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203www.folklore.ee/folklorewww.folklore.ee/folklorewww.folklore.ee/folklorewww.folklore.ee/folklore The overview introduces the centres, scholars and publications of ethnol-ogy, folkloristics and visual anthropology at the Scientific Research Centreof the Slovenian Academy of Sciences. A closer look is taken to the princi-ples of folklore collecting and publications by Karel Štrekelj, founder ofern scholars Monika Kropej, Jurij Fikfak and Naško Krinar, and BlaTelban’s ethnic art gallery Skrina.Keywords: ethnology, folkloristics, folklore publications, Slovenia. or ice-cream, in thestreet cafe of the sun-heated central town of Ljubljana accom-nology, and are still there when we return late in the evening.The queues compete with the famous Ljubljana dragons and Ro-man ruins, and are so long that we never get to buy the ice-cream, which each day becomes even more mythical. We wanderaround in the old town, ascend to the observatory hill – a greenbeech grove in the outskirts of the city, where people walk theirdogs and jog –, listen to an amateur choir recital in the down-town church and visit the Castle of Ljubljana built on a prehis-Since the 16th century, the castle, built reportedly in the 9thfor centuries. Since 1905, the building has been used as the cul-tural centre of the city, and has been under continuous recon-struction. Presently, it accommodates next to official state events,such as concerts and art exhibitions, commercial folk art facili-ties for tourists, and the number of tourist entertainment facili-Slovenia, young couples can have a wedding with medieval cloth-ing and show, and book special wedding rooms.Knights and maids of honour anxiously waiting for the arrival ofa bridal couple can be seen also at the castle of Predjama, near Postojna in Slovene Karst region, which with its favourable loca-tion and numerous legends profits from staging medieval tour-naments and weddings. A legend about the castle tells how theinvincible fortress, which defied long sieges owing to a cleverwater catchment system and food obtained through secret pas-sages, had to surrender after the enemy dropped a bomb right atthe lord of the castle during his habitual contemplations in thelavatory.The medieval marriage ceremony that we witnessed is a mani-traditional rituals, calendar holidays, traditional food, clothing ofa particular group, and the necessary context are being revived.Whether such staged events proceed from the need to constructand express locality, to value old traditions, or are related to thecommercialisation of modern cultural values, is a separate issue.Several revived phenomena are related to the popularity of themedieval period and role play, but also to the yearning of uniquelife experience. Concurrently, the castle weddings play an impor-Photo 1. Predjama castle.Photo 2. Academician Milko Matietov.Mare Kõiva, Andres KuperjanovFolklore 29 century – the first printed publication originates in the year 1550.With a touch of luck and a little help from our Slovenian col-scripts in Slovenian language, opened just for a month at theNational University Library of Ljubljana. The exhibition cel-ebrated the local literary culture by displaying authentic thou-sand years old manuscripts. Visitors in groups of ten are pre-sented 9th century clerical manuscripts in a dark room of spar-ing lighting. The unique exhibition has been compiled from thematerial of Austrian, Italian, German and Slovenian collections;it is the first time in history that the manuscripts are displayedtogether in one room. The author of three Freising Manuscripts,which are the earliest known texts in the Slovenian language,was Bishop Abraham of Freising, whose thousandth anniversaryof death was celebrated on May 26, 2004. Many valuable medi-eval texts and their translations are available online, as singlescholars, projects and research institutions have put in a greatdeal of effort in the digitisation of medieval manuscripts. Frederikversity, for example, has prepared a digital publication of theFreising Manuscripts (http://www.kortlandt.nl/editions/freis.html).These earliest manuscripts, and several others in different for-mat, style and design, displayed on the stand, which orthographychanging present day; visitors who leave the exhibition are emo-tionally touched, while those still standing in the line are full ofof Slovenian Ethnology is situated on the second floor, right nextto the offices of scholars. A floor below is reserved for the Li-brary of the Slovenian Academy of Sciences and Arts, which weconsult for an overview in the periodicals and specialised litera-ture of Slovenia. We mainly focus on Slovenian and West-Slavicpublications, works that usually remain inaccessible for us. Thelibrary offers a good selection of German literature and that ofFolklore Studies in Slovenia the neighbouring countries. While the institutes of the ScientificResearch Centre