SPROVË PËR NJË LEXIM TË RI TË EPOSIT SHQIPTAR: NGA KËNDVËSHTRIMI I RAPORTIT TË GJINISË ME FUQINË
This article has been withdrawn as of 07.07.2022.
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This article has been withdrawn as of 07.07.2022.
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In this study we aim to analyze some of the popular fairy tales collected from Bucovina, by the famous folklorist S. FL. Marian. The interpretation of the texts has as orientation points: Mythology, magical thinking, illustrated by Lucian Blaga, but also symbolic valences of objects and beings represented in popular fantasy texts, as an integral part of the popular epic in Bucovina. The hermeneutic process is focused on highlighting mythic-symbolic elements such as fish, rose, deer, golden apple, rain or tree-legged horse from the stories selected for analysis. Both studies and dictionaries will outline the significance at least partially of the symbol elements identified in the fairy tales quoted in the Article.
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Fairy tales arose out of people's need to connect to realities they didn't explain logically, from the need to tell, especially to children, in a very pleasant way, what is the difference between right and wrong, from the need to fill hearts with joy in the evenings when the light came from a lamp, a lamp or a candle, or just from the stars and the moon. In the world of stories, anything is possible; in the world of stories evil is almost always punished; in the world of stories people take wings and fly with thought with winged horses, fairies and birds; a fairy tale always leaves in the soul of the one who listens to it (or reads it) a taste as sweet as honey. The fairy tale must be distinguished from story, which is more realistic, from legend, which seeks to explain natural phenomena or historical phenomena, and snooze, which is a short anecdotal narrative. Every nation has its fairy tales, so just as every man has his fairy tale. Fairy tales have great appeal, they have shaped the childhoods of many generations, they have fed the imagination, opening up access to countless mysteries of the universe. In this paper we will refer to two of the best-known fairy tales from literature and we will follow in parallel the whole process of maturation of the main characters: The strong-armed Prâslea and Harap-Alb.
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With a great symbolic meaning, fire represents the element that generates light and heat having a magical function and a purifying role in terms of Romanian culture and the beliefs of the village people’s life. As in Greek mythology, fire belongs to the gods, to the unseen powers, reminiscent of the Fire in the hearth (the sacred place, symbol of the house), the Purifying Fire (found in various rituals of the holidays over the year), the Fires of Great Thursday, the Fire/the flames of the outlaws’ treasures, the Fires of the Day of Leaving the Cheese at the beginning of the Great Lent, which are part of a ritual of banishing evils, the Fire of Sâmedru, or the Fires of Christmas Eve. Fire has been preserved in the rites of passage through its extinction and rekindling at different times in the life of a person, whether we are talking about the concept as cosmic science, when we refer to the sacred power, the lightning, the struggle between good and evil, but also as a mythical creature, for example,,,The Flyer”. Also, fire is like a force, or evil spirit, or a mythical character that is to be found in all the crucial moments from Birth, as the first threshold until Death the last threshold of a person.
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The folklore and the very history of our people is a source of inspiration and it seems that "poems are mentally polished to be written at once”. Poetry of the coordinates of existence (life and death, truth and beauty), Emil Botta's lyrical work evokes the emergence of profound and generally valid questions, which arouse signs of doubt and the impulse to try to unravel them. Starting from the idea that the poet is obviously more familiar with the nocturnal elements than with those given by the daylight, with the seasons than with the days, with the mountains than with the city environment, with the legendary life than with the daily one, with death than with living life itself, it can be said that Emil Botta's poetry envelops the reader with musicality, using a language that seems innate and uttered without mistake, with unique associations of words, exclamations and confessions. His poetic originality is given by the use of dissolved elements from a personal lyric, in which only folkloric expressions still retain some independence, through pleasures from folk tales, especially related to certain archaic heresies.
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The article discusses Otar Iosseliani’s feature debut movie Falling Leaves of 1966. Georgian-born, Iosseliani is a representative of the generation of Soviet intelligentsia called the “Sixtiers.” He was also among the Soviet fi lm directors who were proponents of the so-called national schools of fi lm-making. The poetics of Iosseliani’s movies is rooted in the documentary approach, and the view of reality they convey is indeed of documentary nature; however, in the Falling Leaves, he combines his documentary viewpoint with a subtle yet clear reference to his native culture, which determines the ethnic identity of the Georgian people within the Soviet state. His recourse to the emblematic elements of the Georgian tradition, i.e., wine and feast (supra), enables a look at the mid-sixties in the Soviet Union which is discreet (hidden behind the pseudo-documentary poetics), occasionally ironic and occasionally poetic, yet certainly devoid of any idealism.
