Mile Nedeljković as a social, cultural and ethnic issues researcher

Abstract

Mile Nedeljković published about a hundred titles in ethnology, literature, folklore studies and journalism, focusing especially on Šumadija, the traditional culture of the Serbian and other South-Slavic peoples, as well as peoples and their cultures worldwide. This contribution makes an attempt to look at his major ethnological works, which address social, cultural and ethnic issues. As it turns out, they deal with some of the most intricate, most sensitive and most important issues of national history and culture, such as Kosovo and Metohija as the cradle of Serbian spirituality, Islamization in the South-Slavic areas, Šumadija as the pivot of Serbia’s restored statehood, or the gloomy destiny of the Serbs the Frontiersmen and their expulsion from Croatia in the 1990s. As it also turns out, their author has a fundamental and diverse work, the ability to make sweeping syntheses and significant scholarly discoveries, the culture of chronicle keeping, and the simplicity and beauty of narrative expression, and, as such, he belongs to the very top of contemporary Serbian ethnology.