STEPHEN THE LITTLE IN HIS AND OUR TIMES

Abstract

Two decades ago the article ‘Mountain Wreath and our language, linguistic and social reality’ was published (Maroyevich, 2002:pp.63–93). The basic postulates of the study were later reflected in a debate on lexical homonymy in a critical issue of the edition of the epic The Mountain Wreath (Maroyevich, 2005:pp.366–400). Following a series, the final part of Nyegosh’s epic trilogy encompassing The Ray of Microcosm, the epic The Mountain Wreath and the epic Stephen the Little, are considered as ‘a revelation of Nyegosh’ by which some contemporary events and phenomena can be explained.
 The current issue of this topic deals with the contemporary usurper, students of divinity and language creators and particularly some ethnics. The name Crnogorci had only geographical and territorial meaning ‛The Serbs the inhabitants of Montenegro’, but today there is a tendency to establish this name as the name for one special nation. The name Boshnyaci had also only geographical and territorial meaning ‛the Serbs from Bosnia independent of their religion’, and nowadays there is tendency to proclaim them as being only a special nation of Islamic religious and cultural tradition. The name Arbanаsi is the name of a particular nation described in the epic Stephen the Little from the standpoint of view of aspects of their etnical characteristics that are actual even nowadays. That term is morphologically and semantically related to the area of Arbana (in Serbian as a result of metathesis of liquids: Rabana) where the Shiptars (their ethnical self term) first settled. The concept of swear word (bound by oath) with the Serbs and (new)Turks is also analysed in this paper: that concept within the overall macroconcept of face is respected by the Islamised Serbs in the Turkish camp, while the Turkish solid faith as a variant of the concept turned into a means of deception.