Papers by Danka Lajic Mihajlovic
Layout and cover design Rokas Gelažius Map design Asta Skujytė-Razmienė The conference is organiz... more Layout and cover design Rokas Gelažius Map design Asta Skujytė-Razmienė The conference is organized by the Institute of Lithuanian Literature and Folklore in collaboration with the Network of Nordic and Baltic Tradition Archives.
Metal music studies, Jun 1, 2022
Prompted by the emergence of Serbian black metal supergroup Gavranovi and their two singles relea... more Prompted by the emergence of Serbian black metal supergroup Gavranovi and their two singles released in 2020, this article offers an interdisciplinary and intertextual reading of this project. In this article, collaborative efforts of musicology and ethnomusicology are employed in interpreting the new readings of Serbian epic tradition in the context of extreme metal, as well as its positioning in the history of Serbian extreme metal scene in general. By using the gusle, a traditional instrument, as well as the postulates of Serbian epic poetry, Gavranovi participate in contemporary remediation of tradition, which will be examined through the lens of (inter)textual analysis.
Playing Multipart Music, 2021
Based on previous research on the Serbian bagpipe tradition, especially personal research on the ... more Based on previous research on the Serbian bagpipe tradition, especially personal research on the manner and level of correlation among the harmonic structures of traditional music performed on different types of bagpipes and (local) vocal practices, it is my intention to broaden the comprehension of the musical texture of bagpipes with a double pipe and drone in Serbia. As this deals with a type of instrument which is found internationally, the findings could be significant for comparative studies of Eastern European bagpipes. In the present article attention is paid to the bagpipe as a solo multipart instrument in its dominant function as an instrument for dance music as well as in its less frequent function as an accompanying instrument for songs. The possibility of realizing vocal-instrumental arrangements, accomplished by using bellows on the bagpipe variant from Vojvodina, the northern province of Serbia, introduces a specific fourpart texture. The musical texture of three-voice bagpipes will also be considered as a way of musical thinking in a broader sense-with regard to the vocal practice of this geocultural area and other multipart instruments which are simultaneously present in the region. The diachronic contextualization includes the consideration of bagpipe three-part texture as an influence on the Serbian accordion tradition, especially during its initial period. Multipart sound as an essential feature of the bagpipes has been 1 Acknowledgments: This paper is the result of research realized at the Institute of Musicology of the Serbian Academy of Sciences and Arts funded by the Ministry of Education, Science and Technological Development of the Republic of Serbia. I owe special gratitude to Saša Spasojević, a non-professional researcher from Belgrade, for providing me with the opportunity to view his private photo collection, his catalogue and to use his collection of 78 rpm records. Furthermore, I would like to gratefully acknowledge an anonymous referee and my colleagues/editors from the Department for Folk Music Research and Ethnomusicology of the University of Music and Performing Arts Vienna, especially Prof. Dr. Ulrich Morgenstern for insightful comments and suggestions and help in shaping the final version of this paper. 29 Open-Access-Publikation im Sinne der CC-Lizenz BY-NC 4.0
Belgrade : Institute of Musicology SASA, 2021
How has musicology evolved over the last five years? What new conflicts and tensions have arisen,... more How has musicology evolved over the last five years? What new conflicts and tensions have arisen, and what does the current situation indicate about the future? This article is one possible answer to these questions, with particular reference to the Anglosphere and to crises of identity largely brought about by increasing external pressures on the discipline and the humanities more generally. I begin by outlining the context for musicology today: the erosion of musical skills in schools and associated threats to university provision, the rise of the impact agenda (in the UK), and the resurgence of an ethical imperative-the political and ideological ramifications of the humanities and their value to society in the face of neo-liberalism, globalisation, racial and social inequalities, exclusions and prejudices. Musicologists have been aware of these concerns for some time, at least since Philip Bohlman's seminal 1993 article on musicology as a political act, but they are now being explored with greater urgency, in new ways and through new media. My article concentrates on three emerging responses to these external pressures: applied, colonial, and ideological musicologies. Exploring key debates and scholars in these fields, I ultimately highlight three specific examples of ideological musicology, by Seth Brodsky, Paul Harper-Scott and Eric Drott. These are closer to my own interests but also illustrate new ways of reconceiving and reimagining what musicology is and can be. I end by reflecting briefly on my own experiences and offering thoughts on how young musicologists might address the future.
