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Ritual of Survival
- Lejla Panjeta
- 1 minute ago
- 7 min read
Some holidays are celebrated; others are survived. Đurđevdan belongs to the latter. May 6th in the Balkans celebrates the victory of summer over the winter, return of warmth, and the renewal of life. This holy-day is embedded in folk rituals and songs, such as the famous “Đurđevdan” (English pronunciation “JOOR-jev-dahn”) by Bijelo Dugme, taken from the folk Romani song “Ederlezi.” It literally translates to English as St. George’s Day.
“Đurđevdan,” or “Ederlezi,” is the song that preserves the spring myth, carrying it in a melody that has survived centuries and continues to be sung as a living, collective heritage. The version of the song performed by Bijelo Dugme, one of the most popular bands in ex-Yugoslavia, became legendary because it mixed the archetypal core with the sound of rock. Released in 1988, the song does not modernize the myth but activates it in a contemporary context voiced through Alen Islamović, with Goran Bregović’s orchestration for the movie Time of the Gypsies, written and directed by Emir Kusturica. Islamović’s brilliant interpretation transforms it into a collective voice allowing “Ederlezi” to disseminate through not only concerts and weddings but also gravesites and all the other mass gatherings, while retaining the weight of the classical rebirth myth.
Singing to spite suffering
In 1942, Nazi authorities occupying Sarajevo deported Jews, Romani, partisans and others they deemed undesirable to concentration camps. Prisoners and their beloved ones sang the song on the train stations during the wagon departure. “Ederlezi”/“Durđevdan” became associated with moments of resistance and persistence in the face of loss and death. To sing at the threshold of disappearance is courage in the conviction that humanity can still remember itself aloud. People were singing despite their suffering, which embodies the contradiction between renewal and disappearance, joy and mourning, continuity and interruption.
This is a song about Separation but with no assurance of coming back. The hero is in the Belly of the Whale. Yet while everyone is celebrating spring, his beloved is gone. This hero is buried alive, waiting for the transformation in the Belly, while the world is moving on and celebrating life. He is absent from his own life.
The song carries all the layers of the myth: rebirth, death, joy, melancholy, loss, and hope, showing how people can keep an ancient story alive through music and ritual. It doesn’t merely mark a date on the calendar, but a mythical threshold: the moment when the world awakens again, when nature emerges from its winter pause, and when humans stand before the age-old question: will they be part of this renewal, or left behind? Will they survive another cycle?
To sing at the threshold of disappearance is courage in the conviction that humanity can still remember itself aloud.
Spring symbolism
The Romani name Ederlezi originates from the Turkish holiday Hıdırellez, which celebrates the arrival of spring and the symbolic meeting of the prophet Elijah and the mystical guide Khidr. In Romani practice, this marks the renewal of life, the awakening of nature, and the beginning of the vegetative cycle. During Ederlezi, the Romani light fires, sing and dance, celebrating the return of life.
Đurđevdan is not a sentimental celebration of flowers and sunlight, but an ancient belief that life must be ritually called forth. Water, fire, greenery, herbs gathered at dawn, the release of cattle into pastures—all are remnants of a single ritual: the resurrection of the world renewed. In spring nature does not bloom merely because it is fertile and beautiful, but because it has survived.
But in every myth there is an adversary to survival. In Balkan, Slavic, and broader Indo-European symbolism, this enemy goes by many names, yet wears a similar face: the dragon, the serpent, aždaja. It is not a monster in the trivial sense, but the force that blocks life, such as winter, drought, darkness, chaos, trapped water, stifled fertility. As long as this dragon lives, the world is frozen. To confront it, a hero must emerge.
In Christian iconography, this is Saint George, riding a white horse and piercing the dragon with his spear, freeing the community. Medieval thinkers did not create this image; they simply Christianized an older myth. Saint George does not oppose paganism; instead, he provides its institutional disguise. The Church did not erase the spring myth; it transformed it into its own language. Behind the saint might stand Yarylo, the Slavic god of anger—a young deity returning in spring, bringing fertility but sometimes sacrificed so the cycle may continue. Along with his father, Perun, the main deity and thunder god, he must confront chaos and transformation.
With the resurrection of nature comes Jesus in the Christian tradition to further embody the moral and spiritual renewal that emerges from darkness and suffering. The pagan gods, as well as Jesus, come to triumph over chaos. In this sense, Campbell’s Belly of the Whale is not an abstract stage but a lived reality: the community endures the darkness, guided by divine or mythical forces, to emerge reborn—echoing the perennial cycles.
Bars and funerals
Đurđevdan is not celebrated merely because spring has arrived, but to affirm that it came with the purpose of transformation. And here emerges the song that has survived centuries: “Đurđevdan is here, yet I am not with the one I love.” Seemingly simple, almost banal in its lament, it carries a profound mythological fracture. Đurđevdan is a communal festival, yet the song speaks of absence. While the world renews itself, the individual stands outside the circle. To step into the ritual is itself an act of daring: a consent to participate in life again after winter, loss, or absence. The adventure here is not the conquest of the dragon but the courage to re-enter the world knowing it may wound or betray us again. What the song admits without consolation, is the humility of being human: the cycle will continue, but we may not. Myth knows that spring will return; it is certain of the cycle. Song does not. We do not. Myth speaks for the world; song speaks for humans. The world has time, but humans have an expiration date. This is the fissure between cosmic certainty and human fragility. But, in spite of it, we sing.
In Balkan mythological cycles, what Joseph Campbell describes as Separation/Departure and the Belly of the Whale do not appear as an individual adventure, but as a collective experience. Yarylo does not descend alone into winter’s darkness; the entire community disappears with him, fields lie empty, and the world momentarily dies. Đurđevdan marks the point where this symbolic death is broken, but only after passing through chaos, loss, and uncertainty. Campbell’s hero, swallowed by the whale, symbolizes survival on the threshold, while holding a voice for passing through the dark. In this way, Đurđevdan teaches that survival is not passive endurance but an active singing response to life, humble in its frailty, courageous in hope, and daring enough to step again across the threshold.
Đurđevdan reflects Yarylo and Saint George, Campbell’s hero and resurrection of spring in a world that does not always return the same. The Balkans preserved this myth not in books but in practice, through a song sung with the same melody accompanying departure and return, weddings and remembrance, joy and grief. “Đurđevdan” by Bijelo Dugme is a song for bars but also funerals. Perhaps this is the oldest definition of hope: courage to sing of rebirth even when standing at its threshold, unsure whether one will step into it, or be left behind. The spring myth here is alive, and it’s humbly singing of human bravery facing the uncertainty of survival.
MythBlast authored by:
Dr. Lejla Panjeta is a Professor of Film Studies and Visual Communication. She was a professor and guest lecturer in many international and Bosnian universities. She also directed and produced in theatre, worked in film production, and authored documentary films. She curated university exhibitions and film projects. She won awards for her artistic and academic works. She is the author and editor of books on film studies, art, and communication. Her recent publication was the bilingual illustrated encyclopedic guide – Filmbook, made for everyone from 8 to 108 years old. Her research interests are in the fields of aesthetics, propaganda, communication, visual arts, cultural and film studies, and mythology. https://independent.academia.edu/LejlaPanjeta
This MythBlast was inspired by the Separation stage of the hero's journey.
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This Week's Highlights
"The hero, on encountering the power of the dark, may overcome and kill it, as did Siegried and St. George when they killed the dragon. But as Siegried learned, he must then taste the dragon blood, in order to take to himself something of that dragon power. When Siegried has killed the dragon and tasted the blood, he hears the song of nature."
-- Joseph Campbell
