Papers by Dorian Jurić
Folklorica, 2023
A list of the Bosnian Muslim epics from the Krajina region (predominantly around Bihać) collected... more A list of the Bosnian Muslim epics from the Krajina region (predominantly around Bihać) collected by Luka Marjanović and housed in the Croatian Academy of Sciences and Arts (HAZU)
Folklore, 2023
This article traces the history of scholarly analysis of the South Slavic vila. By asking a simpl... more This article traces the history of scholarly analysis of the South Slavic vila. By asking a simple question, ‘where does the vila live?’, I return to that scholarship to weed out problematic older theories and clarify historical conjecture. I offer a refinement of the analysis of origin by returning to the art and assertions of nineteenth- and twentieth-century peasant storytellers, singers, and other tradition-bearers.
Folklorica, 2020
Between March and May of 2020, a number of guslars (bards) and other traditional singers from Bos... more Between March and May of 2020, a number of guslars (bards) and other traditional singers from Bosnia-Herzegovina, Croatia, Montenegro, and Serbia flooded YouTube with songs about the COVID-19 pandemic. Though the musicians chose divergent vantage points from which to approach the topic of the pandemic, all settled on a similar goal. They sought to deliver a message of solidarity and hope to those struggling with the realities of life under lockdown measures and to allay the fears and uncertainties that spread with the virus. This article provides a critical overview of the guslars’ songs to explore their shared and divergent tropes, themes, and tones, and to highlight the goals of their singers in disseminating their messages in traditional form. Here I comment on what the high degree of convergence in the songs’ final messages reveals about vernacular responses to the pandemic and folk views on the measures taken to halt the virus’s spread. Finally, the article places these songs into a wider historical context of contemporary singing to the gusle, remarking on the vagaries of navigating authority when one sings subjective opinion in the name of a collective.
The Slavic and East European Journal, 2020
After his televised suicide in a courtroom of the International Criminal Tribunal for the former ... more After his televised suicide in a courtroom of the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia, former Croatian Defence Council General and convicted war criminal Slobodan Praljak became the immediate focus of an outpouring of folklore commenting upon his death. A traditional reaction from a bard and a songwriter in Herzegovina reflected a common nationalistic Croatian response, depicting Praljak as a victim of injustice in a politicized kangaroo court. However, Praljak’s death saw much greater engagement from an international, computer-mediated, online community of meme creators. This group largely produced apolitical vernacular media removed from the specifics of Praljak’s trial, though some unique examples serve as a digital response to the narrative of Praljak as victim.
Zagrobni život generala Slobodana Praljka u folklornim umotvorinama
29. studenog, 2017. g., bivši General pukovnik Hrvatskog vijeća obrane i osuđeni ratni zločinac, Slobodan Praljak, popio je otrov ispred kamera u raspravnoj dvorani Haškog suda za ratne zločine. Praljkovo javno samoubojstvo postalo je inspiracija mnogobrojnim folklornim umotvorinama. Posebno se istaknula pjesma hercegovačkih guslara Marka Čolaka i pjesnika Frane Mikulić-Jukića. Dvojac je uz tradicionalni deseterac opjevao nacionalistički pogled koji slavi hrvatska ratna lica kao narodne heroje te smatra Praljka kao žrtvu nepravde u politiziranom kvazisudu. No znatno veći interes pokrenut je na Internetu od strane raznih međunarodnih kreatora mimova. Oni su uglavnom kreirali nepolitičke mimove koji nisu povezani sa specifičnostima Praljkovog suđenja, iako postoji nekoliko jedinstvenih primjera koji se čine da su nastali kao protivni odgovor nacionalističkom pogledu.
Oral Tradition, 2020
In this article, I return to the history of the collection of songs exhibiting the ‘Building Sacr... more In this article, I return to the history of the collection of songs exhibiting the ‘Building Sacrifice’ story-pattern in BCMS-speaking regions to explore the ethno-national manipulations to which the song has fallen victim over the last 200 years. I highlight three critical problems of past folklore research that allowed folklorists, ethnologists and others to draw these materials into such contentious misuse, offering a corrective for each that allows for a clearer understanding of the true diffusion and history of this oral tradition in the region.
