EDITOR’S NOTE

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CHRONICLER AND SATIRIST, IVAN IVANOVIĆ

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EXPERTISE – THE ISSUE OF OCCUPATIONAL FOLKLORE IN SERBIAN CULTURAL INSTITUTIONS

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Understanding folklore in the light of Dundes’ definition and Jones’ observations regarding occupational folklore gave an impetus for analysing professional folklore in the domain of culture in Serbia. According to a leading paradigm in cultural policy theory, development of culture in its widest sense (as suggested in Tylor’s definition) depends on the development of culture in its narrow sense (institutions, organizations, differently connected individuals). This case study was based upon researches conducted in 2009 and 2013 in Serbian institutes for protection of cultural heritage. These researches provided data on human resources of these institutes. Expertise exams, as obligation for new employees, are analysed as a step in up-building of occupational folklore and idioculture. From the corpus of professional folklore two „myths“ are extracted and analysed as mirrors of the past and present situation in the field of protection of tangible cultural heritage: the „myth“ of (old) experts and the „myth“ of „bad“ institutes. These myths are seen as reflection of current position of the domain of culture in contemporary Serbia.

IMPACTS OF CULTURE AND WORLD ECONOMIC CRISIS

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There have been numerous economic crises in capitalism, both in the period of its rise and in all stages its development. Market economy is a risk per se, so that the risk is immanent to market economy and is in fact its middle name. The first responses to the global economic crisis mainly dealt with the failings of the liberal market, not with the state flaws and its role in market control. However, the market was not so liberal as it was debated during the birth of the crisis and certainly not the main cause of the crisis, since the state influence on the market reflects not only in regulations, but also in economic measures. Since market mechanisms also operate in culture, the concept of culture was relativized, the world of culture was identified with the consumer world, and the economic values gained importance in culture. As an expression of human creativity, culture has not taken a course in its development to change the world, but rather to profit – just as any other field of human activity. This paper studies the relationship between economic crisis and culture and their interdependence. Understanding of the relationship between economy and culture may assist in the fashioning of decisions that may be of influence in these areas.

PROTECTION, REVITALIZATION AND USE OF HERITAGE THROUGH CULTURAL ROUTE FORMATION SYSTEM

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“Cultural routes” are a term recently used in scientific literature to define cultural tourism offer based on a set of mutually connected tourist attractions and destinations. The way of travel within a cultural route usually consists of roads with significant scenic, cultural, historical, geological or natural values, and incorporates the sightseeing and interpretation of sites located within that route. Cultural routes can become tourist destinations because of their connections to renowned places, events and personalities. The formation of cultural routes as tourist products is considered to be a new way of protection, revitalization, use and presentation of cultural heritage. However, the concept of cultural routes as practiced in the world and in Europe is just beginning to be used in Serbia. This study presents the basic principles of forming cultural routes, gives an insight into existing initiatives and projects of cultural route development in Serbia, with a special focus to the national master plan “Roman Emperors’ Paths in Serbia” and its critical evaluation.

PARTICIPATIVE PRACTICES IN CONTEMPORARY SERBIAN ART

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Participative practices in art serve as an example of approximation and of different connection of art and culture, ie art and various social registers. These practices most directly recognize one of the key features of contemporary art – disapperance of the visible, tangible differences between artistic and non-artistic actions. Participative practices take on social patterns from various social and cultural registers, with an artistic purpose and the aim to critically correlate with the society, local environments, culture, in short, with the political aspects of life. This type of functioning inherent to participative practices was analyzed on the example of contemporary Serbian art, with a short historic overview to avantguard and neo-avantgarde art, as well as actual theoretical denotations (K. Bishop, B. Groy and N. Bourieau).

SYMBOLIC BOUNDARIES – THE ROLE OF CULTURAL FACTORS IN BUILDING, MAINTAINING AND CHANGING SOCIAL DIFFERENCES AND STRUGGLES

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The author uses the concept of symbolic boundaries to analyze cultural origins of social divisions. The analysis begins with consideration of Bourdieu’s idea of how cultural styles correlate with class formations, and is followed by a discussion regarding a strict division of culture into two poles – the popular and the elite culture. The main theories and typologies of taste are presented at the end of the paper, together with a discussion about taste-based social differences and the structuring of cultural features into stylistically coherent forms – lifestyles.

