Original scientific paper
"Navigating through the Past": Issues Facing an Historian of Music in Bosnia
Bojan Bujić
; Magdalen College, Oxford, U.K.
Abstract
Any attempt at writing a history of music of an area, nation or state, needs to recognize the intrinsic issues and to identify the specific historical agents determining the developments being studied. Earlier historical accounts of music in Bosnia tended to apply a rather straightforward positivist method by establishing factual information, recording the existence of particular personalities and the presence of musical institutions. Here it is argued that once we recognize the full context in which such facts existed, it is possible to identify hitherto overlooked tensions which left a lasting impact on music in Bosnia. Arguably the most important tension is the one between an older manner of experiencing music as a communal, identityforming activity, and a recent, late-nineteenthcentury manner, which recognizes that the creation and the reception of music can also be based on an individual search for expression. The two tendencies have often sat uneasily side by side in Bosnia, while the most recent attitudes to art music in Bosnia seem to indicate that the tensions continue to exist.
Keywords
Bosnia; History (regional and national); Folk music; Art music; Military bands; Choral societies; Music and politics; Group identity
Hrčak ID:
32765
URI
Publication date:
15.6.2006.
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