Reddit mentions of The Serbs

Hi Diego, welcome to the global Serbian family! My Serbian parents emigrated to Canada from the former Yugoslavia back in the 1960’s and I was born and raised in Canada. Like most Serbian immigrants, my parents were closely involved in the local Serbian community here in Toronto, so I grew up learning a lot about the culture of my ethnic roots through dancing in our local Serbian folklore group and singing for a number of years in the choir at our Serbian Orthodox Church where I was baptized (St. Michael The Archangel Serbian Orthodox Church on Delaware Avenue in Toronto).

While every culture and ethnic group in the world has its pluses and minuses, on the whole Serbian culture has a lot of pluses and I am grateful to be a part of the worldwide Serbian family (while also very grateful to be a Canadian). Serbian culture has a strong and culturally rich identity. For most people with Serbian roots, whenever they go somewhere in the world that has a Serbian community, they will usually feel themselves to be in a familiar and welcoming place.

The heart of Serbian culture is the Serbian Orthodox Church, a religious institution that has greatly influenced the Serbian people (the majority of Serbs are Orthodox Christians). In the historical tradition of the Eastern Orthodox Christian Church, in contrast to the Roman Catholic Church, nations with an extensive Orthodox Christian populace are often given ecclesiastical permission from the “head” Orthodox Church, the Ecumenical Patriarchate of Constantinople, to form their own autonomous national Orthodox Church, a right which was granted to the Serbian Orthodox Church in 1219. Serbian Orthodox Churches are beautifully decorated (take a look at some photos on Google), and the services are reflective of ancient Christian liturgical traditions accompanied by wonderfully spiritual choral music. The Serbian Church is the source of traditional Serbian celebrations of Christmas and Easter, and the most distinctive Serbian cultural tradition, the “Slava” or Family Patron Saint’s Day.

The historical story behind the Slava is that more than a thousand years ago, when the Orthodox Church was first establishing itself among Serbs, the Serbs at that time were pagans with a number of gods associated with different aspects of their lives. When the Orthodox missionaries taught them about monotheism, the pagan Serbs had difficulty with the concept of one God taking care of everything and everyone. To help convert the Serbs, the missionaries suggested that each family pick a saint from the many saints recognized by the Church, and then that saint would be the family’s special protector, and the family would celebrate that saint on the saint’s annual feast day. The family saint was passed down from father to son, and for every Serbian Orthodox family, the annual celebration of their Patron Saint’s Day is one of the most important days of the year for them. They prepare a special bread (kolac) and boiled wheat (zito), and take these to Church to have them blessed by a priest. Then later that day they put on a feast and invite their family and closest friends to celebrate with them. During lean times, Serbian families would save up all year so they could put on a good feast for their Slava guests. There is a folk tradition in Serbia that even if your worst enemy appears at your doorstep on the day of your Slava, you must invite them into your home and treat them as an honoured guest (this is a reflection of the Christian teaching that Christ is in everyone).

Like many Serbs, I love our traditional way of celebrating Christmas (on January 7th, because our Church follows the “Old” Julian Calendar). One of the many wonderful Serbian Christmas traditions is the “polozajnik”, which means the one who lights the fire. In the old pre-industrial days, homes, particularly rural homes, were heated in the winter by a wood fire. On winter mornings, the fire would usually die down to a few glowing embers, and these embers would be used to start a new fire for the day. On Christmas morning a young relative would come to a family’s home very early…this youngster has to be the first one to enter the house that morning!..and knock on the door. The entire household would then greet the youngster at the door, who represents the newborn Jesus, and ask the youngster what they have brought, to which the youngster, while tossing into the house uncooked wheat kernels in blessing, would reply that they have brought glad tidings and much love and much good fortune! The youngster would then be invited in and given a branch from the Christmas oak tree that was blessed the day before. The youngster would then make the Orthodox sign of the cross and use the branch to stir the glowing embers to light a new fire, all while telling the family that the sparks rising from the stirred embers are joy and love and many blessings. The honoured fire-starter would then be treated to a tasty breakfast feast and be given a Christmas gift.

Traditional folk music and dancing are colourful elements of Serbian culture. Serbian folk music is melodic and lively and prominently features the accordion, but woodwinds and stringed instruments are also widely used. A beautiful genre of traditional Serbian music is a european-bohemian style called “Starogradsko” (“Old City”) that was popular in Belgrade cafés of a century ago, like the song “Nema Starog Beograda”. Other Serbian folk songs are more robust like the classic “Jeremija”, famously sung by Goran Bregovic’s internationally known Balkan folk band, the Wedding and Funeral Orchestra. More generally, traditional Serbian folk music is called “Narodno”, and was often written for dancing in a Serbian circle dance called a “kolo”. Here’s a link to a good overview video on kolo dancing.

Serbian culture strongly emphasizes the importance of dignity and honour. While some individual Serbs don’t always live up to this, Serbian culture is filled with proverbs and traditions that speak to these qualities. One of my father’s favourite traditional Serbian sayings is, “an ox is tied by its horns, but a person is tied by their word”. Whenever I visit my family in Serbia, my uncle Toma will at least once during my stay point to his cheek and nod solemnly. The cheek (obraz) is a Serbian metaphor for honour. After pointing to his cheek, uncle Toma will add, “once this gets dirty, you can never wash it clean” (always keep your honour).

The food in Serbia is very good (although we’ll never be Italy or China). There are a wide variety of tasty meat dishes and the desserts are excellent. Vegans who visit Serbia are in for a treat because the Serbian Orthodox Church requires its members to eat a mostly vegan diet during the several official Church fasting periods throughout the year, so Serbia has developed a rich menu of traditional plant-based dishes. Local Serbian alcohol beverages are also good. Serbia has excellent wines and is especially known for well-crafted dry fruit brandies, usually made from plums (sljivovica), but from other fruits as well, like pears and apricots (Serbian apricot brandy is absolutely delicious). While many of these fruit brandies are made by professional distilleries, home-made brandies from farms are often superbly crafted, and some of the best are featured in local restaurants which proudly identify them on menus as “domace” (home-made).

To learn more about Serbia, you can start with Wikipedia’s main entry on Serbia. Also, here’s a link to a good english-language Youtube video on various Serbian cultural traditions. In terms of general english-language books on Serbia, I’ll note a couple of recommendations here, but perhaps some of the other readers of this subreddit can add more suggestions. A pretty good basic overview of Serbian history is John Cox’s “The History Of Serbia” . For something a little more complex and political, take a look at “The Serbs” by the late Serbian historian Sima Cirkovic. If you want to learn more about Serbian wedding traditions, a few years ago I posted “A Brief Guide To Serbian Weddings” . Another good book is the travel classic “Black Lamb And Grey Falcon” by Rebecca West, a book which isn’t only about Serbs but gives her view of the Balkans during her travels there. Diego, if you ever decide to travel to Serbia, I’m sure you will enjoy it and the locals will be more than happy to help you get in touch with the Serbian side of your roots!

I see, I was just basically searching for Serbian history which would always take me to books 1900 onwards.

And once again I didn't think about it like the way you said.
> Vinca culture is not exclusively related to Serbian history as Serbia
> didn't exist then.

EDIT: Oh lawdy, I think I just found the perfect book!