The South Slav ‘Golden Age’ and Gender Representation in Music

This paper explores the gender representation of the Kosovo Myth by South Slav composers at the turn of the twentieth century in the context of the creation of Serbian and pan-Yugoslav identities. The Kosovo Myth emerged not long after the Battle of Kosovo in 1389, waged between predominantly Serbian forces and the Ottoman Turkish army. However, the event assumed major significance only in the nineteenth century, during which the medieval period became the ‘Golden Age’ for nationalist aspirations. Held in Serbian collective memory as a fateful defeat that led to the loss of independence, the Battle of Kosovo became the region’s ‘sacred place’. Drawing from the body of epic poetry, referred to as The Kosovo Cycle, late nineteenth-century South Slav composers relied on male heroes as their subjects, as evident in their choral compositions and local Singspiels. This paper explores the shift from old forms and the ‘heroic’ male characters to female figures in the Kosovo Myth, as evident in early twentieth-century music. The fictional characters Kosovka devojka [The Maiden of Kosovo] and Majka Jugovića [The Jugović Mother] represented the highest ideal of family values, affirmative of a patriarchal construction of femininity. While both characters offered the South Slav composers a narrative focused on universal family values rather than individual ethnic histories that could facilitate crossing ethnic boundaries, the Jugović Mother emerged as the region’s universal inspiration; the choice of a maternal figure rather than a young woman confirms the practice of attributing women, traditionally viewed as inferior to men, a positive value through the concept of motherhood. Extending its scope to female characters outside of The Kosovo Cycle, this paper opens a debate on gender representation in music of the South Slav region beyond the national discourse.