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Badnjak (Serbian)
The ''badnjak'' ( sr-Cyrl, бадњак, ), also called ''veseljak'' (, , literally "the one who brings joy" in Serbian), is a tree branch or entire tree that is central to Serbian Christmas celebrations. It is placed on a fire on Christmas Eve and its branches are later brought home by worshipers. The tree from which the ''badnjak'' is cut, preferably a young, straight and undamaged oak, is ceremonially felled early on the morning of Christmas Eve. The felling, preparation, bringing in, and laying on the fire, are surrounded by elaborate rituals, with many regional variations. The burning of the log is accompanied by prayers that the coming year brings food, happiness, love, luck, and riches. The log burns on throughout Christmas Day, when the first visitor strikes it with a poker or a branch to make sparks fly, while wishing that the family's happiness and prosperity be as abundant as the sparks. As most Serbs today live in towns and cities, the ''badnjak'' is often symbolicall ...
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Christian Symbolism
Christian symbolism is the use of symbols, including archetypes, acts, artwork or events, by Christianity. It invests objects or actions with an inner meaning expressing Christian ideas. The symbolism of the early Church was characterized by being understood by initiates only, while after the legalization of Christianity in the Roman Empire during the 4th century more recognizable symbols entered in use. Christianity has borrowed from the common stock of significant symbols known to most periods and to all regions of the world. Only a minority of Christian denominations have practiced aniconism, or the avoidance or prohibition of types of images. These include early Jewish Christian sects, as well as some modern denominations such as Baptists that prefer to some extent not to use figures in their symbols due to the Decalogue's prohibition of idolatry. Early Christian symbols Cross and crucifix The shape of the cross, as represented by the letter T, came to be used as a ...
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Hornbeam
Hornbeams are hardwood trees in the plant genus ''Carpinus'' in the family Betulaceae. Its species occur across much of the temperateness, temperate regions of the Northern Hemisphere. Common names The common English name ''hornbeam'' derives from the hardness of the woods (likened to Horn (anatomy), horn) and the Old English ''beam'', "tree" (cognate with Dutch ''Boom'' and German ''Baum''). The American hornbeam is also occasionally known as blue-beech, ironwood, or musclewood, the first from the resemblance of the bark to that of the American beech ''Fagus grandifolia'', the other two from the hardness of the wood and the muscled appearance of the trunk and limbs. The botanical name for the genus, ''Carpinus'', is the original Latin name for the European species, although some etymologists derive it from the Celtic for a yoke. Description Hornbeams are small, slow-growing, understory trees with a natural, rounded form growing tall and wide; the exemplar species—the ...
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Quince
The quince (; ''Cydonia oblonga'') is the sole member of the genus ''Cydonia'' in the Malinae subtribe (which contains apples, pears, and other fruits) of the Rosaceae family. It is a deciduous tree that bears hard, aromatic bright golden-yellow pome fruit, similar in appearance to a pear. Ripe quince fruits are hard, tart, and astringent. They are eaten raw or processed into jam, quince cheese, or alcoholic drinks. The quince tree is sometimes grown as an ornamental plant for its attractive pale pink blossoms and as a miniature bonsai plant. In ancient Greece, the word for quince was used ribaldly by poets such as Aristophanes to signify teenage breasts. Description Quinces are shrubs or small trees up to tall and wide. Young twigs are covered in a grey down. The leaves are oval, and are downy on the underside. The solitary flowers, produced in late spring after the leaves, are white or pink. The ripe fruit is aromatic but remains hard; gritty stone cells are disperse ...
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Pear
Pears are fruits produced and consumed around the world, growing on a tree and harvested in late summer into mid-autumn. The pear tree and shrub are a species of genus ''Pyrus'' , in the Family (biology), family Rosaceae, bearing the Pome, pomaceous fruit of the same name. Several species of pears are valued for their edible fruit and juices, while others are cultivated as trees. The tree is medium-sized and native to coastal and mildly temperate regions of Europe, North Africa, and Asia. Pear wood is one of the preferred materials in the manufacture of high-quality woodwind instruments and furniture. About 3,000 known varieties of pears are grown worldwide, which vary in both shape and taste. The fruit is consumed fresh, canning, canned, as juice, Dried fruit, dried, or fermented as perry. Etymology The word ''pear'' is probably from Germanic ''pera'' as a loanword of Vulgar Latin ''pira'', the plural of ''pirum'', akin to Greek ''apios'' (from Mycenaean ''ápisos''), of ...
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Beech
Beech (genus ''Fagus'') is a genus of deciduous trees in the family Fagaceae, native to subtropical (accessory forest element) and temperate (as dominant element of Mesophyte, mesophytic forests) Eurasia and North America. There are 14 accepted species in two distinct subgenera, ''Englerianae'' and ''Fagus''. The subgenus ''Englerianae'' is found only in East Asia, distinctive for its low branches, often made up of several major trunks with yellowish bark. The better known species of subgenus ''Fagus'' are native to Europe, western and eastern Asia and eastern North America. They are high-branching trees with tall, stout trunks and smooth silver-grey bark. The European beech ''Fagus sylvatica'' is the most commonly cultivated species, yielding a utility timber used for furniture construction, flooring and engineering purposes, in plywood, and household items. The timber can be used to build homes. Beechwood makes excellent firewood. Slats of washed beech wood are spread around ...