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Both popular culture as such and contemporary Hollywood movies are intended primarily as a form of entertainment, and a culture researcher is not expected to trace hidden symbols, myths or meanings rooted in traditional cultures in them. Modern popular mythologies by no means manifest the mythological pattern described by Mircea Eliade. Today’s popular culture incorporates diverse images, ideas, references, and fragmented meanings and, as such, constitutes a conceptual patchwork. However, I claim that the cinema of Darren Aronofsky delivers more than pure entertainment. It does not consist in a free juxtaposition of elements of popular culture and exhibits tropes and motifs, as well as a symbolic language and archetypal protagonists, pertaining to the myths constantly recurring in the history of culture. The goal of the paper is a discussion of Aronofsky’s Mother! against the concepts of hospitality, home and strangeness (otherness). In his pursuit of answers to the questions he deems as essential, the director (and author of a culturally signifi cant narration) refers to the topoi and tropes characteristic of Mediterranean mythologies and the Judeo-Christian tradition.
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In the first half of the 19th century, due to a natural desire to develop the arts, national music schools were born. Their musical language was inspired by popular creation and their aim was to promote cultured music based on traditional music. Czech music developed from the struggle for independence and unification of the Czech people. Musicians such as František and Jiří Benda, Josef Mysliveček, Jan Dussek, Johann Stamitz will play an important role in founding Czech musical classicism, influencing their descendants, B. Smetana and A. Dvořák to continue the musical traditions, their creation constituting a true musical Renaissance. Vltava is a masterpiece as a symphonic poem, but above all as the Czech people's flagship. Composer Hanuš Trneček's transcription for harp is an important piece in the harpist's repertoire, he combines both important elements of technique and elements of expressiveness that bring out the harp's distinctive characteristics.
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Review of: Drita Halimi-Statovci, Shije kulturore, Instituti Albanologjik, Prishtinë, 2022; 294 f.
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The presented micro thesis is an attempt to identify some of the most important moments of the life of Shtjefen Gjecovi, relying mainly on manuscripts or published documents, which are stored in his fund which contains no. 58. The superficial browsing of the documents of this fund, creates deep impressions and let you understand that we are dealing with a personality, who has left deep traces and has valuable contributions to the developments of the time when he lived, that belong to the decade of the century XIX and the first three decades of the century XX. The time when Gjecovi lived and acted is the most important period of the movement for national liberation, a crucial period for the creation and consolidation of the Independent Albanian State. Gjecovi joined and came in line with the most prominent personalities of the Renaissance who tried to awaken the national unity of Albanians through the development of education and culture in the Albanian Language, through highlighting the well-known traditions, the origin of the Albanian people, of the efforts and results in the struggle for freedom and independence. The solution and practice of the profession of a clergyman gave him the opportunity to know directly the life of the population in the areas where he worked and lived. At the same time being a very attentive observer of everything around him. Gjecovi noted in his notebooks the difficult situation in which the Albanian population lived, the customs and norms which regulated relations between people, the attitude towards government authorities, the attitude towards foreign rulers, etc. All of them he used to conduct written studies and works of scientific, literary and religious character. They are partially published, but mostly preserved in his manuscript in the CSA fund. Gjecovi’s studies and publications cover many fields, but in the presented work are considered mainly those of ethnological character. For the realization of this work I have tried to choose documents that presents as dignifiedly as possible this personality of the Albanian National Movement. At the same time, I think that despite the fact that there is a series of publications about ShtjefenGjecov, which reflects different aspects of his creative and patriotic activity, based on wealth documentary that is in his fund, there is undertake more indepth studies and make known his contribution.