Oxford Music Online, 2014
Oxford Music Online, 2014
The book contains a detailed introductory study by the editors and 15 chapters by distinguished s... more The book contains a detailed introductory study by the editors and 15 chapters by distinguished scholars from 13 countries (Poland, Hungary, Romania, Bulgaria, Slovenia, Croatia, Serbia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Lithuania, Ukraine, Russia, Kazakhstan, Georgia). This edition presents a pioneering endeavour in global scholarly frames.The main idea was to gain a nuanced scholarly insight that could encourage wider comparative musical studies on different variants of more or less similar phenomena in postsocialist countries. At the same time, diversity, as an important feature of thе volume, testifies to the very wide scope of the term “postsocialism” in music, and leads to a further critical examination of its explanatory value. A variety of local contexts goes together with a very wide range of scholarly approaches. Giving voice to native scholars has allowed to obtain “insights from within”. Thus, the publication testifies to an investment in the decolonialisation of power dictated by...
Muzikologija
The study of gramophone records is important when acquainting oneself with Mijat Mijatovic (1887-... more The study of gramophone records is important when acquainting oneself with Mijat Mijatovic (1887-1937), who strongly impacted so-called folk music in the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes / Yugoslavia, considering the importance of the records he released during his career. His opus of commercial recordings is the largest of the interwar period in the area and, therefore, it is highly indicative when considering the correlation between the early music industry and ?local? culture as a glocal topic. In this study we present numerous sources and a complex critical analysis that resulted in Mijatovic?s discography. Special attention has been paid to record companies, the chronology of recordings, the repertoire and collaborating musicians, thus mapping the potential of discography for the study of recorded music and cultural history.
Belgrade : Institute of Musicology SASA, 2021
Objective The objective of this study was to evaluate age-sex standardized death rates (ASDR) fro... more Objective The objective of this study was to evaluate age-sex standardized death rates (ASDR) from all causes from 2011 to 2015 among people who have accessed opioid agonist treatment (OAT) and compare rates living in the Northern and Southern areas of Ontario. Methods Routinely collected administrative health data was used to calculate crude death rates and age-sex standardized death rates (ASDRs) per 1,000,000 population of individuals who accessed OAT and compared the rates geographically from 2011 to 2015. The weighted ASDRs for each year were calculated by using the mid-year population of these regions. The rate ratios were calculated considering the base year as 2011. Results A total of 55,924 adults who accessed OAT were included between January 1, 2011, and December 31, 2015. The majority of patients in the cohort - 52.3% - were between 15 and 34 years old, 32.5% were female, 11.3% were in the lowest income group, 71.1% lived in Southern areas. Overall, the ASDR steadily increased during the study period and spiked in 2015. We found that among individuals who had accessed OAT, living in Southern Ontario was associated with a lower risk of all-cause mortality than those living in Northern Ontario. ASDR for Northern Ontario was 20.0 (95% confidence interval (CI)= 10.2-34.2) in 2011, and 103.5(95%CI=78.5-133.5) in 2015, which was a five-fold increase from 2011. Whereas in Southern Ontario, ASDR in 2011 was 13.8 (95% CI= 11.5-16.5), and in 2015 ASDR was 60.8 (95%CI=55.8-66.1), which was only a 4-fold increase from 2011 Conclusion Our findings demonstrate evidence of a steadily increasing ASDR among individuals who accessed OAT with higher rates in Northern areas of the province before the era of synthetic opioids in Ontario, Canada.
Muzikologija
This paper is dedicated to the investigation of the initial period of the Institute of Musicology... more This paper is dedicated to the investigation of the initial period of the Institute of Musicology SAS, the first scientific institution of this kind in Serbia (and Yugoslavia), in order to give an insight into the development of national musicology and ethnomusicology. The results of earlier research about the topic have been expanded by means of the analysis of documents from the archive of the Institute of Musicology SASA. The organization of the Institute?s functioning, general research orientation, key topics, methodological choices and the significance of individual researchers were considered in detail. This diachronically oriented overview of research into music throughout the 20th century enabled us to pointing out the continuities and innovations after World War II and the Institute?s foundation.
САВРЕМЕНА СРПСКА ФОЛКЛОРИСТИКА VI, 2019
In the paper the ethical as well as theoretical and methodological problems of positioning resear... more In the paper the ethical as well as theoretical and methodological problems of positioning researchers in contemporary applied humanities were discussed, with a special emphasis on the engagement in the field of safeguarding of the intangible cultural heritage (ICH) in the context of global cultural policies. These policies are essentially marked by the activities of the United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization (UNESCO), whose current instrument is the 2003 Convention for the Safeguarding of the ICH, ratified by Serbia in 2010.
