The paper offers an overview of the most relevant events in the history of collecting of the Serbian oral tradition, starting with the medieval mentions and records, through the recording of folk songs in the modern times in various regions inhabited by the Serbs, up to the systematic fieldwork collection conducted by Vuk Karadžić and the contemporary field research in folklore studies. The author indicates specific motivations of collectors in different periods, and the position and role of folklore in creating the image about the national past and in forming the national identity of the Serbs. Special attention was paid to the advances of fieldwork methodology which moved from the principles and recommendations of early ethnographers who designed field questionnaires, and later it grew and embraced contemporary interdisciplinary influences on the understanding of the field and the role of researchers. Contemporary forms and trends in the development of field research in folklore studies in Serbia are singled out and their significance for the development of Serbian folkloristics in the whole is emphasized.
Memories of the poor and impoverished in Serbian and South Slavic oral poetry are linked to contradictory beliefs: poverty is explained by reasons of fate, some offence, sin, or misfortune, however, the poor (as well as orphans, widows, wretched, etc.) are considered to be intermediaries between this world and the next, therefore close to God and the ancestors, and who possess certain healing and miraculous powers. These beliefs are merged and intermixed with other ideas about the poor, which entered oral tradition through human experience and everyday life, and were influenced by historical, social and economic changes (the poor who do not work or do not wish to contribute to their community, become a social threat and their lifestyle and use of welfare are disapproved of). In Serbian and South Slavic folk songs and ballads, representations of the poor and impoverished are diverse regarding aspects, such as, the selection of motifs and genre, time, place, context of recording, etc. Representations of the poor and impoverished in Serbian and South Slavic oral poetry vary from tragic to comic, from idealistic to ironic, or the subject can be depicted from a moral or realist standpoint. Poverty is usually related to the person’s private life, his or her feelings and moods, and may reflect their attitudes toward family, nature, community or society. Different portrayals of the poor and impoverished may reveal personal experiences, collective customary law and practices, way of life, ethical and religious norms, a system of values, as well as psychological motivation or background. Special attention will be paid to poverty as a fact of daily life, and to realistic details which make the songs and the characters particularly convincing and vivid.
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