LULLABY IN THE FOLK TRADITION OF BOSNIAKS

It is difficult to establish with certainty who recorded the first Bosniak lullabies, though among few early sources we find these songs in a collection of Omer-ef. Humo from Konjic, which was published in the second half of the 19th century. It was the first published book of Alhamiado literature – a collection entitled Suha al-wusūl. After Humo's book, these poems sporadically appeared in contributions by Ludvík Kuba and Antun Hangi. Several valuable poems of the kind can be found in each of comprehensive collections of our oral poetry recorded by diligent collectors of folk jewels, particularly by Smajil Bradarić, a religion teacher from Derventa and Muharem Kurtagić from Bosanska Krajina. A more prominent focus on this kind of poems can be observed in the work of writer Alija Nametak, in early years of his involvement in these poems, when he published the article Mostarske muslimanske uspavanke (Muslim lullabies in Mostar) in Zbornik za narodni život i običaje Južnih Slavena in 1932.

Recently, the lullaby as a kind of lyric poem in oral literature was concisely dealt with by Munib Maglajlić in a summary of Bosnian and Herzegovinian lyric poetry of 1966 (Maglajlić, 1996), while Jasmina Musabegović prepared and published, in 1997, the first anthology of this kind of Bosniak poems entitled Bošnjačke uspavanke (Bosniak Lullabies). After a short introductory essay Zašto uspavanke? /Why lullabies?), the anthology presents twenty-two poems (Musabegović, 1997). Each lullaby is accompanied with the score of the tune and information on when the poem was recorded. The anthology was followed by publishing an audio cassette, where the lullabies included in the selection were sung by Lejla Jusić and Alma Aletić, then students of the Academy of Music in Sarajevo. From a note in the book one can discern that the lullabies were mostly selected from a book by Cvjetko Rihtman, i.e. the most comprehensive collection of lullabies of Bosnia and Herzegovina in general. Indeed, in 1974, in cooperation with Ljubo Simić and Miroslava Fulanović-Šošić, Cvjetko Rihtman published 316 lullabies from various parts of Bosnia and Herzegovina, and accompanied each score with the place and source of the song (Rihtman, 1973).

One of few contributions to studying the lullaby in Bosnia and Herzegovina was made by Jasmina Talam in 2005, in a paper entitled Uspavanke u narodnoj muzičkoj tradiciji Zenice i okoline (Lullabies in the folk musical tradition of Zenica and surroundings). She also proposed classification of these songs into three groups: 1. “lullabies the content and the way of expression of which is very similar, 2. “lullabies the lyrics of which was improvised by mothers on the already existing melodical pattern ˮ and 3. “ilahija (religious song) in the role of the lullaby ˮ (Talam, 2005: 342).

A new selection and a new view of this oral lyric genre was offered by the author of this text in 2007, in the form of an anthology entitled San u bešu, uroci pod bešu (Sleep into the cradle, spells under the cradle), with the subheading 33 bošnjačke uspavanke (33 Bosniak lullabies) (with a CD where Diana Pliska from Sarajevo sings eight songs). The anthology is accompanied with a short study based on literary-historical and literary-theoretical discussion of Bosniak lullaby (Efendić, 2007).

Finally, in the text “Poetika bošnjačkih narodnih uspavankiˮ (Poetics of Bosniak folk lullabies) Remzija Hadžiefendić-Parić studied the repertoire of means of expression characteristic of this kind of lyric poems and a series of its poetic features. The text also viewed the lullaby from the angle of contemporary interpretations of literature and in this respect, the lullaby is considered as female speech and female script (Hadžiefendić-Parić, 2007).

Motifs

The motifs found in lullabies are generally not of a wide scope, though they surprise with their diversity. One often finds the motif of calling for the child's good luck and peaceful sleep, which the mother expresses by verses which have been recorded in a significant number of examples, with minor variations: San te vara, sreća te ne vara, / San u bešu, nesanak niz bešu, / Nesanak ti voda odnijela, / Za veliko brdo zanijela (The sleep cheats you, luck does not, / Sleep into the cradle/ non-sleep down the cradle, / Let water take non-sleep away, /Let it take it behind a big hill). Here, 'non-sleep' refers to the child's wakeful state which the lullaby, by its function as such, should replace with a state of deep sleep where the child beneficially rests, grows and progresses.

