What does it mean to be Serbian

Languages are a beautiful thing. Their first and foremost use is communication, however, it’s the other important features that make those subtle differences stand out. Something languages marvelously do is describe their users and their ways of life. 

The way we speak is the way we think. The way we think says a lot about us. What we say about the way we live, eat, drink, socialize, pray, and exist says everything about who we are. 

There are certain words in the Serbian language that perfectly reflects their mentality, and the general feeling of what it means to be truly Serbian. These are quintessential words and practices that tell a lot about their language, culture, eating and drinking habits, and most importantly, about the way they think. 

Brate

This is the most used interjection in Serbian language. 

The translation is simply brother. We add it in the end of sentences, in the middle, or anywhere we deem fit to stress the point we’re trying to make. Just like many types of short expletive swear words, you can use brate with any state of mind. 

Whatever you might be feeling, brate does the job. 

Brate, opet kasnis na posao. Bro, you’re late to work again. 

Kakva riba, brate! Bro, what a babe! 

Necu to, brate, da gledam! Promeni kanal. I’m not gonna watch that, bro, change the channel. 

Brate is welcomed to use when saying hello or goodbye. It is very informal – don’t try to incorporate it in your school report or business meeting. I guess the laidback-ness of this word shows well how utterly relaxed we are as a nation. 

The world is on fire. Have a beer, brate. 

The Serbian Salute

This is something you’ll often see in pictures with Serbian people, famous or otherwise. You can see Novak Djokovic pose with three of his fingers – thumb, index and middle finger – extended, with the other two bent on one or both hands. (Preferably, he is holding a trophy in one of his hands.)

It’s called the Serbian salute, a symbol of Serbian Orthodoxy, something we hold dear to our religious hearts. The thing is, the number of fingers play a huge role. Serbian people love everything that comes in threes – the holy trinity, using three fingers to sign the cross, three main meals a day. 

In the 19th century, the three fingers were considered the symbol of Serbdom. The trouble with it came much later, during the infamous 1990s and political rallies that tried to monopolize its use for nationalistic purposes. 

But just as Koreans make that adorable heart with their thumbs and index fingers, and as people generally raise two fingers to make a V for peace, Serbs do the similar hand gesture as a symbol of faith. 

Slava

Speaking of faith, you know how you celebrate Christmas, prepare a big, fancy dinner, invite some people over, eat, drink, laugh, perhaps dance a little? Yeah, Serbs do that couple of times a month. 

This beloved phenomenon is called slava. 

The Wikipedia says that slava is Serbian Orthodox Christian tradition in which a family’s patron saint is celebrated. But any Serb will tell you it’s just an excuse to prepare crapload of food and alcohol each year, and invite your family, friends, neighbors, a co-worker here and there, and feast in the name of a saint who died hundreds of years ago. 

It’s a tradition usually passed down from your father’s side, but if it just so happens that your father was raised in the bleak era of communism and had no slava to pass down on you, you are free to choose from the plethora of Christian Orthodox saints. 

There are more than 80 in Serbian Orthodox Christianity, which translates to 80 scrumptious days of eating and drinking. Most of the popular ones fall in the colder days of the year, early autumn to late winter. This way you can safely hide your plump, slavaesque figure under layers of clothes, blaming the lack of activity and sunshine for why you got fat. 

It has nothing to do with the fact that you celebrated a saint in three different households in one day. 

The day when you mark the name of your patron saint is generally referred to as ‘the red letter’ on the calendar. On such day you are not allowed to turn on your vacuum, washing machine, do any housework whatsoever, all in the fear of offending a saint. 

Kafana is the truth

Now, there are people who skip preparing food at home for slava, and instead turn to the Serbian institution, the highest level of education you obtain outside the premises of actual schools and universities. 

I’m talking, of course, about kafana.

Kafana is my destiny, one famous bohemian sings. When they play this song, the guests go wild. Everybody understands what he is singing about – the melody touches the inner circles of your soul that you didn’t even know existed – and no one dares to dispute.

