Folklore Elements Research Articles

The Finno-Ugrian Vampire by Noémi Szécsi

146 World Literature Today reviews In the hands of a master of hard sf like Greg Egan, so arcane a premise might succeed. In Suzuki’s, it doesn’t. One quickly realizes that the novel ’s “science”—incarnated in bits of technobabble like “In scientific terms, what will happen is the instantaneous scattering of all matter at a quantum level. All structure as we know it will be lost”—is wildly wonky. As in his previous novel, Kamigami No Promenade (2008; Eng. Promenade of the Gods, 2008), Suzuki undermines Edge with awkward prose, inconsistent characterization, and inept metaphors. He is irrepressibly redundant, repeating information as though writing for readers with ADD. Further potholes fill the narrative road: information dumps on a wild range of topics, including Japanese folklore, black holes, plate tectonics, the history of hieroglyphs, the origin of sight and the evolution of the eye, geomagnetism, antimatter , wormholes, sunspots, the demise of the dinosaurs, enough ancientcivilization mysteries to delight Erich von Däniken, and mathematics. Lots of mathematics. Still, Edge is worth reading for its insights into twenty-first-century Japanese attitudes toward apocalypse . These attitudes contrast strikingly with those in the (far superior ) 1973 novel Nippon Chinbotsu, by Komatsu Sakyō (pseud. Minoru Komatsu). This richly nuanced look at Japanese culture and psychology during what, for the nation, is the end of days, is available in English only in a truncated translation by Michael Gallagher (Japan Sinks, 1976). But it was effectively adapted by Shiro Moritan in his elegiac 1973 film, The Submersion of Japan. Michael A. Morrison University of Oklahoma Noémi Szécsi. The Finno-Ugrian Vampire. Peter Sherwood, tr. London. Stork Press. 2012. isbn 9780957132665 In the first paragraph of this “weretale for six actors, five voices, two players,” narrator Jerne Voltampere proffers fair warning: “Reader, do not doubt the truth of my words, for the tale I tell is a lie from beginning to end. It is often said that the only way to tell the truth is through telling lies. But in my view reality is wholly devoid of interest. Yet every word of this tale is true.” Thus begins the most innovative , trenchant vampire tale since Mati Unt’s Doonori meelespea (1990; Eng. Diary of a Blood Donor, 2008). But where Unt used the well-heeled motif of the vampire as a political metaphor for postcommunism in mid-1980s Estonia, Hungarian writer Noémi Szécsi appropriates the trope, which is not an element of Hungarian folklore, as a metaphor for a young person’s coming of age in modernday Budapest. (In its original Hungarian , Finnugor vámpír [2002], Szécsi exploited the lack of a grammatical gender in the Hungarian language to leave the reader in doubt as to whether Jerne is male or female—a masterstroke inevitably lost in this deft translation by Peter Sherwood.) Two engines drive this most unconventional bildungsroman: Jerne’s witty, sardonic narrative voice and “Grandma.” Separated by a gap of not merely generations but centuries, the two share a top-floor flat in a modern apartment building. Dead these last two hundred or so years, Grandma is guardian devil to her “trainee vampire.” While Jerne sees her as “a conscientious guardian who left no stone unturned to ensure that I become a well-educated corpse,” Grandma admits that “the essence of the matter is that deep down I’m a sadistic old woman.” She’s not kidding. In her day job, Jerne reads proof at a two-person publishing house owned by editor in chief Norma-Elektra and her husband, Ármin Jermák, a marginally dysfunctional vampire whom Jerne finds “as repulsive as spinach purée.” But what Jerne really wants to do is to write and publish animal stories for children about “Initiative, the bumptious but cowardly rabbit.” In realizing this goal, Jerne has a problem: being a force of darkness “insensible to goodness,” she is singularly ill-suited by experience or temperament to imbue her stories with suitable moral content. Commenting on Jerne’s first collection , Rotten Animals, Norma-Elektra nails the problem: “These rabbits, foxes, wolves, polecats, moles and Ma Yuan Ballad of the Himalayas: Stories of Tibet Herbert J. Batt, tr...

