Ismail Kadare - Elegy for Kosovo

It was clear as the light of day that the Turkish monarch wished to adopt a new title, just as he had invented new weapons in the last couple of years, just as he had modernized the shape of the yataghan sabers and their curved blades.

In other words, new war, new name, the people said, and put a curse on him then and there: “May he not live to enjoy it!” and “May the title swallow him up!”

Ever since the Venetians began using mute couriers, political rumors, particularly those emanating from roadside inns, had fallen off considerably. But as is often the case when greed incites an individual or a state to foolish deeds, the Venetians were not satisfied with simple secrecy but strove to go even further. And since the only courier more secretive than one whose tongue has been cut out is a dead courier, the Venetians’ quest moved in an unexpected direction. Their new couriers were not deaf-mutes and not blind mutes, as one would have expected, but normal couriers with eyes, ears, and tongues — in fact, tongues that wagged far more than usual. In short, the often gloomy and taciturn couriers of the past were replaced by talkative couriers who were eager to sit down for a good chat with any traveler they came across at wayside inns.

It wasn’t all that difficult to guess that they had two types of information: true information, which they guarded carefully, and falsehoods, which they dropped in fragments over the course of an evening by the fireside, as if by a slip of the tongue or from too much drink.

That spring the false news was often enough injurious to the opposition, as was to be expected, but it often also came back to haunt those who had spread it. The road from the Turkish capital to Venice was long, and to carry both truths and lies at the same time was not easy. At times the truth and at times the lies would color each other, adding to the surrounding fog, which was heavy in the month of March.

It was common knowledge that letters were exchanged that had been written in six languages and four different alphabets. But what was written in these letters, the Lord alone knew. “Islam will come face to face with the Christian cross,” the sultan had been said to proclaim in his message. “One or the other will succumb.” But another source maintained the opposite: “There is no need to raise your weapons, my children! On earth as in Heaven, there is room enough for all — for your cross and our crescent.”

Other rumors hinted at newly sealed alliances among the princes of the peninsula, and then, as was to be expected, newer rumors immediately announced their rupture. Envoys of the pope arrived in Durrës from Rome every week. Messengers set out from Belgrade to Walachia. “I am bringing with me my two sons, Yakub çelebi and Bayezid,” the sultan was said to have written in his letter. “Bring your sons as well. Either you will extinguish my line completely, or I shall extinguish yours.” “What about your third son, the one you blinded, Cuntuz? Why will you not bring him too?” “I would love to bring him, upon my Faith! But what am I to do? — Allah has called him to His side.”

It was said that the Albanian princes had allied themselves with Lazar of the Serbs and Tvrtko of the Bosnians. Emperor John V was wavering, and there was still no word from Prince Constantine. Nor from Mirçea of Rumania. As for the other Serb, Marko Kraljevic, all the omens showed that he was preparing for a new betrayal.

“My greetings to you! I hope that we shall come to an agreement!”

“So come, and may you never leave again!”

“I shall come, I shall find you, and I shall cover you with earth!”

“It would be better for all concerned if we could reach an agreement about where we are to meet. Why tire ourselves out by hunting each other down in vain? On the Plains of Nish, or on the Field of the Blackbirds, Kosovo, as you call it.”

“Go to the devil, Sultan Murad!”

The Turkish capital was bustling with preparations. The army’s vanguard had already set out, and the sultan’s younger son, Bayezid, begged his father to take elephants along, but the monarch refused. His other son, Yakub, was expected to arrive any day now with vassals gathered from far and wide. More than forty honey merchants were beaten with sticks in the market square for having tried to cheat during the weighing of the honey destined for the army. “Shame! Shame!” the crowd shouted. To swindle with the honey that will give soldiers strength as they go to battle, and that might very well turn out to be their last meal in this world, was truly an infamy. The royal chief historian was dismissed for having begun his war chronicle with the very same words that he had used some years earlier for the military campaign against the emir of the Karamans: “Our illustrious Grand Sovereign Light of the World, was in his garden harking to the song of the birds when the message came unto him that the infidels were preparing an insurrection.” His rival, who had waited twenty years to supplant him, spent a sleepless week contriving his introduction, which differed only slightly from his predecessor’s: “Our superbly illustrious Grand Sovereign the Light of our Universe, was in his garden harking to the murmuring of the fountains when the message came unto him that the infidels were preparing an insurrection.” He, too, was dismissed, and even beaten with a stick, as were all the other candidates, while everyone waited for a Jewish historian from Erzurum, of whom it was said that he had lost his mind one day but that it had come back and was even more brilliant than before. In the meantime, in his gigantic chamber, Sultan Murad stood before a map of Europe, listening to the explanations of his pasha of the seas: “Europe is like a bad-tempered mule, Grand Sovereign, and these three peninsulas dangling down there are like three little bells. Once we have silenced the first, the Balkan lands, we shall attack the second, Italy, land of the cross and the infidel. And then we shall strike the third bell, the land of the Spaniards, where Islam once reigned but was driven out.“

The peninsula was preparing itself to confront the onslaught with just as much commotion. Weapon forges and taverns stayed open late into the night. Dignitaries tied and untied allegiances. Bellies were eager to be impregnated. The last weddings were held, and, as the war could start at any moment, the procession of the groom’s family coming for the bride would march with banners so that the men would be ready at a moment’s notice to change course if there should be a call to arms.

The minstrels had already begun to compose their songs, each in his own language. They resembled the ancient songs; even the words were not that different. The Serbian elders chanted: “Oh, the Albanians are preparing to attack!” and the Albanian lahuta 1minstrels sang: “Men, to arms! The pernicious Serb is upon us!“

“Are you out of your minds or are you making fools of us?” the people asked. “The Turks are marching on us, and you are singing the same old songs — The Serbs are attacking, the Albanians are attacking!’” “We know, we know!” the minstrels answered. “But this is where we’ve always turned to find parts for our songs, and this is where we will always turn. These parts are not like those of weapons that change every ten years. Our models need at least a century to adapt!”

In the meantime, the Ottoman army had already set out, and truths and untruths were spawned. But there was something that unsettled the people of the peninsula even more than the approaching army: the word Balkan. Before the Turks even set foot on the peninsula, they baptized it and its people with this name, and this name stuck to them like new scales on the body of an aged reptile. The people were at their wits’ end. They twisted in their sleep as if they were trying to shake off this name, but the result was the opposite — the name clung to them all the more forcefully, as if it wanted to become one with their skin. They now realized that, divided as they had always been, they had never given their peninsula a name. Some had called it “Illyricum,” some “New Byzantium”; others had opted for “Alpania” because of the peninsula’s alps, or “Great Slavonia” because of the Slavs, and so on. Now it was too late to do anything, and so, without a common name but with a name bestowed upon them by the enemy, they marched to battle and defeat.