Journal of American Folklore, 2020
An 1897 collecting guide for a Croatian folklore journal suggests literate peasants as highly pri... more An 1897 collecting guide for a Croatian folklore journal suggests literate peasants as highly privileged lay-collectors. In reality, despite their advantageous access to the journal’s quarry, difficulty in mastering practices of knowledge transmission and the privileged language of the journal’s style regularly proved insurmountable impediments to their aspirations. The correspondence of peasant collectors reveals the ways they navigated engagement with nineteenth century folklore collection projects and theoretical paradigms that valorized their social position while yoking them to it.
Folklorica, 2019
This article presents three short passages describing coffee and coffeehouse culture among Bosnia... more This article presents three short passages describing coffee and coffeehouse culture among Bosnian and Herzegovinian Muslims in the late nineteenth century. These texts are drawn from manuscripts collected by lay, Croatian folklore and folklife collectors who submitted them to two early collecting projects in Zagreb. The pieces are translated here for the first time into English and placed into historical and cultural context regarding the history of coffee culture in Bosnia and Herzegovina and the wider Ottoman Empire as well as the politics of folklore collection at the time. By using the Pan-Ottoman concept of ćeif as a theoretical lens, I argue that these early folklorists produced impressive folklife accounts of Bosniak foodways, but that these depictions inevitably enfolded both genuine interest and negative by-products of the wider politics of their era.
Journal of Indo-European Studies, 2010
This article seeks to clarify the often confused understanding of the Serbo-Croatian vila and elu... more This article seeks to clarify the often confused understanding of the Serbo-Croatian vila and elucidate her position within the archaic South Slavic world view. Through a survey of her functional traits within the Serbo-Croatian epics, the article attempts to typify her actions in the epic sphere, and weigh those against her conception in the folkloric sphere, making a case for the understanding and study of the vila as one distinct figure divided into two typological facets - one mythological in nature, the other a product of folk custom.
This is an early article whose conclusions have been much refined in later pieces. Particularly my 2019 dissertation and subsequent publications.
Book Chapters by Dorian Jurić
The Exeter Companion to Fairies, Nereids, Trolls and Other Social Supernatural Beings: European Traditions, 2024
This chapter provides a basic overview of the social behaviour of the vila and compares her to We... more This chapter provides a basic overview of the social behaviour of the vila and compares her to Western European social supernatural peers.
Volume editors:
Simon Young and Davide Ermacora
Book Description:
Fairies, elves, and other magical beings… they’re so much more than just children’s tales.
For centuries, Europeans believed in a parallel supernatural realm inhabited by these beings who lived much like humans in their own communities. This ‘social supernatural’ world mirrored ours with troll weddings, pixy battles, nereid picnics, dwarf migrations, and the like. Social supernatural beings were thought to interact with the human world in profound ways: they whipped up storms, ensured good harvests, and healed (and, all too often, caused) illness.
The Exeter Companion to Fairies, Nereids, Trolls and other Social Supernatural Beings dives into the rich folklore and oral traditions around the social supernatural across Europe; in fact, it pioneers the term ‘social supernatural’ as a folklore and supernatural category. Bringing together eighteen experts, this is the first comprehensive Europe-wide look at these beliefs and practices. Through in-depth studies, the volume explores how diverse cultures from Ireland to Ukraine, and from Norway to Greece, envisioned their supernatural neighbours and how these parallel societies reflected human concerns and desires. Our authors employ ancient, medieval, modern and, in some cases, contemporary material to tease out the ‘hidden people’ from obscure and, all too often, forgotten sources.
The book resurrects captivating stories and traditions. For anyone fascinated by European folklore, magic, and mythology, it provides a rich research seam with up-to-date bibliographies for a dozen European countries. It will be of use to folklorists, historians, ethnologists, sociologists and also the general reader interested in the supernatural beliefs of traditional European societies.
The Oxford Handbook of Slavic and East European Folklore, 2023
This chapter presents a general overview of Slavic supernatural legends in the Western Balkans. D... more This chapter presents a general overview of Slavic supernatural legends in the Western Balkans. Data from current and archival research are used to provide contemporary insights into some long-standing theoretical questions regarding the genre, as well as to suggest avenues for future enquiry. Discussion includes the thought-world of legends, their functional deployment in social spheres, principles that govern the limits of their diffusion, problems of their analytical systematization and categorization (particularly into the subcategories of memorates and fabulates), and elements of subversion used in their telling. In conclusion, the chapter argues that renewed collection projects and theoretical advances in legend research could benefit from a return to producing what the author terms “survey studies”—comprehensive and thorough overviews of a singular supernatural being in a specific region based on systematic collation of extant data and synchronic and diachronic mapping of that being’s motifs.
