Zabava (Polish: Zabawa[1][2][3]) is an Eastern European or Slavic word for a party with music and dancing.[4][5][6][7] The word zabava is often used as an adjective for Eastern European bands that play party music.[8][9]Zabava has been used as the title of songs, the name of musical and dance groups, and the name of community centers.
Origin
The origin of the word zabava is from the Proto-Slavic word zabava meaning fun or amusement. Zabava sometimes refers to "entertainment."[10] It has come to mean "party" in Serbia, Croatia, Ukraine, and Czech culture.[4][11][12][13][14]
There is a Zabava is the name of a poem by Nicole Yurcaba.[4]
Yurcaba's poem begins:
"There is a zabava,
and everyone is singing
the songs about the birds;
there is a pearl inside me
that wishes I could play
Dedushka’s mandolin which rests
in its battered leather case
because I feel, at times,
that all we as Ukrainians have
is each other and the music;
the squalling trumpets,
the plucked banduras,
the daring dentsivkas,
Diduk’s silenced mandolin
and the tribal drums
that move our feet
and sway our hips
and preserve on our lips
that intricate language,
those spider-web secrets
Nicole Yurcaba is an instructor of English at Bridgewater College[25] whose poetry and essays have appeared in numerous publications.[26]There is a Zabava was featured in the Atlanta Review in 2015.[4]
Other cultural references
Zabava is a Ukrainian banquet hall and catering service in New Jersey, USA.[27]
^Stanoje, Bojanin (2005). Entertainment and Festivities in Medieval Serbia From the End of the 12th to the End of the 15th Century; Zabave i svetkovine u srednjovekovnoj Srbiji : od kraja XII do kraja XV veka. Belgrade: Institute of History. pp. 233, 394.
^Milanović, Ivana (2019-09-20). English as a foreign language: how emotional can it be? (info:eu-repo/semantics/masterThesis thesis). University of Zagreb. University of Zagreb, Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences. Department of English language and literature.
^Colloquial Slovene. Book (Repr. ed.). London: Routledge. 2003. p. 58. ISBN978-0-415-08946-3.
