Themes of the Young Hero in Serbocroatian Oral Epic Tradition

Abstract

AbstractNovice heroes in modern Serbocroatian oral epic tradition present the same scholarly problems as does Telemachus in Homer's Odyssey. In this Balkan narrative tradition, only a small number of epics has been recorded in which the novices and their stories are the main substance. The Yugoslav singer Avdo Međedović performed one of these by dictation for Milman Parry in Bijelo Polje, Yugoslavia, in 1935: The Marriage of Mehmed, Son of Smailaga. That song of 12,311 verses is one of the two longest epics recorded from Serbocroatian tradition. By thematic analysis of it and eight other Serbocroatian epics of initiation representing the full range of the initiation story's multiformity, we can establish that Avdo's epic song is an orthodox telling of the traditional story in spite of its extraordinary, Homeric size, and that both the ancient Greek legends of Theseus (in Plutarch and Apollodorus) and Homer's story of Telemachus are thematically indistinguishable from it. The content of a common Balkan mythic tradition underlying the ancient Greek and modern Serbocroatian stories can be described, and the traditional correctness of Telemachus' presence in the Odyssey can be explained from Yugoslav tellings of the Telemachia.