After 135 years: Sava Savanovic in English

Although so many pieces of vampire fiction have been compiled and published over the past decades, Serb author Milovan Glišić’s Posle devedest godina (After 90 years), originally published in 1880, has remained elusive to readers outside of the Balkans. Until now that James Lyon, author of The Kiss of the Butterfly, has translated it into English.

Obviously, the story is from an era when authors took a particular interest in translating local folklore and etnography into fiction, and reading it reminds me vaguely of the local Danish variant of The Wise Men of Gotham, those humorous stories of foolish and incredulous people inhabiting some backwards countryside. Essentially, After 90 Years is a love story with one village stealing a bride from another village (you know, not dissimilar to Seven Brides for Seven Brothers, but on a lesser scale), that mixes in a vampire story and a lot of etnographic detail.

The vampire, the well-known Sava Savanovic that made the headlines a few years ago, haunts a watermill in Zarozje, so it has become impossible to hire a miller, for no one survives a single night in the mill: 'At dusk he was hale and whole, and at daybreak dead, with a red bruise around his neck as though strangled with a cord.' Savanovic himself appears 'with a face as red as blood', carrying 'across his shoulders a linen shroud that dropped down his back all the way to his heels,' for as Lyon says in a footnote: 'In South Slav folklore, a vampire’s power resides in its burial shroud, which it typically wears draped around its neck and shoulders. If the vampire loses this shroud, then it loses any special powers.'

It is certainly nice to finally read the story, which as a vampire story benefits from the author's wish to rely on the actual folklore instead of employing literary conventions of the type familiar from other nineteenth century vampire stories like e.g. Aleksey Tolstoy's The Family of the Vourdalak.

Andrew M. Boylan, known for his quest to watch and review any film related to vampires, supplies a foreword that explores the relationship between the story and the film adaptation, Leptirica, and Lyon himself writes about the translation, Zarozje and vampires.

Available as both a paperback and an e-book at a reasonable price, After 90 Years is worth seeking out.

Speaking of James Lyon, I would also recommend a book that has nothing to do with vampires - although he does actually mention Vlad Tepes in it: Serbia and the Balkan Front, 1914: The Outbreak of the Great War, the history of the complex political and military events on the Balkan Front before and after the outbreak of the first World War.

A visit to Kisiljevo

Author James Lyon recently visited Kisiljevo in Serbia with ABC News in search of Peter Plogojowitz.

Kiss of the Butterfly in Print

'An exciting read ... A well-crafted mix of fact and fiction ... fascinating ... I can highly recommend Kiss of the Butterfly,' were parts of my review of James Lyon's novel. Now Kiss of the Butterfly is no longer only available as an e-book, but is now available as an illustrated paperback from e.g. Amazon.

In Search of Peter Plogojowitz’s Grave

James Lyon, author of the excellent novel Kiss of the Butterfly, has kindly sent me this report from his recent visits to Kisiljevo. Click on the photos to see them in greater detail.

On 9 December 2012, and again on 17 January 2013, I visited the village of Kisiljevo, Serbia, the site of the first known recorded use of the word “vampire” in history, the famous case of Peter Plogojowitz from 1725. Given that Niels has already written a number of excellent posts on the topic, I write on the assumption that the reader is familiar with the case.

The purpose of the visit was two-fold: to discuss local legends of the Peter Plogojowitz case with residents, and to see if it was possible to identify the site of Peter Plogojowitz’s grave. Due to heavy snowfall on 9 December that restricted access to the graveyard, that visit was limited to interviews only. On 17 January, I returned to the graveyard after the snows had melted.

The village president, Mirko Bogičić, and author James Lyon

Although I spoke with a number of very friendly Kisiljevo residents, most were hesitant to discuss Peter Plogojowitz, and all referred me to the village (mesna zajednica) president, Mirko Bogičić, a man in his mid-50s who is also the custodian of records for the nearby municipality of Veliko Gradište, which is located further east along the Danube. Mr. Bogičić turned out to be a very warm and intelligent gentleman, who was well-versed in local history and folklore, and who is in the final phase of publishing a book on the history of Kisiljevo. He lives in a household with four generations under the same roof, a common practice in the region.

Kisiljevo used to be a river port on an arm of the Danube, but is today located on the banks of a 14-kilometer long artificial lake (Srebreno Jezero) that was dammed off in 1971 to prevent flooding along the southern banks of the river. Today the lake is a popular summer tourist resort in Serbia. Kisiljevo itself, however, has not profited from this tourism, the town’s population continues to decline, and a number of homes are abandoned and falling apart, due to lack of upkeep. Although the 2002 census listed the town as having 704 residents, that number appears optimistically high.

