Проблеми на традицията и иновацията в народната култура
Problems of Tradition and Innovation in Folk Culture

Summary/Abstract: More than ever before is the term "tradition and innovation" as corielated and corresponding concepts to be found in recent ethnographic literature, in themes and papers read to congresses and symposiums, etc. However, most authors see in tradition only the stable elements handed down from generation to generation, while in innovation they see only the addition of new values, or innovations to them. They pay no attention to the social mechanism of change within tradition itself, take up their stand on metaphysical positions and cannot grasp the dialectics of the renewal of traditions, its innovation, they are not aware of the dialectical link and mutual dependence between these two corresponding concepts. On the basis of Marxist-Leninist material dialecticism the author of this article attempts to elucidate the social mechanism by virtue of which human culture develops, overcoming everything that is old and has outlived its time, and retaining everything new which is born of the old under new conditions, or has been added to it as something new. The terms "tradition and innovation" in folk culture mean precisely the unity and the struggle between old and new, the acts of overcoming and inheriting. With a view to this formulation an attempt is further made to explain a series of important problems in cultural history and ethnography: the periodization of cultural strata, the elucidation of the stratigraphic method of research in ethnography, the correct cultural policy of the socialist state, the social mobility of tradition, the art of the present-day masters of art crafts, the possibility of continuing the folklore tradition in our own day, so-called folklorism, etc.

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