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Most Unique Holdays for Your Culture
Everytime people ask me to describe Serbian culture, one of their first question is on our holidays.
Most cultures base their holidays on religious figures or national figures or events (independence day, some big battle) etc. And Serbia ofc has all of those.
But we have one central type of holiday that I have NEVER heard anyone have. That is the concept of "slava". Basically every family has its own holiday, on their own individual day. Some families can several of these days. In some ways its like a "Birthday" but not for the individual but for the family. To this day, ethnographers and Serbians who trace their ancestry use their "slava" as vital piece of connecting potentially distinct or same family.
Besides Serbians, maybe only Macedonians (and Montenegrins if you count them as separate from Serbians) celebrate them. Both were under Serbian Orthodox Church and it can be said they follow a Serbian tradition. No other slavs I know, no other Orthodox Christians have this tradition.
If you read the Wikipedia page, you might get the impression that the "slava" is some kind of religious holiday. After all, most "slavas" are represented by some saints. Some families even invite a priest to bless their slava. However, this would be a wrong impression. The religious aspect is very superficial to the holiday, everything about a "slava" is geared to celebrating the families birth and existence. A son is not allowed to throw his "slava" provided his father is alive. You're expected to gather at oldest living paternal ancestor wherever he is. Often at slavas, stories are sung about the family success (often celebrating their warriors/soldiers) where the friends (from different families) gather to pay respect. Missing a slava of your friend is considered a high insult, and in my family its expected for you to even fly to make slava.
Money and gifts is exchanged as if its a wedding. It's very typical on one of our family slavas for us to collect every year in about 10,000 USD in gifts from various families (money, alcohol being most common gifts). Ofc you will spend this money on other people's slavas.
My family also has a unique form of debt system incorporated with slava. Basically any family can ask for a loan. However on each of their slavas they have to payback to the family they took loan from in the amount of something very small. Usually something like 1$. The catch here is they have to ALWAYS pay this 1$ for all of their slavas. And when they die? Their kids pay this amountI know cousins of mine paying this amount their great-great-great-great-grandfather asked for. Since every family has in their history asked, everyone is paying someone a debt, and this is why its considered a very big sin to miss slava in our family. The net effect is distinct families are bound to each other by oath and debt.
Share your most interesting holiday.
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Originally Posted by Guapo
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