Božidar Kukuljević-Sakcinski (Zagreb, 31 March 1861 – Varaždin, 19 January 1927), son of Ivan Kukuljević-Sakcinski, was a devotee of music and literature who published reviews and criticism and contributed to the journals Vijenac, Prosvjeta, Hrvatska vila and Balkan. He studied law in Vienna and Zagreb, and after completing his studies served as deputy župan and clerk in Zagreb and as district prefect in Varaždin. He was a founder of the "Brotherhood of the Croatian Dragon", and president of the choral society "Kolo" in Zagreb and "Vila" in Varaždin. In 1891 he dedicated to his father his poem "Sinda", named after a Mongol princess who was the beloved of Dražen, son of Ivan, Prince of Okić, with whom Dražen had fallen deeply in love. Written in five long cantos, we have taken only the first, which tells of the Tatar invasion of 1242, when "five hundred Mongols fell upon Okić", only to meet with heroic resistance as "like a tiger, the Croat set about strangling the foe."
On Plešivica the sun's rays
Had already joined their golden dance,
Mysteriously their light feet
Had turned the dew to fine pearls;
The rays played upon the tip of a slender fir
On which a nightingale was greeting the morning,
They gave the dear singer a warm kiss
And the nightingale sang back his thanks;
They smiled upon the clear mountain spring
And for a moment gazed at their own brightness in it,
Then hastened to the rugged crag
Upon which, raising its proud head,
Old Okić Castle stands in its glory
And they paused, began to gild the stones,
And the brightest ray swiftly entered
Upon the linden tree that graces the castle courtyard,
Beneath the linden two sturdy warriors embraced,
Such in stature you would take them for giants,
Yet every Croatian soul would tell you
That these are our renowned noblemen.
Behind an ancient oaken table see him sit,
The lord of the castle, Okić's Prince Ivan,
His beard and hair already shot with grey
Yet his fine gaze still burns with youthful fire:
When foes must be resisted
He will serve his home as its foremost warrior,
And when an angel of peace flies to that home
He will sacrifice all for his faith and his God.
Beside him stands a long-bearded Croat,
The prince of Cetina and of Knin — young Slovin,
A fair branch of the line of Svačić,
The great pride of the Dalmatian lands.
A sweet fragrance, born of beauty, swells
The broad chest of our hero;
Now from his lips words flow to Slovin,
Now Ivan in turn pours forth weighty speech.
When their lively talk had reached its height
Slovin's ardent eye blazed bright:
"No, never!" cried the Dalmatian falcon,
"No, never will I go to Béla's aid!
What if the Mongols threaten the kingdom —
Even the Magyar does not trust his own king:
He has had his fill of the Cuman snake
That crushes him beneath Béla's command;
Now the king tells him tales of the Mongols:
That they are numberless as stars in the sky,
That like demons they spring up in every land
And that a million already ride on horseback
Toward the lands of Hungary and Croatia.
I do not believe it — but if these Mongol hosts
Should truly now descend upon Béla:
Why should a Croat save a foreign king?
Have we forgotten that glorious time
When the golden crown adorned the brow
Of a ruler of our own blood, when immortal glory
Was shed across the wide world
Of Croatia's first king, Tomislav,
And when the homeland was blissful
Under King Krešimir the Great?
Do we not know of Peter, my own grandfather,
Who fought gloriously to preserve freedom
For all the Croatian people and his kin,
And fell as the last king at Gvozd
A sacrifice to our ancient disunity
And to Croatia's accursed jealousy?
Oh, why did God not give me to that people then!
Like a mighty storm I would have swept
Through that wretched land, to every nobleman,
With that old sword of Peter's I would have
Torn the vile hearts from their bodies
And gathered all the dear Croatian people
On the mountain of Gvozd
And called upon them to fight like lions
For their glorious fatherland...
But alas, I was not yet born! A foreign king
Has worn Tomislav's crown for a hundred years,
And so if the Mongol people truly intend
To march against Béla, then we must
Join forces with the Mongol host
And with them strike against Béla.
Croatia must not save Béla!
'Death to Béla!' — I too say it with the Magyars,
Let the crown fall from a foreign head,
Let us now crown a Croat with it!"
"Speak not so!" Prince Ivan thundered
And leapt to his feet. "I honour your passion,
But you do not yet know, my young friend,
That the mighty empire which is even now destroying
Our homeland — slaying children, old men, women
Like some terrible monster — means to burn every fortress to the ground.