Frequent motifs include wishes for removal of spells, as well as praying to protect the child from hostile hands and evil intentions of various enemies. The mother wants to dispel any bad luck from the child, which she mostly sees in spells and intrigues of envious people: Uroci ti po gori hodili, / Travu pasli, s lista vodu pili, / Studen kamen pod glavu metali, / Tebi, sine, ništa ne udili (Let spells walk in the forest, / Let them graze grass, drink water from leaves, / put a cold stone under the head, / And do no harm to you, my son).

It has already been stated that, in Bosniaks' customary practice, religious songs were used in the role of lullabies and that the well-established term ilahija is directly related to a form of shahada (testimony), a declaration which signifies a testimony of the oneness of the Maker, which every Muslim utters and is essentially governed by – Lā illāha illā Allāh, and which is at the same time the refrain of this kind of lullabies. In lullabies with religion-focused content, motifs are somewhat more diverse. In these songs, the mother primarily addresses the Almighty, with the wished for her child to be healthy, long-lived, but also properly educated in religion: Rabbum Allah, Ti mi daj, / Mome Ali dug zeman, / Da mi uči i klanja, / I u mejtef uziđe (Rabbum Allah, Please give me, / give my Ali a long life, / let him learn and pray, / And go to maktab)... The mother wishes her child to master knowledge related to religious duties, and form a habit of going to maktab and, later, to mosque. Frequent repetition of shahada which serves as the refrain offered the possibility to expand these lullabies with new details related to religious contents, which gave rise to illahija lullabies of as many as forty lines. Every time, new motifs developed the basic content pattern, which is the most prominent in lullabies about the encounter with God's Prophet. In this group of songs, the content backbone is the following: the mother meets God's Prophet on her way to the mosque; she greets him, and he brings to her attention withered blossom and the brevity of its life, comparing it to the transience of human life in this world; he reminds her of death and the arrival of two meleks (angels), who will interrogate believers about their earthly actions and beliefs; the mother imagines that she will ask him to put a window in her grave, and then sees the gorgeous glory of the Jannah (Paradise) and begins to describe prizes which await true believers. Varieties of this favorite lyrical pattern would begin to branch in the part pertaining to the encounter of the lyric subject with beauties of Jannah; it means that any talented poetess had the possibility to shape an appropriate image of the desired prizes. In this respect, Alija Nametak in his collection Od bešike do motike (From the cradle to the hoe) presented as many as four variants of this lyric template, which he had recorded from four different informants.

All examples of different variants of songs about an encounter with Prophet, and rarely with another personality from the circle of chosen ones in the history of Islam, have been recorded from Bosniak women in Bosnia and Herzegovina and belong to the group of religious songs as much as to lullabies. Thus, only a small part of religious songs – ilahijas – were used as lullabies as well, although their verses had content appropriate for mothers who wanted to familiarize their children with religious teaching at their earliest age. Indeed, reminding of a prize in the afterlife because of the admirable life in this world is a frequent motif in lullabies with religion-oriented content.

References:

• Efendić, Nirha (2007), “Riječ o bošnjačkim uspavankamaˮ, in: San u bešu, uroci pod bešu. Bosniaks' lullubies, Sarajevo: Preporod, 7.16.

• Hadžiefendić-Parić, Remzija (2007), Poetika bošnjačkih narodnih uspavanki, Zbornik radova Islamskog pedagoškog fakulteta u Bihaću, knj. I, Bihać, 187-216.

• Maglajlić, Munib (2006), “Bošnjačka usmena lirikaˮ, in: Usmena lirika Bošnjaka. Sarajevo: Preporod, 5-41.

• Musabegović, Jasmina (1997), “Zašto uspavanke?ˮ, foreword in the selection: Bošnjačke uspavanke, Sarajevo: Preporod, 5-9.

• Nametak, Alija (1932), “Mostarske muslimanske uspavankeˮ, Zbornik za narodni život i običaje Južnih Slavena, vol. II, no. 28, Zagreb, 235-240.

• Nametak, Alija (1970), Od bešike do motike. Narodne lirske i pripovijedne pjesme bosansko-hercegovačkih muslimana. Sabrao: Alija Nametak, Sarajevo: Vlastito izdanje priređivača.

• Rihtman, Cvjetko (1974), Dječije pjesme. Zbornik napjeva narodnih pjesama Bosne i Hercegovine, Sarajevo: ANUBiH.

• Talam, Jasmina (2005), “Uspavanke u narodnoj muzičkoj tradiciji Zenice i okolineˮ, Zbornik radova Pedagoškog fakulteta u Zenici, III/2005, 341-346.