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Problem Area of Death in Folk Lamentations

Author(s): Lasta Đapović
Subject(s): Customs / Folklore, Cultural Anthropology / Ethnology
Published by: Етнографски институт САНУ
Keywords: Folk Lamentations; specific understanding of death; grave; order; live;
Summary/Abstract: The author explores, within the scope of the research project, a perception of death in three archaic but ideationally persistent forms of our folklore: lamentations, curses, and charms. The first and foremost stage of this research work is a study of lamentations. Due to the complexity of the notion of death, it is, first of all, necessary, as the author points out, to determiner there is anything peculiar to this avenue of approach to death, with respect to the official orthodox dogmatic, and with respect to other forms of folk creativity. It is also imperative to make a close study of whether the contemplated lamentations include certain old ideas of death and of the afterlife, which may have their origin in some ancient religion. Exemplified by fragments of folk lamentation verse taken from three anthologies (compiled by Vuk St. Karadžić, Novica Šaulić, and Tatomir Vukanović, respectively), the subjects under consideration include how lamentations relate a down-to-earth attitude to death, what is meant by the syntagm “eternal home”, and how death reflects in the community of the living. Metaphoric and sublimated poetic language, reelected also in curses, could be of use to us as a criterion in our appreciation of praise worthy qualities of our people.

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