You will not hear this tale from me alone;
What I was forced to witness with these very eyes
I intend to tell you, my young friend.
I was passing my days in my castle at Kalnik,
Tending faithfully to my ailing wife,
Who had been crushed by grief when we had to send our Zora,
Our little angel, from our paradise
Up to the heavenly heights — so God had willed it —
And then He took Plana from me too...
Like a man undone I tore my grey hair
Over the dark bier of my most beloved,
When there came into the courtyard a faithful servant
Who brought the wretched news to my poor ears:
That a great multitude of refugees from distant lands
Had fallen at the castle gates
And begged me as a Slavic brother
To save them from the Mongol hordes.
I rushed to the window, and my heart ached:
Old men tangled with women against the wall.
"Oh, save your brothers!" cried the hungry, the naked,
Wringing their hands and shedding bitter tears.
As though struck by a mighty thunderbolt
I leapt below, and shouted with all my strength:
"Tell me, people — what is your homeland?"
"We are Poles!" rang out from many breasts,
"I am a Bohemian woman!" cried a pale young girl,
"I am from Russia!" said a grey-haired man,
"Oh, save your brothers!" the cry rose again,
And when I ordered the drawbridge to be lowered,
As though evil spirits were hounding them
They poured into my courtyard,
"May God repay you!" they all cried out
And fell, exhausted, upon the cold stone.
"Who robbed you of your dear homeland?"
I asked the ancient Russian.
"Ah, my lord!" the old man groaned in pain,
"It is some dreadful dog-headed monster,
Hatched somewhere in Asia,
Bent in its godless fury
On destroying all the world that honours the cross
And dreams devoutly of everlasting paradise.
This monster has named itself the Mongols;
It first set about ravaging my Russian home,
Burning our villages and our fair cities
And pulling down all our holy churches;
The mother of cities — ancient Kyiv —
Not even the renowned Dmitar could save it;
All Russia was turned into a graveyard.
The princes and all the people were driven
Like slaves into Poland by Khan Batu,
And great multitudes were slaughtered on the way,
And then at Kraków—" "Stop, my old friend,"
The Polish woman now interrupted the Russian,
"Even in her young days my mother knew
How to speak of Great Croatia
In the palace in the heart of fair Kraków,
Which was the capital of your ancient home,
Oh, Prince! Alas, before Asian fury
Even Kraków fell, and with it all of Poland;
Those inhuman beings slaughtered all the people,
My father — do you hear — they tore apart alive
On the tails of horses, and my mother —
Alas, the beasts cut off both her breasts!
I saved my life by flight," she wailed,
The poor creature, and cried out in anguish:
"Was almighty God asleep in heaven
When the devil snatched everything from me in this world?"
"You are dreaming a waking nightmare, Prince!"
Prince Slav interrupted the narrator.
"Oh, would that it were a dream — how blessed I should be!"
Ivan rose and pressed on with his tale:
"After the Russian, a Bohemian lad flared up before me:
"Near Olomouc our Slavic sword
Dealt a fierce blow to those dog-heads:
Jaroslav of Šternberk, like a thorn,
Cut their grim heads off with the Bohemians
And won, the brave man, everlasting glory,
When he boldly managed
To split the brow of the noyon Baidu with his mace.
Then Batu roared, enraged as a lion:
'Now for Hungary! Let Béla perish!
I hear a sacred crown gleams upon his brow:
I mean to destroy both it and all the world,
So that a new world may honour
The Mongol Khan alone as its one new God!'"
Like lightning those fiends flew out of Bohemia,
Their countless armies laying waste to everything in their path,
Already burning Hungary's villages and towns,
And then, Prince, those ravenous monsters
Would break into your own fair land!"
I shuddered at those horrors, my Slav,
And when Plana, my heart's dearest darling,
Was wedded to the grave,
My soul was kindled with love of country:
From my solitary stronghold at Kalnik,
Under the command of the "young king" Koloman,
With a splendid host of Croatian noblemen
And beside the valiant Ban Vijalka,
I hastened toward the Hungarian kingdom;
There with the Hungarians I saw the gallant Slovaks
Embracing beneath the crusader's banner:
Sixty thousand courageous warriors,
Champions of our freedom and our faith,
The king led them to the valley of Mohi
That opens beneath the Lomnica uplands.