of the Academy have their own specialised li-braries, an electronic interlibrary catalogue enables to order anduse books held in different institutions in Slovenia. The libraryhas a very pleasant atmosphere, which is further supported byplace as often as doctoral students. Among the frequent visitorsis academician Milko Matietov, contributor to the , who has recently taken interest in constructers oflanguage affiliation hypotheses. He is also acquainted with theworks and ideas of Georg Truusman. We contribute to the dis-cussion sharing with him the ideas about affiliation with theSumerians by Karl August Hermann and Jüri Härmatare, thetheory of a possible relation with the Phoenicians by an inhabit-ant of Saaremaa, who has been to the GULAG and Norilsk forced-Polynesians, Basques, Ainu and other primitive nations that wereprevalent in the Soviet period. Matietov has also correspondednian parallels to , and returned from one of his visitswith the famous Estonian scholar’s response, which we later man-The earlier records of the Slovenian folklore collection originatein the 19th century. The manuscripts have been systematisedaccording to collectors and contain tradition other than folklore.The central figure in Slovenian folklore collecting is Karel Štrekelj(1859–1912), a linguist born in Gorjansko by Komen. Štrekelj spenta considerable amount of his working years in Austria, where hedied in 1912 as a reputed linguist, professor and expert of Slavicethnology and folkloristics. As a linguist he was influenced by JanNiecisùaw Ignacy Baudouin de Courtenay (1845–1929), and hiscontacts with Jirí Georg Polívka (1858–1933) and other Slavicscholars, but was also familiar with newer German approaches.It is noteworthy that in 1887, after being elected the editor ofthe Slovenian folk song anthology, he founded a network of 243contributors from all over the country. His method of collecting,as described in the monograph Mare Kõiva, Andres KuperjanovFolklore 29 (Karel Štrekelj – From the Springs of Poetics;Ljubljana 2001) by Monika Kropej, proceeded from the wide rangeof historical anthropology. It took nearly eight years since thebeginning of collecting until the publication of the first volumeof folk songs in 1895. The four volumes published inspired a heateddebate over the explicitly popular, rustic and often erotic con-tents of the songs. The classification and comments of the songsincluded in the anthology are still valid today, as are its exactregisters and fully adequate paraphernalia. At the time of publi-cation the collection received international acclaim. Accordingto Monika Kropej, the categorisation of songs in this anthologyis based on at tha time generally established system of distin-guishing songs into authentic folk songs and songs that becamepopular. As mentioned above, Štrekelj had established close re-lations with the contemporary Slavic linguists, among whom hewas well respected. A comparison of the leading figure ofcontrasts, based on the fact that both had doctor’s degrees inlinguistics and were ahead of their time from the modern per-spective. Hurt’s extensive campaigns in folklore collection andreports of material sent in by local informants proved more ef-fective, as in the course of the campaign more than a hundredthousand pages of a wide range of materials were submitted tothe Estonian Folklore Archives, and around the same time, otherin the same period, but are focused on other folklore genres,contain more than 90,000 pages of lore material. The anthologi-cal series of old Estonian folk songs by parishes, compiled bystandard for the tradition of taxonomy and editing of Estonianfolk songs; the author’s wide approach also influenced folklorenian history on the basis of the material collected; his dreamwas echoed by local correspondents’ attempts to find, but also totheir occupation and activities. While in the 19th century theFolklore Studies in Slovenia Slovenian scholar worked as professor ordinary at the Univer-ture and folkloristics, and had finished translating Viennese lawinto Slovenian language, Jakob Hurt earned his living as a churchminister. Next to the church activities and folklore collection,Hurt had to divide himself between scholarly work, meetings ofmerous other activities of national movement, generation of ideas,and German-minded members of the national movement.The leading Slovenian scholar socialised with linguists, he reliedon and shared the views of European scholars, was into palaeog-raphy, Old Church Slavic language, Serbo-Croatian literature andThe Slovenian Historical Society, founded in 1903 on the instiga-tion of Matija Murko (1861-1951), became, among other things,involved in ethnography. Of course, owing to the ideological situ-Journal of History and Ethnography. Around the year offounding the society, Štrekelj started his new monumental work– as the editor in chief of the anthology of Austro-Hungarian folksongs (since the 13th century, Slovenia