Immediately, after the World War I, the Hungarian government politics started to manage consciously the cultural events of the country. In the folklore movements on the occasion of the stage performances all generations of the village community got a role. A strong folklorisation is started in the Slovak settlements. The Folk dance department controlled the activity of the amateur folklore groups, the Ethnography department is specialized on the managing the work of traditional folklore communities in the countryside and managed direction of the professional research and collective works.
The author attempts to charakterise changeable categories of folklore and folklorism in dependence of time. The folkloristic research in the complex societes complicated syncretic chraracter of the folklore material. Today is demanding to distinguish the peasant archaic folklore (of the turn of the 19th-20th century) from the historical influences of the waves of folklorism. The mass character, schematism, manipulation are considered as main negative aspects of the stage folklorism. The folkloristic research logicaly involved examination of the second existence of folklore and interference phenomena of a folklorisation.
Folklore does not have only textual character in literature. Folklore was and still is syncretic, and thus manifests also itself in literary form. It can have educational, instructive, social – creative, informative, aesthetic, ideological, political or humorous function in literature. Literature and folklore constitute two different communication systems. Folklore incorporated into the other communication system frequently, it becomes normative on the level of style and composition ad influences further development of tradition.
The article, which is based on materials collected in the course of the four summer expeditions of the Marc Bloch Russian-French Centre for Historical Anthropology (RSUH) in 2003-2006, attempts to answer the question to which degree have mythological conceptions preserved their topicality among the population of North-Russian villages; which folklore texts have been actively preserved in their repertoire; and how these texts have been adapted in modern life. Relying on informant narratives, the authors agree that irrespective of the introduction of general literacy and mass media and even at the onset of the 21st century, many women in these North-Russian villages still live as if in an enchanted world where there is no clear boundary between the living and the dead, where the forests are the realm of spirits of nature, and family conflicts are believed to result from the casting of 'evil eye' by some elderly female relative. The majority of the narratives have been collected from women and specifically reflect women's perspective to the situation. While the main focus of the article is dream narratives, the authors also discuss the topicality of mythological beliefs for the modern people. In the community which has been deprived of religious understanding of what will happen after death, dreams play a rather important role because they are the only available and the most trustworthy evidence of the world beyond the grave. The content of these beliefs, however, is bound to transform in a society where churches have been demolished, icons have been destroyed or removed, and atheism has been officially endorsed for dozens of years. Despite contemporary adaptations, the texts collected by the authors are rather archaic in nature. The fact that they are still part of active repertoire points to the viability of folk culture in the villages under investigation. And still, rituals such as communicating with the deceased relatives or casting an 'evil eye' at weddings continue to be practised not because of sociological or cultural reasons but also of personal psychology. It could be agreed that individual mythology feeds on isolation and misfortune in life.
The aim of the article is to show the cultural heritage of the Łowicz culture whose main advantage is its characteristic and recognizable folklore. It is a specific Polish cultural showpiece. Despite its attractiveness, the region and its folklore are not fully used in tourism, and the lack of a wide social awareness of the region’s folk culture is noticeable. There are a lot of places in that region which should be modernized, promoted and their authentic cultural face should be displayed. The article comprehensively presents the elements of Łowicz folklore and museum institutions which exhibit them, the existing forms of promotion and popularization, as well as the proposals of how to increase the tourist attractiveness of the region. Finally, the authors present the results of a survey verifying the level of knowledge of the cultural potential and folklore in the discussed region among tourists visiting Łowicz and among its inhabitants.
This article deals with folklorism connected with material parts of Cultural heritage. It points to the fact, that originally rural production and art traditions transferred to a different socio – cultural background were adjusted to a changed context area. Out of different expressions of folklorism, our article focuses on its organised forms, institutions – associations, societies, esp. ÚĽUV - The Centre for Folk Art Production. Traditional folk culture is a key issue of the professional practise of these institutions. It concentrates on development changes of ÚĽUV folklorism from its early stages to the new forms heading to modern design.
This paper is devoted to the film music of the Slovak composer Šimon Jurovský (1912– 1963), in the context of the film music composed in Slovakia from the 1940s to the 1960s. A closer analysis is made of selected films, in which Jurovský used musical elements taken from the folk milieu: Varúj! (1947), Pole neorané (1953), Žena z vrchov (1955), Posledná bosorka (1957), Zemianska česť (1957). The musical analysis addresses the treatment of folk songs and the use of musical means which introduced a folk idiom into film music. Attention is drawn to the connections of music with image and the characterisation of individual characters using folklore elements (musical motifs, songs, musical instruments).
