Folklore material from Lovinac and its surroundings in the collections of the Institute of Ethnology and Folklore Research

Abstract

Maja Bošković-Stulli, Nikola Bonifačić Rožin, Ivan Ivančan and Stjepan Stepanov, then researchers of the Institute of Folk Art (later the Institute of Ethnology and Folklore Research), conducted field research in Lovinac and its surroundings in 1955 and partly in 1956. Each of them primarily researched his or her specific topic, but, as it was done at the time, he or she also recorded everything that belonged to broader ethnological and folkloristic topics. Therefore, traditions, beliefs, fairy tales, prayers, intercessions, lyrical and epic poems are found in unequal proportions in all collections. It was a very early systematic field research, their methodology was still in its infancy, and mostly everything that anyone found was recorded. Records of local people were often taken without critical distance and later verification. These researches are extremely important today due to the abundance of material that has been collected despite the lack of data on performances, listeners, context, distribution, popularity of individual performers, and human destinies. Oral material is presented from different research focuses of individual researchers / writers (tales, legends, beliefs, prayers, intercessions, charms, songs).