Original scientific paper
Hand on one's hearth as an expression of folk soul
Ozren Biti
; The institute of ethnology and folklore research, Zagreb, Croatia
Abstract
Nation and identity are two permanently disputed categories in the field of recent social sciences. Disagreements as to what they really mean reflect upon their understanding not only in various disciplinary fields, but on their usage in everyday practice as well. The aim of this paper is to investigate the way in which national identity functions in the field of sports. For this purpose two opposite conceptions of nation are confronted, the primordial and the modernist one, in order to elaborate their credibility and applicability to the Croatian sport from the 1990-ies until today. The analysis focuses upon the peculiar practice of Croatian sportsmen, as well as other protagonists of the Croatian sport - the practice of putting their hand on their heart during the public performance of Croatian national anthem.
Keywords
sports; national identity; hand on the heart; national soul; national anthem; Vatreni; Pakleni
Hrčak ID:
174664
URI
Publication date:
17.4.2008.
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