Commemorative narrative as a genre relying on memory covers a very long time period, bringing the past lived by the ancestors, then reassessed, re-established, adopted or modified and passed on to the next generation. The past thus revives in memories - the recollection of past events and experience handed over to another generation. The commemorative narrative has a potential to gradually process long-lasting developments, changes and shifts and so it may clarify certain attitudes held in the present. The writer uses with moral values represented in memorates to analyse ambiguous and contradictory attitudes manifested by individuals in concrete situations and relations as well as in their approach to Christian norms and the Church. The topics are developed around essential norms applied onto extramarital relations, children born out of wedlock, theft and examples of mutual assistance.
The article is dealing with the problem of mass media phenomenon in relation with elements of traditional culture. Electronic media are a constitutive feature of the contemporary cultural context, as they strongly influence transformations, which can be observed within folklore. The contemporary 'information community' can be best observed through Internet, where community groups are naturally activated within the virtual reality. The process of searching for folk elements in contemporary culture dignifies the anthropological folklore from using methods, developed within this field to study contemporary mechanisms of understanding the world. It considerably enriches the knowledge about human beings.
Skaz, i.e. a scrap of testimony, is a designation borrowed from the Russian folklore by H. Grynberg in his description of Voydovsky's invention. It is upon the search for similar testimonies - fossils, active spots in the language still used in today's Poland to speak of Jews - that this authoress has founded her concept of ethnographic research on memory of the Shoah as preserved in the talk and language of Polish provinces. The initial thesis claims that contrary to discourses of various historical policies, the colloquial language and proves to be involuntarily truthful. This language reports on how people see the world; it testifies to collective ideas/representations: fears, dreams, daydreams, phantasms, responding stereotypes, norms opposing the values, real values opposing declared values - in whose deposit what is referred to by sociologists as anti-Semitic 'attitudes' is only given birth. Poles will only be able to objectify their own history once the way has been recognised in which people in Poland talk between themselves about Jews.
The main achievement of Oskar Kolberg, the eminent Polish ethnographer and folklorist, was his voluminous ethnographic work. That is how he was perceived - as an outstanding author of ethnography. His education, however, was musical. He was also a composer. That is why the author of the article tries to answer the question about the connection between Oskar Kolberg's education and the fact that in the 'crop' of Polish folk culture 'harvested' by him, songs and melodies predominate other items. Search for this plot in the life and research activities of Oskar Kolberg seems interesting, the more so, because he never found approval as a composer. Having made some, not very successful, attempts of 'meeting the taste' of his contemporaries he eventually concentrated on ethnography and that brought him great fame and esteem in the 19th century Poland and in many other countries as well. Why didn't he gain popularity as a composer? To what extent can and should his ethnographic work be defined as a kind of artistic creativity? These are the questions the author asks in the article. He admits that no direct answer is possible to be given now. He simply presents and juxtaposes particular facts from Kolberg's life. This may not only suggest certain answers but also allows for the analysis of the mechanisms of the 19th century cultural convention. The latter could be one of the clues to understanding the musical and ethnographic production of Oskar Kolberg.
Przedmiot etnolingwistyki jest ujmowany różnie. W etnolingwistycznych pracach neofilologów opisuje się języki mniejszości w relacji do języków większości, etnolingwistyka zazębia się z dialektologią w kwestii statusu pewnych etnolektów. W pracach polonistycznych przedmiotem zainteresowań są związki między językiem i kulturą. Autorka wyróżnia trzy odmiany etnolingwistyki: ludową, narodową i porównawczą. Pierwszą łączy ze środowiskiem skupionym wokół lubelskiego Słownika stereotypów i symboli ludowych, drugą odnajduje w pracy A. Gudavičiusa, który przedmiot etnolingwistyki określa skrótowo jako „naród w języku”, trzecia kładzie nacisk na specyfikę myślenia różnych nacji. W ostatnich częściach artykułu autorka przedstawia zbieżność między etnolingwistyką a etnografią oraz między etnolingwistyką a dialektologią i przedstawia prekursorów polskiej etnolingwistyki.