Based on the experience gained from engaging in the safeguarding of singing to the accompaniment of the gusle as an element of the ICH of Serbia, the authors discuss the question of the relation between the competences of the cultural heritage bearers (in a wider sense – the “local community” of the performers and the audience / adherents) and the researchers / experts in the domain of (verbal) definition of the ICH. Hereafter, presented and analyzed are the results of the research conducted by the authors through projects designed and directed precisely towards identifying and solving the problems from the domain of practical heritage safeguarding (Singing to the accompaniment of the gusle: The forwarding of heritage (2015) and Laboratory for the safeguarding of Singing to the accompaniment of the gusle in Serbia: collective knowledge and individual aesthetics (2017)), whereby the question of determining “traditionality” as one of the parameters of “representativity” is highlighted. It is shown that the attitudes of the local community on defining the mentioned quality of practice are heterogeneous. This is conditioned by the fact that the “negotiation of the traditional” essentially determines the current state of singing to accompaniment of the gusle as a cultural expression, which, in the last hundred years, went through the processes of accelerated transformation (in the repertoire, verbal and musical expression, as well as performative aesthetics as a whole). While contextualizing the results of the research by comparing the experience of colleagues from the region (and world) engaged in the field of applied humanities, the authors underline the necessity of researchers` balancing between the demands of their disciplines (that imply sensitivity to changes and the multiplicity of voices among the actors in tradition) and the positions of the participants in the process of constituting elements of cultural heritage (in which it is impossible to completely escape the mechanisms of construction, selectivity, and certain conservatism). In addition to considering issues related to the domain of competencies, scope and boundaries of the activities of different actors in the system of the safeguarding of the ICH (from the local community, through experts of different profiles, to the representatives of the state cultural policy), the authors were also pondering the ethical acceptability of the researchers’ position that would imply (more active) support to the researched community in addressing the dilemmas brought by political instrumentalisation and market commodification of the ICH, and in the context of the need to respect the „bottom-up“ principle of the convention’s work.
Muzikologija, 2018
This paper is dedicated to the investigation of the initial period of the Institute of Musicology... more This paper is dedicated to the investigation of the initial period of the Institute of Musicology SAS, the first scientific institution of this kind in Serbia (and Yugoslavia), in order to give an insight into the development of national musicology and ethnomusicology. The results of earlier research about the topic have been expanded by means of the analysis of documents from the archive of the Institute of Musicology SASA. The organization of the Institute’s functioning, general research orientation, key topics, methodological choices and the significance of individual researchers were considered in detail. This diachronically oriented overview of research into music throughout the 20th century enabled us to pointing out the continuities and innovations after World War II and the Institute’s foundation.
Phonographic recordings made on wax plates by composer Kosta P. Manojlović and ethnologist Borivo... more Phonographic recordings made on wax plates by composer Kosta P. Manojlović and ethnologist Borivoje Drobnjaković from 1930 to 1932 represent the oldest collection of field sound recordings in Serbia. The biggest part of the collection is preserved at the Institute of Musicology SASA. In 2017 digitalization of the recordings from those plates was completed, which made the sound content of the collection finally available to researchers. This paper presents and analyses the collection as an anthology of historical sound documents, as an incentive for contemporary ethnomusicological research and as an addition to studying the history of ethnomusicology in Serbia.
After an elaboration on the prehistory of documentary field recordings of
traditional music, it has been pointed to procurement of a phonograph for the Ethnographic Museum in Belgrade in 1930. There were two major expeditions, organized in 1931 and 1932 in what was then known as “Southern Serbia”, administratively the Vardar Banovina, a province of the Kingdom of Yugoslavia (now Republic of Macedonia and the Autonomous Province of Kosovo and Metohija of the Republic of Serbia). 180 plates were made, less than a third by Drobnjaković, and all the others by Manojlović. Further recordings were suspended due to certain problems with masters printing; even some later attempts of dubbing did not give a complete solution. In 1964 the Institute of Musicology SASA was given an incomplete collection. Today it is comprised of 140 wax plates.