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The article deals with the wedding tradition of the upper reaches of the Northern Dvina River. The relevance of such a study is due to the need to generalize the results of folklore and ethnographic activities in this region. The purpose of the work is to introduce into scientific circulation the recording of a local version of the northern Russian wedding ceremony recorded in the village of Verkhnyaya Uftyuga in the Solvychegodsky district of the North Dvina province (now the Krasnoborsky district of the Arkhangelsk region) in the 1920s. The manuscript (currently stored in the archives of the Krasnoborsky Historical Memorial Art Museum named after S. I. Tupitsin) is the result of the collection and fixation of folklore traditions by a local school teacher O. A. Shestakova. This record of the Verkhnyaya Uftyuga wedding ceremony is an isolated case in her collecting practice in the upper reaches of the Northern Dvina River region, with its format being very similar to the field records of modern folklorists. While collecting the information, the local historian worked with the informant very productively and efficiently: the text contains additional questions and comments on ritual actions; O. A. Shestakova recorded all stages and actors that are characteristic of the northern Russian wedding tradition, as well as the lyrics of the wedding songs. The published document is interesting both as a record of one of the local variants of the northern Russian wedding ceremony and as an organic example of the “golden age” of local history – a period in the history of the development of Russian folklore studies in the system of local lore studies in the early XX century. The objects of research covered by this paper are both the wedding ceremony recording and the materials for the collector’s biography. The scientific novelty of the work lies in using little-studied and hard-to-reach sources, introducing them into scientific circulation and providing a comprehensive commentary.
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The article discusses the formal changes to the image of Saint Barbara from the “Graf Franz” / “Wawel” coal mine and the accompany¬ing ontological changes to the object in the light of politically and eco¬nomically motivated transformations. The images of Saint Barbara placed in the pit head buildings of the coal mines in Upper Silesia particularly intensively at the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries were objects of religious cult, and were mostly created by the professional artists. As objects of miners’ piety, based on devotion to the Blessed Sacrament, they represented the idea of an art object unified with theology. During the communist rule in Poland, the statue of Saint Bar¬bara was removed from the pit head building and hidden by the miners, and given the status of a symbol of resistance against the state authorities. The returning of the image to the pithead building in 1980 and repainting it with technical paint made it a religious and political symbol, while also serving as an apotropaic object. After the liquidation of the “Wawel” mine, the sculpture, covered with a realistic polychrome, serves as a devotional object in the Church of Saint Pius X in Ruda Śląska.
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Review of: 1) Sanja Potkonjak i Tea Škokić, Gdje živi tvornica? Etnografija postindustrijskoga grada, Institut za etnologiju i folkloristiku, Zagreb 2022., 307 str. 2) Marijana Hameršak, Frakture dječje književnosti. Od slikovnice do lektire, od Agrama do El Shatta, Hrvatska sveučilišna naklada, Zagreb 2021., 153 str. 3) Animal: knjiga o ne-ljudima i ljudima. Kulturni bestijarij III. dio., ur. Antonija Zaradija Kiš, Maja Pasarić i Suzana Marjanić, Institut za etnologiju i folkloristiku, Hrvatska sveučilišna naklada, Zagreb 2022., 945 str. 4) Mirjana Kolumbić Šćepanović, Nonina škrinja. Iz folklorne baštine otoka Hvara, Institut za etnologiju i folkloristiku i Etnografski muzej Split, Zagreb 2022., 183 str. 5) Miroslava Hadžihusejnović Valašek, Najstarije zbirke tradicijske glazbe iz Slavonije: Uspomene na stari Brod Ignjata Alojzija Brlića (1830-ih) i Južnoslavljanske pučke pĕsme Karla Catinellija (1849), Institut za etnologiju i folkloristiku, Zagreb 2022., 253 str. 6) Suzana Marjanić, Mitovi i re/konstrukcije. Tragom Nodilove “stare vjere” Srba i Hrvata, Institut za etnologiju i folkloristiku, Zagreb 2022., 559 str. 7) David Verbuč, DIY House Shows and Music Venues in the US. Ethnographic Explorations of Place and Community, Routledge, London, New York 2022., 282 str. 8) Doprinos Radeta Uhlika lingvistici i kulturi Roma. Zbornik radova sa naučnog skupa održanog 5. novembra 2019., ur. Tibor Varadi, Biljana Sikimić, Srpska akademija nauka i umetnosti, Beograd 2022., 248 str. 9) Helena Tolić, Splitska Radunica kao turistička destinacija. Studija društvenih interakcija, Hrvatsko etnološko društvo, Zagreb 2019., 128 str. 10) Julia Watson, Lo-TEK. Design by Radical Indigenism, Taschen, Köln 2022., 420 str. 11) Ljubica Anđelković Džambić, Tijelo otpora Satana Panonskog. Autodestruktivni body art u hrvatskoj umjetnosti performansa i izvedbenoj praksi, Sandorf, Zagreb 2022., 500 str. 12) Social Impact in Arts and Culture. The Diverse Lives of a Concept, eds. Iva Kosmos and Martin Pogačar, Založba ZRC Ljubljana 2022, 391 pages 13) GSG Magazine, Issue 3. Othering (in)(of) the Periphery, eds. Sanja Horvatinčić, Iva Kovač, Građanke svom gradu, Rijeka 2021, 208 pages 14) Jasmina Tumbas, “I am Jugoslovenka!”. Feminist Performance Politics During and After Yugoslav Socialism, Manchester University Press, Manchester 2022., 344 str. 15) Između zdravlja i bolesti. Pogled sa Balkana, ur. Sanja Lazarević Radak, Udruženje folklorista Srbije, Univerzitetska biblioteka “Svetozar Marković”, Beograd 2019., 220 str. 16) Social Issues in Ballads and Songs, ur. Matilda Burden, Kommission für Volksdichtung, Stellenbosch 2020., 134 str. 17) Land art, Earth art, Earthworks. z/Zemlja i antropocen, ur. Zvjezdana Jembrih, voditelj projekta Alen Novoselec, Akademija likovnih umjetnosti, Zagreb 2021., 158 str.
