Letter Six. Name Day of the Serbian King

The Serbian capital Belgrade is like one of our provincial cities. In it, you constantly have to remind yourself that you are in the capital. For us, my Friend, the capital is something grandiose. European capitals are also no worse than ours. That is why, in our opinion, everything in Belgrade does not seem to be like a capital. Now, probably, all the best buildings have been destroyed by the Austrians, but there were few such buildings in the capital. It was nice for a Russian person to see that the best building in Belgrade belongs to the society "Russia" and is called "Hotel Moscow". The royal palace itself is again not quite like our palaces. It is small, it goes directly to the street. A tram runs past it, next to a one-story house with a commercial space. Still, Belgrade is the capital of our native Serbian people.

In 1908 I happened to be there, by the way, on June 29. At that time I was able to observe both official and popular celebrations on the occasion of the royal name-day [4]. It is this day that I wish to remember in this letter to You, my dear Friend.

First of all, I went to the cathedral on Bogoyavlenskaya Street. Belgrade Cathedral is quite extensive, but inside it is quite poor. On his name day, the king attends divine services in the city cathedral. Here the unity of the ruler and the people takes place, because at this time in the cathedral there is not only the chosen public, but also ordinary pilgrims. This was also the case in ancient Russia. Go to the Assumption Cathedral and have a look. After all, there you will see a permanent royal place, where the tsar prayed together with the people. Remember from the history of Patriarch Nikon. When Alexei Mikhailovich, enraged at the Patriarch, missed several solemn services in the Dormition Cathedral, Nikon saw in this an extreme offense not only for himself, but also for the Church. The king himself was not present at the beginning of the liturgy; it arrived only at the end.

The Liturgy began, which was celebrated by Metropolitan Dimitri with two bishops. There are many peculiarities in the celebration of the Liturgy. I will mention some of them. For the metropolitan, a special canopy of very impressive size was placed in the middle of the church. Under this canopy, only one metropolitan was placed on the elevated cathedra, while the bishops stood on the sides of the cathedra on the floor of the church. For the metropolitan and bishops there were ordinary chairs with backs. The metropolitan was met not by two deacons, but by three. He was vested by priests. The priests, as I remember, held a book for him during the Liturgy. The Apostle was read on the metropolitan cathedra, and the Gospel was read from a special cathedra at one of the pillars of the cathedral, as it is everywhere in the East. We are accustomed to hear the loud basses of the protodeacon and deacons at the hierarchal mass. We have even created a kind of sport in terms of reading the Gospel, pronouncing the "great praise", Many Years. Loud protodeacons, like artists, each have their own admirers. For many "lovers," the entire hierarchal Liturgy consists of the Epistles, the Gospel, "great praise," and Many Years. Everything else is of very little interest to them. At other moments, such "amateurs," who usually stand at the back wall of the cathedral, have a lively conversation about the merits of this or that protodeacon or deacon. Then they move on to memories. In Moscow, Shekhovtsev will certainly be remembered. A legendary image is often created from a living person. In Serbia, our "amateurs" would have nothing to do. There, protodeacons, on the contrary, are the highest tenors. According to the Russian concept, the protodeacon is composed of the following four elements: voice, hair, ear, belly. For a Serbian protodeacon, only the first and third are required. And the voice is a tenor. Do you remember, Friend, how the heroes of the Wanderer are skeptical about tenors!

In the second letter I told You, my Friend, that we cannot understand each other with a Serb. But how nice it is that in church we pray in the same language! The Lord has not yet completely confused the Slavic languages! Serbs serve even according to our Moscow or Kiev books. However, the pronunciation of Slavic words in the Serb is completely different, so that he would not have understood some words if he did not know the service.

In the middle of the church, behind the metropolitan's seat, stood an icon of the feast, and a priest in vestments was always near it. All those who came venerated the icon and received the blessing of the priest.

The choir of our Russian Slavic sang. At that time, he traveled with his songs to the Slavic lands and on the name day of the king decided to sing the liturgy. Soon after that, Slavyansky died. I had not heard how the Slavyansky Choir sang songs at their concerts, but I did not like their singing of the Liturgy at all. In general, it seems that artists are not up to liturgical singing. For this singing, you need to have special qualities. In operas and concerts, after all, they sing about various earthly feelings and attachments. These things are well known to artists, and they can sing about them with sincere feeling. For liturgical singing, a pious heart is needed, which knows repentance, prayer and tenderness. And without this, what remains? What remains is the musical technique, the various pianos and pianissimos. Well, how can an artist sing, for example, "Open to me the doors of repentance," if for him there is neither fasting nor repentance, and if tomorrow he will sing the most passionate aria on the public stage? The most illustrious choirs - I will not name them to You, You know them yourself - only upset me with their artificial singing. And the fact that many people like such artistic singing in church, including, it seems, You, my Friend, this fact grieves me exceedingly. The artificial singing of the Slavic choir, with various pauses and freezes, I did not like in Belgrade either.

