My mother-in-law recently gave me A Guide to the Serbian Mentality, by Momo Kapor. I was looking forward to reading it, mostly as it looked on the surface to be a bit like "How to be a Brit" by George Mikes, which was a great humorous read, and how else, I thought, could you write such a book. Through the humor both foreigners and British people alike learned a lot about who they are. These kinds of books, so I thought, just have to be funny to work.
As to Kapor's book: not my cup of tea. I'll spare you a lot of detailed criticism, but the book is neither what I expected, nor terribly funny, and moreover I found it rather over-sentimental and even nationalistic in places. Proud Serbian traditions, people, places, etc. But very little poking fun. Where, I wondered, was the true impression of the Serbian mentality?
As to men, I think there is a certain humorous side to the mentality of the Balkan man. The first time I heard the term "typical Balkan man" was during a Croatian course for a boat license. Every time the Lucka Kapitan had to refer to some not-so-bright, but nevertheless righteous local he would say "Now imagine I'm a typical Balkan man" and then go on to describe some stupidity-meets-boat-related incident to make his point. There is a kind of chest-thumping, know-everything attitude that can lead to all kinds of humorous situations - particularly when they gather in significant numbers, or meet people from outside of Serbia/Croatia. Almost Borat-like at times, but with a peculiar Balkan charm.
As to women, of course (as the book points out) Serbian women are beautiful, but there is also a funny side to their mentality. Here it is a more, dress-to-kill, stand in the corner and smoke, little bit grumpy, very sultry, and, well again, pretty funny.
I sense what I would love to read is a book about the more humorous, lighter side of the Serbian mentality - meaning how the people behave, and not what the cities or restaruants in the country are like. I think Serbians (and other Balkans) pride themselves on being funny, but as for Germany, I've never noticed a great tendency to laugh at oneself. I firmly believe that problems like nationalism arise out of certain self-righteousness that often goes along with a tendency to take oneself, one's community, or one's country a bit too seriously. In Serbia, the Balkans (and many other places to be sure) a good dose of self-effacement could be a good thing.
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4 comments:
Try Jovan Maric - Kakvi smo mi Srbi? (I'm not sure if there is a "?"...but anyway). That one isn't much funny, but it has some part about jokes. And once, upon a time, you could buy jokes from street sellers, like 100 jokes in a book. I bought 10 books. So, that might be a good start...or something :)
Try reading "How to Understand Serbs". It was written by a group of 20 authors, mostly foreigners who used to live, or still live in Serbia, as well as some local authors (not Momo Kapor whom I also find overly sentimental and nationalistic).
This book is sharp, humorous and refreshing, and I would recommend it to anyone interested in our country, people and social life in general...
You can find it on Amazon.com!
As a Serb, I also thought my compatriots were too self-righteous and often nationalist, and being so sick of it, I decided to leave all that behind... And, then I moved to the Deep South of the U.S. of A. Self-righteous? Check! Nationalist? Hell yeah! Yee-haw, we're the best! Also add 'racist' and 'crazy religious' to the mix. Now I think Serbs are relatively OK in comparison, considering all they went through, lol. "Who hasn't gone crazy here by now is not normal" :)
Well I visited some ex-Yugo countries, I more-or-less agree with virtuelman. I have some Bosnian and Turchin friends in Skopje, FYROM, and some Montenegrins and Serbians as well. It is so difficult to deal with them! They are so precipitated and arrogant! They think every woman lies as hell and treat her badly. Sometimes I think I would not contact them anymore. I am from the East Europe, Slovakia, so imagine, not such a different culture, anyway they shock me so much! So many times they hurt without benefiting at all.
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