Bulletin of the Institute of Ethnography SASA
О гласнику Часопис Гласник Етнографског института САНУ објављује оригиналне, претходно необјављене радове: оригинални научни рад, прегледни научни рад, научна критика и полемика, приказ, научна библиографија. Часопис Гласник Етнографског института САНУ доступан је у режиму отвореног приступа. Публиковање у Гласнику Етнографског института САНУ је бесплатно. У часопису Гласник Етнографског института САНУ објављују се радови из области етнологије и антропологије и сродних друштвених и хуманистичких дисциплина. Радови могу бити написани на српском и сродним језицима и на енглеском језику. Радови на српском језику штампају се ћириличним писмом. Гласник Етнографског института САНУ излази минимум два пута годишње. Објављује и специјалне бројеве, са посебном тематиком и гостујућим уредником. Сва издања Гласника Етнографског института САНУ, почевши од првог броја, доступна су на следећој адреси: https://dais.sanu.ac.rs/handle/123456789/4515
ОСВРТ НА СЛОБОДУ ОГЛЕДАЊА У НОЋИ МУЗЕЈА 2019 – ПОГЛЕД ИЗНУТРА
Copyright (c) 2021 Bulletin of the Institute of Ethnography SASA https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/
AMIR DURANOVIĆ, ISLAMSKA ZAJEDNICA U JUGOSLAVENSKOM SOCIJALIZMU 256–260
MICHAL PAVLÁSEK, Z MORAVY AŽ DO VELIKÉHO SREDIŠTĚ. ETNOGRAFICKÉ PODOBENSTVÍ O ZAPOMENUTÉ NÁBOŽENSKÉ KOMUNITĚ
АНТИКА И МИ(Т): ПРЕИСПИТИВАЊЕ ДОМИНАНТНИХ ТОКОВА РЕЦЕПЦИЈЕ АНТИКЕ
ДА ЛИ СУ ГОРАНЦИ (МИГРАНТИ) ПРЕКИНУЛИ СА ГОРОМ?
STREETS IN NIKŠIĆ AS A MIRROR OF URBAN LIFE AND CULTURE
The paper deals with history, culture and urban life portrayed through the life of streets. This topic is particularly interesting bearing in mind that this town is extremely significant cultural center in Montenegrin framework. Its story has mostly been written informally, in a street or a café. It covers the period from late XIX century until the end of XX century. The text represents a particular interrelation between certain urbanity characteristics which are connected to different aspects of life and work. It also deals with relationships between streets and bohemian lifestyle of this town, literary inspirations, heroic figures and certain peculiar persons who found their place in the spirit of a place of turbulent history and rich culture. Few monuments, being important stops and symbols of Nikšić past, have also been described. Abundance of quotations and references permeate through the text, covering historical, scientific and theoretical sources and thus allowing us to have an integral overview on the life of a street in this town. The paper belongs to the field of urban culture researchs and encompasses different kinds of sources – from scientific papers and literary works and travelogues to newspapers articles.
SOMEBODIES OR NOBODY’S PATIENT: THE IMPORTANCE OF SOCIAL POSITIONING AND INFORMAL RELATIONS DURING CHILDBIRTH IN SERBIA
Anthropological research on post-socialism points to the need for informal relations when navigating social and health care systems, while feminist research on childbirth points out the negative consequences of the dominant medicalized model of childbirth on women’s experience. This paper combines these two types of research and points to the role of informal relations in negotiating childbirth in Serbia and the role of peoples social positioning influencing the possibilities of using these relations. Based on eighteen months of ethnographic fieldwork on the practices of providing maternal health care in Serbia, the aim of this paper is to show how a woman's social position affects her ability to establish a relationship within the state health care system, and to reconsider the claim that informal relationships can protect women from interventionism during childbirth in Serbia. Using informal relations (veze) in order to have your doctor during childbirth is a key concern for women in Serbia. Informal relations transform women from (no)bodies into somebodies, someone’s patient. Women of poorer economic status, women from rural areas, and often women of Roma ethnic origin have limited opportunities to establish informal relations in state maternity hospitals. Informal relations do not fully protect women from interventions but affect the type and timing of interventions.
