“St. George’s Day Lamb” Victim and Empathy

Abstract

In Serbian and Croatian, the word žrtva “sacrifice, victim” has two basic meanings: 1. a ritually executed person or animal as offering to a deity, and 2. a person who was killed by accident, through no fault of their own (in a car accident, a fire, by lightning, etc.), or someone who has suffered as a result of someone else’s actions (a victim of violence, cheating, conspiracy, etc.). On the basic level, the two meanings overlap and cover the same archaic notion of victim, which 1. links community to transcendental spheres (communication with god/s, based on a connection between giving and receiving in return, which is unquestionable in traditional cultures), or 2. acts as a (fundamental) way in which gods appear in the human world (punishment as proof of gods’ existence). In both cases, folk narratives abolish empathy with the victims (even if death comes for ritual reasons or as an exemplum) and often conceptualize the victim in animalistic terms (e.g., jagnje đurđevsko “St. George’s Day lamb”– a lamb slaughtered on the main spring holiday, St. George’s Day; kurban). The concept of communicating with god through the victim is radically criticized in modern literature, also in terms of the lamb (Thomas Mann, The Tables of the Law [Das Gesetz], 1944; Joseph and his brothers [Joseph und seine Brüder], 1933–1943; Jose Saramago, The Gospel According to Jesus Christ [O Evangelho Segundo Jesus Cristo], 1991; Cain [Caim], 2009).