Lužnica (region)
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Lužnica ( sr-Cyrl, Лужница) is a region in southeastern
Serbia , image_flag = Flag of Serbia.svg , national_motto = , image_coat = Coat of arms of Serbia.svg , national_anthem = () , image_map = , map_caption = Location of Serbia (gree ...
, comprising the Lužnica river basin. It includes parts of the
Babušnica Babušnica () is a town and municipality situated in the Pirot District of southeastern Serbia. As of the 2022 census, the town's population is 4,254, and the municipality's population is 9,109. Geography The municipality borders Gadžin Han muni ...
Municipality and two villages in
Bela Palanka Bela Palanka (Serbian Cyrillic: Бела Паланка, ) is a town and municipality located in the Pirot District of southeastern Serbia. According to the 2022 census, the population of the town is 7,140, and the population of the municipality i ...
(
Pirot District The Pirot District (, ) is one of administrative districts of Serbia , image_flag = Flag of Serbia.svg , national_motto = , image_coat = Coat of arms of Serbia.svg , national_anthem = () , imag ...
). __NOTOC__


Geography

The region occupies the hollow of the Lužnica River, a tributary to the
Vlasina Vlasina is a mountainous region of southeastern Serbia. It is a border area to Bulgaria, a region of the Rhodopian Serbia, with old rocks and mountains. Its most prominent landforms are eponymous Vlasina River and Vlasina Lake. It corresponds t ...
, and the surrounding areas. The relief is mountainous, with dissecting valleys of a larger number of smaller streams. The process of erosion is developed at several places. The basin has an altitude 470–520 m. The area is surrounded by the Suva Mountain to the west,
Ruy Mountain Ruy () or Ruj ( sr-Cyrl, Руј), is a mountain range in the Kraishte region on the border of western Bulgaria and southeastern Serbia. Its eponymous highest summit rises 1,706 meters above sea level. The mountain range is located west of T ...
to the south, and Vlaška Mountain to the northeast. The average air temperature is .


Settlements

Although the region is not administratively marked, it is divided into two parts, Upper Lužnica (''Gornja Lužnica'') and Lower Lužnica (''Donja Lužnica''). Villages located in the region include
Babušnica Babušnica () is a town and municipality situated in the Pirot District of southeastern Serbia. As of the 2022 census, the town's population is 4,254, and the municipality's population is 9,109. Geography The municipality borders Gadžin Han muni ...
, Bogdanovac, Bratiševac, Brestov Dol, Vojnici, Gornje Krnjino, Gornji Striževac, Gorčinci, Grnčar, Dol,
Donje Krnjino Donje Krnjino ( sr-cyrl, Доње Крњино) is a village in the municipality of Babušnica, Serbia , image_flag = Flag of Serbia.svg , national_motto = , image_coat = Coat of arms of Serbia.svg , nati ...
, Donji Striževac, Dučevac, Draginac, Izvor, Kaluđerevo,
Kambelevci Kambelevci ( sr-cyrl, Камбелевци) is a village in the municipality of Babušnica, Serbia , image_flag = Flag of Serbia.svg , national_motto = , image_coat = Coat of arms of Serbia.svg , national_ ...
, Kijevac,
Linovo Linovo ( sr-cyrl, Линово) is a village in the municipality of Babušnica, Serbia , image_flag = Flag of Serbia.svg , national_motto = , image_coat = Coat of arms of Serbia.svg , national_anthem ...
,
Ljuberađa Ljuberađa ( sr-cyrl, Љуберађа) is a village in the municipality of Babušnica, Serbia , image_flag = Flag of Serbia.svg , national_motto = , image_coat = Coat of arms of Serbia.svg , national_anth ...
, Modra Stena, Provaljenik, Radoševac, Resnik,
Stol A short takeoff and landing (STOL) aircraft is a fixed-wing aircraft that can takeoff/land on short runways. Many STOL-designed aircraft can operate on airstrips with harsh conditions (such as high altitude or ice). STOL aircraft, including tho ...
,
Suračevo Suračevo ( sr-cyrl, Сурачево) is a village in the municipality of Babušnica, Serbia , image_flag = Flag of Serbia.svg , national_motto = , image_coat = Coat of arms of Serbia.svg , national_anthe ...
(in Babušnica),
Bežište Bežište ( sr-cyrl, Бежиште) is a village in the municipality of Bela Palanka, Serbia , image_flag = Flag of Serbia.svg , national_motto = , image_coat = Coat of arms of Serbia.svg , national_anth ...
and Šljivovik (in Bela Palanka). The 2011 census recorded the largest population decline in the country in this region.