was under the rule of theHabsburg dynasty), he began working out the compilation princi-ples of the folk song anthology, whereat he decided to publishcollecting folk songs, music, dances and tradition included alsotechnical advice for recording all the mentioned types of folk-lore. For additional information, he distributed a questionnaireamong the local contributors. All this work, no doubt, demandeddaily communication with contributors and constant effort.The monumental anthologies of Setu folk songs by Jakob Hurtwere published since 1903, though most of his plans were nevermaterialised, just like his Slovenian colleague, who did not man-age to complete the anthology of Slovenian folk tales. The twomoustache fashionable in the period.During our visit to the Institute of Ethnology, we were consultedby Monika Kropej, editor of Studia . We hadMare Kõiva, Andres KuperjanovFolklore 29 met her at forums of traditional and contemporary tradition;journal editing with scholarly work. The 19th century folkloreobjects of interest, as she has written about Slovenian charms(see e.g. http://www.folklore.ee/folklore/vol24/slovcharm.pdf), karstnarratives, various aspects of modern and traditional narrativelore, beliefs and mythology. Her current work, the manuscript ofSlovenian mythology is based on early studies on demonic crea-tures in folk tales. Readers interested in contemporary tales ofthe Slovenian students can read about them in Kropej’s article(available at http://users.aber.ac.uk/mikstaff/ftn56.htm). Next toacademic studies, Kropej has also edited various text antholo-gies, referred to previously and targeted to a wider audience.We have also met Jurij Fikfak, another Slovenian scholar, on anumber of forums over the years. On the Marseilles Congress ofInternationale d’Ethnologie et de Folklore (SIEF), enti- in 2004, he spoke about Slovenia’s accessionto the EU and rituals involved with it, but also discussed severalyouth extremity groups. The first visit to Fikfak’s office, and evenFolklore Studies in Slovenia a glance at his computerscreen, would make everyscholar green of envy. Whilestruggle with the influences ofmised any output, thefluenced by the Yugoslavianstudied at the universities ofMunich and Tübingen in themid-1980s, and in the UnitedCambridge, MA, in the mid-1990s, and used this opportu-Owing to his wide range of in-terests, he skilfully employs visual means of expression. The theo-Digital Image Processing in History – a natural component of publications introducing specific ritu-als or a region – are among his interests in the area. During thepast decades he has studied the reflection of ethnicity and con-struction of identities. In his latest publication at the InstituteQualitative Research: Different Perspectives,Emerging Trends (coeditors Frane Adam and Detlef Graz), hediscusses the topic ranging from ethnography to autoethnography,while continuing characterising the development tendencies offolklore studies and ethnology.In the paper he mentioned one American scholar, who presented“Eastern” scholars in the field of ethnology in the way much incommon with the manner how scholars of previous centurieshave characterised other nations. In the paper about BalthasarHacquet (1739-1815), member of the European Academy of Sci-ences (see http://www.zrc-sazu.si/isn/Publikacije/FikfakHacquet.pdf),Jurij Fikfak, for example, has indicated how contemporary phi-losophy at the end of 18 century influenced the representationof other cultures, especially those categorised as uncivilised, how Mare Kõiva, Andres KuperjanovFolklore 29 the nations and cultural phenomena were recorded and charac-terised. He mainly analysed Hacquet’s ethnographic descriptionsof smaller ethnic groups like Slovenians, Croatians and other“savages” in Abbildung und Beschreibung der südwest- und öst-lichen Wenden, Illyrer und Slaven, deren geographische Ausbrei-tung von dem Adriatischen Meere bis an den Ponto, deren Sitten,Gebräuche, Handthierung, Gewerbe, Reiligion u. s. w. nach einerzehnjährigen Reise und vierzigjährigen Aufenthalte in jenenGegenden. I–V. Leipzig. Slovenian ethnologists and folklorists today have joined differ-ent research networks and centres. Next to traditional folklore,their research covers currently topical subjects; the focus is alsoon the reinterpretation of the 19th century trends and modernbroader perspective, much like their colleagues in the 19th cen-tury. Publications are compiled and research work are carriedout in close cooperation with neighbouring fields of study andcolleagues from neighbouring countries. A good example of suchcountry-wide cooperation is a masking project, surveying thepresent situation of the masking tradition in the country in co-tres, and resulting in a publication (http://www.folklore.ee/ Nashko Krizhnar, head of the audiovisual centre at the Instituteof Slovenian Ethnology, welcomed us on our first meeting with aquestion whether we have participated in