zadrugahttp://www.oed.com/dictionary/zadruga_n%3Ftab%3Dmeaning_and_usezadruga, n.
First published 1986; not fully revised

zadruganoun

  1. 1887–
    A type of patriarchal social unit traditional to (agricultural) Serbians and other southern Slavic peoples, originally comprising an extended family group which worked the land and lived communally round the main house; the customs and rules associated with this type of unit.
    1. 1887
      The Slavs know nothing of private property,—the land being held in common under the care of the vladika or stareshina, as in the Servian xadrugas at the present day.
      Encyclopædia Britannica vol. XXII. 146/2
    2. 1900
      The old system of Zadruga, or communal village based upon the family.
      ‘Odysseus’, Turkey in Europe viii. 375
    3. 1911
      The basis of the Serb organisation is the family, either in its narrowest sense of blood-relationship, in communistic organisation, or other individuals grouped together for common work and with common possessions. These forms are called ‘Zadruga’.
      Prince Lazarovich-Hrebelianovich, Servian People i. 39
    4. 1934
      Zadruga in Serbia means a big family where brothers and sisters..lead a community life, under the leadership usually of the eldest member of the family.
      New York Times 24 June iv. 3/4
    5. 1943
      From their Russian homeland the Slavs brought a democratic institution called zadruga, a clan or family cooperative, which some of the tribes tried to extend and adjust to the wider forms of government necessary in their new homelands.
      L. Adamic, My Native Land (ed. 3) 214
    6. 1943
      They lived in their primitive villages and held onto their Old-Slavic zadrugé and ‘heart culture’—decency, friendliness, hospitality.
      L. Adamic, My Native Land (ed. 3) 216
    7. 1963
      The dvor or peasant household..is the same elastic unit which was familiar in medieval Europe, and survives today in the zadruge of the Balkans.
      Times Literary Supplement 25 January 49/3
    8. 1979
      The old customary Slavonic ‘family’ law, the zadruga.
      International Journal Sociol. of Law vol. 7 270
    9. 1980
      People tended to live in large, multi~generational households,..from the ‘joint family’ in India to the ‘zadruga’ in the Balkans.
      A. Toffler, Third Wave ii. 44

zadruga, n. was first published in 1986; not fully revised.

zadruga, n. was last modified in December 2024.