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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- The narratives of faith-based organizations on migrant education in Serbia after the closure of the formalized migration corridor in 2016
- In this paper we will present narratives of the representatives of faith-based humanitarian organizations of the Serbian Orthodox Church, the Roman Catholic Church and the Seventh Day Adventist Church. The narratives provide description of the activities of these organizations regarding education of migrants in Serbia when, from the year 2016 - after the closure of the formalized migration corridor and new securitarian turn of the migration policy - migrants’ integration programs took primacy over those focused on urgent reception. The material has been obtained through semi-structured interviews and will be presented in two sections, the activities of the faith-based organizations in relation to the elementary school education, as well as the activities related to high-school education and education of the adults. [Projects of the Serbian Ministry of Education, Science and Technological Development, Grant no. 177027: Multietnicitet, multikulturalnost, migracije-savremeni procesi and Grant no. 177006: Dunav i Balkan: kulturno-istorijsko nasleđe]
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- The otherness of a Barbarianess
- Belonging to a social community, a nation, a culture or a religion, can be expressed by stressing differences and borders between us and others, between our collective self and their otherness. Achievements of classical Greek culture for us are primarily bound to the polis, city-state, but classical Greek literature gives quite significance to the definition of universal Greek identity by creating the figure of a barbarian on the opposite side. This contrast between Greeks and barbarians, not noticeable in the literature of archaic period, grows more and more important (while the notion of the word barbarian becomes more pejorative) with gradual intrusion of Persian domination over west area of Asia Minor from the middle of VI BC and with successful resistance of many Greek states in the first half of V BC. The basic feature that defines the notion βάρβαρος is a lack of moral responsibility indispensable for enjoying (but active enjoying, applying, engaging in, practicing) political freedom. Moral responsibility and political freedom are closely connected through λόγος - which is ability to reason and also ability to speak (in Greek). The image of barbarian is further elaborated with features of cruelty and excessiveness of all kinds (especially when it comes to somatic pleasures), i.e. a lack of moderation, so essential to Greeks. On the other hand, “to be Greek” meant: to be a citizen of a Greek polis having full civic rights. This further means: exclusively men. Otherness in being a barbarian, hence, goes hand in hand with Otherness of a woman in ancient Greek world. This polarity also includes the tension between πόλις and οἶκος, i.e. the tension between public-political and private-family life. Bearing this dichotomy in mind, I am re-reading two theatric plays: Euripides’ (cca 480-406 BC) tragedy Medea and radio-drama Medea of Serbian writer Velimir Lukić (1936-1937), one of many literary and art-works inspired by Euripides’ tragedy and Greek myth. Euripides’ Medea influenced on the tradition of this famous barbarian woman from Colchis, passionate and cruel sorceress, more than any other text did. If this writer didn’t make up Medea’s infanticide (performed in order to punish her unfaithful husband) on his own, then it was him who gave a fixed form to this variant of the myth. She is a refugee from her own home and country, a newcomer in Greece on the other side; she is a dangerous foreigner, a barbarian, passionate woman and sorceress; a threat and an ill omen to the manliness and male principle (and ambiguously a potential help to it). In order to avenge to her infidel husband, Greek Jason, this Colchian woman becomes a murderer of her own (two male!) children in the Euripides’ tragedy. The bloody epilogue of love between Greek and Colchian is described by Velimir Lukić as well. In his radio-drama Medea, eternal and varible, male and female, Greek and barbarian (in a particular aspect) are juxtaposed. Lukić constantly has in mind an abyss that gapes between hellenic and barbarian world, a gap that (in his interpretation) is so terrific that Medea will murder her own offspring saying: „So that I prevent my sons from becoming Greek, / To prevent them to reject their barbarian mother…”
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- The period of crisis and kinship relations - in the region of Vranje
- This paper represents an attempt to perceive the impact of the socio-economic crisis in Serbia on kinship from the ethnological viewpoint. This paper is primarily intended to point out the manner in which the economic conditions and the specific cultural rules influence the structure of the kinship network and the functioning of kinship relations. The research has been located in the town of Vranje area and its immediate surroundings among the Serb population, and chronologically it includes the period from the end of the eighties to the end of the nineties of the 20th century.
