Pjesme iz amaterskih igrokaza u gradišćanskih Hrvata: k očuvanju etničkog identiteta
Songs from the Amateur Plays of the Burgenland Croats

Summary/Abstract: The amateur plays and especially songs performed as a part of them are indeed a significant part of the tradition of the Burgenland Croats in Austria. From the scholarly point of view, they have been altogether neglected as a research topic and the aim of this paper is to discuss this issue. The author studies those songs as one of the acpects of the musical life of the village of Mjenovo (whose German name is Kroatisch Minihof) in the central part of the Austrian Burgenland. She focuses on two periods, the 1940s and the 1990s, which show important changes of origin, the way of accepting and further creating of those songs. Because of their great popularity, those songs have played a big role in the 1940s in the spreading of the basic aim of the second period of BurgenlandCroatian national rebirth, that is, in the attempt of preserving the language as a primary element of the maintenance of ethnic identity. The 1990s and different cultural and political position of the Burgenland Croats in Austria, however, point to the seriously lower popularity of both amatur plays and songs and to the loss of their formerly very importnat function.

• Details
• Contents