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SOME NOTES ON THE FOLK LIFE IN THE NOVELS OF MARTIN KUKUČÍN
Nevena Škrbić Alempijević
orcid.org/0000-0002-8653-7954
; Odsjek za etnologiju i kulturnu antropologiju, Filozofski fakultet Sveučilišta u Zagrebu
Sažetak
This article discusses the way and the mode in which Þction can be
used as a source of ethnographic data, using the novels of the Slovak writer
Martin Kukučín (1860-1928) as a case study. Novels by Kukučín can be
used as a source of ethnographic data to Croatian ethnologists because the
author spent almost half of his life living among Croats. For thirteen years
he lived in the village of Selca on the Island of Brač, while he spent the
next Þfteen year among the immigrants from the island of Brač in Chile. He
based two of his novels on his experiences there: Kuća u strani, which is
located in a patriarchal, somewhat idealized rural community on the Island
of Brač, and Mati zove, in which he described the life of Croatian, mostly
Dalmatian immigration community in the Chilean county of Magellanas.
Both novels are Þlled with descriptions of different segments of traditional
culture (notes on traditional economy, clothing, traditional architecture,
customs, magical rites, etc.). The importance of folk heritage in the work
of Kukučín is emphasized in such a way that his starting points can be
compared with the principles which Antun Radić, his contemporary, has
introduced into folk research.
In creating a model for his literary, Þctional societies, the author
frequently employs traditional worldviews and concepts, and especially
emphasizes the distinctive characteristics which one community carries in relation to 'Others', as well as the conßicts which exist inside the community
itself, between different strata in society.
Novels by Kukučín can be interesting for ethnologists for a number
of reasons. For example, in Kuća u strani, he describes: cultural differences
between different groups inside the village community, between 'Us' and
'Them', everyday life of village people which Kukčin includes in his novel; the
organization of village family, unwritten rules and moral principles followed
by the community. In the novel Mati zove he tackles the following issues:
integration of Dalmatian immigrants to the apparently homogenised Croatian
community in Chile, assignment of collective character and mentality to all
the members of a given community. He also includes memories of homeland
in the form of ethnographic description, where he emphasizes the notion of
the undiminished value of rural heritage; a conßict but also an interfusion
of two different ways of life seen from the point of view of the immigrants:
which elements of their own culture have they preserved in the immigration,
which new elements have they adopted in the new country.
However, in accepting Kukučíns novels as sources of ethnographic
data, we have to bear in mind that they were written by a person whose
cultural background was quite different; many paragraphs signify a certain
intercession between the two cultures. In his works on Brač and the immigrant
Dalmatians, sometimes consciously and sometimes not, he includes data
from another traditional culture - the one he originated from.
Ključne riječi
Martin Kukučín; construction of a community; literature as ethnographic source
Hrčak ID:
40879
URI
Datum izdavanja:
15.12.2004.
Posjeta: 2.637 *