Issues of Oral and Folk Poetics

Principal researcher: Tanja Peric Polonijo
Researchers and associates: Divna Zecevic-Zdunic, Antonija Zaradija Kis, Simona Delic, Anamarija Starcevic Stambuk, Koraljka Kuzman

The proposed project Issues of Oral snd Folk Poetics fits into the fundamental research of literary science. The project’s research is the continuation of last year’s project Genealogical Aspects of Folklore Research that has placed special emphasis upon genre research in folklore study. Genre research has always been present in folklore study (Abrahams, Bausinger, Bahtin, Propp, Schenda) and should therefore be thoroughly examined from various perspectives. Today, folklore research, among other issues, pays attention to spoken genres, the context, and performances. In this way, the relevance of research dealing with numerous issues of oral and folk poetics has become evident, resulting in this newly proposed project. The project’s scientific frame of reference presents new cognizance of folklore research and literature in general. Past accomplishments in this scientific field point to diverse achievements of world importance (Boskovic-Stulli), confirmed by numerous research works published in foreign languages. Researching poetics of oral and, above all, folk literature, with a special reference to their origins, demonstrates how they preserve Croatian cultural identity, but also cherish the unavoidable influence of the Mediterranean and Central European surroundings that form a cultural unity with Croatian oral and written traditions. The long-term aim of the research focuses mainly on the preservation of traditional values, but also on the study of various changes, the synthetizing of the genre system in oral and folk literature, the creation of a data base, as well as on the publication of critical editions of unpublished manuscripts from the collection of Matica hrvatska, ZNZO, the Institute of Ethnology and Folklore Research, and others. The manuscripts mostly represent those areas in Croatia stricken during the Homeland War. The research will be realized through the publication of syntheses, books, studies, and collections, as well as master’s and doctoral theses. As usual, the works will first be published in refereed and cited Croatian and foreign journals such as Narodna umjetnostTraditiones, etc. The project represents a fundamental research activity and greatly contributes to the development and progess of the Croatian humanities, as well as to the advanced understanding of the Croatian tradition within the European context.