Economy

The main economic activity in the region is based around agriculture. This micro-region, however, is one of the more underdeveloped areas of Serbia. Economic centers include
Babušnica Babušnica () is a town and municipality situated in the Pirot District of southeastern Serbia. As of the 2022 census, the town's population is 4,254, and the municipality's population is 9,109. Geography The municipality borders Gadžin Han muni ...
and
Ljuberađa Ljuberađa ( sr-cyrl, Љуберађа) is a village in the municipality of Babušnica, Serbia , image_flag = Flag of Serbia.svg , national_motto = , image_coat = Coat of arms of Serbia.svg , national_anth ...
. Harsh living conditions and the economy in recent years has led to emigration to other parts of the country.


History

In 1841, a priest and his son were killed, by Albanians, after the Niš rebellion (1841). During the
Serbo-Bulgarian War The Serbo-Bulgarian War or the Serbian–Bulgarian War (, ''Srăbsko-bălgarska voyna'', , ''Srpsko-bugarski rat''), a war between the Kingdom of Serbia and the Principality of Bulgaria, erupted on and lasted until . Despite Bulgaria's statu ...
, Serbian troops crossed the region. During the
Kingdom of Yugoslavia The Kingdom of Yugoslavia was a country in Southeast Europe, Southeast and Central Europe that existed from 1918 until 1941. From 1918 to 1929, it was officially called the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats, and Slovenes, but the term "Yugoslavia" () h ...
(1929–41), Lužnica was a district in the
Morava Banovina The Morava Banovina or Morava Banate ( sh-Cyrl-Latn, separator=" / ", Моравска бановина, Moravska banovina), was a province ( banovina) of the Kingdom of Yugoslavia between 1929 and 1941. This province consisted of parts of prese ...
. The region was a site of military operations during
World War II World War II or the Second World War (1 September 1939 – 2 September 1945) was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War II, Allies and the Axis powers. World War II by country, Nearly all of the wo ...
. Within the Serbian puppet state (1941–44), Lužnica was a district within Niš County.


Culture


Dialect

The Prizren-Timok dialect is spoken in Lužnica. The Lužnica sub-dialect has some peculiarities, such as ''činiti'' instead of ''bojiti'' (an East Slavic innovation). The sub-dialect is considered one of the oldest, maybe even the oldest surviving, in Serbian language ("cultural window into the ancient time"). It is almost unintelligible for the Serbian speakers who are not from Lužnica region. With other regional dialects, it has been surveyed by
Aleksandar Belić Aleksandar Belić (Serbian Cyrillic: Александар Белић, ; 15 August 1876 – 26 February 1960) was a Serbian linguist and academic. Biography Belić was born in Belgrade. After studying Slavic languages in Belgrade, Odessa, and ...
, who published ''Dialects of Eastern and Southern Serbia'' in 1905 which marked the beginning of the scientific dialectology in Serbia. A ''Dictionary of Lužnica Speech'', containing 40,000 words, was published in 2019 by Ljubisav Ćirić. Many of the words belong to the various, locally specific and important lexical groups (speech of the shepherds, speech of the millers, etc.). The recordings of the people speeches which were gathered in 10 years during the compiling of the dictionary are kept in the phonetic library of the
University of Belgrade Faculty of Philology The Faculty of Philology is one of the constituent schools of the University of Belgrade. The school's purpose is to train and educate its students in the academic study or practice in linguistics and philology] History The study of philology ...
. The dialect kept the archaic forms, from the period when the
Old Church Slavonic Old Church Slavonic or Old Slavonic ( ) is the first Slavic languages, Slavic literary language and the oldest extant written Slavonic language attested in literary sources. It belongs to the South Slavic languages, South Slavic subgroup of the ...
was transforming into the modern Serbian language. Most of the
sound change In historical linguistics, a sound change is a change in the pronunciation of a language. A sound change can involve the replacement of one speech sound (or, more generally, one phonetic feature value) by a different one (called phonetic chan ...
s today characteristic for the Serbian language, at this time still didn't occur (like
palatalization Palatalization may refer to: *Palatalization (phonetics), the phonetic feature of palatal secondary articulation *Palatalization (sound change) Palatalization ( ) is a historical-linguistic sound change that results in a palatalized articulati ...
or
iotation In Slavic languages, iotation (, ) is a form of palatalization that occurs when a consonant comes into contact with the palatal approximant from the succeeding phoneme. The is represented by iota (ι) in the early Cyrillic alphabet and the Gre ...
). Some sounds have no corresponding letters in modern Serbian alphabet, which was fully adapted to the modern language by
Vuk Karadžić Vuk Stefanović Karadžić ( sr-Cyrl, Вук Стефановић Караџић, ; 6 November 1787 (26 October OS)7 February 1864) was a Serbian philologist, anthropologist and linguist. He was one of the most important reformers of the moder ...
in the 19th century. Some of the characteristics which widely differ from the modern language include vocal L (standard allows only proper vocals A, E, I, O and U, and sometimes R), sound DZ and frequent use of
semivowel In phonetics and phonology, a semivowel, glide or semiconsonant is a sound that is phonetically similar to a vowel sound but functions as the syllable boundary, rather than as the nucleus of a syllable. Examples of semivowels in English are ''y ...
s, which in the rest of the language were replaced by the sound A during the process of semivowel's vocalization since the 14th century. Standard Serbian language has 7
grammatical case A grammatical case is a category of nouns and noun modifiers (determiners, adjectives, participles, and Numeral (linguistics), numerals) that corresponds to one or more potential grammatical functions for a Nominal group (functional grammar), n ...
s, while Lužnica dialect has only 3: first -
nominative In grammar, the nominative case ( abbreviated ), subjective case, straight case, or upright case is one of the grammatical cases of a noun or other part of speech, which generally marks the subject of a verb, or (in Latin and formal variants of E ...
, fourth -
accusative In grammar, the accusative case (abbreviated ) of a noun is the grammatical case used to receive the direct object of a transitive verb. In the English language, the only words that occur in the accusative case are pronouns: "me", "him", "her", " ...
, fifth -
vocative In grammar, the vocative case (abbreviated ) is a grammatical case which is used for a noun that identifies a person (animal, object, etc.) being addressed or occasionally for the noun modifiers (determiners, adjectives, participles, and numeral ...
. For other cases, the
adverbs An adverb is a word or an expression that generally modifies a verb, an adjective, another adverb, a determiner, a clause, a preposition, or a sentence. Adverbs typically express manner, place, time, frequency, degree, or level of certainty by ans ...
are used instead. With the rapid decline in population, and schooling where people are taught the official standard of the language, the dialect is disappearing, too. By the late 2010s, only the oldest residents in the region still spoke it.


