Your digging level
Description
Bećarac is a humorous, improvisatory folk-song form from the Slavonia region of eastern Croatia that later spread across nearby Baranja, Srijem, southern Hungary and Vojvodina (Serbia).
Performed by a lead singer and a small group or larger company, it unfolds as playful, teasing two-line (decasyllabic) couplets delivered in call-and-response over a repeating melody, typically accompanied by tamburica (tambura) ensembles and sometimes fiddle or accordion. Themes are flirtatious, boastful, satirical and often mildly lascivious, providing a socially accepted outlet for wit and innuendo at weddings, fairs and village gatherings. Although the name derives from bećar (bachelor/reveller), women have long sung bećarac as equals—frequently while dancing kolo—today participating as much as men.
History
Scholars situate bećarac’s crystallization in rural Slavonia during the 1800s, when a lively bachelor/reveller culture (bećar) and village festivities fostered competitive, witty verse-making over stock melodies. The form’s hallmark became its decasyllabic, two-line couplets delivered antiphonally by a leader and a responding group.
Bećarac thrived at weddings, fairs and community feasts, where singers competed to outdo one another with clever, teasing or amorous lines. Although stereotypically a male pastime, women sing and lead bećarci as well, especially in the context of the circle dance kolo. From Slavonia it spread across Baranja and Srijem and into neighbouring southern Hungary and Vojvodina. Instrumental support typically comes from tamburica bands, with local variants and sub-types shaped by charismatic lead singers.
Collectors and ethnographers assembled large corpora of verses in the 19th–20th centuries, and the practice continued as living tradition—both informally and on staged folk platforms. Contemporary ensembles keep the style active, while singers maintain vast mental repertoires and improvise new couplets suited to the moment.
In 2011, “Bećarac singing and playing from Eastern Croatia” was inscribed on UNESCO’s Representative List of the Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity, acknowledging its role in community identity, intergenerational transmission and creative dialogue.