childbirth, Serbia, informal relations, technocratic model of birth, social positioning
INTERPRETATION OF BANG: POTENTIALS OF OBSERVING CONTEMPORARY COSMOGONY AS A MYTHICAL NARRATIVE
The text provides a summary of the arguments that justify the anthropological pursuit of modern cosmology, especially its receptive and popular expression. It proposes theoretical observation of popular cosmology, especially its cosmogonic segment, as a form of modern secularized myth that contains the characteristics of a conventional folklore narrative. It provides a short set of ideas that contextualize popular cosmology into a culture war waged by certain Christian theologians and secular philosophers at the turn of the millennium. The paper points out potentials of the anthropological perspective of popular cosmology.
cosmology, cosmogony, popular cosmology, secular myth, culture war, Anthropology
NEVER ON SUNDAY: FEMINIST QUESTIONING OF DOMINANT EPISTEMOLOGY AND PHILOSOPHICAL TRADITION
Through the interpretation of the movie Never on Sunday (1960) by Jules Dassin, this paper opens some important epistemological questions from the feminist perspective. Namely, the film is set in the contemporary Greece, while the main characters are a prostitute Ilia and an American tourist Homer, who is at the same time disappointed in Greece and in the beautiful woman he meets. His inability to understand people and social context in which he finds himself, as well as his effort to educate Ilia and impose her his own values and ideas about ancient Greece reveal much of chauvinism and cultural colonialism, opening questions crucial for feminist and other critical epistemologies which are: who produces knowledge, for whom and how to approach it critically. Finally, through the interpretation of Ilia’s attitude to knowledge, I will turn also to the feminist notion of embodied feminist subject. Apart from that, I will deal with hegemonic attitude of the West towards ancient Greek past.
dominant epistemology, critical thinking, feminist knowledge, Never on Sunday
INTRODUCTION TO THE ANTHROPOLOGY OF PHOTOGRAPHY IN SERBIA
Despite significant strides from the beginning of the 20th century, there was no systematic or institutionalized reflection on photography in Serbian ethnology and anthropology until the 1980s. Until then, photography was mainly used as an additional technical tool for field recording, documenting, and presenting field materials in museums or scientific institutions. However, since the end of the 20th, and especially at the beginning of the 21st century, an increasing number of social scientists have included photography in their works, either through historical and theoretical reflection or through practical use in specific research. This step can be related to the institutionalization of the sub discipline of visual anthropology in Serbia. The paper presents the assumption that both flows are part of a broader process called the visual turn, and the associated flourishing of systematic thinking about visual culture. In this paper, we aim to reconstruct the main features of the visual turn in the local academic community and point out some of its consequences. In addition, our goal is to present the most important achievements related to the mentioned turn, and consider their impact on recent examples of thinking about photography, i.e. its use in ethnological and anthropological research in Serbia. This paper emphasizes the examples that are important in the theoretical, methodological, or applied-scientific framework.
anthropology of photography, ethnology and anthropology of photography in Serbia, visual turn, visual culture, visual anthropology
THE ISLAMIC COMMUNITY OF SERBIA AND THE ISLAMIC COMMUNITY IN SERBIA: CURRENT SITUATION, AGENTS AND EVENTS
The paper focuses upon the causes and consequences of the disunity of the single Islamic community in the Republic of Serbia, when the Law on Churches and Religious Communities was passed on in 2006, and analyzes events up to 2012. To explore this subject, I focus primarily on the relations between the two dominant Islamic communities in Republic of Serbia. Bourdieu's theory of social fields is applied in the analytical part. In addition to secondary literature, I analyze daily newspapers that report on this topic, as well as the discourse of the main agents, transcribed from the interviews I conducted with them. With this paper, I want to contribute to a better understanding of the position of Islamic communities in Serbia, which is conditioned by socio-political relations within the Islamic communities and in the country.