And yet I noticed a certain pleasant simplicity in the cathedral. I was standing on the left kliros. There were Serbs here, candidates of our theological academies, who were teachers of gymnasiums in their homeland. And so they participated in the divine service by reading and singing as, so to speak, amateurs. In our country, perhaps, among such amateurs there is no gymnasium teacher. And in Serbia, it's somehow simple. Yes, we are not supposed to have any amateurs in such a solemn occasion. In our country, the more solemn, the more formal, that is, soulless, boring.

Meanwhile, representatives of the Serbian state world - secular and military officials - came to the cathedral. On the right side, the ministers stood in a row in front. Now I often remember the imposing figure and intelligent face of Pašić. Behind the left kliros, the diplomatic corps gathered. What a mixture of tribes, costumes! From the entire diplomatic corps, the high Austro-Hungarian envoy Forgacz stood out. He is wearing some kind of medieval Hungarian uniform with a fur edge. And it was hot outside. Who, you think, makes people suffer, put on warm clothes in the summer, and even the most ridiculous look! In the former years of my youth, I loved to read travels. Once I came across memories of life under the African tropics in Zanzibar. A dinner at the English consul's was described. The heat was the most tropical, unbearable. Alas! Guests had to dress in tightly starched linen and warm cloth tailcoats. You will remember the words of the poet: "Custom is a despot among people." Custom is custom, and it seems that the evil seven-thousand-year-old elder of worldly people is not without participation here. Sometimes it seems to me that the evil one, torturing people with ridiculous decorums, clothes, and the like, simply laughs at his faithful slaves.

Even then, the Serbs looked unfriendly at the Austrian envoy. The next day the newspapers wrote: yesterday, as we were leaving the cathedral, we saw the proud figure of Mr. Forgač, who looked haughtily at the assembled Serbian people. A few barbs followed him. Suddenly I saw something incredible: a whole bunch of Turks were walking through the cathedral. As many as six officials of the Turkish embassy in their fezzes walked through the cathedral and took their places among the other diplomats. This is not the case - to let non-Christians into the church! The Liturgy of the Faithful begins, and heretics and infidels enter the cathedral! So in their fezzes the Turks stood like idols.

Soon we heard music and military cries in the street near the cathedral. Petar, the king of Srbije, drove up. The king, like everyone else, venerated the icon and went to his place on the right side of the cathedral in front. Ministers and diplomats bowed their heads. The King arrived with the heir George and with our present Princess Elena Petrovna. The king looked no longer young and as if tired. A rather strange impression was made by the former Serbian heir. He stood at a distance from the king, as if rooted to the ground, in a military manner, and never even crossed himself. It seemed to me that he should leave the stage of Serbian history.

At the end of Liturgy, Metropolitan Demetrius greeted the king with a speech with which I – alas! - I did not understand, since it was said in Serbian. A moleben was performed and a solemn departure from the cathedral followed.

I told You, Friend, that Belgrade bears little resemblance to the capital. But in the cathedral it was felt that it was still the capital, albeit of a small state. There are ministers, there are envoys - nothing like that is supposed to happen in a provincial city. And how, in fact, any official world is monotonous! Everywhere one European template dominates, which depersonalizes everything original, historical, national. After all, you must agree, my friend, that Muscovite Rus of the XVII century was more interesting, more original than the current official one. Now people have some stereotyped faces, equally shaved, with the same hairstyle, in uniform clothes according to rank. Sometimes, when I come to the Moscow Assumption Cathedral, I like to dream... about the past, how the boyars gathered there, how Tsar Alexei Mikhailovich came and stood at the left pillar, how at the right pillar in his place stood the hero - Patriarch Nikon, the "great sovereign" and "friend" of the tsar, his "father and worshiper". Everything there was original, created by the people's spirit. Of course, Turks in fezzes would not have been allowed there. At that time, the Germans were not allowed to enter Moscow, but they were settled outside Moscow, in the German Quarter. Peter became friends with them, invited them to the Kremlin, and they remade Russian life in a common European way. It's hardly all for the best!