East of the Southern Morava, in villages and towns on the Stara Planina mountain range, is the land known as the Šopluk. From the southern Vlasina district to the Zaglavak and Budžak districts in the north, we find preserved some of the oldest aspects of folk culture, especially in costume. Continue reading
Throughout their history, Slavic men’s costumes invariably have included some sort of vest or sleeveless upper garment. It is known among Eastern, Western and Southern Slavs, and the Serbs (belonging to the Southern Slavic branch) are certainly no exception. The vest, or jelek, has changed over the centuries, influenced by the cultures that shaped our history.
An eternal question, one that pops up very frequently in Serbian folk songs… Sorry, Madonna – before you, it was the Serbs who asked, “Who’s that girl?”
Five hundred years of Turkish presence in the Balkans left many indelible marks, tangible and spiritual, on our people. In material culture, there have been many garments that were influenced by, or borrowed from, Ottoman Turkish culture. Continue reading
North of the Sava and Danube rivers, there is a vast plain sandwiched between branches of the Carpathian and Alpine mountain ranges. In prehistory, it was a great inland sea; today, it is an area of fertile land, peppered history and vibrant folkloric heritage. This is the Pannonian Zone.
Continue reading
Homolje is a mountainous region of northeastern Serbia. It is a beautiful, rugged countryside centred around the Braničevo and Bor districts, with the Peka and Mlava rivers cutting through them. It borders the Stig district toward the Danube, and Timok region to the east; Beljanica and Crni Vrh mountains are to the south. It is a district inhabited by Serbs and Vlachs, with lively folklore and beautiful costumes.
Continue reading
I’ve been fortunate to have acquired a lot of interesting costume pieces over the years, some as purchases but many as gifts. Not all of them have been big items, or rare ones. Socks are an overlooked piece of folk dress and I’d like to share some of the beautiful Eastern Serbian examples I have.
There is perhaps no costume element more elegant than the libade, a woman’s garment that became part of the urban costume. Its adoption into Serbian textile culture and spread throughout Serbian lands has some interesting historic roots. Continue reading
Serbian folk costume abounds with many types of embroidery and ornamentation, some with ancient Slavic roots, others influenced by Central Europe, and very many of Levantine or Ottoman origin. In fact much of the terminology for costume parts is a Serbianized Turkish word, or Turkism (turcizam). These include some garments that have changed little in form from the original, such as mintan, dolama, džube, misiraba; others, adapted to slavic sensibilities of design, ornamentation and structure, as happened with jelek, anterija, silav, marama, čarape.
These garments were made by skilled craftsmen, called terzije Continue reading
Свилен конац Silken Thread 