Book Reviews by Dorian Jurić
Edited Volumes by Dorian Jurić
Folklorica, 2020
Please see the full journal here:
https://journals.ku.edu/folklorica/issue/view/2019
Thesis Chapters by Dorian Jurić
PhD Dissertation, Feb 2019, 2019
This thesis presents a critical overview of a supernatural being, the South Slavic vila, as she f... more This thesis presents a critical overview of a supernatural being, the South Slavic vila, as she figures in the oral traditions of Bosnian, Croatian, Montenegrin and Serbian peasants collected in the 19th and early 20th centuries. The thesis returns to the conceptual frame of older primary texts (here titled survey studies) used by comparative scholars and updates this work with the knowledge gleaned from a century of research and theory in the fields of folkloristics and historical anthropology. These materials are presented in a distributive frequency analysis model such as those often employed by the Historical-Geographic school of folklore research, but the study is built on a foundation informed by the insights of Milman Parry and Albert Lord’s researches into the diffusion of oral traditions. These traditions are further refined by focusing on the singers, storytellers and believers who used the vila in an emic manner balanced at a nexus point between artistic innovation and traditional dictates. The data is also further contextualized with a focus on the embedded nature of these cultural expressions and a clear portrait of the contexts surrounding their collection and publication in a wider cultural sphere. The aim of the thesis is to present a comprehensive description of the vila’s role in oral traditions to serve as a primary source for scholars doing comparative or interpretive work, as well as to provide a clearer picture of the contexts of the materials to refine such research. In doing so, this thesis produces a comprehensive method and model that can be applied to other supernatural beings, repatriates oral arts back to their original purveyors by undoing academic silencing of subaltern voices and returns critical context to inherited traditions once stripped of them by romantic academic theories.
Please follow this link to an Open-Access copy of the dissertation: https://hdl.handle.net/11375/24438
MA Thesis, Sept. 2010, 2010
This thesis seeks to clarify the often confused understanding of the Serbo-Croatian vila and eluc... more This thesis seeks to clarify the often confused understanding of the Serbo-Croatian vila and elucidate her position within the archaic South Slavic world view. Through a survey of her functional traits within the Serbo-Croatian epics, the argument presented here attempts to typify her actions in the epic sphere, and weigh those against her conception in the folkloric sphere, making a case for the understanding and study of the vila as one distinct figure divided into two typological facets – one mythological in nature, the other a product of folk custom. From there the thesis explores a comparative Indo-European mythological study of the isolated epic functions of the vila, in order to properly posit her among similar analogues in the Indo-European myth system.
Please follow this link to the Open-Access copy of the thesis:
https://hdl.handle.net/11375/9407
Conference Presentations by Dorian Jurić
Crossing the Global Storm: Networks, Solidarities, and Communities in Struggle. American Folklore Society Annual Meeting., 2024
Fatmir Alispahić, a prominent voice in an informal, grassroots network of anti-migrant commentato... more Fatmir Alispahić, a prominent voice in an informal, grassroots network of anti-migrant commentators and mobilizers in Bosnia-Herzegovina, maintains a sensationalist news site tracking migrant crime, has published a book on the migrant crisis, and once made regular pronouncements on his YouTube news show, The Weekly Register. However, some of his most provocative contributions to the national discussion have been sonnets, a poetic form he celebrates as a cogent vehicle for the dissemination of political commentary. Let's explore why his anti-migrant sonnets resonate with contemporary concerns and fears of Bosnian Muslims sharing common spaces with cultural outsiders, and the legwork they might do for a moral entrepreneur.