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- The reproduction of borders and the contagiousness of illegalisation
- For the past couple of years, Serbia has become a transit country for the ever increasing number of migrants from Africa and Asia, travelling towards the EU. As part of the process of approaching the EU - first achieving the liberalisation of the visa regime for entry into the Schengen area in 2009 and then getting the official status of a candidate member in 2012 - Serbia needed to harmonise its policies with those of the EU, especially in the areas of border control and migration management. As a result, Serbia adopted a series of laws and policies which effectively illegalise migrants. In this paper, we first look into how migrant “illegality” is produced by Serbian migration legislation and policy, and second, we look at the consequences of this illegalisation. The first set of consequences are those that are felt by migrants themselves, as they are its principle target. The second set of consequences affects those persons that come into contact with the illegalised migrants. We speak of contagiousness of illegalisation, which affects those people who are providing professional services to illegalised persons. Under the treat of possible criminalisation, pressure is put on them to conduct “legality” checks and thus reproduce borders far away from the actual state border. We look particularly at reproduction of borders in the area of accommodation of migrants, taking as a case study a Belgrade youth hostel.
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- The role of amateur theatre King David in the preservation of Jewish culture and tradition
- This work focuses on the role of the amateur theatre King David, founded in 1986 with the Jewish community of Belgrade, in the preservation of Jewish cultural heritage and establishing of intercultural dialogue primarily on the microlevel of a neighbourhood, but also within a wider community framework.1 Over the last thirty yeras the theatre has been devotedly run by one person, Mirijam Salom, who also writes play scipts, makes song arrangements and directs plays. Members of the theatre group are mostly primary and secondary school children and university students. The fact that most of them are not actually of Jewish but of Serbian descent is a sort of a phenomenon. In this way, the theatre has an educational role in presenting Jewish culture primarily to the young people who actively participate in plays and consequently to their family members and the Belgrade audience. One of the aims of this research is to give some answers to questions concerning the role of the theatre in the lives of the young people who take part in it as well as the reception of the plays with the audience. [Project of the Serbian Ministry of Education, Science and Technological Development, Grant no. 177027: Multiethnicity, multiculturalism, migrations contemporary processes]
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- The role of immigrant organisation in the community life - Serbs in Chicago
- Immigrant organisations decisively influenced the gathering of Serbs in Chicago and the forming of their ethnic community. These organisations also contributed to the preservation of their ethnic identity. Apart from that, they influenced the forming of the specific culture of American Serbs, as well as the affirmation of the immigrants in the wider American society.
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- The role of individuals in the system of the culture of a small ethnographic region
- The Czech countryside has passed a considerable transformation since the so-called Velvet Revolution in 1989. It is no longer a peripheral area from where people move to cities, although some villages are still depopulating. Rural development actors are local and national institutions and individuals who somehow influence the activities in the countryside and are important for the maintenance and development of local culture and the transmission of ethno- cultural traditions. In a small region in the south of Valašsko (Wallachia) called Závrší on the Moravian-Slovak border it was Josef Káňa (1929-1994), who was an important bearer of tradition, collector of folklore, storyteller, dancer, local chronicler and regional writer, painter, illustrator and founder of the local Scout troop. His son and other family members keep father's memory both in a small private museum and also develop his intellectual legacy in the local culture, particularly in the traditional storytelling and in the Závršan folk ensemble. It is an example of generational transmission. Creation of the so called commemorative archaeology in the form of chronicles, photos, commemorative objects etc. is a conscious follow-up to intergenerational continuity that strengthens the integrity of the group, the family, the village or the region.
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- The role of personalities in passing-down the tradition within the system of culture
- Pospíšilová, Jana; Stefanović-Banović, Milesa - The role of personalities in passing-down the tradition within the system of culture - Glasnik Etnografskog instituta SANU
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- The role of religious tourism in creating hierarchy of monasteries for the followers of the Serbian Orthodox Church
- This paper is on the analysis of the influence of religious tourism, i.e. organized homage to the monasteries of the Serbian Orthodox Church on constructing impressions of significance of the knowledge and holiness of a monastery to followers and devoted worshippers. One of the main starting points in this paper is that followers’ journeys represent a specific communication frame. Owing to various factors, there is a difference in “assessment” of monasteries by the followers, as well as a different level of their connection to the some monasteries, and this has a consequence of creating personal “hierarchy” of monasteries within this frame. The aim of this paper is studying in which way and in which extent organized followers’ journeys contribute to nominating some monasteries as outstanding in comparison to others by the followers of the Serbian Orthodox Church. [Project of the Serbian Ministry of Education, Science and Technological Development, Grant no. 177028: Strategije identiteta: savremena kultura i religioznost]
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- The role of the social sciences and humanities in contemporary society
- In the first part of the paper the author briefly describes the role of social sciences and humanities in the present in Europe and in Slovakia. The description focuses on those research fields, in which social sciences and humanities contribute to the scientific knowledge the most. In the second part the author addresses the questions, which were prepared by the organizers of the round table and sent to all participants in advance. Namely: How is the relationship between the state and scientific institutions? What sources of funding are available for scientific study? Which institutions and in what ways conduct studies in the humanities? How are the research topics for projects chosen? The answers to these questions are based on participant's experiences as a member of diverse Slovak and international research committees and institutions.
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- The significance of Serbia’s recent war-ridden past for young people’s identity perceptions
- How do we ethnographically chart the ways in which a recent war-ridden past features in everyday identifications of young adults, who have little or no direct experience of that past? One way is to treat this question as a matter of how everyday knowledge is constituted and transferred between individuals, as well as how historical legacies, cultural and political models enter their life-worlds, what they think and know, and who they are. These inquiries stood at the core of the study I conducted among two high-school classes between 2007 and 2009 in Novi Sad. This article will shed light on my main conclusions and problematize the notion of collective confrontation with the past. My contention is that arguments for collective confrontation with the past, together with official policies informed by this discourse, need to take into account social psychological mechanisms of identity construction in order to avoid the assumption that knowledge and moral insight can be mapped onto people’s minds.
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- The spiritual body
- This work analyses the concept of the soul in the Slavic and the Serbian cultures in the context of general views on soul and concludes that the dual conception body-soul did not exist in the pagan Slavic world picture. It was developed in Slavic and Serbian culture along with the acceptance of Christianity, while the earlier, pagan culture held in a higher esteem the notion of the vegetative and emotive soul, closely related to the body and the idea of free soul - man’s double, who, nevertheless, implies a certain, although immaterial and not always apparent embodiment (“spiritual body” - ‘telo duhovno’). The iconicity of the lexeme ‘duša’ rests upon the opposition visible-invisible, which is reserved for the vegetative or organic soul, while the free soul depends on the opposition material immaterial. The difference in the iconicity of the lexemes ‘duša’ (“soul”) and ‘duh’ (“spirit”) - although both stand in an etymological relation to ‘dah’ (“breath”), ‘disati’ (“to breath”), ‘duvati’ (“to blow”) - lies in the fact that ‘duh’ is conceptualized as a divine breath, ‘sila duhovna’ (“a divine force”), which can be individuated in part, but which maintains the characteristics of its divine or demonic origin and is related to the intellect and the will, elements of air and fire, while the ‘duša’ is individuated and linked to “lower” levels of human being - bodily functions and sensitivity related to the element of water. [Projekat Ministarstva nauke Republike Srbije, br. III47016: Interdisciplinarno istraživanje kulturnog i jezičkog nasleđa Srbije i izrada multimedijalnog internet portala "Pojmovnik srpske kulture"]