The Old Man's Love Story

Fiction Rudolfo Anaya. The Old Man’s Love Story. Norman. University of Oklahoma Press. 2013. isbn 9780806143576 Love, grief, and memory form the thematic triad in Rudolfo Anaya’s The Old Man’s Love Story, a novel that speaks to our shared humanity and to what shapes our lives in their truest dimensions. Anaya’s narrative craft appeared fully developed in Bless Me, Última (1972), his founding novel that closes with Antonio’s grief over Última’s looming death but also with a consoling revelation: spirits can be invoked in moments of sorrow (“if despair enters your heart, look for me in the evenings”). The Old Man’s Love Story is a dignified portrayal of the novel’s main character, who is in the process of facing despair and loneliness: his wife and soul mate is now an angel gone homeward. The writer’s resolve to transform the personal experience of mourning into an art form is an evident attempt to reach the reader’s heart and imagination. The dramatic impact, however, transcends sorrow and desolation; comedy enters in unexpected moments, producing a range of emotions that offer the possibility of reading the novel as cathartic and thus as a personally significant experience. In Anaya’s words (and with the poetry of Nezahualcóyotl in mind): “That’s all that lasts, beauty of flowers and songs.” At one point in the novel the old man’s wife appears and gently whispers: “I am here as long as you remember me.” Utter the word “love,” the old man tells himself, and the image of the beloved “jumps up.” Like a modern-day Pygmalion in love with an image, the old man encounters the essence of his wife first in a photograph, then inside himself , followed by a moment of truth: “love is two persons becoming one.” Ole Hyltoft’s Danish humanism. Fiction, page 64 David Shook’s Mexico City silences. Verse, page 74 Amit Chaudhuri’s Calcutta canvas. Miscellaneous, page 75 review world literature in 58 worldliteraturetoday.org November–December 2013 • 59 Alai Tibetan Soul Karen Gernant & Chen Zeping, tr. MerwinAsia Now a full-time writer after a long prelude as a farmer, a construction worker, a tractor driver, and a history teacher, Alai brings his myriad of experiences as a Tibetan to this collection of short stories. He combines elements of traditional folklore with modern life, giving a rich portrait of the varied culture in his homeland. Ai Mi Under the Hawthorn Tree Anna Holmwood, tr. House of Anansi Press Ai Mi’s bittersweet love story perfectly intertwines China’s politically volatile Cultural Revolution of the 1970s with the innocence of youth. Jingqiu wishes only to work hard and make her family proud. Through a series of political events, however, she meets Jianxin. The two fall into forbidden love, only to have it ripped apart by the cruel hands of fate in an unexpectedly heartwrenching ending. Nota Bene The novel consists of a preface and twenty-seven stories, combining to reach a number associated with lunar cycles, the “madness” of love beyond the grave (“I will always love you”), and the lunacy of a world that lacks a redemptive illumination, a darkening earth torn by wars abroad and by the political distortion of religious beliefs in the East and in the West (“my God is better than yours”). Anaya charts a journey of grief with moments of touching humor and critical stabs at our modern age, with its repression of the incantatory power of myth and an inclusive faith. I will not reveal the novel’s conclusion but will assert that it rivals the myth of Quetzalcoatl’s exile in the East, traditionally portrayed in a raft of serpents with the promise to return or leaving to immolate himself in a pyre, with birds of precious feathers rising from his ashes. Beyond the story of love, mourning, and dreams, the novel ignites the reader’s imagination through the symbolism of numbers and the alchemy of apparent opposites who become the eternal couple through death and transfiguration. In The Old Man’s Love Story, Anaya brings the power of magic and memory to a world of ashes and dust. Roberto Cantú California...

Stone Cairns and Simulacra: Navigation, Folklore, and Tradition in the Arctic

Stone cairns and named natural rock forms are known in all regions of the Arctic—Iceland, Finland, Russia, Canada—and are known by various names such as seids, guriys, hakurs. These stone structures vary in function, sometimes multifunctional, being navigational landmarks in the tundra or along coastlines, sacred objects or repositories, messaging posts, memorials, and are often associated with folklore. In this article I examine these issues, describing different traditions, folklore, and structural elements. Some of this material is based on my fieldwork in Iceland and the three Arctic regions of Russia—the Kola Peninsula, the Timan tundra, and the White Sea.