It has been pointed that, primarily, traditional secular music was recorded, followed by few examples of church music. The collection is represented by the acoustic source, performance formation, repertoire, genre, style. Additionally, gender, age and professions of the singers and players were also discussed. It has been pointed to the potentials of the collection and its relevancy for the research of music and identity relation, music and migration relation, for studies of heritage and activities at the field of preserving traditional music. Given the specificity
of the area from which the collection predominantly originates, it can have a significant value for social engagement in overcoming conflicts with music. Finally, the attainability of wax plates now serves as an incentive for reassessing the role of Kosta P. Manojlović in cultural history and research of traditional music in Serbia and in the region.
Savremena srpska folkloristika 2, 2015
With the lack of an institution directly responsible for research in the field of folkloristics,
... more With the lack of an institution directly responsible for research in the field of folkloristics,
the societies of folklorists of various educational and scientific backgrounds
gain a special significance as a multidisciplinary platform that enables interdisciplinary
collaboration. The newlyfounded Society of Serbian Folklorists (Udruženje folklorista
Srbije – UFS) inherited this role from the eponymous society that operated as a part
of the Association of the Societies of Yugoslav Folklorists (Savez udruženja folklorist
Jugoslavije – SUFJ, 1955–1990). The key role of musical folklorists in the foundation
of the SUFJ and important roles they played in its further organisation and, on the
other hand, a rapid development of ethnomusicology in the period when SUFJ was
active, provide the reasons why the focus of this paper is on the influence of the
SUFJ on the establishment of interdisciplinarity in folklore studies, seen from the
ethnomusicological perspective.
Although the development of ethnomusicological thought in Serbia towards
interdisciplinarity can be related to similar developments worldwide, one must not
underestimate the importance of a multidisciplinary environment and methods employed
at the SUFJ Congresses. In the actual ethnomusicological practice a tendency
towards interdisciplinarity was often realized as ”generalizing interdisciplinarity” –
i.e. as a dialogue or interaction between ethnomusicology and another discipline(s).
On the other side, the instances of ”integrative interdisciplinarity” – i.e. an organic
integration of experiences, methods and results achieved in various disciplines and
sciences – were much rarer. Nevertheless, a majority of ethnomusicologists working
nowadays will not dispute the necessity to employ multiple perspectives and flexible
thinking. In that sense, the experiences of ethnomusicology as they were developed
within the SUFJ can provide useful directives regarding devising strategies and plans
for the new UFS towards embracing interdisciplinary and transdisciplinary research.
They are not only important but indispensable for the study of complex issues of
contemporary folkloristics.
Muzikologija, 2014
Since 1964, the Institute of Musicology of the Serbian Academy of Sciences and Arts has been cher... more Since 1964, the Institute of Musicology of the Serbian Academy of Sciences and Arts has been cherishing the official archive of the academician Ljubica Janković, ethnochoreologist, which originates from her service at the Ethnographic Museum in Belgrade (1939-1951). The legacy contains documentation about the activity of the Folk Dance Section of the Ethnographic Museum in Belgrade, and extensive data on folk dances in Yugoslavia from the first half of the twentieth century. This paper presents part of the archival documentation relating to the establishment and activity of the Folk Dance Section. It was the first state institution to collect primary and secondary research sources relating to folk dance structure and to the social context of a rural dance practice. Apart from that, it was the institution for education on folk dance preservation and staging. The focus of the paper is on the fundamental documents of ethnochoreological cultural and research policy in Serbia, manuscripts The Draft for Work at the Folk Dance Section of the Ethnographic Museum in Belgrade [Nacrt za rad u Otseku narodnih igara pri Etnografskom muzeju u Beogradu] (1939) and The Program for Work at the Department for Intangible Culture with the Sections: 1) Folk Dances and Folk Music; 2) Folk Literature; 3) Folk Art and Ornamentation; 4) Folk Customs and Religion; 5) Folk Medicine [Program rada u Odeljenju za duhovnu kulturu sa Otsecima: 1) za narodne igre i narodnu muziku; 2) za narodnu književnost; 3) za narodnu likovnu umetnost i ornamentiku; 4) za narodne običaje i veru; 5) za narodnu medicinu] (1946). The aim of this study is to contribute to the history of ethnochoreology in Serbia by introducing the ideas of Ljubica Janković concerning folk dance research and preservation strategies because of their importance for the interpretation of numerous ethnochoreological and ethnomusicological theoretical and analytical results, mostly achieved in cooperation with her sister, Danica Janković. In addition, we indicate the applicability of the first official ethnochoreological ideas for current folk dance research in Serbia.
