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Intellectuals and (following them) also common people remember their distant origin. Cultural memory institutions maintain references to factual and historical past, and it looks back also to mythical origins, or connections with old (since then have often been extinguished) peoples. Virgil heroificated the Trojan origin of Rome. The identity of France embraces also the Celtic Gauls, the German Franks, and the local ancestors, speaking Romance languages. Moscow heralded herself as “third Rome” (Byzantium being the “second Rome”). There are many particular forms of the so called “cultural memory”: in pointing towards the glorious or unjustly lost ancestors.Hungary is another — not neglectful — clear case of constant searching for “intermediate” forefathers. Since the Middle Ages Hungarians have been connected (both from outside or inside of the country) with the Huns, and the country’s tragic history in 15th–17th centuries was compared with that of Israel, already depicted in the Old Testament. Historians of the 18th and 19th centuries, interested in Hungary, tried to prove the “oriental” (Persian, Aryan, Turanian, etc.) bases of Hungarian language and culture. My historical report ends by the end of the 19th century, but the same tendency is actual in our days too. I call that as “proxy cultural memory” — presenting one’s own culture through a “creative reference” to different and other (old) cultures. The “proxy identity” is not constructing one’s actual identity, but it aims to invent a constructed image about something else. It has two main characteristics: it covers the times from which we do not know proper historical facts — and it is a part of ideology. As such it serves the “nation’s characterology”, ethnic stereotypes and imagology as well.
The main religious layleader of the Hungarian Calvinists living in Carpathian Ukraine was the peasant-prophetess, Mrs.Mariska Borku (1910 –1978). Her higly important work, the socalled „Third Testament ” is a manuscript, written under the influence of the Holy Spirit. It was considered by Mrs. Mariska Borku and her followers as a holy text, a part of the Bible.
The Construction of Authority in a “Female” Discipline
Transitional Ethnology under the “Rule of Women”
The supremacy of female authority in field such as ethnology or cultural-social anthropology, is here strongly related to the situation in European transitional scholarly communities. With a main example of “the rule of women” in Croatian ethnology from the mid-20th century up to today, it will be analysed as a matter of profound contextual causes which, when Eastern European setting is in question, reach as far as the paradox of “socialist national ethnologies” itself
The structures, or architectural forms, can be very various. They are independent both as to text and tune, are inconcievable by lyrics or melody taken separately, have nothing to do with the conscious intention or representation of the singers themselves, and are spontaneously actualized during the singing. Due to such immaterial structuring possibilities, and using only the formal possibilities of the syntagmatic, in Romanian traditional/folk singing a single poetic text can receive 64 formal treatments/versions. For establishing the existence of these architectural variants I have started from observations such as the one belonging to Bartók, who noticed that Romanians had the peculiarity of singing the same verse four times. Other observations spoke about tree times repetitions of each verse, while in someother circumstances verses are repeated just once. If we logically establish all possible forms of sytagmatic repetitions we obtain this sum of 64 variants, which constitute the equally real and virtual being of each and any folk song. These structures and architectures were very important to the old, traditional/peasant aesthetics, and their actualization was essential espetially to ceremonial repertories such as Winter-Solstice-Songs (carols). By giving up devices such as verse repetition and stanzaic refrains, and by shortening the time for performing the epic songs of the peasant carol, what was lost was the immaterial aspect of unconscious constructing, the abysmal pleasure for implied mathematics, was lost one of the essences of the sacred experience, which is -as philosophers put it - 'experiencing the Number'.
categories folk and folklore are embedded in the romantic concept of the authentic as truth, where authenticity is recognized as a principal feature of the primitive, primordial, and uneducated, unspoiled by modernity (cf. Bendix 1997 ; Warchala 2006
In this paper I return to the question of church adherence and conversion adding ethnographic depth to my discussion with the intention of making some generalisations. In a previous paper (Komáromi 2011a) I reflected on the relationship between possession and conversion and I presented the cases of two women. Beginning with this paper I would like to broaden the perspective on conversion and relate the processes involved more generally to life crisis situations, conflicted relationships, severe illnesses or death and mourning.
Ethnographical Heritage: Symbolic Capital. UNESCO’s position on the protection of intangible cultural heritage, set out in the form of international treaties, bears witness to noble intentions. At the same time, in the various countries the disciplines dealing with subjects that can be classified under the concept of heritage interpret the notion of “heritage” in different ways. Ethnology in particular is in a special situation in those countries where from the 19th century popular culture played a part in constructing and maintaining the national culture. Right from the start the intention of maintaining tradition, assistance for this and the study of the processes of change themselves were part of this work of construction. This research tradition is itself an “intangible cultural heritage”. Hungarian ethnology, that has been familiar with and assisted many forms of the preservation of the values of popular culture for more than a century now has elaborated a set of concepts and theoretical considerations that cannot be identified unequivocally with the texts of UNESCO. Seeing the overview of the international literature, we also wish to encourage ethnologists to discuss considerations, concepts and practices that represent views differing from their own research traditions. This is part of the development of the discipline.
The epical hero is a daring fighter, and very often, behaving as a nonconformist, as he used to break the rules… He is not just an adventurer, but a personality assuming the responsibility of searching life's significance. Novac's Gruia, the hero of a South-East European ballad cycle willingly enters the space where the wild girl lives to fight her and to obtain her as a wife. He cuts the line of the enemies provoking them to fight, in order to demonstrate for the other and for himself that he can challenge his capability. Another hero provokes Frost as God's power and loses his entire army in that competition with a non-human authority. Apart from the hero in the fairy tales, the hero in songs has no miraculous helpers. He is a fighter but not an adventurer. He is a searcher who wants to test the norm by himself. On that coordinates the modern hero of the audio-visual productions related with a new psychological attitude tries to find the reason of his actions but more like an individual who has to be persuaded that the social rules are correct. Frequently the end is dramatic. Breaking the traditional law and the link with the group he is alone from the very beginning and at a disadvantage. When he loses he frequently dies as a tragic hero.