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A Eurasian motif complex built around the illusion of a flood was described by Artёm Koz’min in 2011 under the preliminary name of the Saint Euplus Miracle. Subsequently, this discovery proved to be productive in the understanding of the development of some Chinese plots including the image of a magic paintbrush. This article deals with a combination of the magic paintbrush image and the borrowed motif complex centred around water that apears miraculously, or the illusion of it, in Chinese tradition. The image of a magic brush has been widespread in the literature and folklore of China for centuries, although this combination, which underlies the famous tale Ma Liang and his Magic Brush, remains unnoticed. The aim of the article is to describe the Chinese version of the Saint Euplus Miracle and to point out its characteristic features. In all the Chinese examples analysed, the role of the magic helper was prominent, while in the non-Chinese cases the helper was generally absent. Another feature specific to the Chinese cases was the helper giving the hero a magic object for use in drawing.
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The paper explores materials, methods and approaches used by Russian sinologists to define and analyse the cult of Guan Yu (also known as Guan-gong, Guan-di, etc.), a popular god of the Chinese pantheon, revered by Daoists, Buddhists and educated Confucians, and who was also granted a number of imperial titles. Guan Yu was worshipped in late imperial China as God of war and wealth, paragon of moral virtue and loyalty to the ruler. Published and unpublished materials by Russian scholars shed light on beliefs and practices related to Guan Yu and display an array of methods including translation of original Chinese sources, field observations, scrutiny of numerous written and oral sources as well as mythological motifs. The paper displays how various angles and approaches to the same subject – worship of Guan Yu – allow a multifaceted and wholesome vision of this god’s place in Chinese traditional culture.
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This paper examines the cult of cat spirits in north-western China and their veneration by the Han Chinese, Tibetans, and Monguors. These spirits are revered as family spirits and guardians of wealth and property, but possess resentful and revengeful personalities. The paper explores the origins of the cult, local worship and summoning practices, protection methods, and links with other vernacular traditions in the region. The study uses a combination of research methods, including analysis of Chinese historical sources, published modern narratives, and the authors’ own fieldwork in Mongolia. The paper employs a qualitative and comparative approach to identify invariant features of cat spirits across various local traditions and highlights the assimilation of the cult into different traditional belief systems where it is enriched with new traits. The paper sheds light on the rich and complex tapestry of beliefs and practices associated with cat spirits. The article suggests that the cult of cat spirits may have had non-Han and non-Tibetan origins, possibly connected to Proto-Mongolic tribes.
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Interview with Merili Metsvahi by Ott Heinapuu
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Review of: Aado Lintrop. Soome-ugri reisid. Tartu: EKM Teaduskirjastus, 2022. 336 lk.
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This paper will look at how the grungy, old-fashioned, lowly sea shanty has become the unlikely hero of the Covid-19 pandemic, bringing people together globally and generating both community and creativity. Sea shanties, providing comfort and entertainment for sailors while at sea, far from their loved ones, became an odd bedfellow in this current day and age, as we counted the days for normal life to resume again. This phenomenon can serve as a template for other activities of this kind, using music and performance to combat isolation and loneliness.
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Review of: Marie Cornu, Anita Vaivade, Lily Martinet, Clea Hance (Eds.): Intangible Cultural Heritage Under National and International Law. Going Beyond the 2003 UNESCO Convention; Cheltenham, Northampton: Edward Elgar Publishing, 2020, 224 p.
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