With the following paper the author responds to criticism concerning his argument about the origin of the legend of the Trojan War and about the role the wrath of Achilleus played in the development of Greek epic tradition. It is shown that the Serbian song of „Marko Kraljević and Mina of Kostur“ indeed represents the story-pattern of an insulted hero who reacts with anger and withdrawal from fighting and therewith forces his king to make amends. As there are similar stories (...) in the Indian and Iranian epic traditions, the story-pattern is probably of Indo-European origin and represents an oral tradition that precedes the „Iliad“. (shrink)

The article focuses on a passage from Carl Schmitt?s Ex Captivitate Salus - a book famously written in a Nurnberg prison in 1946 - in which he draws, from memory, on a story derived from Serbian epic poetry, to justify his understanding of historiography, victory, and the figure of the hero. Analyzing the entire Serbian epic poem from which Schmitt extracts the vignette in question, we show how the text of the poem presents a significantly more complicated and messy picture (...) of the figures of victor, victory, and hero, heroism. The anonymous Serbian poet, addressing himself to his contemporary audience, with which he is intimately familiar, really subverts simplistic expectations regarding the heroism and victory of the Serbian hero, Marko Kraljevic. Finally, the article contrasts these complex and at times paradoxical figures of victory and the hero in the poem with their presentation in Carl Schmitt?s writing. (shrink)