Kafana is the Serbian pandan to taverns and pubs with local food served – you guess it, all sorts of barbecue. Before you commit to large amounts of alcohol, please eat, and eat well, so that ethanol doesn’t quickly break down the delicate linen of your stomach. 

Love at first sight happens here. Love quarrels, all kinds of endings and beginnings. People take their business associates to kafana to seal an important deal. They throw wedding receptions there, baptism receptions, funerals even. 

Nowadays, kafanas have leveled up. They try to resemble fashionable restaurants we see in American movies, but you’ll recognize the true one by the rustic exterior, even more rustic interior, the red-white checkered table cloths, and the most amazing smells that slip out of the kitchen and into every bit of your clothes, skin and hair. 

If Friday comes and you are not dressed up to the nines and you do not have a reservation in your favorite spot, can you really call yourself a Serb? 

Count Dracula’s beloved neighbor

Who hasn’t read Bram Stoker’s Dracula. Everybody knows the stories and origins and origin stories and all kinds of stories there are about vampires. 

But how many of you actually know the origin of the word? 

Vampir is the most popular Serbian word that has entered international dictionaries everywhere in the 18th century. After Austria gained control of northern Serbia and Lesser Wallachia (present-day Romania) in 1718, officials started sending reports of the local practice of exhuming bodies and performing rituals.

In various parts of the Slavic world, it was a widespread belief that if the body is not burned, its soul will remain forever trapped in this world, never finding peace. That is why they burned their dead at glorious stakes, sending them off to ‘eternal hunting grounds’. However, during war or epidemic outbreaks, it was often difficult to properly send the victim’s soul off, which allegedly led to stories of the unburned who rise at night and feast on the living. 

As you can already imagine, the only proper way to execute a vampire is by honoring him through the heart with nothing less than a premium hawthorn stake. 

So, there you have it. Serbian people did not only give the world rakija and the alternating current electricity, but also the name of a creature that will soon become the overused symbol of wickedness and blood-sucking in the history of cinematography everywhere. 

Promaja

I will end my story here by introducing the number one adversary, the enemy of the state and the good Serbian people.

Ladies and gentlemen, please lock your children, close all windows, because promaja is coming to get you. 

Promaja, or draft, is the natural flow of air through openings in an enclosed space. It occurs due to the difference in air pressure, and is usually described as a pleasant experience of cooling of the human body caused by air currents. 

Not so pleasant if you are born and raised in Serbia.

Grandparents warn you not to sit in the direct flow of air because you will ‘get caught by promaja’, and will most likely get a cold, runny nose, crook your neck, or saint forbid, all of the above. 

Sure, sometimes it does happen that your neck aches from cool air produced by air currents, but it is baffling to think that an entire nation of generally educated and intelligent people that gave us Nikola Tesla and Mihajlo Pupin, are so darn afraid of it. 

Aeration of the rooms we spend time or sleep in is essential, all medical experts agree. No one really wants to breathe stuffy air, especially when you come back from kafana and you stink of pljeskavica and cigarettes. But how dare you aerate it by opening the window, and then leaving the door open as well, so the air flows unobstructed through, creating the devil’s wicked promaja, while you are still in the room! 

I once had a bad case of stiffed back, as in couldn’t move or breathe and had to be taken to the emergency room. I am ashamed to say that it happened after I spent not even ten minutes looking through an open window. I felt the air flowing around me, cooling me on a hot August afternoon, and even though my mother screamed at me several times to move, I refused. Because as a young adolescent Serb that I was, I laughed it off and rolled my eyes – every time you roll eyes at your mother, an angel falls from grace – trying to become the living debunker of foolish Serbian superstition.

Instead, I was injected with some hardcore pain killers and muscle relaxers, while my mother stood by, rolling eyes at her traitorous Serbian child. 

True story.