Law on Churches and Religious Communities, the Islamic Community of Serbia, the Islamic Community in Serbia [Riyaset of the Islamic Community in BiH], fieldwork, Bourdieu’s theory of social fields
A BLOODTHIRSTY TYRANT OR A RIGHTEOUS LANDLORD? SMAIL-AGA ČENGIĆ IN LITERATURE AND ORAL TRADITION
The 1840 murder of a notable 19th century Bosnian dignitary Smail-aga Čengić immediately inspired strong artistic production in the South Slav literature and oral tradition. These narratives, comprising newspaper articles, oral epic songs, and particularly Ivan Mažuranić’s literary epics written in the manner of oral folk epic, presented and codified Smail-aga as a bloodthirsty tyrant whose ultimate aim was to terrorize and extinct his Christian subjects. In distinction, some marginalized local narratives and oral folk tradition, which will be examined in this article, remembered Smail-aga as a righteous and merciful lord, protector of his flock and a brave warrior. Thus, when we scrutinize several versions of oral songs about the death of Smail-aga recorded between 1845 and 1860, as well as later collected anecdotes from his native Herzegovina, it appears that his hostile portrayal in written literature was rather the contribution of the Serbian and Croatian Romantic nationalists around the mid- 19th-century than an actual popular perception of him among local people in the region that he lived with. In conclusion, the article advocates for a wider consideration of the overall polyphonic narrative tradition and the revitalization of traditional narratives that glorify values which transcend strict religious, ethnic and national divisions as a way of reimagining and revaluating relationship of the South Slavs towards the Ottoman heritage.
Smail-aga Čengić, Ivan Mažuranić, The Death of Smail-aga Čengić, South Slav oral tradition, Romantic nationalism
WAQFS IN THE KAZÂS OF LESKOVAC, PROKUPLJE, KURŠUMLIJA AND PIROT IN 18TH AND 19TH CENTURY
The topic of this work are muslim pious endowments, waqfs, introduced by Ottomans on the Balkans. The most intensive Muslim endowment activity on the territory of nowadays Southeast Serbia was noticed after final Ottoman conquest in the middle of the 15th century to the end of the 16th century. The aforementioned period is also the time when the reshaping of the existing Christian settlements into predominantly Muslim, Ottoman ones mainly took place. The Ottoman sources on the basis of which this institute in Serbia is presented, is new, unresearched so far and kept in the Ottoman archives of the Directorate of the State Archives of the Presidency of the Republic of Turkey in Istanbul. The source presents the 1839 census of endowments whose translation and comments are given in the attachment hereby. In the paper, I compared the sources on waqfs from the earlier period with the census from 1839. In this way, I was able to determine the changes that have occurred in the meantime, i.e. which endowments survived on the territory of the kazâs of Leskovac, Prokuplje, Kuršumlija and Pirot until the time of compiling this document. According to 1839 census I determined that at the time of the census there were a total of 70 waqfs in the area of today's Southeast Serbia, 36 of which waqfs were active in the Pirot kazâ, 10 in the Prokuplje kazâ, 21 in the Leskovac kazâ and three in the Kuršumlija kazâ. These consist mainly of real property, including various facilities of religious, educational, public, communal structure.
waqf, 18–19th century, Leskovac, Prokuplje, Kuršumlija, Pirot, Ottoman Empire
CONVERSION OF THE POPULATION OF GORA AND OPOLJE TO ISLAM, ACCORDING TO THE OTTOMAN CADASTRAL REGISTERS
The Islamisation of the population of two neighbouring regions south of Prizren, Gora and Opolje, occurred in varying degrees during the centuries-long rule of the Ottoman Empire in the Balkans. In Gora, inhabited by the Slavic population, it was extremely slow, while in Opolje, inhabited by the Albanians, it was incomparably more intensive. This paper aims to elucidate, based on the analysis of the Ottoman 15th and 16th century cadastral registers, the factors that affected the rate of conversion to Islam among the inhabitants of these two former Serbian medieval counties (župas), later Ottoman nahiyes. Among the most important are the highly developed church organisation in the region of Gora on the one hand, and on the other hand, the proximity of Prizren, the military and administrative centre of the Prizren Sanjak in which high ranking officials of Opolje origin operated.
islamisation of the Balkans, Gorani people, Ottoman Empire, 15th–16th century
POLITICIZATION OF EVERYDAY ETHNICITY AND RELIGION IN NORTH MACEDONIA
The aim of this article is to analyse the dynamics of religion-ethnicity relation in the Republic of North Macedonia. Special emphasis is placed on the current ethno-political tensions between Albanians and Macedonians and the use of religion and religious symbols in this collision, which is reflected both in the political discourse and in the everyday life and relationships, influencing perceptions and collective notions of people about religion and ethnicity. The findings show that the process of maintenance and shift of the ethno-religious boundaries is dynamic, multidirectional and multi-layered. It is influenced by domestic political, social, economic and cultural developments, international factors such as the EU and NATO accession of the country, as well as the spread of radical Islamic ideologies.