An abandoned home in the town centre, 

with death notices on the telephone pole 

in the foreground

Mr. Bogičić took great pride in his hometown and noted that it was first mentioned in the 14th century during the time of Serbian Prince Lazar (who lost his head at the Battle of Kosovo Polje in 1389), and again in the Ottoman census of the Branicevo district (Braničevski Defter 1467). At that time, Kisiljevo was a large and economically powerful town, with more than double the number of households of nearby Požarevac (Passarowitz). He also recounted the local legend of the origins of the town’s name, which dated to the time of the Great Plague.

In Kisiljevo, there is no surname of Plogojowitz, and no such surname exists among the South Slavs. The locals all refer to him as Petar Blagojević, and until recently there was still a Blagojević family in the village, so one must assume that Imperial Provisor Frombald used a Germanized spelling of the name in his report. The following material is transcribed from a recording I made on 9 December.

Mr. Bogičić said that “Petar Blagojević isn’t the only vampire. Here among us in Serbia, vampires are frequently spoken of. The Vlahs say ‘Drakulj’… Vojvoda Tsepes was a legendary figure, the way Kraljević Marko is with us, as a man who was dangerous in battle against the Turks. But he didn’t have vampire characteristics, such as were seen in Petar Blagojević.”

Bogičić mentioned that two women visited him from Berlin [?! sic] with photocopies of Frombald’s original report, which he could not read, as they were in a language which he assumed was German. He noted that under the Treaty of Passarowitz (Požarevac) the north of Serbia belonged to Austria and the seat of regional administration was in Veliko Gradište. But when it came to details about the Petar Blagojević case, neither he nor the other local residents appeared to have passed on much in the way of folklore about the events of 1725. Rather, it appeared as though much of the information regarding the Blagojević case was of relatively recent origin.

The Other Kisiljevo Vampire: Ruža Žapunjica

Bogičić, however, did raise an interesting point of local folklore regarding an entirely different vampire. “People also speak about an old woman who became a vampire, at least 100 years after Petar Blagojević. The old people say that an old woman, whose name was Ruža [Rose], turned into a vampire. She had the nickname of Žapunjica… The old folks called her Ruža Žapunjica, no one knows what the nickname means. She became a vampire. My great-grandmother remembered those times. She [Ruža] would make incidents in the middle of the day. She would bang around houses, climb up into the attic and begin to make noise in the middle of the day. She would throw things around in the attic of the house, and people could hear sounds, but when they went up to the attic, they couldn’t see anyone. But this was quite some time after Petar Blagojević, because my great-grandmother as a child had seen this and heard it from her parents. Those houses no longer exist; they were torn down.”

Bogičić continued: “One person – and this is very important -- saw her after she died in the early evening on the steps in front of one of the houses, even though she had long since died. That old man who saw her, died a few years ago at the age of 93. He said that he had seen Ruža Žapunjica, even though she had died over 100 years earlier, and he repeated this on television, that he had seen her figure and silhouette on the steps. This was in the 1930s, when he was a young man in his 20s, before the war. So Petar wasn’t the only one.”

The village church

“People usually don’t like to talk about that. As children we grew up on the stories of the older people about those unbelievable, unusual nighttime events, but the only incident that was actually written down was the one of Petar Blagojević. You know we have this church in our village that was built in 1825. Those people in the village who are close to the Church, who are Orthodox Christians, don’t like it when people speak about Petar. They don’t want it glorified and say that we’re speaking against Christianity. But this is something that has nothing to do with Christianity, or belief in God, or attending church, or our Orthodox customs now.” Bogičić mentioned some famous Serbian historical figures who were born in Kisiljevo, noting regretfully: “But these things are much less known, because it is truly the vampire that jumps out from Kisiljevo. Not a single church council has ever questioned or denied the vampirism that was then around”.

Death Rituals

Bogičić shared with me a number of local customs surrounding death. When a person dies, they keep a lit candle next to the body from the moment of death until the body is placed in the casket. The body is kept in the home, and someone is next to it 24 hours a day. In olden times, gold coins were placed over the eyes of the deceased, but today they use regular coins. This is so the deceased will have money for the next life. Prior to placing the body in the coffin, they conduct several ceremonies against evil spirits. These include burning incense and then igniting a small amount of gunpowder in the bottom of the coffin. The graveyard is always in a better location than the village, because they don’t want anything to disturb the dead. The Danube used to flood Kisiljevo before they built the dams, and the village graveyard is up on a high bluff overlooking the Danube.

Searching for Petar’s Grave

On 17 January 2013 I visited the Kisiljevo graveyard with Mr. Bogičić. The graveyard is located on a bluff high above the banks of Srebreno Jezero and offers a panormaic view over the lake and the island between the lake and the Danube.