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Papers by Dorian Jurić
The full Special Issue can be accessed here for free:
https://journals.ku.edu/folklorica/issue/view/2019
Zagrobni život generala Slobodana Praljka u folklornim umotvorinama
29. studenog, 2017. g., bivši General pukovnik Hrvatskog vijeća obrane i osuđeni ratni zločinac, Slobodan Praljak, popio je otrov ispred kamera u raspravnoj dvorani Haškog suda za ratne zločine. Praljkovo javno samoubojstvo postalo je inspiracija mnogobrojnim folklornim umotvorinama. Posebno se istaknula pjesma hercegovačkih guslara Marka Čolaka i pjesnika Frane Mikulić-Jukića. Dvojac je uz tradicionalni deseterac opjevao nacionalistički pogled koji slavi hrvatska ratna lica kao narodne heroje te smatra Praljka kao žrtvu nepravde u politiziranom kvazisudu. No znatno veći interes pokrenut je na Internetu od strane raznih međunarodnih kreatora mimova. Oni su uglavnom kreirali nepolitičke mimove koji nisu povezani sa specifičnostima Praljkovog suđenja, iako postoji nekoliko jedinstvenih primjera koji se čine da su nastali kao protivni odgovor nacionalističkom pogledu.
This is an early article whose conclusions have been much refined in later pieces. Particularly my 2019 dissertation and subsequent publications.
Book Chapters by Dorian Jurić
Volume editors:
Simon Young and Davide Ermacora
Book Description:
Fairies, elves, and other magical beings… they’re so much more than just children’s tales.
For centuries, Europeans believed in a parallel supernatural realm inhabited by these beings who lived much like humans in their own communities. This ‘social supernatural’ world mirrored ours with troll weddings, pixy battles, nereid picnics, dwarf migrations, and the like. Social supernatural beings were thought to interact with the human world in profound ways: they whipped up storms, ensured good harvests, and healed (and, all too often, caused) illness.
The Exeter Companion to Fairies, Nereids, Trolls and other Social Supernatural Beings dives into the rich folklore and oral traditions around the social supernatural across Europe; in fact, it pioneers the term ‘social supernatural’ as a folklore and supernatural category. Bringing together eighteen experts, this is the first comprehensive Europe-wide look at these beliefs and practices. Through in-depth studies, the volume explores how diverse cultures from Ireland to Ukraine, and from Norway to Greece, envisioned their supernatural neighbours and how these parallel societies reflected human concerns and desires. Our authors employ ancient, medieval, modern and, in some cases, contemporary material to tease out the ‘hidden people’ from obscure and, all too often, forgotten sources.
The book resurrects captivating stories and traditions. For anyone fascinated by European folklore, magic, and mythology, it provides a rich research seam with up-to-date bibliographies for a dozen European countries. It will be of use to folklorists, historians, ethnologists, sociologists and also the general reader interested in the supernatural beliefs of traditional European societies.
Book Reviews by Dorian Jurić
Edited Volumes by Dorian Jurić
Thesis Chapters by Dorian Jurić
Please follow this link to an Open-Access copy of the dissertation: https://hdl.handle.net/11375/24438
Please follow this link to the Open-Access copy of the thesis:
https://hdl.handle.net/11375/9407
Conference Presentations by Dorian Jurić
The full Special Issue can be accessed here for free:
https://journals.ku.edu/folklorica/issue/view/2019
Zagrobni život generala Slobodana Praljka u folklornim umotvorinama
29. studenog, 2017. g., bivši General pukovnik Hrvatskog vijeća obrane i osuđeni ratni zločinac, Slobodan Praljak, popio je otrov ispred kamera u raspravnoj dvorani Haškog suda za ratne zločine. Praljkovo javno samoubojstvo postalo je inspiracija mnogobrojnim folklornim umotvorinama. Posebno se istaknula pjesma hercegovačkih guslara Marka Čolaka i pjesnika Frane Mikulić-Jukića. Dvojac je uz tradicionalni deseterac opjevao nacionalistički pogled koji slavi hrvatska ratna lica kao narodne heroje te smatra Praljka kao žrtvu nepravde u politiziranom kvazisudu. No znatno veći interes pokrenut je na Internetu od strane raznih međunarodnih kreatora mimova. Oni su uglavnom kreirali nepolitičke mimove koji nisu povezani sa specifičnostima Praljkovog suđenja, iako postoji nekoliko jedinstvenih primjera koji se čine da su nastali kao protivni odgovor nacionalističkom pogledu.
This is an early article whose conclusions have been much refined in later pieces. Particularly my 2019 dissertation and subsequent publications.
Volume editors:
Simon Young and Davide Ermacora
Book Description:
Fairies, elves, and other magical beings… they’re so much more than just children’s tales.
