Avdo the Yugoslavian Bard

Avdo Međedović (or Avdo Medjedović) (1875 - 1953) was a guslar (singer or oral poet). He was the most versatile and skillful performer of all those encountered by Milman Parry and Albert Lord during their research on the oral epic tradition of Bosnia (then part of Yugoslavia) in the 1930s. At Parry's request Avdo undertook to produce an epic of similar extent to the Iliad (15,690 lines), since Parry needed to investigate whether a poet in an oral tradition would be able to maintain a theme over such length. Avdo dictated, over three days and many cups of coffee, a version of the well-known theme The Wedding of Smailagić Meho that was 12,323 lines long. On another occasion he sang over several days an epic of 13,331 lines. He claimed to have several others of similar length in his repertoire.

Many years afterwards the Wedding was published by Lord with a parallel English translation.

- From wikipedia.org

This man was illiterate. I believe he was also a buture. ;)

I learned about him in my world literature (with Jerome Coffey) yesterday when we were talking about what the first works of literature in any given culture is. In English - it's Beowulf... in German - it's the Nibelungelied (the adventures of Siegfried)... in French - it's The Serments of Strasbourg (poems on religious and teaching vocation)... and so on. We see that the connection between these old novels is clear... they all came from the oral tradition, transcribed so as not to be lost when the person who knew them died. People expire while books live on.

Many of the studies Lord and Parry in the Balkans can be found in the book "The Singer of Tales", which I may just have to go pick up. It compares these Balkan heroic epics to Homer and the techniques involved in singing, remembering, and creating these works. Please, anyone, let me know if you run by this book somewhere...otherwise I'll get back to you on my thoughts on the book (Avdo's picture is on the front it too).