Instructions

No matter how much or little you may know about the Serbian nation, for a start, try to put yourself in a position of someone who is making the first contact with the Serbs. What is it you may notice first? What things, phenomena or personalities you may remember or write down in your diary or your first research report? This is an attempt to set up the first set of entries indicating Serbian particularities, some sort of cultural code, before the future researchers. Hence, the Serbian Code.

Both young and senior researchers, taking the book as their starting point for further investigations of their own national particularities, are expected to seriously evaluate everything that has been collected in the book, to form their own views about it and to suggest any changes or contributions for the second research level.

The main entries – the flashy ones – not always the most significant one, though (we call them JUNCTIONS), are linked to a set of other important entries (INDICATIONS). Once you read the basic information on those entries, you may have to ponder a bit, discuss them with friends or relatives, and then in the boxes at the bottom of each entry, please put how much you think the entry refers only to Serbs and, in your opinion, how much it carries a universal meaning.

Do you think the entry is more of a Serbian particularity or it may be more significant for understanding the cultural model of Russians, Americans, Germans, Croats, Bulgarians, Greeks… Or perhaps, it points to some general properties of the whole mankind and is not of a special meaning just for the Serbs.

It may turn out that certain entries are the general ones, referring to many nations and not so particular to Serbs. The meaning and the content of other entries may turn out to be more of Serbian characteristic than of others. The other entries may be different in their intensity. It is not the same if, for instance, grading from 1 – 5, you assess an entry to be “typically Serbian” by grading it 4, and assess the general importance by grading it 1, 2 or 3.


In that way, you may reach your own conclusion on which entries could be “the most Serbian ones” – the ones which point most to Serbian particularities. Of course, it does not mean that if they some entries are most idiosyncratic, they are the best or the most advantageous, important for a stable permanence of the Serbs or for maintaining the high moral values.

The next assessment you should make is to see what the level of “sustainability” of an entry is. Do you see in it a potential for permanence, a quality of durability? Does it carry an importance that has to be preserved, or do you think the entry has no potential for permanence and will slowly fade out, or whether it may be of dubious moral and cultural value, so it should be dropped? While pondering on this dimension of an entry, best you can do is to fill out the boxes Pro or Con.

Again, you’ll get a result that will fall to one or the other side.

Once you have gone through all the material at hand, you’ll certainly have a better view on the national properties of the Serbian people, but also some objections and comments.

We suggest the following:

If you feel that some entries are not included or some are needlessly included in the list – make a comment. Put your suggestions in the given forms, name the entries you would like to see on the second level and send them to us.

Make a record of the basic entries, of those that should not, under any circumstances, be missed, or those for which perhaps you have an illustration (send it attached by email to the following address:[email protected]). You may also include in your record other important entries which should be investigated. Put in your comments. In this way, you get an opportunity to include your work in raising our joint research to the second level.

On the page SECOND LEVEL you may find your suggestions to the Serbian Code supplement. After a process of broad assessment and voting, the selected suggestions will be included in the main Serbian Code body, either as indications or as new junctions.

For all those who join the Serbian Code research group, there is  Forum for constructive discussions on issues related to the Serbian cultural identity.

The section Virtual Serbia provides you with the most important information about Serbia and its people today, but there you may also participate with your  contributions in building Virtual Serbia of your own or of your ancestors.