Slavonske inačice pjesme o djevojci-ratnici u hrvatskoj usmenoj tradiciji u komparativnom kontekstu: književno-antropološki pristup zapletu i liku
Slavonian variants of the ballad on warrior-maiden in Croatian oral tradition and in comparative context: literary-anthropological approach

Summary/Abstract: The Ballad on Warrior Girl, which is widely spread in almost all European ballad traditions - although under different titles - has enormous cultural-anthropological potential in its poetical discourse, as has been widely discussed in folkloristic and literary studies. In this article we wanted to show for the fi rst time on the example of Croatian tradition the possibility of critical reading of historical-geographic tradition,and the importance of poetic discourse and its metaphorical hermeneutics for the history of the poem. Primarily, we wanted to demonstrate that the archive readings are not incompatible with the readings of contemporary literary theory. We have seen that the plot of this ballad repeats in short the history of the study of this ballad, concerned with structuralist reading of the poetical discourse in the manner of Lord and Parry “oral theory school” or of the “neo-traditionalist school”, which are also seenin this article to be far from being competitive schools of study (as was sometimes believed). As far as the historical-geographical method is concerned in the study of Croatian traditional ballads from Slavonia, it is shown that this method cannot bring any substantially new insights without the support of thorough study of linguistic (especially dialectological) methods of study. However, the insights of the Spanishneo-traditionalist school, and particular of Diego Catalán-Menéndez Pidal and his study of metaphoric potentials of traditional poetry indicate that, even without any strictly rigorous methodological procedure of the historical-geographical method, and without the help of linguistic methods of studies, some suggestions may be drawn from intercultural empathical cultural narrative exchanges and/or borrowings. The plot of this ballad has multi-layered meanings: it can be understood either as the storyof maturation, of “honour and shame”, or as the story of “quiet female diplomacy”, depending on different narratological frames (in an absence of testimonies on family traditional “song-maker procedures”). Generally speaking and taking into account the few examples, Slavonian variants are shown to be more lyrical than those from the rest of the Croatian regions, although very impressive and illustrative, as these poems were sung or narrated in dance circles, as was testifi ed to by Matica hrvatska / MatrixCroatica XIXth century collectors.

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