​​​​​​​​The deeper I dig into local folklore, the more fascinating it becomes.

In eastern Serbia, there was a peculiar—but fortunately unconfirmed—custom known as lapot. According to it, during crop failure years, elderly people who became a burden on their families were simply ... killed.

In the early 20th century, ethnologist Tihomir Đorđević studied the highlands near Zaječar and was among the first to document this brutal practice in detail, believing it had actually occurred. According to the researcher, the ritual typically involved inviting neighbors. Depending on the region, people could use an axe or hammer for the killing. In some villages, they would place a cornbread on the unfortunate elder's head, so they could "claim" that death came from the corn rather than from human hands.

After Đorđević, other scholars became interested in this topic, but no one published refutations. In 1972, they even released a documentary (!) about lapot. Look how harsh our ancestors' customs were, they suggested. There's a scene from it at the end of this post.

Only in 1999 did anthropologist Bojan Jovanović publish a work challenging the previous research. He reminded everyone of widely known cases where grandchildren saved elders from the plague. It's remarkable that no one did this for 80+ years after the first publication. Today, the custom is considered a myth, and most likely originated from the period when the Balkans were under Roman rule. At that time, locals were actively and not always voluntarily recruited into the ranks of fighters. In one fortress, the Romans ordered all men under 50 to be conscripted for military service, and the rest to be executed. Allegedly, this is where the practice of eliminating the older generation supposedly came from. However, no solid evidence has ultimately been found.

In 2004, the Serbian government wanted to restrict the list of free medicines for people over 60. The media instantly called this law "lapot." But the authorities changed their mind (: