The Paradox of the "Familial Element" in the Oral Ballad: The Experience of Conflict
The Paradox of the "Familial Element" in the Oral Ballad: The Experience of Conflict

Summary/Abstract: The article is the final chapter of a longer paper (MA Thesis) on the relationship between the oral ballad genre and the phenomenon of the family. It is stressed that the family is the dominant theme in the oral ballad and its thematically distinct feature, as well as being its spiritual horizon, in view of the fact that the ballad understands the world exclusively in the framework of the family and the network of familial relations (Germ.: Familiarismus). It is observed how the "familial element" in the considered corpus (Matrix Croatica's 19th century "Female Collections") is evaluated contradictorily, since, even though a large part of the material analysed shows an inclination to the institution of the family, a considerable number of the poems show efforts to achieve liberation from its centripetal force. One can identify the conflict between the individual and the family group in ballads, this having influenced the shaping of the ballad and even the emergence of the genre itself.

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