Where the silver-foaming Sajó counts its waves
The dog-headed monsters welcomed us
With the fearful battle cry "Surin!" — trumpets rang out
And arrow after arrow clattered forth;
In a moment the Sajó turned blood-red,
The Mongol slaughtered Christians like a madman,
Our whole army quickly fell into disorder
And Béla, with the Hungarians and Slovaks,
Fled already, only Koloman and the Croatians
Did not give way, and thrashed like a lion
The numberless host of dog-heads,
Until Batu's blade dealt
A grievous wound to our brave hero.
Then two hundred thousand wretches swooped upon us,
And again "Surin!" poured across the valley,
Body after body fell into the reddening Sajó,
Our men smothered the maddened Mongols,
All in vain: those dog-headed monsters
Were ever more numerous, and we Croatians too
Began to fall back from the field of battle,
The monster hounded us all the way to the Danube,
But was struck with terror at the cold Danube's edge.
The heavens took pity on us wretched souls
And mercifully granted us safe crossing of the river;
We pressed on to the city of Buda
And then, full of grief, toward our own home:
At Česma the young prince gave his soul to God,
And we returned to our own castles
And are now mustering an army with Béla
To destroy that Mongol cur!
Now you will understand, my young brother,"
The Okić Prince said to his noble guest,
"That this is not merely about Béla himself,
Nor about whether a Croatian should now be crowned
With the bright crown: know that freedom and faith alike
Now face destruction at the hands of that dog-headed beast!
Oh, are you with us?" Ivan cried to the Slav,
"Yes, I am yours!" the Dalmatian falcon shouted
And grasped the brave old man's right hand firmly,
"Yes, I will go with you wherever our
Fair Croatian homeland calls.
Oh, the Mongol cur must not destroy us!
Rocky Dalmatia shall be a grave for the dog-heads,
I believe it too, with you —
Let my grey mountains witness their downfall,
Let the sea sing their requiem!"
While the nobles were still in the midst of their words
There rang out from the age-old castle walls
The sweet and pleasing sound of a horn,
And Ivan cried: "My son is here!"
With a fine company of young warriors
A slender youth rides up to the lord:
That some mountain vila bore him
When a sunbeam whispered love to her
You might well suppose, seeing that golden hair
Spill in ringlets
Upon his neck, caressing him softly
And draping sweetly over his shoulder;
His eyes are blue as the May sky,
A flush fairer than the dawn moves across his face,
Oh, how blessed will be the maiden
Whose days are spent beside such a knight!
Leaping from his black horse, a young man called out:
"God's blessing upon you, dear father,
And upon the noble guest in Okić's halls —
May you both long enjoy a warrior's health!"
"And God's blessing on you!" both nobles replied,
Embraced the young man
And began to look over the knightly newcomers,
While the son of Prince Ivan said: "These warriors
I have gathered at your summons, father,
To lead them into battle against the Mongols;
All are ready to die for the homeland,
For freedom and for our holy cross!"
Prince Ivan's eyes blazed bright:
He calls each newcomer his sworn brother,
Calls down God's blessing upon every one,
And at last steps toward a venerable old man
Who rests his head upon a bloodied sword:
"Ho, old man — what fate has brought you
To Okić?" "I am Vanča, the Pope's envoy,"
The elder answered the prince's question,
"And from my red cap you will know
That I am a bishop of our holy Church.
In the name of Pope Gregory the Ninth
I have made my way with this bloodied sword
Through the Croatian lands, granting absolution
From all sins to every man who marches
Against the accursed dog-headed ones with King Béla;
At my word the people gathered from every side
Beneath King Béla's holy crusader banner;
Your bishop Stjepan blessed the king and all the leaders
Right there in Zagreb with his white hand
And set out with Béla and the entire army
Toward the rocky Dalmatian shores
To await the fearsome Batucan,
While I turned toward your castle of Okić
To rouse your worthy men
Against the vile dog-headed Mongol,
But my call reached here too late:
For your son Dražen, that brave and splendid youth,
Proved an even better herald of the faith than I!
I met him in the midst of the mountain country
Where the Okićnica murmurs softly by,
And there I heard how wondrously his words rang out
And how he stirred the hearts of the warriors
For faith and freedom, foretelling victory for his kin.