Bogičić explained that that graveyard was divided into three parts. The first part consisted of the oldest graves, which predated the late 18th century. This section was entirely overgrown and the grave markers were not easily recognizable as such. The stones consist of roughly-hewn thin stone slabs made of greenish rock from a quarry further west along the Danube near Ram. None of these slabs appeared to have any trace of engravings on them, and Bogičić said that prior to the late 18th century the gravestones were not engraven with names. This is the portion of the graveyard where Petar Blagojević would have been buried. As a result, it is not possible to ascertain which grave is his. I should add, that it is impossible to ascertain which grave belongs to which family, and as a result, no one has cared for the graves.

From the oldest part of the graveyard

The second part consists of graves from the latter half of the 18th century onward, when grave markers were carved into recognizable shapes, such as crosses, or tombstones with rounded edges and engravings. This portion of the graveyard is in better shape, as people are still able to identify a gravestone with a particular family, and members of that family will continue to care for it.

The third portion of the graveyard dates largely from the early 20th century and consists of modern – sometimes elaborate – gravestones and family burial plots, usually outlined by small concrete walls about ten centimeters high. In many cases, families have taken the old pre-20th century gravestones and fixed them in concrete in the modern family burial plot.

Modern gravestones with old gravestones embedded in concrete in front of the family burial plot

In the modern part of the graveyard, I came across two plots for the Blagojević family. Bogičić told me that there are no longer any Blagojevićs in Kisiljevo.

The Blagojevic family plot

As a parting gift, Mr. Bogičić kindly presented me with a bottle of his own home-made grape brandy, which he jokingly referred to as “vampire rakija”.

Conclusion

My overall impression is that local lore related to the Peter Plogojowitz incident of 1725 has been suppressed over time by the Serbian Orthodox Church; many people feel uncomfortable discussing the matter. It seemed that although everyone knew something had happened in the distant past regarding a vampire named Petar Blagojević, no one really knew the details outside of what has been uncovered by more modern scholarship. Unlike the village of Zarožje, where local inhabitants were well versed in the legend of Sava Savanović, Kisiljevo residents seemed more aware of Ruža Žapunjica and less of Petar Blagojević. Interestingly, the characteristics associated with some of Ruža's behavior – while similar to a poltergeist – are not at all unusual for vampires in South Slavic folklore. The state of the grave markers in the old part of the graveyard is such that it seems unlikely anyone will ever be able to identify with absolute certainty the actual grave site of Petar Blagojević.

James Lyon is currently working on a sequel to The Kiss of the Butterfly.

Text and photos © James Lyon.

Zarozje visited

The story about Zarožje and Sava Savanović made it into a relatively long newspaper article in a major Danish newspaper on December 26, partially based on Vampire Forensics by Mark Collins Jenkins. Author James Lyon who has commented on the story here, sent me some photos from a visit to Zarožje a couple of weeks ago, and now he has also written about it on The Vampirologist blog. Go there to read more about Zarožje and the legend of Sava Savanović as recounted to Lyon by the mill's owner, Slobodan Jagodić.

Vampire Alert 2

James Lyon, author of Kiss of the Butterfly, has kindly reported more information on the subject of my previous post, cf. his comments to that post, while the story of the purported 'vampire alert' has spread to various media, including a tabloid in my own country, B.T.

The gist of the matter still seems elusive, but here is a video from the vicinity of Zarozje.


According to the Associated Press:

'Richard Sugg, a lecturer in Renaissance Studies at the UK's University of Durham and an expert on the vampire legends, said the fear could be very real. Stress can bring on nightmares, which makes people's feelings of dread even worse.

"The tourists think it is fun — and the Serbian locals think it's terrifying," he said.'

Sugg is the author of Mummies, Cannibals and Vampires: the History of Corpse Medicine from the Renaissance to the Victorians and is currently writing Faces of the Vampire: from Holy Terror to Sexual Taboo.

Kiss of the Butterfly

‘Something has torn apart the once-proud Yugoslavia with ease and is feasting on it’s life essence.’

In 1991 when the Yugoslav Wars were beginning to take place, Steven Roberts, a student and teaching assistant of Professor Marko Slatina in San Diego, California, is travelling to Serbia on a mysterious ethnography grant. Steven’s scholarship involves studying a large amount of books and archival material on history, folklore and ethnography. Some of it concerns Societas Draconis, the Order of the Dragon, but most of it turns out be about vampires. Studying at the National Library in Belgrade, he e.g. reads of a vampire case on the Dalmatian island of Pasman in 1403 and of vampire investigations in Dubrovnik in the 18th century.