EN
Ethnolinguistics is understood in a variety of ways. In ethnolinguistic works of neophilologists, the languages of minorities are described in relation to the languages of majorities: ethnolinguistics dovetails here with dialectology in its preoccupation with the status of certain ethnolects. In the works of Polish linguists, especially important are the connections between language and culture. Three varieties of ethnolinguistics are identified: folk, national and comparative. The first of these is typical of the linguists associated with the 'Slownik stereotypów i symboli ludowych' (A Dictionary of Folk Stereotypes and Symbols), compiled in Lublin; the second is found in the works of Gudavicius, for whom ethnolinguistics deals with 'the nation in the language'; the third type underscores the peculiarities of thinking characteristic of different nations. In the last sections of the article the authoress deals with the points of convergence between ethnolinguistics and ethnography, as well as between the former and dialectology. She also presents the figures of the pioneers of Polish ethnolinguistics.
The paper deals with reflection on changes which have been recognized in the forms and functions of ritual folklore. The term folklorism is clarified and specified as well. Its main characteristics refer to the demonstration for “the others” or demonstration by “the others”.
The author raises the subject of the Ukrainian puppet theatre called the Pathless Tract, indicating controversies around the first publication on the Tract by Erazm Izopolski. He refers to various opinions of theatre historians and researchers of folklore on Izopolski's work - both positive and critical about the theses presented by the Polish ethnographer. He also points to the fact that there is scarce information about his life and work in Polish and Ukrainian encyclopedic sources.
The paper deals with the term 'folklore' from the point of view of people who grew up in the milieu strongly connected with a scenic folklore. It presents the development of author's personal opinion on folklore and folklorism as well as his view of the contemporary world music based on the elements of folk music.
The distinction between folklore and so-called folklorism is merely a result of the ethnological evaluation of the process that folk culture has gone through during last decades. It is neither simple nor fruitful to explore the boundaries between 'authentic' and 'imitative' forms of traditional folklore. Emphasizing the relationship between folklore and environment or stressing the original functions of the folklore limit traditional phenomena and maintain their past forms. On the contrary, the traditional phenomena gain different but natural social utilization by means of intermediation and presentation of traditional culture in the field of folklorism.
Apart from Hungarians, other national communities live on the territory of modern Hungary, including Slovaks, who preserve their language and culture. András Krupa (1934–2015) did a lot to collect, research, preserve the folklore and ethnography of local Slovaks. His main areas of interest are rituals and ceremonial folklore, folk tales and legends, beliefs, interethnic ties, etc. Krupa was also the organizer of many initiatives and conferences, including in his hometown of Békéscsaba.
A close reading of studies to the composer's 'oriental' works as well as of his own published writings and notes, including his Arabistic notes held in the University of Warsaw Library, permits to question the widely accepted interpretation of Szymanowski's connections with the Orient. The analysis of the notebooks, permits to state that the composer's main source of knowledge was the book by Le Bon and other French scholars. The way he approached Arabic culture reveals an original, independent mind, resistant to facile stereotypes of the oriental exotic. It is clear that the composer did not seek neither any precise information about Oriental music, nor was he searching for artistic inspiration. He wanted to avoid all stereotypical formulas symbolising the Orient and - as the authoress of the article points out - the linking of an 'oriental'-like technique with any actual musical tradition of the east raises justifiable doubts. A more promising source of musical 'exoticism' was the traditional folk music, although Szymanowski was again well aware of the danger of incorporating it into a professional musical language, which could give rise to an 'academic' folklore devoid of artistic depth.
Folklore is coming into confrontation with other kinds of non – artificial music, which contributes to its perception and acceptance, for example through various forms of adaptation and other way of making use of them other than in the folklore genres. At presence a folk song is not related just to a particular locality or region; popular songs are sung in many places; in some case all over the country. Modern technologies are having an impact on the consciousness of the contemporary folklore (internet). This must be evaluated critically. For this is a system accessible and open to practically everyone. These transformations can be observed on the basis of contemporary research in the Czech lands; however, the situation may differ in other environments.
Based on an ethnographic study of folklore performance in contemporary Slovakia, this paper critically engages with „performance theory”, arguing that sometimes performance can be best understood by looking beyond moments of performance to the long, often arduous work of preparing for performance and reflecting on performances past. The author proposes studying folklore (and art more generally) not only as performance but also as „organization”, that is, as a set of enduring yet always shifting social relations. This approach enables us to see the modes of collectivity that emerge out of the social experience of art and, specifically, folklore.
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