Macedonians, Albanians, Islam, Orthodox Christianity, boundaries
BAYRAM SOFRA IN BELGRADE – A CONTRIBUTION TO THE INTERRELIGIOUS DIALOGUE AND VISIBILITY OF MINORITY RELIGIOUS COMMUNITIES
The paper focuses on the celebration of Ramadan Bayram and the organization of the feast Bayram sofra in Belgrade. The Islamic Community of Serbia and the Cultural Society of Muslims in Serbia – “Gajret”, have been organizing the Bayram sofra since 2009 as the celebration which symbolizes the end of the Ramadan fasting. The celebration is held in the public space in front of the Bajrakli mosque in Belgrade. Since it is organized as part of the celebration of Ramadan Bayram, its meaning can be observed and analyzed in a religious, but also in a broader social context. In this paper, we observe the Bayram sofra in the context of learning about Islam, as the minority religious community, but also as an event which initiates interreligious dialogue at several different levels. Thus, we focus on identifying the elements of dialogue between the Islamic community and other religious communities, as well as the citizens of Belgrade, relying on some theoretical concepts of interreligious dialogue. The ethnographic research of the Bayram sofra started in 2020 with the main focus on the social and religious elements of Ramadan Bayram and the role of this religious festival in enhancing the visibility of this religious minority in Serbia.
Bayram sofra, Ramadan Bayram, Islamic community of Serbia, Cultural society of Muslims in Serbia “Gajret”, religious minorities, interreligious dialogue
OTTOMAN HERITAGE: STRATEGIES, TOPOI AND AGENTS
In the first part of the introductory text, I present a theoretical framework that places the attitude towards the Ottoman heritage in a broader socio-cultural context. I distinguish between the two basic strategies in relation to the Ottoman heritage in the Balkan modern societies, and they are: de-Ottomanization (neglecting of Ottoman influences) and internalization. Furthermore, I point out that both strategies were created under the direct influence of the discursive practice of Orientalism, with which they share rhetoric and internal logic. Furthermore, I show, based on several examples of linguistic and cultural practices, how both strategies have been implemented in Serbia. In the second part, I present the papers in this thematic issue and identify the topics presented in it, namely: interreligious dialogue, negotiation of ethnic and religious affiliation in everyday life, religious conversion, inherited institutions of the Ottoman society and attitude towards them, (re)presentation of historical figures and events in literary narratives, Muslim religious organizations in the past and present. The thematic issue aims to contribute to academic dialogue in domestic and international context, in which strategies, topoi and actors related to the Ottoman heritage, Muslims and Islam are very current.
Ottoman heritage, Serbia, Оrientalism, Muslims, Islam
БИБЛИОГРАФИЈА РАДОВА О СТРАДАЊУ РОМА У ДРУГОМ СВЕТСКОМ РАТУ НА ТЕРИТОРИЈИ ЈУГОСЛАВИЈЕ
КОСМОЛОГИКА: КОНТЕКСТУАЛИЗАЦИЈА ПОПУЛАРНЕ КОСМОЛОГИЈЕ
Copyright (c) 2026 Bulletin of the Institute of Ethnography SASA https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/
O КОЈОЈ ИНТЕГРАЦИЈИ ЈЕ РЕЧ? ПОВОДОМ КЊИГЕ РАХЕЛЕ ЈУРКОВИЋ ИНТЕГРАЦИЈА АЗИЛАНАТА У ХРВАТСКО ДРУШТВО: КУЛТУРНОАНТРОПОЛОШКА СТУДИЈА
АНТРОПОЛОШКИ ПОВРАТАК ВЕЛИКИМ ПИТАЊИМА И ВЕЧНИМ ТЕМАМА: ПОВОДОМ КЊИГЕ МАРИНЕ СИМИЋ ОНТОЛОШКИ ОБРТ. УВОД У КУЛТУРНУ ТЕОРИЈУ АЛТЕРИТЕТА
FOOTBALL AS MEANS OF BUILDING SOCIAL CAPITAL OF REFUGEES IN CROATIA
The article is based on the results of cultural-anthropological research conducted from 2017 to 2020 with the aim of shedding light into the meaning of football for the refugees that have arrived in Croatia in the last few years. The meaning of football for refugees and social connections they acquire through it are considered within the Bourdieu's theory of cultural and social capital. The research has indicated that football represents an embodied state of cultural capital as well as important means of building social capital of refugees that allows them not only to be active and enjoy moments of oblivion in the situation of refugeeness, but it also connects them with the society they arrived in as refugees. By playing football refugees make social connections that bring them closer to the receiving society, thus enabling them to understand it better. Such social connections also show refugees how they can move through the new society and make progress within it.