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Papers by Danka Lajic Mihajlovic
Based on the experience gained from engaging in the safeguarding of singing to the accompaniment of the gusle as an element of the ICH of Serbia, the authors discuss the question of the relation between the competences of the cultural heritage bearers (in a wider sense – the “local community” of the performers and the audience / adherents) and the researchers / experts in the domain of (verbal) definition of the ICH. Hereafter, presented and analyzed are the results of the research conducted by the authors through projects designed and directed precisely towards identifying and solving the problems from the domain of practical heritage safeguarding (Singing to the accompaniment of the gusle: The forwarding of heritage (2015) and Laboratory for the safeguarding of Singing to the accompaniment of the gusle in Serbia: collective knowledge and individual aesthetics (2017)), whereby the question of determining “traditionality” as one of the parameters of “representativity” is highlighted. It is shown that the attitudes of the local community on defining the mentioned quality of practice are heterogeneous. This is conditioned by the fact that the “negotiation of the traditional” essentially determines the current state of singing to accompaniment of the gusle as a cultural expression, which, in the last hundred years, went through the processes of accelerated transformation (in the repertoire, verbal and musical expression, as well as performative aesthetics as a whole). While contextualizing the results of the research by comparing the experience of colleagues from the region (and world) engaged in the field of applied humanities, the authors underline the necessity of researchers` balancing between the demands of their disciplines (that imply sensitivity to changes and the multiplicity of voices among the actors in tradition) and the positions of the participants in the process of constituting elements of cultural heritage (in which it is impossible to completely escape the mechanisms of construction, selectivity, and certain conservatism). In addition to considering issues related to the domain of competencies, scope and boundaries of the activities of different actors in the system of the safeguarding of the ICH (from the local community, through experts of different profiles, to the representatives of the state cultural policy), the authors were also pondering the ethical acceptability of the researchers’ position that would imply (more active) support to the researched community in addressing the dilemmas brought by political instrumentalisation and market commodification of the ICH, and in the context of the need to respect the „bottom-up“ principle of the convention’s work.
After an elaboration on the prehistory of documentary field recordings of
traditional music, it has been pointed to procurement of a phonograph for the Ethnographic Museum in Belgrade in 1930. There were two major expeditions, organized in 1931 and 1932 in what was then known as “Southern Serbia”, administratively the Vardar Banovina, a province of the Kingdom of Yugoslavia (now Republic of Macedonia and the Autonomous Province of Kosovo and Metohija of the Republic of Serbia). 180 plates were made, less than a third by Drobnjaković, and all the others by Manojlović. Further recordings were suspended due to certain problems with masters printing; even some later attempts of dubbing did not give a complete solution. In 1964 the Institute of Musicology SASA was given an incomplete collection. Today it is comprised of 140 wax plates.
It has been pointed that, primarily, traditional secular music was recorded, followed by few examples of church music. The collection is represented by the acoustic source, performance formation, repertoire, genre, style. Additionally, gender, age and professions of the singers and players were also discussed. It has been pointed to the potentials of the collection and its relevancy for the research of music and identity relation, music and migration relation, for studies of heritage and activities at the field of preserving traditional music. Given the specificity
of the area from which the collection predominantly originates, it can have a significant value for social engagement in overcoming conflicts with music. Finally, the attainability of wax plates now serves as an incentive for reassessing the role of Kosta P. Manojlović in cultural history and research of traditional music in Serbia and in the region.
the societies of folklorists of various educational and scientific backgrounds
gain a special significance as a multidisciplinary platform that enables interdisciplinary
collaboration. The newlyfounded Society of Serbian Folklorists (Udruženje folklorista
Srbije – UFS) inherited this role from the eponymous society that operated as a part
of the Association of the Societies of Yugoslav Folklorists (Savez udruženja folklorist
Jugoslavije – SUFJ, 1955–1990). The key role of musical folklorists in the foundation
of the SUFJ and important roles they played in its further organisation and, on the
other hand, a rapid development of ethnomusicology in the period when SUFJ was
active, provide the reasons why the focus of this paper is on the influence of the
SUFJ on the establishment of interdisciplinarity in folklore studies, seen from the
ethnomusicological perspective.
