Holidays

Holidays Serbia

Over 80 percent of the Serbian population are Christians and profess the Serbian Orthodox Church. Since the religion once played an important role in the struggle for independence against Ottoman domination and was identity-forming for Serbs, it has left its mark on holidays beyond Easter and Christmas.

One peculiarity is that some holidays are celebrated according to the older Julian calendar, others according to the younger Gregorian – New Year even twice. But not all holidays in Serbia are also work-free.

Overview

New Year’s Day (according to the Gregorian calendar) – on January 1 and 2

Christmas – on January 7

New Year’s Day (on the Julian calendar) – on January 13 and 14

Day of St. Sava – on January 27

National Day – on February 15

Karif Friday – in May

Orthodox Easter – in May (Easter Sunday and Easter Monday)

Labor Day – on May 1

Victory Day – on May 9

Day of Serbs Fallen for the Fatherland (“Vidovdan”) – on June 28

Worth knowing about selected holidays

St. Sava’s Day

St. Sava of Serbia lived around 1200 and was not only an Orthodox bishop and author of the first Serbian code, but also a founder of Serbian literature, which is why he is the patron saint of schools. The ceremony with which Sava crowned his brother Stefan king in 1221 according to Orthodox rite is considered the birth of the Serbian Orthodox Church.

In 1236 he died in Tarnovo (today: Bulgaria), and later his remains were transferred to Serbia as relics. In 1594, the Ottomans burned his bones as a punitive measure for the Serbian uprising the year before.

The square where this burning is said to have taken place is now home to the largest Orthodox church in the world: the Cathedral of St. Sava.

National Day

In 1459, the Ottomans had finally conquered Serbia – for almost four centuries, the territory remained part of the Ottoman Empire. February 15, which has been celebrated as a national holiday since 2001, was significant twice in history for the independence of the country: In 1804, the decision for the first Serbian uprising was made on this day, which temporarily led to a partial liberation. In 1835, the first Serbian constitution came into force.

Since 2007, Serbian Army Day has additionally been celebrated on February 15.

Vidovdan

June 28 is also singled out several times in Serbian history, just a few of which are mentioned here: in 1389 (on June 15 according to the Julian calendar), the famous Battle of Blackbird Field took place between Serbs and Ottomans. This battle, in which the army commander Knez Lazar Hrebeljanović also met his death, is a symbol of martyrdom in the service of Christianity.

In 1914, a Bosnian Serb shot and killed Franz Ferdinand, heir to the Austro-Hungarian throne, in Sarajevo on June 28 – an event that eventually triggered World War I, after which the so-called Vidovdan Constitution was adopted in the then Kingdom of Yugoslavia on June 28, 1921.

In 1989, on the 600th anniversary of the Battle of Blackbird Field, Slobodan Milošević used the history-making date for his infamous speech, understood in retrospect as announcing the disintegration of Yugoslavia and the bloody Balkan War.

Commemorated today primarily to honor the fallen, Vidovdan (German: Sankt Veits-Tag) is actually the day of remembrance for St. Vitus. However – so a thesis says – the Christian church would have converted thereby only the heathen celebrations for Svantovit. Svantovit, however – and this closes the circle – was the Old Slavic god of war.