“We preserved Everything Old”: Folk Tradition and Traditionalism in Culture of Ethnic Minorities

Abstract

The paper discusses the conceptualization of two widely spread concepts of culture of ethnic minorities – one which implies that the minority culture is by definition a traditionalist one, and the other that implies it is based exclusively or predominantly on traditional folk culture. These concepts have an impact on the self-understanding of members of the minorities themselves, as well as on the policies toward them by the relevant circles of the majority society. The data used in the discussion is mostly obtained during the long-term field study of Serbs in Hungary. *** V clanku je obravnavana konceptualizacija dveh siroko razsirjenih konceptov kulture etnicne manjsin: ena implicira, da je manjsinska kultura po definiciji tradicionalisticna, druga pa. da je osnovana izkljucno ali pretežno na tradicijski ljudski kulturi. Koncepta vplivata na samorazumevanje pripadnikov manjsin kakor tudi na politike odlocilnih krogov vecinske družbe. Podatki za razpravo so bili vecinoma pridobljeni pri dolgotrajnem terenskem raziskovanju Srbov na Madžarskem.