FREE BOOKS

Author's List




PREV.   NEXT  
|<   113   114   115   116   117   118   119   120   121   122   123   124   125   126   127   128   129   130   131   132   133   134   135   136   137  
138   139   140   141   142   143   144   145   146   147   148   149   150   151   152   153   154   155   156   157   158   159   160   161   162   >>   >|  
the pretty girls on whom his eye had rested. Therefore the _[vc]if[vc]ija_ would lose the last shadow of freedom, he would become a serf. His sowing and his reaping would now be for another, and as it did not profit him at all to make the land more fruitful, he was content with any prehistoric implement, with little wooden ploughs and with a total absence of manure. And yet this pitiable serf would often be in a position less deplorable than that of one who had a little freedom left and who was called a free man, for the Turk would treat him no worse than the mule whose continual existence he desires. It does not seem surprising if these Christians wanted to be liberated from the Turk and did not greatly mind what uniform their rescuers would wear. THE CHEERLESS STATE OF SERBIA Meanwhile the Serbs of Hungary were saying that the state of things in Serbia was desperate. It seemed so to a number of young men who found the coldness of Prince Alexander and his anxiety to please the Austrians both very much out of harmony with the new Liberal ideas of Western Europe. They would have been horrified to see the plight of Macedonia, which after the Crimean War became, if possible, still worse, for during it the Porte took up the first loan; others followed, and in a surprisingly short time the Turk stood face to face with bankruptcy, so that in his dealings with the peasant he became still more extortionate. To be sure the Liberal young men who were publishing the _Omladinac_ and all those Southern Slavs who listened to the voices which in Italy and Germany were craving union and freedom, all of them saw in their dreams the freedom of the Southern Slav, but Serbia and Montenegro were the only portions of his patrimony which had any kind of independence and the Serbia of Alexander was in a distressing state. The Prince had managed to stay neutral during the Crimean War, in spite of the solicitations very vehemently put by Austria and Russia and the Porte; this neutral attitude secured for Serbia at the peace the benefit of having all her rights henceforward guaranteed collectively by the Great Powers. Yet Alexander was so anxious not to rouse the animosity of Austria that he declined to summon the national assembly, the Skup[vs]tina, in which the people's rising aspirations could be heard. And, although the family community, the "zadruga," was giving way to a more modern way of life--much to the misgiving of those persons w
PREV.   NEXT  
|<   113   114   115   116   117   118   119   120   121   122   123   124   125   126   127   128   129   130   131   132   133   134   135   136   137  
138   139   140   141   142   143   144   145   146   147   148   149   150   151   152   153   154   155   156   157   158   159   160   161   162   >>   >|  



Top keywords:
freedom
 

Serbia

 

Alexander

 

Southern

 

neutral

 
Austria
 
Liberal
 

Crimean

 
Prince
 

dreams


Germany

 

craving

 
Montenegro
 

patrimony

 
managed
 

distressing

 
independence
 
portions
 

Therefore

 

bankruptcy


surprisingly

 

dealings

 

peasant

 

rested

 

listened

 

Omladinac

 

publishing

 

extortionate

 

voices

 

vehemently


rising

 
aspirations
 

people

 

national

 

assembly

 
misgiving
 

persons

 
modern
 

pretty

 
family

community
 

zadruga

 
giving
 
summon
 

declined

 

attitude

 
secured
 

benefit

 
Russia
 

solicitations