Serbia Culture

Archaeological Inheritance

Until the time of the Slovene settlement, on several occasions the territory of present day Serbia represented the center of the civilized world. Often, it was the cradle of ideas and at times it had a significant influence on the cultural, economic and political history of Europe.

During IX-VIII millennium before our age the local population established a unique and long lasting culture in the Djerdap area. The period is named for the location of its peak, THE LEPENSKI VIR CULTURE. In this location two great cultural heritages were created: sacral architecture with monumental sculptures, which expressed a special vision of the world and the mastery of domestication of plants and animals, founding the new economy based on food production.

A millennium later, between 4500 and 3500 years before our age a large settlement of Danubean agriculturists developed the area of today's Belgrade at the sight of Vinca, a metropolis of one of the most glittering cultures of the European prehistory. The inhabitants of prehistoric Vinca and their fellow tribesman in Banat, Pomoravlje and

Kosovo and Metohija had established a very specific culture during the earlier stone age called VINCAN CULTURE which dominated all of middle and southeastern Europe. Vinca and some other Neolite settlements in the vicinity of Vrsac (Potporanj), Kragujevac (Grivac, Divostin), Kosovska Mitrovica (Valac) and Pristina (Predionica) became big religious centers and focal points for art and had a crucial influence on the painting culture of all Neolite settlements of middle and southeastern Europe. Hundreds of thousands of clay figures and ritual vases found in the mentioned settlements reveal not only the extraordinary imagination and artistic ability of their creators but also the development of myth and the rapid expansion of magic religious practices within the Vincan culture. This special sacral world lived in the Balkan peninsula up to the time of the spreading of Christianity. Part of it is most probably embedded in the foundation of ancient European mythology i.e. old Greek myths about Demetra, Dionis and the divine blacksmith, Hefest.

VATIN CULTURE, created after the fall of Vincan Culture, was founded 1600 years before our age and is characterized by stone and bone carvings and the formation and decoration of clay dishes. The specific decorative style expressed on the items of the Vatin culture is found on the items discovered in the Kings Circle of tombs in Mikena originating from the middle XVI century before our age.

The territory of present day Serbia was under the ROMAN EMPIRE for six centuries. During that time the towns of Sirmium, Singidunum, Viminacium, Nais, Ulpiana developed and bridges and roads were built as well as a few imperial palaces and summer houses.

By the end of the III and in the first decades of the IV century at the time of Dioklecian, Galerian, Licinis and the Great Constantine's reign the magnificent architectonic ensembles were built- Romuliana (Gamzigrad near Zajecar), Mediana (Brzi Brod near Nis) and Justiniana Prima (Cesarean City near Lebane).

Construction activity began in all larger cities and especially in Sirmium (Sremskoj Mitrovici) which at the time had a large forum , an imperial palace with a hippodrome, luxurious baths, many palaces, a theater and an amphitheater. Many frescoes and sculptures have been discovered in this area.

Handicraft was significantly developed during the reign of Constantine the Great. The imperial crafts of Nais (Nis) included silver dishes which were used as gifts for army commanders.

At the end of the VI and in the first decade of the VII century there was a fall in creativity. The increased pressure of the barbarians on the inhabitants of Panonian, Dakijan and Dardanian forced them to withdraw towards the southern part of the Balkan peninsula. The Danubian region was depopulated and during the second decade of the VII century, during the reign of the Czar Iraklije, all the territories of modern Serbia were conquered by the Avars and Slovenes.

Serbian Folk Art

Folk architecture is simple and designed according to the needs and made of handy materials. It is not only functional but the decoration expresses the artistic skills of its masters.

In western Serbia the characteristic house is wooden with a farmstead. It is predominantly built of wood and most often it consists of two rooms: the house and the room. On the house there is a four sided roof covered with straw and usually has a decorative chimney.

Moravka is a type of ground floor house consisting of two parts, with an obligatory porch. It is mostly present in the Moravia region of Serbia.

For the Panonic-Danubian regions the in-long or transversal house is characteristically made out of earth (firmly packed earth) or out of bricks in the street formation. These ground floor houses usually have more low rooms used for living and agricultural needs.

The city architecture south of Sava and Danube expressed shapes of the East Balkan construction heritage. The houses are floor houses with a number of sleeping rooms.

Houses in the whole region of Serbia are of the shape that with its form and decoration expresses esthetic needs and the defined style. On the house and inside the house the porch arches are shaped, chimneys and the window. There was coloring and painting of other parts of the house especially at the beginning of the 20th century. Special care was given to the decoration of the entrance gates and of fences.