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Quercus Cerris
''Quercus cerris'', the Turkey oak or Austrian oak, is an oak native to south-eastern Europe and Asia Minor. It is the type species of ''Quercus'' sect. ''Cerris'', a section of the genus characterised by shoot buds surrounded by soft bristles, bristle-tipped leaf lobes, and acorns that usually mature in 18 months. Description ''Quercus cerris'' is a large deciduous tree growing to tall with a trunk up to in diameter. The bark is dark gray and deeply furrowed. On mature trees, the bark fissures are often streaked orange near the base of the trunk. The glossy leaves are long and 3–5 cm wide, with 6–12 triangular lobes on each side; the regularity of the lobing varies greatly, with some trees having very regular lobes, others much less regular. The flowers are wind-pollinated catkins, maturing about 18 months after pollination; the fruit is a large acorn, long and 2 cm broad, bicoloured with an orange basal half grading to a green-brown tip; the acorn cup is 2& ...
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Mortar (weapon)
A mortar today is usually a simple, lightweight, man-portable, Muzzleloader, muzzle-loaded cannon, consisting of a Smoothbore, smooth-bore (although some models use a Rifling, rifled barrel) metal tube fixed to a base plate (to spread out the recoil) with a lightweight bipod mount and a Sight (device), sight. Mortars are typically used as indirect fire weapons for close fire support with a variety of ammunition. Historically mortars were heavy Siege, siege artillery. Mortars launch explosive shell (projectile), shells (technically called Bomb, bombs) in high arching Projectile motion, ballistic trajectories. History Mortars have been used for hundreds of years. The earliest reported use of mortars was in Korea in a 1413 naval battle when Korean gunsmiths developed the ''wan'gu'' (gourd-shaped mortar) (완구, 碗口). The earliest version of the ''wan'gu'' dates back to 1407. Ch'oe Hae-san (1380–1443), the son of Ch'oe Mu-sŏn (1325–1395), is generally credited with inventi ...
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Belgrade
Belgrade is the Capital city, capital and List of cities in Serbia, largest city of Serbia. It is located at the confluence of the Sava and Danube rivers and at the crossroads of the Pannonian Basin, Pannonian Plain and the Balkan Peninsula. The population of the Belgrade metropolitan area is 1,685,563 according to the 2022 census. It is one of the Balkans#Urbanization, major cities of Southeast Europe and the List of cities and towns on the river Danube, third-most populous city on the river Danube. Belgrade is one of the List of oldest continuously inhabited cities, oldest continuously inhabited cities in Europe and the world. One of the most important prehistoric cultures of Europe, the Vinča culture, evolved within the Belgrade area in the 6th millennium BC. In antiquity, Thracians, Thraco-Dacians inhabited the region and, after 279 BC, Celts settled the city, naming it ''Singidunum, Singidūn''. It was Roman Serbia, conquered by the Romans under the reign of Augustus and ...
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Бадњак - преузимање бадњака у цркви
The ''badnjak'' ( sr-Cyrl, бадњак, ), also called ''veseljak'' (, , literally "the one who brings joy" in Serbian language, Serbian), is a tree branch or entire tree that is central to Serbian Christmas traditions, Serbian Christmas celebrations. It is placed on a fire on Christmas Eve and its branches are later brought home by worshipers. The tree from which the ''badnjak'' is cut, preferably a young, straight and undamaged oak, is ceremonially felled early on the morning of Christmas Eve. The felling, preparation, bringing in, and laying on the fire, are surrounded by elaborate rituals, with many regional variations. The burning of the log is accompanied by prayers that the coming year brings food, happiness, love, luck, and riches. The log burns on throughout Christmas, Christmas Day, when the first visitor strikes it with a poker or a branch to make sparks fly, while wishing that the family's happiness and prosperity be as abundant as the sparks. As most Serbs today live ...
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South Slavs
South Slavs are Slavic people who speak South Slavic languages and inhabit a contiguous region of Southeast Europe comprising the eastern Alps and the Balkan Peninsula. Geographically separated from the West Slavs and East Slavs by Austria, Hungary, Romania, and the Black Sea, the South Slavs today include Bosniaks, Bulgarians, Croats, Macedonians, Montenegrins, Serbs and Slovenes. In the 20th century, the country of Yugoslavia (from Serbo-Croatian, literally meaning "South Slavia" or "South Slavdom") united a majority of the South Slavic peoples and lands—with the exception of Bulgarians and Bulgaria—into a single state. The Pan-Slavic concept of ''Yugoslavia'' emerged in late 17th-century Croatia, at the time part of the Habsburg monarchy, and gained prominence through the 19th-century Illyrian movement. The Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes, renamed the Kingdom of Yugoslavia in 1929, was proclaimed on 1 December 1918, following the unification of the S ...
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Slavic Mythology
Slavic paganism, Slavic mythology, or Slavic religion refer to the Religion, religious beliefs, myths, and ritual practices of the Slavs before Christianisation of the Slavs, Christianisation, which occurred at various stages between the 8th and the 13th century. The South Slavs, who likely settled in the Balkans during the 6th–7th centuries AD, bordering with the Byzantine Empire to the south, came under the sphere of influence of Eastern Christianity relatively early, beginning with the creation of writing systems for Slavic languages (first Glagolitic, and then Cyrillic script) in 855 by the brothers Saints Cyril and Methodius and the adoption of Christianity in First Bulgarian Empire, Bulgaria in 864 and 863 in Great Moravia. The East Slavs followed with the official adoption in 988 by Vladimir the Great of Kievan Rus'. The process of Christianising the West Slavs was more gradual and complicated compared to their eastern counterparts. The Moravians accepted Christianity a ...
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