‘The research was tedious, and his eyes grew tired easily because of the poor lighting. Sometimes he felt he could read no more. Gradually, he uncovered small pieces of what increasingly seemed to be a much larger puzzle. Some came from historical documents, while others came from collections of folk tales recorded by ethnographers… Ducic, Novak, Zovko, Klaic, Liepopili, Karadzic … the names blurred together. Everywhere he turned he found Serbian newspaper accounts of people who were arrested and tried for opening up graves and driving stakes through the hearts of suspected vampires. He had particular problems with one 15th century document written in the Glagolithic alphabet, a precursor to Cyrillic that resembled mangled bicycles, trapezoids and triangles. It took him the better part of three days to read a two page document.’

Steven is astounded by the numerous references to vampires, and their similarities. He notes that ‘these vampires were unlike anything he had ever heard of and bore scant resemblance to film versions of Dracula,’ but the amount of material prompts him to write Professor Slatina that: ‘I suspect there might have once been some phenomenon that led to the establishments of these myths. In fact, there are days when I wonder if vampires might actually have once existed.’

Other threats are, however, more imminent than vampires. In the winter of 1991-92, the secret police in Belgrade is naturally interested in an American staying in Belgrade, and when Steven finds some interesting articles by Tihomir Djordevic on vampires, strange things happen. Apart from the well-known article from 1953, Vampir i druga bica u nasem narodnom verovanju i predanju (Vampires and other beings in our folk beliefs and traditions), ‘a veritable catalogue of vampirism, scientifically organized and categorized with instructions’, Steven discovers a rare article titled The Twelve Mighty Vampires in Legend and Fact. He asks the librarian if she can help photocopy it, but the next day the librarian is ill and replaced by another librarian who refuses to let him see the article. As Steven later learns, only 100 copies were printed, and it had been placed on a restricted list prior to publication by the Yugoslavian secret police, UDBA.

Steven, however, asks a bookseller in Sremski Karlovci, south of Novi Sad, to help him get hold of a copy, while travelling with friends to Petrovaradin and Novi Sad. At the Matica Srpska library he finds more information on vampires, in particular in the work of Stefan Novakovic, ‘the scholar who had found the original Flückinger documents about the Austrian Army vampire-hunting missions in Serbia.’ Novakovic had, apparently, found more information concerning the activities of Flückinger and other Austrians. Steven also finds information relating to the subject in the archives at the Fortress in Petrovaradin which leads him and his friends on a guided tour of the underground of that Fortress.

I am not going to disclose more of the exciting plot, but obviously Steven encounters an unexpected world in Serbia. Here evil is not an abstract term: ‘In America, if I were to talk about evil as being real they would laugh me out of the university. Yet everybody I speak with here talks of evil as if it exists and is a palpable presence.’

Source: Wikimedia

And the past and the present are intertwined. The novel sets out with Vlad III, Prince of Wallachia, following the Driva River upstream between Serbia and Bosnia in February 1476, heading to Srebrenica in connection with the Battle of Sabac. In 1991 Srebrenica is again to play a role in history. Vampire folklore, the Order of the Dragon, events in 18th Century Serbia and the conflict on the Balkans in the early 1990’s all become the backdrop of a conflict that transcends centuries.

A conflict that is related to the topic of Steven’s research, vampires that are in many ways very different from those Steven had heard of in California. They are shape-shifters, but typically turn into butterflies or moths, as in the Serbian folklore, the human spirit leaves the body in the form of a butterfly.

Kiss of the Butterfly is certainly an exciting read. The backdrop of Serbia on the brink of war, the minutiae of history, geography and customs, combined with a well-crafted mix of fact in fiction in the findings of Steven’s vampire research makes it a fascinating read as well. I recommend that readers have their smartphone or computer at hand when reading it, because it will prove handy to look up places and things on maps and in dictionaries while following Steven’s exploits. Eventually, you may find inspiration for future reading and travelling.

In short, I can highly recommend James Lyon’s Kiss of the Butterfly.

Kiss of the Butterfly is available as an e-book from Amazon.

Professor Marko Slatina: 'I am interested in real vampires, Balkan vampires, and they existed long before Dracula. The answers to the questions I have posed bear no resemblance to popular imagination. To find your answers you must undertake solid, academic research. You must comb through Balkan folklore, history and ethnography. You must find what the people who actually experienced vampires have to say. Find out how peasants, priests and soldiers fought against these dreaded creatures and what they had to do to vanquish them.'

James M. B. Lyon has over 30 years experience with the Balkans and the lands of former Yugoslavia: Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia, Kosovo, Macedonia, Montenegro, Serbia and Slovenia. Although he calls San Diego home, he has lived and studied in Boston, Florida, Germany, the Soviet Union, and England. He has a Ph.D. in Balkan History from UCLA and has lived in the Balkans for more than 18 years, during which time he has been involved in international peacekeeping efforts and Non-Governmental Organizations, and worked as a business consultant. A well-known political analyst, at present, he divides his time between Belgrade, Sarajevo and the Dalmatian coast.