Traditions

At weddings in Lužnica and
Nišava The Nišava or Nishava ( Bulgarian and sr-Cyrl, Нишава, ) is a river in Bulgaria and Serbia, a right tributary, and with a length of also the longest one, of the South Morava. Course Bulgaria The Nišava originates in western Bul ...
, when the wedding guests (''svatovi'') go to fetch the bride, the ''čauš'' (master of ceremony, an entertainer) "begins to shout and brandish his sabre". It was noted in 1958 that in Lužnica and Nišava, the day after the saint feast days of St. Demetrius,
Michael the Archangel Michael, also called Saint Michael the Archangel, Archangel Michael and Saint Michael the Taxiarch is an archangel and the warrior of God in Christianity, Judaism, and Islam. The earliest surviving mentions of his name are in third- and second- ...
and St. Nicholas are holidays, where cattle are left to rest and work is suspended, as the cattle are feared to become sick (called ''žabica'').


Music

The traditional music in the region is the ''
gusle The gusle () or lahuta (; related to English ''lute'') is a bowed single- stringed musical instrument (and musical style) traditionally used in the Dinarides region of Southeastern Europe (in the Balkans). The instrument is always accompanie ...
'' and
epic poetry In poetry, an epic is a lengthy narrative poem typically about the extraordinary deeds of extraordinary characters who, in dealings with gods or other superhuman forces, gave shape to the mortal universe for their descendants. With regard t ...
. In 1910 it was noted that the use of the ''gusle'' had decreased, compared to thirty years prior when "it was the favourite of the people".


Dress

At the beginning of the 20th century, the women wore white headscarfs or silk scarves, while older women wore adorned red baize.


Cuisine

A local specialty is the Lužnica ''
vurda Urda (, indefinite form: ; ; ; ; ; ; ) is a whey cheese commonly produced in Southeast Europe, and Hungary. Etymology The name derives from Albanian , from Proto-Albanian ''*wurdā'', from an earlier form ''*urdā'' or ''*uordā'', ultimately de ...
'', a creamy cheese with paprika.


Monuments

The local church was built in 1873, and the oldest surviving log houses date to the same period.


References


Sources

* * {{coord missing, Serbia Pirot District Geographical regions of Serbia Southern Serbia