cultural capital, social capital, football, refugees, Croatia
IS CULTURAL INTIMACY CRUCIAL? SIMIT SARAYI AT OBILIĆEV VENAC IN BELGRADE: HETEROTOPIA, NON-PLACE AND PLACE OF “OTHERS”
Drawing on renewed academic interest in the study of Serbian-Turkish relationships, this article addresses the complexities of the Ottoman heritage in a Serbian urban setting through its cultural-symbolic and anthropological dimensions. Specifically, this article explores ‘what stands behind’ Belgradians’ negative attitude towards the Turkish coffee-shop chain Simit Sarayi. To do so, we use Michael Herzfeld’s (1997) cultural intimacy perspective of ‘understanding from within’ what ‘makes sense of space’. We illustrate how the systems of meaning Belgradians use shape the true nature and experience with such an intimate ‘Other’ that is the Turkish [franchise].
cultural intimacy, heterotopia, place of ‘Others’, Simit Sarayi, Belgrade
FORCED (IM)MOBILITIES EN ROUTE: ‘JUSTIFIED’ VIOLENCE OF THE BORDER REGIME IN BALKANS
In this article, I explore the violent consequences of the post-2015 EU border regime for people from the Global South lingering through the Balkans. I intend to show that securing EU’s external borders through asylum and border management in Balkans is based on coercion and force, despite the efforts of the people on the move to transgress these borders and achieve decent lives. The efforts of people on the move to cross borders – which are officially closed for them – could be understood as force as well. Regardless of the legal status and ‘motives’ of displacement, people waiting and moving on the ‘Balkan route’ experience situations characterized by structural, direct, and cultural violence and respond to these situations in different ways. Pointing out to more or less hidden patterns of violence occurring at the EU’s external borders in the Balkans may challenge popular categorizations that at the same time oppress and protect people on the move. These patterns of violence are justified – but not justifiable – by the securitization of EU and national borders. By displacing violence as the so-called “push” factor from the countries of initial displacement (i.e. countries of the Global South), I aim to acknowledge that it continues to be perpetrated en route. Patterns of violence in the Balkans further produce forced mobilities and forced immobilities. People on the move cope with these forced (im)mobilities in different ways.
coercion, force, structural violence, border regime, migration
FELIX GUATTARI AND ANTHROPOLOGY: THE FORGOTTEN CASE OF GREGORY BATESON
This paper discusses the relationship between anthropology and philosophy of Gilles Deleuze and Phelix Guattari. It aims to show the ways in which anthropology influenced work of these authors with special emphasis on theories and concepts Deleuze and Guattari adopted from Gregory Bateson. These concepts include those of double bind, rhizome and plateau of intensity.
Gilles Deleuze, Felix Guattari, Gregory Bateson, philosophy, anthropology
FROM NATURE TO CULTURE: FOOD AND GENDER IN RURAL ŠUMADIJA IN THE 19TH AND AT THE BEGINNING OF THE 20TH CENTURY
In this paper, we aspire to uncover the power relations and the ways of conceptualizing gender in rural Šumadija in the 19th and at the beginning of the 20th century by researching practices and discourses that concern production, consumption, preparation, the acts of serving, and the ingestion of food. The historically and culturally constructed binary oppositions between nature and culture, the open and the closed, and male and female, will furthermore illustrate the institutionalization and the structure of male domination. While the production and consumption display interdependence of genders – with the symbolic supremacy of men in open and public spaces (the control over Nature and within the public sphere) – the preparation, the acts of serving and ingesting the food, understood as cultural processes related to the domestic sphere, required the order which includes the absolute precedence of men over women. Nonetheless, women ruled autonomously over the wooden constructions used to produce and store milk („mlekar“), thus providing the children with privileged access to the products at their own accord. Quite unexpectedly, the historical analysis showed that cooking as a remarkably female activity had the tendency to occasionally fall within the responsibilities of men without contesting the institutional framework of male domination.