the Pärnu Festival ofVisual Anthropology. Once again we realised that all the partici-pants must have shared good memories of the event.The audiovisual centre filled with technological equipment is lo-cated a few houses off the location of the institute. Correspond-processed into ethnographic documentaries for various purposes,others remain uncut, documenting certain locations and proc-esses. Working in such a centre requires a great deal of enthusi-asm and skills, as the material is rather complicated, requiringthe recording of vivid images of static material with low re-Folklore Studies in Slovenia destitute families during the Yugoslavian period (the 1960s) wasrunning on VCR. The naked documentation of reality is almostidentical with life in the slum apartments in Estonia. There are,certainly, also differences, which are less explicit and requirefurther thought. Perhaps a visualisation of an archaic method ofcentre organises a summer school for students from differentEuropean universities (hopefully we will see an Estonian stu-at the centre’s homepage http://www.zrc-sazu.si/isn/avdiovizualnilab.. Nashko Krizhnar has authored several articles on visualanthropology and rituals. The institution of humanities hasgreatly benefited from such a symbiosis of a practitioner and atheoretician; moreover, people equally skilled in research andethnologist. With the recording devices becoming easier to use,the number of amateur photos, documentaries and edited videorecordings has increased. Having experienced a unique event, itis important to be able to record so that it would convey itsextraordinariness to the audience.The curriculum of the Chair of Ethnology and Cultural Anthro-pology at the University of Ljubljana is similar to that of othercourses in the Balkan and Slavic studies). The chair maintainsacademic contacts with a number of research centres, includingthe Max Planck Institute for Social Anthropology in Halle. Thefieldwork expeditions to Africa and Eastern Europe, and re-searched topics ranging from punk music to traditional ap-proaches to folklore, such as, for example, the monograph on themaster of wolves, or water in Slavic mythology by Mirjam Mencej.The chair publishes monographs, articles and presentations de-in an academic series. As the general principle of the summerschool is that scholars are allowed to speak only once, and thediscussions centre on the most topical issues, the articles dis-cuss the topics of ethnicity, cultural heritage, landscape, space,mythology, narratives, museums, etc.Mare Kõiva, Andres KuperjanovFolklore 29 In addition, we were acquainted with the impressive project ofversion for the general public, of the Institute of Archaeology.Since our arrival at the Ljubljana airport, we had noticed souve-nirs of Slovenian folk art and handicraft on store windows, in-cluding humorous beehive paintings decorated with folk talemotifs or agrarian themes in warm colours. Skrina, Blazh Telban’sart gallery, became the place that we recurrently visited to ad-mire witty or simply beautiful paintings, jewellery, pottery, bee-hive paintings, handicraft. Blazh’s gallery and personality haveonly); he has established an effective system for folk art produc-tion. Being a cultural anthropologist, he has studied Native Ameri-can cultures, and he wrote a book “Grupos etnicos de Colombia.Etnografia y bibliografia” (Quito in Roma 1988). After graduatingfrom the university, he left Yugoslavia for the United States, wherehe worked for many years, and then returned to work in Bel-ceding the overthrowing of the dictatorial regime, he could notwork in his speciality and took up art. Different ethnic foods arehis special interest: with his range of knowledge, he would makeone of the best food anthropologists ever, the art business per-Photo 5. Dragons, found throughout the city, are the mascot of Ljubljana.The most famous of these are bridge dragons.Folklore Studies in Slovenia connection with infinite history, in a brief and concise mannerhas proved complicated. Perhaps this connection is even morestrongly felt by a foreigner than by the locals. We talked to MonikaKropej about the editing and publishing of journals, comparativemythology, folklore, science politics, etc. for hours, and realisedthat regardless of the similarities in history, mental heritage andtrends in special fields, the development of folklore studies indifferent countries still differs widely. The new generation ofscholars in Slovenia have introduced new topics, but have con-tinued to study the traditional genres and subjects; different re-search institutions have developed a unique image for themselves,characteristic topics, publications, and cooperation networks. Allwe can wish these institutions is continuing success in their ac-Photo 5. Ethno-gallery Skrina displays the witty, funny, serious, lucky items.Photos by Andres Kuperjanov, 2004.Mare Kõiva, Andres KuperjanovFolklore 29 doi:10.7592/FEJF2005.29.slovenia