Steven Wagner - Stevan Vagner, Podrum COLLEGIUM MELODIUM, World music museum in BELGRADE and Fabulous Tradicional folk group * SVITANJE *, present Serbian traditional music. Back through the centuries, the Serbian people have sung in all circumstances, especially while doing farm work. Songs were created from peoples' souls, traveling from throat to throat, heart to heart. They were changing slowly and passing through many hands. These songs retain their impeccable, noble, simple form full of the concentrated emotional soul of a nation. This type of folk song occurs in all parts of the world, but a special atmosphere and a unique history reaped folk songs from the fields of the Balkans. Primarily related to the country of Bosnia and Herzegovina, Montenegro, Serbia, Republic of Macedonia and Bulgaria. The Slovenian spirit is felt in many parts of the songs. Due to the inaccessibility and remoteness of the villages where people lived and worked, some simple folk songs are preserved intact to this day.
Ethnomusicologists believe that some of the songs date back to times long before the Christianization of the Serbs and other South Slavs. Songs are often sung during pagan rituals and customs. Some of the forms of these rituals hold to these days. The Poetics of the South Slavic soul are most clearly visible in traditional songs. Common themes include slavery, heroism, forbidden love, crying mothers or sisters for sons, brothers or sweethearts who were enslaved or killed in battle. Other ritual songs sing about planting and harvest, about playing and about singing
