Dublje is a village in Serbia

Serbia

Serbia , officially the Republic of Serbia , is a landlocked country located at the crossroads of Central and Southeast Europe, covering the southern part of the Carpathian basin and the central part of the Balkans...

. It is located in the Svilajnac

Svilajnac

Svilajnac is a town and municipality located in central Serbia at 44.13° North, 21.12° East, south-east of Belgrade, on the banks of the river Resava, and bordering the river Morava. Its name stems from the word for silk in Serbian. It is the de facto administrative center of the Resava region...

 municipality, in the Pomoravlje District

Pomoravlje District

The Pomoravlje District expands in the central part of Serbia. It has a population of 212,839...

. According to 2002 census, its population numbers 1,050 people.

Geography

Dublje is located 3 kilometers from the center of Svilajnac

Svilajnac

Svilajnac is a town and municipality located in central Serbia at 44.13° North, 21.12° East, south-east of Belgrade, on the banks of the river Resava, and bordering the river Morava. Its name stems from the word for silk in Serbian. It is the de facto administrative center of the Resava region...

, in the Central Serbia

Central Serbia

Central Serbia , also referred to as Serbia proper , was the region of Serbia from 1945 to 2009. It included central parts of Serbia outside of the autonomous provinces of Kosovo and Vojvodina. The region of Central Serbia was not an administrative division of Serbia as such; it was under the...

 region. The village is situated on a high plain beneath the hill Hum.

Culture

Dublje (/du:blye/) is well known in the region for having its own unique language which is still spoken in some households today. The Dubljanski language is a mixture of Bulgarian and Serbian language with plenty of Turkish

Turkish language

Turkish is a language spoken as a native language by over 83 million people worldwide, making it the most commonly spoken of the Turkic languages. Its speakers are located predominantly in Turkey and Northern Cyprus with smaller groups in Iraq, Greece, Bulgaria, the Republic of Macedonia, Kosovo,...

 words. Dublje is about two hundred years old, and the settlers came running away from the Turkish people who decapitated many of the former who primarily lived as villagers in Veliki Izvor near today's Zaječar

Zajecar

Zaječar is a city and municipality in the eastern part of Serbia. According to the 2011 census the town has a population of 36,830, and its coordinates are 43.91° North, 22.30° East...

 and a few kilometers away from Bulgarian

Bulgaria

Bulgaria , officially the Republic of Bulgaria , is a parliamentary democracy within a unitary constitutional republic in Southeast Europe. The country borders Romania to the north, Serbia and Macedonia to the west, Greece and Turkey to the south, as well as the Black Sea to the east...

 border. So, with their village burned to the ground for the fourth time, the survived villagers became frightened and decided to flee to the west, deeper ( Serbian: dublje )and deeper into the woods (which is how Dublje got its name) and founded a settlement on a high plain near the river Resava and today's Svilajnac

Svilajnac

Svilajnac is a town and municipality located in central Serbia at 44.13° North, 21.12° East, south-east of Belgrade, on the banks of the river Resava, and bordering the river Morava. Its name stems from the word for silk in Serbian. It is the de facto administrative center of the Resava region...

. The settlers i.e. the people who came from Veliki Izvor

Veliki Izvor

Veliki Izvor is a village in the municipality of Zaječar, Serbia. According to the 2002 census, the village has a population of 2684 people.-References:...

 entirely preserved their language, customs, family names and even personal names in spite of the new environment and people who surrounded them. The families which kept the same names also kept same slava

Slava

The Slava , also called Krsna Slava and Krsno ime , is the Serbian Orthodox tradition of the ritual celebration and veneration of a family's own patron saint. The family celebrates the Slava annually on the patron saint's feast day...

 and even zavetina (slava

Slava

The Slava , also called Krsna Slava and Krsno ime , is the Serbian Orthodox tradition of the ritual celebration and veneration of a family's own patron saint. The family celebrates the Slava annually on the patron saint's feast day...

 of the village) remained same in both villages. This instinct for self-preservation went so far that they preserved something better than their ancestors in the primary village. Apart from the language they preserved various rites and other customs and cultural 'products' (songs, legends etc.). Today, some customs, such as 'Lazarice', still last whereas the same custom in Veliki Izvor

Veliki Izvor

Veliki Izvor is a village in the municipality of Zaječar, Serbia. According to the 2002 census, the village has a population of 2684 people.-References:...

 disappeared even 50 years ago. In Dublje the repeated Lazarice

Lazarice

Lazarice is a Serbian tradition of procession during the Serbian Orthodox feast of Lazareva Subota the parade consists of six maids....

 are completely normal for the young girls, who are dressed in their nicest dresses for that occasion, that is on Lazarus Saturday

Lazarus Saturday

Lazarus Saturday, in the Orthodox Church and those Eastern Catholic Churches which follow the Byzantine Rite, is the day before Palm Sunday, and is liturgically linked to it...

 (which is one week before Easter

Easter

Easter is the central feast in the Christian liturgical year. According to the Canonical gospels, Jesus rose from the dead on the third day after his crucifixion. His resurrection is celebrated on Easter Day or Easter Sunday...

) when they carry a basket and go from house to house collecting eggs and sweets for the approaching Easter; formerly they were dressed in national clothing garment (known as Lazarice

Lazarice

Lazarice is a Serbian tradition of procession during the Serbian Orthodox feast of Lazareva Subota the parade consists of six maids....

) but as the time passed they felt more comfortable with ordinary clothes because Lazarice

Lazarice

Lazarice is a Serbian tradition of procession during the Serbian Orthodox feast of Lazareva Subota the parade consists of six maids....

 has a lot of garments with golden coins sown into material and particularly includes heavy wreath for the head with lots of decorated flowers on it. National clothing also includes other various garments which only the Dubljani (people of Dublje) and the Velikoizvorci (people of Veliki Izvor) wear, like:'zabratka' (women's cap), 'takanici' (men's and women's girdle), 'na prestilki' (women's summer clothing; prestilka means apron), 'na vlnenik' (women's clothing of the recent date), 'fusta' (women's summer clothing), eleče' (traditional vest), etc. These clothing are also included when performing line dancing by which the Dubljani are very famous and have several dances on their own; back in the recent past these line dances were extremely popular and were main means of entertainment and making friendships. There are also many folk songs which testify how people lived back in the past. As for the Velikoizvorci (who are the Dubljani’s ancestors), there is one folk song ('Djurdjevdan') recorded about how they used to sacrifice people. Namely, this song tells us how a host, who had no lamb to sacrifice, decided to sacrifice his own first born son (but fortunately, a lamb appeared in the last moment and the child was saved). Then, there are various customs and ceremonies performed on weddings, deaths and mainly christenings.
In the village, elderly people speak Dubljanski while the young speak Serbian, though they mainly know and understand Dubljanski. Today, it is unthinkable for some parents to teach their children Dubljanski for they are ashamed of it, hence they do not speak Dubljanski at all or at least not in front of their children. Gradually, the times changed and the language and many customs started dying out, so eventually the Dubljanski will become a legend.

Features

In the center the village there are few shops, a cafe, a school, and a new church which is currently under construction. The village is usually a quiet place during the day, when kids are at school and parents are busy farming or at work. But when evening comes the center comes to life when the young and elderly come out in the center to relax and socialize. The younger inhabitants of the village spend their time watching football games or playing pool table at the local cafe, while the older generations play dominoes or chess.

See also

• List of places in Serbia