Glasnik Etnografskog Instituta SANU
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The Bulletin of the Institute of Ethnography SAS (I-VII)/ SASA (VIII/) is a scientific periodical of international significance which publishes papers in ethnology/anthropology. From its inception in 1952, the Bulletin publishes the results of scientific research projects of scientists and associates of the Institute and other affiliated institutions in the country and abroad. In addition, discussions and articles, supplements, field data, retrospectives, chronicles, reviews, translations, notes, bibliographies, obituaries, memories, critiques and similar are published as well. The Bulletin was founded as a means to publish the results of research of settlements and origins of populations, folk life, customs and folk proverbs. However, the concept of the Bulletin, like that of any other contemporary scientific journal, changed over time to accommodate the social, cultural and political processes and research trends in the social sciences and humanities.
The Bulletin (GEI) is referenced in the electronic bases: DOAJ (Directory of Open Access Journals), Ulrich's Periodicals Directory and SCIndex (Serbian Citation Index). All articles are digitally available in a form typographically true to the original (in .pdf format). The Bulletin is also available in the same form on the website of the Institute of Ethnography SASA.
The Bulletin (GEI SANU) can also be found and read at CEEOL (Central and Eastern European Online Library): http://www.ceeol.com
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- Mass gatherings seen as political and cultural events, social dramas and spectacles
- In this work, ethnological research focuses on the daily events which move from ritual to spectacle and vice versa. Mass events in the Balkan region became social dramas and open air theatres of life, frequently with tragic consequence. My research into mass gatherings in Serbia over many years particularly in Belgrade, have been directed to the ritual and the symbolic mechanism of interpreting political and cultural events. Numerous experiences, the recollections of all the participants, were included in the discourse on interpretation of this phenomenon.
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- Meanings and function of mythical places in "new culture"
- The paper analyses mythical places in careers of two singers of new folk music, who marked the time periods after Tito and Milošević. The analysis shows that the development and establishment of a certain value system in "newly created culture", could point out to important consequences to socio-cultural changes in periods after death (political or otherwise) of "leaders". The establishment of newly created culture into local community was facilitated by mixing of very different value systems.
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- Medea in the past and in the present
- One of the most shocking, the most difficult to understand and at the same time the most inspiring tragedy from the Greek antiquity is Euripeides' Medea. This drama has a rich and a long history of adaptations that have always represented an interface between the ancient text on the one hand, and the author's reading on the other, which always depended on cultural and political context of the period that influenced the perspective of the author. Most of these adaptations belong to theatrical production. However my interest in this paper is not oriented towards theatre, but towards literature, a novel Medea: A Modern Retelling by Christa Wolf. First part of the paper deals with the reconstruction of the ancient context and meaning of this drama in the antiquity from the perspective of contemporary study of classics, while the second part is devoted to the questions of Wolf's adaptation: the ways in which Christa Wolf rewrites Medea, tracing of Wolf's reasons to approach the text in such a way, the main relation of Wolf's version to former version(s), and intellectual and social climate in which Wolf's Medea was created. The focus of the research will be on the reading of the construction of the Other, of gender and gender roles, also through the analysis of their transgression - in the Greek antiquity when Euripides drama was staged, as well in the Germen (European) context of the end of the twentieth century in which Medea was rewritten by Christa Wolf.
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- Memorial service
- A specific relationship toward the dead characterizes the traditional Serbian culture; this cult exists even today, in somewhat changed form. A death is always followed by the appropriate, traditional, ritual obligations that served to regulate behavior of a family, or even wider community members that has lost one of its members. The relationship with the dead does not cease after the funeral, but it continues to be maintained during general holidays dedicated to the dead-memorial service. These are the days dedicated to all dead, and when offerings were made especially for the deceased. The memorial services take place in particular days of the year: most often on Saturdays, on Saturdays before another holiday, the Spirits, and on Saturdays before the holiday Mitrovdan; memorial services are also connected with some other holidays during the year. In addition to the general memorial service dedicated to all dead, there are so-called special memorial services, which take place only in special occasions (on holidays like Petrovdan, Saint Ilija, Velika Gospojina, Trojice and more). Many different rituals performed during memorial services, as well as ritual objects used should provide the deceased with a safe residence in their new environment. The most important rituals that enabled the communication with the dead include: preparing and sharing food and drinks, visits to a cemetery, lighting candles, incense of graves, vine spilling, decoration with flowers and basilica. The most important ritual objects are: graves, food, drinks, candles, incense, vine, flowers and basilica.
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- Mesnice
- This paper discusses the usage and meaning of the expression mesnice, based on the source from the 15th century. This term is related to the period in between Christmas and big fat eating cycle, when it is allowed to consume animal products, especially meat. The research shows an existence of a concept different than those of the Church one, expressed in terms mesopust (meat) and siropust (cheese) which imply restraint in consuming meat and cheese in a diet. The testimony about the existence of the unique term mesnice, which included the whole period of meat consuming, points out to a significance of the winter big fat eating cycle preceding Great fasting, and which has a special place in the cyclical change of season errands in an agrarian based society. In turn, this allows us to assume the existence of certain behavior and activities such as carnival forms of celebration similar to those in the Catholic environments in the late middle age Europe or much later, in the documented folk inheritance of the 19th and 20th century, which, in turn, could point out to new fields of research in poorly documented folklore of the middle age Serbia. The term mesnice (and meat weeks), much more than the term mesopust, points out to a social significance of the period preceding the Great fasting and its interpretation within a laic culture, folk rituals, celebrations and fun.
