Sociology and Space, No. 101-102, 1988.
Original scientific paper
Rural Youth and the Village as a Small Community
Gordana Ljuboja
Abstract
A study of modern rural youth shows that
little has remained of the traditional village
culture. Expressed in the words of the
American anthropologist Robert Redfield,
today's rural community has a greater
number of urban, and fewer rural,
elements of folklore. Because, as
Redfield explains, no small community is
as a rule composed of only one kind of
component. Different cultural
characteristics have merged into
a special, syncretic cultural blend, whose
main bearers are the present generations
of the rural youth. To what degree they
have readily accepted and adopted a dual
way of life is clearly shown by their beliefs,
behaviour and attitudes. Unlike the
generation of their parents, which
participates in the same cultural system
but still feels its division and duality, the
young have taken antoher step forward in
condensing and adaptation. Having
developed the necessary kind of
self-consiousness, they have freed
themselves of a feeling of inferiority
regaring the city youth, and have accepted
the new situation as their own, specific
culture. In that way they have achieved a
higher level in the affirmation of the existing
cultural system. This system, of
course, finds its own concrete
manifestations (today emphasized the
most strongly in music) and typical
symbols that can be used at will. Young
people in the
village do not, therefore, identify
themselves completely with the city, or
with the village community in the traditional
sense of the word. They participated in
the creation of constantly new
combinations of existing elements that are
accompanied by new types of personal
and common identification.
Keywords
Hrčak ID:
121741
URI
Publication date:
7.7.1988.
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