Other
Fifteen years of existence and work of the Institute for Folk art in Zagreb
Zoran Palčok
; Institute of Ethnology and Folklore Reseach, Zagreb, Croatia
Abstract
During the fifteen years of its existence (it was founded in 1948) the Institute for Folk Art in Zagreb has done important and valuable work in collecting, recording, classifying and preserving the specimens of traditional folk culture. The reasons and requirements which had brought the institution into existence were dictated by the vigorous penetration of contemporary urbane culture, conditioned in its turn by rapid industrial development. It started to change the way of 'life of the village, its atmosphere, ideas and cultural needs, so that the traditional forms of creating and preserving this tradition based on a determined interest of its carriers and consumers began to disappear.
Two cultural scientific institutions, the Matica Hrvatska and the Yugoslav Academy initiated in the last decades of the 19th century an action to record and collect all the elements of folk art from all parts of Croatia, and invited everyone willing to cooperate in carrying out the work. A great number of enthusiasts, mostly amateurs, answered the call and they gathered 197 collections of precious folk poetry, of which the Matica published 10 volumes of its now classical collection of Croatian folk poems (1896—1R42). In its series of books of folk life and custom? of the Southern Slavs, the Yugoslav Academy has published 42 volumes of remarkable material by now.
Since the action of the Matica was discontinued 15 years after its start, and the still existing action of the Yugoslav Academy remained on the whole without a solid systematic programme and the possibility of organized investigation of the collected materials, the foundation of the Institute for Folk Arts has satisfied the imperative requirements of scientific research work in this field.
The results of the 15 years of work of the Institute are reflected in the archives of the Institute, the richest of this kind in Yugoslavia, then also in the collection of recordings, films and written documents.
The article further mentions the tasks dealt with by the scientific and technical team of the Institute and its external contributors. Follows a list of books published by the Institute as monographs, and separately reviewed are the books, essays and articles written by the members of the staff in publications other than the Institute's. The latest publication of the Institute is the present annual »Folk Art« which will folow up the work on folklore in the Institute and out of it, performances and events connected with folk art and music and folklore publications i the country and abroad.
Keywords
Hrčak ID:
34042
URI
Publication date:
19.3.1963.
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