Oh, let faith warm your souls, brothers,
And let your hearts beat ever for your people,
May concord rule over you in this present age:
Then glorious victory shall come from God!
In the name of the Pope I grant you all
Absolution from every sin!" the bishop thundered, filled with heavenly fire,
And with his golden cross bestowed his holy blessing
Upon the brave company
That had fallen to its knees in penitence
And stood gazing devoutly toward heaven.
The bright sun had already climbed high
Into the blue sky when Ivan led
His fine company into the palace
And sat down to dine at a well-laden table.
The meal moved swiftly along, course after course,
And now the worthy host felt moved
To honour the old custom
And propose a toast to his guests.
He reached for the great golden cup
And rose… all fell silent… "Croatians!"
He began… "Brothers!"… but without warning
His aged face began to pale:
He froze: from the castle's main tower
The bell rang out loudly, calling the assault;
A terrible dread seized the nobles,
All leapt to their feet, every eye fixed darkly on the prince.
"Mongols?" he asked — the bell struck louder —
All seized arrows, spears, shields and swords,
Donned armour and helmets,
Then rushed furiously toward the castle walls;
They looked out: "The Dog-heads — God help us!"
A desperate cry burst from three hundred lips.
A roar rises,
A mighty din,
A shrill piping,
A loud shrieking;
The drawbridge lifts,
Closer now come
The vile, unholy
Unbaptised hordes —
And to the very walls
Of the castle they surge
On their swift
Arrow-swift horses.
Trumpets blare, drums thunder,
And the kerenai sounds its dreadful note…
"Surin! Surin!" the dog-horde bays
And scales the walls.
"Loose your poisoned arrows!"
Came the fierce roar
Of their commander Šejban,
The terrible brother of Batu Khan.
Arrows hiss,
Many a face
Is struck
By the poisoned shaft;
From Okić Castle
Boulders fall,
Boiling water
Scalds the brows
Of the assailants,
Those hellish wretches;
Any who press
To the ramparts
Lose their
Dog-heads.
"That madman is destroying the stronghold!"
Šejban roared like a lynx,
And all the bloodthirsty hyenas
Hurled themselves at Okić's walls;
Arrow and sword,
Wailing and weeping
Now swiftly interchange...
Upon the rampart, see, even at Ivan's throat
A poisoned arrow is aimed
By one of the Mongol beasts:
But at that moment Dražen appeared
And stayed the villain's hand,
The Mongol's bow with its arrow had already slipped from his grasp,
Dražen's sword flashed and drew close to the helmet
That gleamed on the head of his father's would-be killer
And now fell from it...
Dražen lets his sword drop... turns pale... what has happened?
From the Mongol's head, down over the armour, there flows
Long hair, black as a raven's wing,
And from dark eyes a living flame leaps forth.
"Are you a woman?" Dražen cried,
"Yes, I am a hated Mongol girl!"
The mysterious Amazon cried out.
"I will save you!" "I will not — kill me!"
"You must come with me!" the young man breathed to her
And snatched the girl from the bloody battle,
Locked her in the castle tower...
And went back to fight on.
As though mountain crashed upon mountain,
Both sides clashed in furious onslaught:
Enraged as a lion
The Slav cuts off heads;
Vanča shatters slender spears
As if thunderbolts were striking;
"Charge!" Ivan commands,
Letting none escape alive,
Taking prisoner only that one loathsome Mongol
Whom he spotted without arrow and without drawn sword!
Like lightning the Christian swords flash,
Like beasts the heathen fiends shriek...
Already many Croats had fallen
From the deadly poisoned arrows,
But the heavens had willed
That glorious victory be given to the honoured cross:
Like a tiger, the Croat set about strangling the foe.
Five hundred Mongols fell at Okić,
Dražen and his knights drove them into the abyss,
The grey crag echoed with the roar of the tumult,
"Follow me!" Šejban bellowed,
His fierce gaze burning:
"There is no victory here,
Here a grave awaits us!
Let us abandon this stone fortress,
Let us flee to the Khan, to the city of Zagreb now!"
See how from Okić's rocky height
The accursed Mongol flees to the plain:
He longs now to leap onto his horse —
But suddenly a host of common folk
Gathered in force at Drežnik
And began to cut him down without mercy:
Heroically, see, the Žitkovići,
The towering Holetići
And the Fabeki with the Vernići
Hack off the heads of the Mongols!