For centuries, Europeans believed in a parallel supernatural realm inhabited by these beings who lived much like humans in their own communities. This ‘social supernatural’ world mirrored ours with troll weddings, pixy battles, nereid picnics, dwarf migrations, and the like. Social supernatural beings were thought to interact with the human world in profound ways: they whipped up storms, ensured good harvests, and healed (and, all too often, caused) illness.
The Exeter Companion to Fairies, Nereids, Trolls and other Social Supernatural Beings dives into the rich folklore and oral traditions around the social supernatural across Europe; in fact, it pioneers the term ‘social supernatural’ as a folklore and supernatural category. Bringing together eighteen experts, this is the first comprehensive Europe-wide look at these beliefs and practices. Through in-depth studies, the volume explores how diverse cultures from Ireland to Ukraine, and from Norway to Greece, envisioned their supernatural neighbours and how these parallel societies reflected human concerns and desires. Our authors employ ancient, medieval, modern and, in some cases, contemporary material to tease out the ‘hidden people’ from obscure and, all too often, forgotten sources.
The book resurrects captivating stories and traditions. For anyone fascinated by European folklore, magic, and mythology, it provides a rich research seam with up-to-date bibliographies for a dozen European countries. It will be of use to folklorists, historians, ethnologists, sociologists and also the general reader interested in the supernatural beliefs of traditional European societies.
Please follow this link to an Open-Access copy of the dissertation: https://hdl.handle.net/11375/24438
Please follow this link to the Open-Access copy of the thesis:
https://hdl.handle.net/11375/9407
Lang’s Samobor on the Brink of War: Folklore, Politics and the Idea of Jugoslavism
This presentation explores the political contexts within which Milan Lang’s famous manuscript, “Samobor: narodni život i običaji” was published. It follows the political uses of folklore in the nascent Yugoslav states, tracing currents of thought from The Illyrian Movement through the work of Josip Juraj Strossmayer to the political machinations of Antun Radic as manifested through the ZbNZO and such publications as Lang’s “Samobor.” By following these lines of enquiry the study explores the discord and contradictions inherent in publishing an academic treatise which has links to grander movements of South Slavic Unity and Jugoslavenstvo on the eve of war between Austro-Hungary and Serbia. Finally, the presentation explores the implications for and role of both Milan Lang and Samobor in these tempestuous political times and the important role works such as “Samobor…” played and continue to play in identity construction and political affairs in modern day Croatia.
Giving Voice to the Dead and Described: Reconfiguring the Anthropological in Historical Ethnography
This presentation explores certain trends and theories in historical anthropology in an effort to discuss the uncertainties of giving voice to historical actors about whom little is known. Approaching the provocative, narrative-critical theories proposed by Hermann Rebel, I will attempt to balance them with anthropological insights which preserve a role for culture in a discourse that too often focuses on individual agency and political entanglement. To this purpose, the work of Carlo Ginzburg will be suggested as a paragon of balance. What role culture serves in these entanglements shall be explored as well as traditional analytical methods which can bolster understandings of vague historical actors. Finally, the presentation will remind historical anthropologists of aspects of culture which are not political but inhabit spaces of entertainment, joy, cohesion, ritual and performance, with brief recourse to the presenter's field of inquiry and intended future archival research.
Donner une voix aux morts représentés : Reconfigurer l'anthropologique dans l'ethnographie historique
Cette présentation explore certaines tendances et théories en anthropologie historique afin de discuter des incertitudes entourant le fait de << donner la parole >> à des acteurs historiques sur lesquels très peu est connu. Abordant les provocatrices théories narratives critiques proposées par Hermann Rebel, je vais tenter de les pondérer grâce aux connaissances anthropologiques où la culture demeur centrale face à un discours qui se concentre trop souvent sur l'agentivité individuelle et les implications politiques. À cet effet, le travail de Carlo Ginzburg sera proposé comme un modèle d'équilibre. Le rôle joué par la culture dans ces enchevêtrements sera exploré ainsi que les méthodes d'analyse traditionnelles qui peuvent renforcer la compréhension d'acteurs historiques flous. Finalement, une brève référence au terrain d'enquête et aux futures recherches d'archives du présentateur servira de rappel aux anthropologues historiques que certains aspects de la culture ne sont pas politiques mais occupent plutôt des espaces de divertissement, de joie, de cohésion, de rituel et de performance.