food, gender, Šumadija, the culinary triangle, Claude Lévi-Strauss
CONTEXTUALIZING GENDER IN XII CENTURY BYZANTINE DISCOURSE: WOMEN AND POWER IN IOANNES ZONARAS’ EPITOME HISTORIARUM
The paper investigates Ioannes Zonaras’ Epitome Historiarum, a Byzantine XII century world chronicle for normative conceptions of gender in Byzantium. The article explores two gender-appropriate women’s roles in Byzantine society. It focuses on the behaviors, activities, and attributes attached to and prescribed for the widows and mothers to reiterate the patriarchal social structures. Also, this research intends to uncover the interplay between text and language through crucial gender signifiers, which influenced the balance of social and political power in the Medieval Roman Empire.
Byzantine Gender, widowhood, motherhood, Ioannes Zonaras, Byzantine sexuality, sophrosyne
(UN)EQUAL AND DEFIANT TO PATRIARCHY: THE FIRST FEMALE SERBIAN DOCTORS DRAGA LJOČIĆ MILOŠEVIĆ AND SMILJA KOSTIĆ-JOKSIĆ AND THEIR PLACE IN THE SOCIETY
This paper analyses professional biographies of the first female Serbian doctor Draga Ločić Milošević (1855–1926) and Smilja Kostić-Joksić (1895–1981), a female paediatrician and a professor at the Faculty of Medicine in Belgrade. Although they did not belong to the same generation, their biographies have so much in common. Similarities are obvious especially considering their social status and political and intellectual elite’s attitude towards first educated women. Draga Ločić, the first woman with diploma in medicine from Zurich University, was not able to find the job in the state medical institutions after returning to Belgrade. Only after being persistent and taking additional professional exams she managed to get position but only as a medical assistant, with twice lower salary than her male colleagues. She did not manage to achieve equal status until the end of the professional career. Doctor Draga Ločić was a philanthropist, feminist and active suffragette. Her professional and educational heiress, female paediatrician and scientist Smilja Kostić-Joksić, managed to become a part of the intellectual elite but to a limited extend. Before the beginning of World War II she had an assistant status and was a woman with the highest academic status in the Kingdom of Yugoslavia. In the socialist Yugoslavia due to ideological disagreements, she was dismissed from the University. These two biographies are evident examples how concept of public patriarchy functions in practice. Public patriarchy is not conditioned with any chronological nor ideological context but instead, it is always present and dominant within the discourse of women’s position in the society.
dr Draga Ljočić Milošević (1855–1926), dr Smilja Kostić-Joksić (1895–1981), woman, feminism, education, university, emancipation, patriarchy
FEMINIST STUDIES OF PERIODICALS: FROM HEURISTICS TO INTERPRETATION AND EVALUATION
This paper analyzes the way in which women's interpretive communities are formed and the methodology of production of (feminist) knowledge. The analysis connects the results of contemporary studies of feminist periodicals/feminist studies of periodicals, and the project Srpkinja (Serbian woman) from 1913. The interpretation of the book Srpkinja starts from the assumption that it is a (serial) publication which contains autopoetic statements and hypotheses about magazines. This is, probably, the first case in the history of Serbian/Yugoslav periodicals of a serial publication that (systematically) describes the basic categories which are necessary for interpreting, creating and editing women/feminist periodicals. In this paper Srpkinja is analyzed as the first carefully conceived project based on the construction of womenʼs networks, thanks to which one of the first women's interpretive community was formed.
feminist studies of periodicals, feminist periodicals, Srpkinja (1913) (Serbian woman), women’s interpretive community, production of knowledge