Countries Archives: Serbia

The Balkans — Vasilica

Vasilica is an “old new year” holiday, a tradition continued primarily by Orthodox Christians in Serbia and Macedonia, as well as by Muslim Roma. The holiday falls on the 14th of January, which is the date to which the new year on the old JULIAN CALENDAR corresponds on the now globally accepted GREGORIAN CALENDAR. The three day holiday actually kicks off the evening of January 13 with a PHARI RAT, a “heavy night” feast, and consists of days full of family visits, and, most prominently in the Macedonian village of Vevchani, a raucous masquerade parade.

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Serbia

Serbia is the epicenter of the incredible music known as Balkan Brass. Balkan Brass bands find their origin in the trumpet music the Serbian military used to rouse soldiers. When a war would ended, trumpet-playing military men would bring their music into public and family events such as weddings and baptisms and church festivals. Today brass band leaders like Goran Bregovic and Boban Marcovic are rightly revered as national treasures. If you like Balkan Brass music, make sure not to miss the annual GuÄa trumpet festival, though book your hotel early–the festival attracts 300,000 visitors. Serbia also is home to an original bellydance genre called Chochek, and the controversial “turbo folk,” which emerged as a neo-folk style during the Yugoslav wars and has become increasingly more pop-oriented and risque.

Kisa Pada

COUNTRY: Serbia/Croatia…Bosnia?

LANGUAGE: Serbian? Croatian? (depends on the version)

“Kisa Pada” is a Croatian lullaby . . . or is it Serbian? No, it’s Croatian . . . or is it a Bosnian sevdah?

“Kisa Pada” is one of the many songs that shows us how mixed and mingled people have always been in the Balkans. Languages in the region have always flowed into one another, religous affliliations and ethnic identities cross shifting international boundaries. The wars that engulfed the former Yugoslavia in the ‘90s were especially painful because fighting happened between people who had been neighbors for hundreds of years.

Everyone claims “Kisa Pada.” In music class we’re take a stand. Who owns “Kisa Pada?” We all do.

Lyrics of All Around This World version:

Kiša pada, trava raste, gora zeleni (3x)
With this rain the grass is growing, the forest is turning green (2x)
In the forest, a tree is growing, slender and so tall. (2x)
Beneath the tree my sister’s sitting, I love her, she loves me (2x)
Kiša pada, trava raste, gora zeleni (3x)

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Countries Archives: Serbia