Although the development of ethnomusicological thought in Serbia towards
interdisciplinarity can be related to similar developments worldwide, one must not
underestimate the importance of a multidisciplinary environment and methods employed
at the SUFJ Congresses. In the actual ethnomusicological practice a tendency
towards interdisciplinarity was often realized as ”generalizing interdisciplinarity” –
i.e. as a dialogue or interaction between ethnomusicology and another discipline(s).
On the other side, the instances of ”integrative interdisciplinarity” – i.e. an organic
integration of experiences, methods and results achieved in various disciplines and
sciences – were much rarer. Nevertheless, a majority of ethnomusicologists working
nowadays will not dispute the necessity to employ multiple perspectives and flexible
thinking. In that sense, the experiences of ethnomusicology as they were developed
within the SUFJ can provide useful directives regarding devising strategies and plans
for the new UFS towards embracing interdisciplinary and transdisciplinary research.
They are not only important but indispensable for the study of complex issues of
contemporary folkloristics.
Based on the experience gained from engaging in the safeguarding of singing to the accompaniment of the gusle as an element of the ICH of Serbia, the authors discuss the question of the relation between the competences of the cultural heritage bearers (in a wider sense – the “local community” of the performers and the audience / adherents) and the researchers / experts in the domain of (verbal) definition of the ICH. Hereafter, presented and analyzed are the results of the research conducted by the authors through projects designed and directed precisely towards identifying and solving the problems from the domain of practical heritage safeguarding (Singing to the accompaniment of the gusle: The forwarding of heritage (2015) and Laboratory for the safeguarding of Singing to the accompaniment of the gusle in Serbia: collective knowledge and individual aesthetics (2017)), whereby the question of determining “traditionality” as one of the parameters of “representativity” is highlighted. It is shown that the attitudes of the local community on defining the mentioned quality of practice are heterogeneous. This is conditioned by the fact that the “negotiation of the traditional” essentially determines the current state of singing to accompaniment of the gusle as a cultural expression, which, in the last hundred years, went through the processes of accelerated transformation (in the repertoire, verbal and musical expression, as well as performative aesthetics as a whole). While contextualizing the results of the research by comparing the experience of colleagues from the region (and world) engaged in the field of applied humanities, the authors underline the necessity of researchers` balancing between the demands of their disciplines (that imply sensitivity to changes and the multiplicity of voices among the actors in tradition) and the positions of the participants in the process of constituting elements of cultural heritage (in which it is impossible to completely escape the mechanisms of construction, selectivity, and certain conservatism). In addition to considering issues related to the domain of competencies, scope and boundaries of the activities of different actors in the system of the safeguarding of the ICH (from the local community, through experts of different profiles, to the representatives of the state cultural policy), the authors were also pondering the ethical acceptability of the researchers’ position that would imply (more active) support to the researched community in addressing the dilemmas brought by political instrumentalisation and market commodification of the ICH, and in the context of the need to respect the „bottom-up“ principle of the convention’s work.
After an elaboration on the prehistory of documentary field recordings of
traditional music, it has been pointed to procurement of a phonograph for the Ethnographic Museum in Belgrade in 1930. There were two major expeditions, organized in 1931 and 1932 in what was then known as “Southern Serbia”, administratively the Vardar Banovina, a province of the Kingdom of Yugoslavia (now Republic of Macedonia and the Autonomous Province of Kosovo and Metohija of the Republic of Serbia). 180 plates were made, less than a third by Drobnjaković, and all the others by Manojlović. Further recordings were suspended due to certain problems with masters printing; even some later attempts of dubbing did not give a complete solution. In 1964 the Institute of Musicology SASA was given an incomplete collection. Today it is comprised of 140 wax plates.
It has been pointed that, primarily, traditional secular music was recorded, followed by few examples of church music. The collection is represented by the acoustic source, performance formation, repertoire, genre, style. Additionally, gender, age and professions of the singers and players were also discussed. It has been pointed to the potentials of the collection and its relevancy for the research of music and identity relation, music and migration relation, for studies of heritage and activities at the field of preserving traditional music. Given the specificity
of the area from which the collection predominantly originates, it can have a significant value for social engagement in overcoming conflicts with music. Finally, the attainability of wax plates now serves as an incentive for reassessing the role of Kosta P. Manojlović in cultural history and research of traditional music in Serbia and in the region.
the societies of folklorists of various educational and scientific backgrounds
gain a special significance as a multidisciplinary platform that enables interdisciplinary
collaboration. The newlyfounded Society of Serbian Folklorists (Udruženje folklorista
Srbije – UFS) inherited this role from the eponymous society that operated as a part
of the Association of the Societies of Yugoslav Folklorists (Savez udruženja folklorist
Jugoslavije – SUFJ, 1955–1990). The key role of musical folklorists in the foundation
of the SUFJ and important roles they played in its further organisation and, on the
other hand, a rapid development of ethnomusicology in the period when SUFJ was
active, provide the reasons why the focus of this paper is on the influence of the
SUFJ on the establishment of interdisciplinarity in folklore studies, seen from the
ethnomusicological perspective.
