КУЋА НЕОБИЧНА. ПРОСТОР ГРОБА У УСМЕНОМ ПЕСНИШТВУ
THE UNUSUAL HOUSE: THE GRAVE AREA IN ORAL POETRY

Summary/Abstract: The paper analyzes the poems concerning the graves and rituals on graveyards in the Serbian and South-Slavic oral poetry indicating primarily the individual ambivalence of the relationship towards the deceased and the death reflected in them. The paper investigates the meanings in oral poetry that are ascribed to not having a grave or having an unmarked grave; the poems about the graves of potentially unclean dead people, especially about the graves in mountains; the burial in its own; the grave with windows is particularly covered in lyrical poetry; and various forms of communication with the dead. In the poems concerning the grave space and various forms of communication with the dead we face an emphasized ambivalence of the cult of the dead and contradictory relationships towards the dead. The dead can have the role of the ancestor-benefactor but they can also become the undead deceased or impure spirits who dwell in the world of the living and cause them harm. In order for the dead to be of any help to the living they previously had to really die, which means that the burial ceremony had to be carefully and consistently done in all its segments. The universality of the meaning of all these poems opens them up for communication with the contemporary reader although they retain their mythical and magical subtext and all the meanings based on them.

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