Die Folklore Südosteuropas. Eine komparative Übersicht

This book is the second part of a trilogy, dedicated to a comparative, translingual and transnational survey of the traditional written and oral culture of Southeast Europe. The first part was dedicated to the literature until the early 20th century, the second to the lingual manifestations of traditional oral culture, and the third will focus on performative and imaginative aspects of the folk culture of the Balkans. In this way the peculiarity of this historical region, as underlined already by historians and linguists, is further enhanced with new material. The cultural coherence of the region in the field of oral folklore is significant, although it could not be documented sufficiently by the mostly national research traditions in Southeast Europe itself. As in the volume on Southeastern European literature the extensive material of variants of songs and narrations include the recent state territories of Hungary, Rumania, Turkey, the former Yugoslavian countries, Bulgaria, Greece as well as Cyprus. The comparative investigation is focussed on the narrated and sung texts, but music and dance as well as elements of singing and declamation in situations of communication and reception are taken into consideration only exceptionally. The comparison includes contents, themes, topics, motives, but also symbolism, stereotyp situations, patterns of behavior, attitudes of value, regulations for action, and models of ideals, which all together form characteristic parts of the traditional culture of the Balkan area. Great importance was given to bibliography, usually difficult to compile in a time-consuming process; a separate part at the end of the volume is dedicated to a bibliographie résonée, arranged according to countries and genres; this will facilitate further and more specific research in special fields of interest. The first part is dedicated to texts for singing: 1) Oral epos in verse and hero songs (the byzantine heroic song, South Slavic and Albanian heroic epic), 2) Historical lamentations and chronicle songs, 3) Songs of klephts and hajduks, 4) Ballads and narrative songs (with four excursi to disseminated songs all over in the Balkans), 5) Religious songs, 6) Coleda und regölés: quête songs at the festivities of the year (with four excursi), 7) Songs on death and separation (mourning lamentations, songs on relatives working in foreign lands, nuptial lamentations), 8) Erotic, wedding and lenten songs, 9) Carnival satire and sex parody, 10) Children songs and the dissolution of text, 11) Other songs. The second part is dedicated to spoken texts: long forms (I.) with 1) fairy tales (with two excursi), 2) tales and traditions, 3) religious legends, 4) funny tales and anecdotes, 5) Other narrations; short forms (II.) with 1) proverbs and sayings, 2) riddles and other forms. At the end of the volume a bibliographical part is offered (the commented bibliography for further research, a selected bibliography of the volume) as well as the indices. This book offers for the first time a comparative survey of nearly all genres of the traditional oral folklore of Southeast Europe, independent from language, ethnic grouping, national boarders, religion and confessions; in this way the high degree of homogeneity of the highly developed traditional oral culture in the historical Balkans is documented as well as the high numbers of variants and versions and the superb literary quality of these orally transmitted lingual manifestations, in some cases equal to the written literature of the region.