Joel Martin and Barbara Halpern dressed in Serbian traditional costumes during their field research in a village of Orašac, Šumadija district, Serbia, 1953. Scanned by me from the book Serbian village by Joel M. Halpern
“However much work we have done, we have succeeded to a large extent thanks to the extraordinary friendliness we have encountered almost everywhere and with which we have almost always been greeted. From the very beginning we have been welcomed everywhere and at all times, the traditional Serbian hospitality towards foreigners being the main reason. When we started visiting different households, sitting and talking casually with people, we discovered that, in fact, those we had not yet visited were almost offended by it. Visiting each of the 400 households in the village is a difficult task for just two people.”