EDUCATIONAL ASPIRATIONS OF THE STUDENTS IN SERBIA

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In this paper we present results of an empirical research study conducted in 2009 on a sample of 985 students from 30 vocational study groups, located in 28 cities in Serbia. The aim of the study was to establish a relationship between individual elements of the social background of students from the colleges for professional studies and their educational, professional and life aspirations. The research has shown that there is a high social differentiation in colleges for professional studies, and a clear indication of greater representation of students originating from the lower and middle social strata. In this sense, for this generation of young people, higher education levels should not only facilitate acquisition of knowledge necessary to perform complex tasks, but also provide a social function in relation to the generation of their parents (workers) and grandparents (farmers). Determination of the social background has served as a plea for the „discovery” of perspective and aspirations of students in regard to their future.

CULTURAL HERITAGE IN THE DIGITAL WORLD

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The aims of digitization are preservation, accessibility and popularization of cultural heritage. It raises consciousness about the importance of cultural heritage and preservation of cultural and linguistic diversity. It provides small communities with powerful, non-expensive tools to preserve and present their cultural heritage. Wider audiences can have easy access to the world cultural heritage as well as to the local ones. From the viewpoint of the audience, the most important traits of cultural heritage presentations are interactivity and personalization. Sociological approach to the digitization of cultural heritage is focused on two problems: content and access. Which contents will be digitized and who will have access to them depends not only on the cultural criteria (value of cultural contents and cultural needs) but also on technological, economic and social factors: development and spread of ICTs, digital divide (on the global level and within a particular society), IT companies’ business policies, activities of cultural institutions and cultural policy. Several issues can be pointed out relating to digitization of cultural heritage: intellectual property issue, obsoleteness of the data carriers, and long-term economic support for repositories. When speaking about user experience, influence of different contexts on the reception and interpretation of cultural heritage should be discussed. Digital-born cultural contents as well as ‘unintentional archive’ made by internet users pose questions relating to selection, temporary nature of internet platforms, public versus private and commercial versus cultural issues. Digitization of cultural heritage is not a replacement for “live” cultural participation; it is a new tool for the realization of cultural policy aims, as well as a new field of experience and creation of cultural contents.

THE CULT OF SAINT ARCHANGEL MICHAEL AMONG BENEDICTANS IN THE AREA OF BAR MITROPOLY AND KOTOR EPISCOPACY AS A REFLECTION OF SOCIAL AND CULTURAL CONDITIONS (9TH–13TH CENTURY)

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In the middle of the 9th century, the Benedictan order was on the rise in South Italy. Since the end of the 8th century, Montecasino has been the champion of cultural revival, and a network of abbeys has been established across the regions of Benevento, Puglia, Campania, Calabria and other regions. Members of this order, within European borders, were reputed missionairies who contributed greatly to the christianisation of many Germanic and Slavic peoples. However, the Benedictans from South Italy had suffered attacks by the Saracenes and other invadors who raided and plundered their monasteries, which culminated with their conquer of Montecasino in 883AD. Because of the strengthening of the Byzantine rule, the conditions on the east Adriatic coast seemed far more suitable and stable for life of monastery communities. Also, Slavic population settled back to Byzantine cities, and slowly, they moved towards the coastline zones, building good relations with the urban Roman population. The Slavs had still worshiped old gods or were only partly christianized. In addition to being respected as successful missionaries, the Benedicants raised their monasteries in rural communities close to main roads and city centers, while their way of life fitted in the mentality and habits of an aggrarian society. Christianisation of the Slavic population enabled spreading of cultural models from the city centres under the Byzantine rule, which lead to strenghtening of ideological positions and fortification of their factual rule. On the other side, the Holy See looked benevolently on these efforts, since the Benedictans almost unnoticably contributed to strenghtening of the Roman Church positions in Dalmatia. The Benedictans took their missonary endevours seriously, as we can see from a very smart selection of the cults of saints – primarily patrons of big abbeys.