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- Metaphors in political discourse
- This paper analyzes metaphors usage within political discourse, i.e rhetoric of political public speech. The analysis is based on public speech held at Vukovi sabori manifestations from 1987-2005, by active politicians or cultural elite at a given time period. Manifestations such as Vukovi sabori or Saborski dani were created primarily as purely cultural and artistic; however, they have also proven to be a good medium for messages with clear political agenda, hidden in metaphors of the speakers. These metaphors, in a political rhetoric, are thus seen as an instrument used to channel desired aims and win over potential voters. On the other hand, they also could be taken as one of the indicators of ideological-political paradigm change after 2000. In both cases, these metaphors are analyzed as a potential for promoting certain interests carrying heavy influence on key values and attitudes within the political discourse.
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- Methodological and epistemological challenges of researching co-ethnic migrations in a post-war area
- In this paper I look into the methodological, epistemological and ethical challenges I faced during multisited fieldwork research in the Serb community of southeast Kosovo (Gnjilane, Vitina and neighbouring villages, and in several towns in Serbia where displaced persons from this area are now living). The focus of the research into post-war discourse was on two forms of migration: 1. the colonisation of the population from the highland areas of south Serbia, which was carried out in Kosovo as part of agrarian reform in the period after World War I; 2. The migration of the Serb population from Kosovo into Serbia following the armed conflicts of 1999 and the establishment of a United Nations administration. In both cases these are mainly co-ethnic migrations: the settlers are of the same ethnicity as the population in the places they have moved to. Intra-ethnic relations and boundaries in the light of these migrations turned out to be an especially interesting field of research, which has opened up numerous methodological, epistemological and ethical questions. [Projekat Ministarstva nauke Republike Srbije, br. 177027: Multietnicitet, multikulturalnost, migracije - savremeni procesi]
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- Methodological nationalism and groupism in research on migrants from former Yugoslavia
- This article argues the need to critically reflect on the fragmentations along ethno-national lines in the field of migration studies in and about the countries of former Yugoslavia. Using the author’s research with conflict migrants from Croatia and Bosnia-Herzegovina in Norway as the primary case study, this article points to methodological nationalism and groupism as closely connected challenges to be addressed. Examples from the case study are used as reference points, with the belief that similar concerns can be applied and addressed in other case studies, having in mind specificities of each case study that deals with migrant “groups” in other receiving societies.
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- Migrants and sport
- Integration of refugees is an area that has been raising a relatively insufficient research interest, especially in the countries of the Southeast Europe, where the refugees, in the sense of persons who have been seeking for or were granted the international protection after the year 2000, and based on the 1951 Refugee Convention, represent a new migrant community. From the viewpoint of cultural anthropology and based on the qualitative research conducted from spring 2015 to autumn 2017, in this paper I discuss integration of refugees in Croatia through sport. The aim of the paper is to explore, based on the case study of Football Club Zagreb 041, which dimensions of integration participation in sport can have for persons that are seeking for or were granted asylum in Croatia. In doing so, the paper compares the results of other European empirical research with the ones obtained in Croatia, and it also questions theses of some scholars on questionable integrative role of sport, as well as the theses that sport is more an area of creating distinction and status than an area for inclusion and building social bridges between the host society and immigrants.
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- Migrants in Moscow
- In last two decades Russia and especially its capital Moscow has become one of the leaders of the global migration processes. Many jobs in the consumer services are occupied by recent immigrants. Ethnic Russians remain the predominant group, forming almost 91.6 per cent of the permanent population, but when measured numerically, other ethnic groups number more than 2 million people in the city. Ethnically non-Russian population has increased significantly. More and more people with different cultural backgrounds are becoming new Moscow inhabitants. Paper represents a study of the demographic and cultural processes that are taking place in the city of Moscow and in the Province of the same name during the last two decades. The author speaks about the influence and introduction of new folk cultures and traditions into Moscow community. The paper also pays attention to the process of social and cultural migrants’ integration from the point of view of major Moscow indigenous population. The problems related to development of cultures are resolved in different ways. A quite new phenomenon for Russia is an association of the particular ethnic group members in ethnic-cultural organizations striving for the development and propagation of cultural and religious traditions of their people. Young people are being actively involved in this process attending special non-Russian language schools. The Moscow City Government runs a goaloriented policy in support of development of different cultures.
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- Migration as the object of the anthropological inquiry
- Although the first anthropological studies were the result of colonial conquests and encounters with new and different cultures, the study of migrations as a phenomenon worth of the attention for itself came to the anthropology much later. There are several reasons for this. Some arise from the conceptual-theoretical limitations that followed from the dominant scientific paradigms, others belong to the domain of research policies, which in turn are dependent on wider social and political movements, while the last are "ontological", i.e, they are contained in what anthropology is, and they are primarily related to its object and method. In this text, I am presenting the dynamics of the changes of paradigms through which the anthropologists dealt with the study of migrations and discussing some of the problems of classification and knowledge production.
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- Migration of the poles to Slovakia after World War II
- The article presents post-war migrations of the Poles to Slovakia, both during the period of existence of the Czechoslovakia and after the Velvet Revolution that led to the creation of independent Slovakia on January 1, 1993. The state has not too often been the direction of Polish emigration. The Poles in Slovakia constitute a sparse and highly dispersed population. The results of the 2011 census showed that only 3,084 people claimed to be of Polish nationality. The decision to settle in Slovakia quite frequently stems from the fact of finding a spouse of Slovak nationality in this country. As a result, the descendants of Polish citizens coming to Slovakia are brought up in bicultural, Polish-Slovak families.