THE CARPET (Kilim)

In Serbia there were a few carpet craft regions and centers with developed manufacture. They differ by the style , colorite, ornaments and the way of their expression, decoration compositions. The common characteristic is that they are all double faced. The ornaments are usually styled geometric figures. The colors are dark and predominantly dark blue, brown, dark red and the natural wool and cotton color.

PIROT was the most significant center which significantly influenced other carpet craft regions. In ornaments and decoration composition of the old Pirot carpet craft there is a lot of eastern influence. For some motifs it is said that they are the heritage of the old Balkan Kavkaz art master pieces arising from the mutual praethnic fundaments and liaisons of other kinds for centuries.

Many archaic elements are expressed on the carpet craft of Kosovo and Metohija. On Albanian cloth the old Mediterranean ornamentation is used while the coloring is black, dark gray and brown, violet and yellow colors.

The carpet craft of the Panonian region differs from other parts of Serbia by its older geometric and younger more figurative ornaments. The older ornaments shows the link of Danubean region with the Preislamic East, and some connect it with the ornaments of the Roman mosaics. From the middle of the 19th century the civilizations of different items appear often with vegetable plant, zomorphic and anthropomorphic motifs made under the influence of the baroque, ampir and bydermayer

EMBROIDERY AND THE FALK COSTUME

In folk embroidery, beside archaic heritage, especially in the mountain regions, much of the style was taken from the art of higher social layers and later eastern and middle European influence was incorporated.

In Vojvodina white and golden embroidery are predominant but there are multicolored embroideries with bright colors also. For the women vests in the Moravian cultural region stylization of the big flowers of peony predominantly of the red and sometimes of the black color are characteristic, while in the Dinaric regions there are more polychromes embroideries on the vests in which dark shades are predominant. In the regions where cattle breeding is the major economy the women's vests are decorated on the bosoms and on the skirts by multicolored wool embroideries. In Serbian Kosovo embroidery especially on the women's vests it is easy to see Byzantine and Serbian medieval items styled in folk forms. The decoration of the clothing was widely spread, especially of the upper vests by the silk, wool or cotton ribbons and stripes. The pattern of the clothing items is a constructive element and at the same time it has an art dimension as well. The ornaments, embroidery and different applications are on the prominent places: bosoms, sleeves, skirts, scarves and caps. Men's folk dresses in the past were very simple, made of more rough cloth. From the 19th century onward they are more and more decorated by stripes especially the waistcoats. The shoes get different leather stripe crossings and on the socks apart from the different patterns the multicolored embroideries are added.

THE JEWELRY

In the region of the Panonian cultural zone the jewelry is in many ways associated with decorating people in the large area from Middle Europe to Ukraine. It is characterized by number and policolor of the parts from white to bright red shades and the color of gold and silver which give the overall impression of riches. The girls and younger women usually wore necklaces of gold or silver money and fine shaped earrings and the younger men decorative silver buttons on the waistcoats. Until the beginning of the 20th century the "gold workshops " in which the jewelry for the village population was made, existed in a few places in Serbia: Pirot, Leskovac, Uzice.

THE ROADSIDE MONUMENTS

As an impressive type of folk artistic impression tombstones, often called the roadside monuments, were especially numerous in West and South-east Serbia and in the part towards the Moravian Zone.

In astern Serbia trimming and cutting of the various shapes of monuments, predominantly of sandstone with styled symbolic ornaments had developed. The monuments in northeast Serbia with their shape and geometric ornaments associate on the styled female figure or only torzo, dressed in a festive decorated dress. On the graveyards all over the west Serbia a number of monuments has been preserved with the figures of the dead cut in and with other art items . Many of the monuments are painted with earth unresistant colors. This painting associates on the painting of idols and other cult items. The oldest monuments cut in white marble by village cutters come from the beginning of the 15th-16th century. On them the human head is usually cut and very rarely in plastics. During the 18th and at the beginning of the 19th century the cutting skill transforms entirely into village folk art. At the time of the liberation from the Turks the fine art heritage in riches. The deep cut figures and others with the epitaphs belong to the folk origin regardless of the motifs and the basics of the stone cutting skill. The masters and the cutters prefer the human figure in its dignity even if it is cut in a less skilled way. The figures are always dressed in the festive style with marks of social status, profession and wealth. Many monuments do not have the figure of the dead but posses the attributes or ornaments and epitaphs as a specific kind of written folk literature. The masters were at the same time the cutters, sculptors and the painters, often poets wrote the epitaphs.