combining a Slav with a Turconian element; the old Serbian Empire, almost purely Slav but influenced a little by Italian and Grecian influence, evolved in the days of its greatness the beginnings of a national literature and national architecture. In Serbia particularly was there a strong and promising growth of humane culture, and the greatest of the Serbian rulers, Stephen Dushan (14th century), whose death before the walls of Constantinople at the beginning of the Turkish invasions gave up the Balkan Peninsula to the Crescent, left as one monument to his name a well-reasoned code of laws. He was throughout his reign a sincere friend of learning. In Bulgaria during the 10th century, under the Czar Simeon, there was a brief efflorescence of learning. Montenegro, which alone of the Balkan States kept its head unbowed before the Turk, was a busy centre of literary effort in the 16th century. Under the stress of constant war, however, the arts of peace died down almost completely in the Balkans until the Liberation of the peoples in the 19th century. During the interval, however, the peasants in their homes kept up some little knowledge of the traditions of their forefathers' greatness. Legends were passed down from father to son in chants set to a rough music. In these chants, too, were recorded the deeds of heroism which marked the ever-recurring revolts against the Turk.
What survives to-day from this period of oppression is a very characteristic national music, melancholy usually, as might be expected, but of arresting sweetness; and an art of peasant-applied decoration, which recalls the earlier and more primitive forms of Byzantine Art. Balkan tapestries, Balkan carpets, Balkan embroideries, woven or stitched by the peasant women, have a note of barbaric boldness in design and colour which distinguishes them at once from the peasant work of other countries.
This applied art in decoration is wisely fostered by the various governments, and there is liberal encouragement also given to modern art. Especially is this the case in Bulgaria. The impression I have got from seeing picture collections in the Balkans is that the local artists have learned foreign methods without adding any national bent of their own, and contrive to give a native character to their pictures only when they make the choice of some particularly horrible subject. Yet there should come a vigorous art as well as a vigorous literature one day from these Balkan States. There the mysticism, the melancholy, the transcendentalism of the Slav is mixed with the fatalism of the Turk, and the vivacity of the Greek and the Roumanian in the national types. Byzantine traditions, Slav traditions, classic Greek traditions, Roman traditions mingle to influence this composite character, the two former predominating, but the two latter having a very definite power. It should be rich soil for talent, even for genius.
Interesting opportunities were given in the Southern Slav Art Exhibitions of 1904 and 1906 (the first at Belgrade, the second at Sofia) to note the trend of art in the Balkans. At those Exhibitions Bulgarian, Serbian, Croatian, and Slavonian arts were represented. The Croatian pictures—I follow a trustworthy guide in stating this—showed a high degree of technical skill, not distinguishable from Austrian art in character: the Slavonian pictures were also technically good, but of a more impressionist character: the Serbian pictures imitated in technique the Old Masters, but took their subjects almost exclusively from Serbian history: the Bulgarian pictures had no national characteristic in style, but usually sought to be transcriptions of some form of Bulgarian life of the day.
Summing up the art position in the Balkans, it can be fairly said that before the outbreak of the last great war very good progress had been made for the few years since the Liberation from the Turks. A wise policy for the future would be to encourage as much as possible the peasant arts and crafts which are distinctive, and not to seek to impose too much of modern art education, which may stifle national influences and inflict a sterile sameness.
A BULGARIAN FARM
Balkan industry varies greatly with the height of the country, as well as with the racial type. The mountaineers are usually lacking in steady industry: the peoples of the plain are usually exceptionally hard workers. Very many emigrants from the Balkans go to the United States to work there in the mines, and on works of railway construction, for a term of years. The Bulgarian will come back from the United States with £300 saved up, and settle down in his native village as farmer or trader. The Serbian will come back with £200 saved up, but with a wider knowledge of United States life, and he will settle down as pastoralist or farmer, but not as trader. The Albanian or Montenegrin will come back with little or no money, but with a wonderful armoury of silver-adorned weapons and much other personal decoration. So graced, the mountaineer will have no difficulty in marrying the girl of his choice, and she will do most of the work that is needed thereafter, whilst he attends to the hunting and the fighting. The Greek and the Roumanian go abroad, preferably as traders, and afterwards elect to stay abroad, though it is to be recorded in proof of modern Greek patriotism that in 1912 there was a steady flow of Greeks from all parts of the world coming back to their native land to fight in the army.