Although the development of ethnomusicological thought in Serbia towards
interdisciplinarity can be related to similar developments worldwide, one must not
underestimate the importance of a multidisciplinary environment and methods employed
at the SUFJ Congresses. In the actual ethnomusicological practice a tendency
towards interdisciplinarity was often realized as ”generalizing interdisciplinarity” –
i.e. as a dialogue or interaction between ethnomusicology and another discipline(s).
On the other side, the instances of ”integrative interdisciplinarity” – i.e. an organic
integration of experiences, methods and results achieved in various disciplines and
sciences – were much rarer. Nevertheless, a majority of ethnomusicologists working
nowadays will not dispute the necessity to employ multiple perspectives and flexible
thinking. In that sense, the experiences of ethnomusicology as they were developed
within the SUFJ can provide useful directives regarding devising strategies and plans
for the new UFS towards embracing interdisciplinary and transdisciplinary research.
They are not only important but indispensable for the study of complex issues of
contemporary folkloristics.
the beginning of the 20th century. The paper is based on an analysis of the corpus
of 78 rpm records of singing with gusle accompaniment, which were produced
between 1908 and 1932. Available recordings highlight the issue of representing
both the epic and the gusle playing tradition in this media format and its relationship
with “unmediated” live gusle playing practice. Therefore the authors opted to analyze gramophone records as both a text in culture and an actor in tradition. After introductory theoretical and methodological remarks, the authors offer a brief description of the historical, political and socio-cultural context that emphasized epic singing with gusle accompaniment as a representative traditional genre in this area. For that reason it was noteworthy for both western and local production companies which made recordings in the Balkans (Deutsche Grammophon Gesellschaft mbH., Odeon Records, Marsh Laboratories, Inc., Edison Bell Penkala Ltd.). Analysis of the recordings is focused on examination of the way in which gusle players responded to different requirements of the new media (e.g. the insufficient capacity of a record itself compared to the usual duration of a performance; the reduction of a complex form of artistic communication to an oral, auditory message, while additional forms of non-verbal communication are excluded). Through discussion of the treatment of verbal and musical components of the recorded performances it has been shown that tradition was simultaneously exemplified and reshaped by this new medium. In addition to the guslars themselves, being already recognized artists in this traditional genre and the acoustic source (the voice accompanied by the gusle), the representative base of the epic tradition comprised traditional (poetic) texts, although
modifications / innovations are recognizable at different levels of verbal content, as
well as on the level of music interpretation. On these bases, it is possible to talk about the contribution of new media to the professionalization of guslars’ practice and the creation of “stars” among them on the one hand, and the progressive transformation of once-active audience members (in the sense of potentially exchangeable performer / listener positions) into passive buyers and consumers, on the other. It is noted that these, first gramophone records of guslars had a great role in and impact on the survival of the epic singing tradition, brokering its promotion in urban areas and among the “cultural elite”. Finally, in this way they contributed to the strengthening of this tradition in a historical period that brought disintegration of the system of traditional culture and “crisis” of the most of the current classic folklore genres.
This edition presents a pioneering endeavour in global scholarly frames.The main idea was to gain a nuanced scholarly insight that could encourage wider comparative musical studies on different variants of more or less similar phenomena in postsocialist countries. At the same time, diversity, as an important feature of thе volume, testifies to the very wide scope of the term “postsocialism” in music, and leads to a further critical examination of its explanatory value. A variety of local contexts goes together with a very wide range of scholarly approaches. Giving voice to native scholars has allowed to obtain “insights from within”. Thus, the publication testifies to an investment in the decolonialisation of power dictated by the dominant Anglo-American ethno/musicology that determines and controls the production of knowledge about music in global world.
Уредништво:
Смиљана Ђорђевић Белић
Данка Лајић Михајловић
Немања Радуловић
Бошко Сувајџић
Ђорђина Трубарац Матић