The peasants slaughtered all the vermin...
Even the commander Šejban breathes no more:
Fabijan from Kalinovica
Drove him to his hellish dwelling!
Across the valley joyful shouts ring out:
"We have won!" — hot tears of great joy flow
From those poor serfs,
And the winds carry their cry up to Okić,
Where Ivan embraces his knights
And shouts: "Brothers! This was a glorious day!
Oh, glory to God in the heavenly court,
Oh, glory to you, castle amid these mountains,
And to your faithful consort: this cliff-face!
You have withstood magnificently the storm
That sought in its fury to destroy us;
Oh, glory to you, knights, and our thanks
For your unheard-of valour and zeal —
May your glory endure for ever in the memory of our people!"
Now Ivan commanded the castellan:
"Bring the prisoners before me!"
For a moment the captives entered: oh, what horror!
To see those bulging, staring eyes
And that blunt nose, that foul, sallow face:
You, poor wretch, would have recoiled in revulsion
And, catching sight of that reeking black garment still,
Your eye would have been caught by the crimson
That shone upon Dražen's slave girl...
"That beast drew her arrow at me!"
Prince Ivan cried, beholding her face,
"Can it be that among you the fairest,
The most alluring of women
Are also the most cruel?"
The prince, all astonishment, began to question the captives.
"Ask no questions!" a cross-eyed Mongol
Snapped back, inflamed: "Kill us!"
"Yes, kill us!" the captives shrieked with one voice
And crowded around the Mongol maiden.
"No, you shall be imprisoned here!" Prince Ivan flared,
"When we drive all your dog-headed brethren
Back to your savage, distant lands,
As avenger of our most holy faith,
Then shall I pass judgement upon you, my captives —
A terrible judgement for your terrible deeds!
Until that day, Okić shall be your charge,
You, my Dražen — guard it faithfully for me!
Keep watch over the captives! And this Mongol woman —
Cast her into the darkest dungeon!
"I, knights, shall ride with you!" Ivan cried,
"After the king, from the coastal lands to the crags:
There let our unity crush the Mongols,
There shall you fall too, dread Batu Khan!"
Behind Plešivica the sun's rays
Were already fading when Prince Ivan shone forth
And gave his brave right hand in farewell,
Mounted swift horses with his boyars
And hastened with them towards the blue sea.
"Take this rabble down into the underground darkness!"
Dražen now commanded the castellan,
And to the Mongol girl, tenderly: "Farewell!" he whispered.
The Asian girl turned her eyes toward the sun,
And before it hid behind the dark mountain
And the last ray fell upon her knees
The young woman began to bow in worship:
See how the breeze tangles her hair,
See how wondrously her breast swells
And her eyes flash — she is all living flame.
Oh, how could Dražen not marvel at her!
The young man trembles, caught in her enchantment,
And gazes at the girl, spellbound,
A secret tenderness opens his heart wide
And a strange feeling stirs within him:
Is this feeling love? Forgive me, God,
That my mind can even entertain such a thought —
For he would die for the honoured cross,
And she is ready to destroy that very cross!
Evening had already spread its wings over the fortress
And wrapped the whole surrounding country in them;
From the old mountain a gentle breeze came drifting
And with its embrace lulled the flowers to sleep,
It murmured softly among the lime-tree boughs
And wandered on through grove and valley;
A crimson glow spilled magically across the sky
And smiled tenderly upon the evening star,
Which had just sent its golden ray into the world
As harbinger of the moon's own light;
A bell rang out from far away
In greeting to Our Lady, mother of God's son,
And that peal, so full of grace, spread wide
To the dreaming heights of Plešivica:
The mountain, at that sweet ringing, began
To lift the branches of its trees towards heaven —
It too, one fancied, had fallen to prayer,
And with the bell it too sang the glory of God.
At the sound of the bell Dražen crossed himself
And offered up a prayer to the Blessed Virgin,
Then said to the Mongol girl: "Do you bow too
Before God's sun, lovely pagan?"
"In my homeland on the Caucasian peaks
I have ever reverently worshipped that divinity!"
"And your name?" "Sinda!" the young woman flashed,
"Oh, how beautiful you are!" Dražen whispered
And took her gently by the hand...
The moon raised its face in the sky,
The nightingale's song spilled across the mountain,
And into the fortress Leljo softly crept.
