“We are Serbian children! Shoot!”

The dramatic framework of the poem “A Bloody Fairytale” is the element that makes it an exceptional poem. In this case, the event is the not the usual death by accident, ill health or old age. This poem memorializes the deaths of seven thousands (7,000) of schoolchildren, who were selected, with incomprehensible malice, especially because they were children and their deaths would punctuate more fully the German call to end resistance. The only allusion to something of a military nature in the poem is the use of the word “cheta”. This word is usually used to describe a group of soldiers. With her line “a company of small ones”, referring to the children, Maksimovic makes a particularly ironic statement: the innocent children are being punished in a manner so brutal it is not fit for even the soldiers of the enemy. She compares the children's death to that of a martyr and she respectfully refrains from mentioning those responsible for their death, as it would ruin the forlorn and grief-stricken tone of the poem with anger. Rage will not bring the little martyrs back. All that remains is to immortalize them with an appropriate lamentation.

BLOODY FAIRY TALE by Desanka Maksimovic

It happened in a land of farmers on hilly Balkan
far, far away;
a troop of students
died martyred
on one single day.

They were all born
in the same year.
For all of them, the school days were the same:
They were all taken
to the same festivals with cheer,
they were all vaccinated
until the last name,
and they all died on the same day.

It happened in a land of farmers on hilly Balkan
far, far away;
a troop of students
died martyred
on one single day.

And only fifty-five minutes
prior the death moment,
a small troop of fidgets
sat beside their school desks
solving the same hard math quest:
“If a traveler goes by foot,
how much time he needs to rest...”
and so on.

Their thoughts were filled
with same figures and tags
and there was a countless amount
of senseless As and Fs
in their notebooks and in their bags.
They were squeezing
a whole bunch of secrets that mattered--
either patriotic or a love letter--
on the bottom of their pockets.
And everyone of them supposed
that he would for a long time,
for a very, very long time
run under the blue sky--
until all math quests on the world
were done and gone by.

It happened in a land of farmers on hilly Balkan
far, far away;
a troop of students
died martyred
on the same day.

Whole rows of boys
took each other’s hands
and leaving the last school class
went to the execution quietly,
as the death was nothing but a smile.
All friends in rows were,
at the same moment,
lifted up to the eternal domicile.

I divine daughter

Serbia

hereby freely state with shackles and through the wire before my witnesses Force, Suffering and Injustice that I am guilty and that I confess!I am guilty of being someone instead of no one or niemand I am guilty of going to the Orthodox church in times of general Serb-hunt and guilty of crossing myself not too often though thus, with three fingers!

I am guilty of existing instead of being unreal. I have a long standing guilt of standing upright

and looking up to the sky instead of down at the grass I am guilty of daring and challenging injustice I am guilty of celebrating again my family patron saint!

I am to blame for reading and writing in Cyrillic

I am guilty of singing, laughing and cursing (and sometimes barking) I am guilty, and I confess that I do not know why I do, and that I know why I don`t know I am guilty and to name

my greatest guilt (before I die laughing) I`m guilty - pig-headed as I am of being Orthodox

devoted to St. Sava and of not believing in the Holy crime and the absolution!

My sin and my guilt is that I exist and with all that I stand spitefully refusing to confess I am not real! Should I confess to save my life I will loose the sacred cross and the patron saint.

Should I refuse dire future awaits the entire world will raid my land Swarms of former men

Thieves and paupers Packs of robots and other monsters yet will pounce on my orchards and fields and my little white houses along the roads adorned by green goddesses

cherry, apple and plum trees (...)

My ugly image With monstrous features That you multiply morning and evening it`s the image of your conscience and subconscience That`s not me on the outside.That`s you - on the inside!

We are very important, I and my sisters Truth and Justice for such mighty forces have rallied against us and Wrong and Injustice are sneering at us.

Why are Jihad warriors Crusaders or Yanks to quarter my sons and daughters.I suppose that foreign hordes have heard that we have hearts of gold and they are ripping them out to replace their own hoping to become human. (...)

I fear not death - the black conclusion but slavery and endless sickness Death is a common thing among us Serbs Just like Spring Summer Fall Winter and it is not so fearsome especially in daylight no more than the drought earthquake frost if one meets with it on his farm his soul cleansed with incense his honor untarnished.

Fiends well-fed and deranged, you`ve banned all in my own home, but no one can stop me from singing and laughing as I am dying! For you no longer laugh or sing neither on weddings nor when a child is born!

Spare me the rope and the spear and crucify me on a mountain top as your forefathers did my forefather Jesus Christ of Nazareth.

I will look on and you close your eyes for they might shatter in the brightness of my face hurry now, crucify me this day and I shall be resurreccted sooner!