'Perceforest' et 'Zephir': propositions autour d'un recit arthurien bourguignon

The Perceforest is a romance of the later Middle Ages that combines two important strands of medieval French literary tradition: the romances of Alexander the Great and King Arthur. Although the text has traditionally been dated to around 1340, it is generally accepted that the version contained in the surviving manuscripts is a fifteenth-century revision for Philippe le Bon, Duke of Burgundy. Christine Ferlampin-Acher's study aims principally to challenge this notion, proposing and supporting the hypothesis that the extant fifteenth-century text is in fact the original, composed around the 1450s by the Duke's scribe, David Aubert. Drawing parallels between the romance and the intertextual, ideological, and cultural trends of this period, Ferlampin-Acher suggests that the Perceforest was intended to glorify the Burgundian regime by establishing Philippe as the heir to both Arthur and Alexander. Although the author accepts that definitive proof as to the date of composition cannot be provided, her arguments are both thorough and convincing. Ferlampin-Acher integrates a vast range of literary and historical sources into her analysis of the text, which proposes the character of Zéphir — a fallen angel turned mischievous spirit — as a point of convergence between the text and Burgundian cultural reality. After demonstrating that the arguments placing Perceforest's composition in the fourteenth-century are in no way definitive, the author goes on to discuss intertextual relations between the Perceforest and other texts thought to have been produced in its wake. Focusing principally on Jacques de Guise's Annales du Hainaut, the works of Froissart, Antoine de la Sale, and Jean d'Arras, Ferlampin-Acher argues that Perceforest was inspired by these texts rather than the inverse. This later date is corroborated in Chapter 2, in which parallels between Perceforest and the culture and geography of the Burgundian Netherlands are identified: not only is the pseudo-historical character of the romance in keeping with Philippe's taste for chronicles, but the representation of theatre and spectacles such as Royal Entries, tournaments, and banquets corresponds to Burgundian tastes in courtly entertainment. Furthermore, Perceforest's toponymy superimposes Burgundian geographical space on the narrative, creating links between Arthurian Britain and Philippe's territories. The second half of the study examines ideological parallels between the narrative and fifteenth-century cultural discourses, focusing on the figure of Zéphir and the intersection of various thought patterns he represents. Ferlampin-Acher argues that Zéphir is particularly evocative of the preoccupations of fifteenth-century Burgundian readers; combining elements of both contemporary folklore and clerical discourse, he invites reflections on sorcery and witchcraft, the relations between human beings and incorporeal spirits, and, by extension, the virgin conception of Christ. Whether or not the reader accepts Ferlampin-Acher's hypothesis, this book offers an extensive and wide-ranging analysis of both the Perceforest and Burgundian society and culture. The author's clarity and lively style also make this a very readable text.

“Between Jennings and Jones”: Jamey Johnson, Hard-Core Country Music, and Outlaw as Authenticating Strategy

In this essay, I examine how country artist Jamey Johnson rhetorically transformed himself from Nashville hopeful into a “hard-core,” “authentic” country outlaw. By associating himself with the original 1970s outlaw movement and including folklore elements of the American outlaw-hero in his songs, Johnson was successful in rhetorically crafting a “double outlaw” persona. This essay is the first scholarly examination of Jamey Johnson and his music. In addition, this essay provides an opportunity to study the rhetorical dimensions of the country outlaw as well as examine key rhetorical strategies employed to create an authentic, hard-core country artist.

Telling the African side of the Story: Proverb as a Crucial Element in Uchenna Nwosu’s <i>The Rejected Stone</i>

Proverb is one of the elements of folklore. Like some other elements of folklore, proverb plays several significant and important roles in the literary works of writers who chose to blend their works with the touch of African oral tradition and also to give their creative works a stamp of uniqueness, authenticity, and identity as they reflect and project their culture, tradition, outlook, views and perceptions of a community that conditioned them even though they communicate in a language alien to them. These proverbs used in literary works, from study do not occur simply by accident, rather were incorporated for the significant role which they play in literary works. This paper studies the use of proverbs in Uchenna Nwosu’s The Rejected Stone. The aim is to highlight on the roles, importance and significance of proverbs in written literature. Also to showcase how proverb serves as important tool of story-telling in the re-creation of a genuine and believable African side of story.

Fighting or Dancing: Archaeology and Folklore Traces

The connections between archaeology and traditions or folklore may be thought of as a dance, in which archaeological traces complement or constitute elements of folklore, and traces of folklore complement and constitute archaeological interpretation. On the other hand, archaeology and folklore may engage in competition about the “true” past(s). In this paper I will explore the tensions between these perspectives, and the tensions between archaeology and many forms of folklore.

Folktales in Akachi Adimora-Ezeigbo's The Last of The Strong Ones, House of Symbols And Children of The Eagle

Folktales are among the elements and materials that made up the folklore of any homogeneous society. Others include proverbs, riddles, songs, beliefs, myths, legends, charms, magic incantations, omens, and superstitions among few others. All these made up the folklore of a given society from which we obtain a picture, a way of life and attitude, belief, custom worldview, perception and outlook to life common among the people of the society. These folklore materials are handed over from generation to generation orally, that is through a mouth to mouth transmission. They live with the society and die only when such society is dead and live no more. Folktale is one of the elements of folklore handed over from generation to generation. It appears in the forms of stories told by our fore-fathers, stories believed to have taken place in the remote past, a time best known to the originators of the tales. These tales in the end are used for entertainment, for instruction and for teaching important moral values of society. In the recent time, these tales have found better expression in the written works of African literary artists and have become one of the veritable elements writers borrow to adorn their written literary works and give them a touch of local flavour and beauty. This paper studied the use of folktales as one of the major ingredients of storytelling in Akachi Adimora Ezeigbo's trilogy, The Last of the Strong Ones, House of Symbols and Children of the Eagle. How the author weaved these tales in between narrations, their functions and the obvious reasons they were used is the purpose of this paper.

Huff & Puff (review)

Reviewed by: Huff & Puff Jeannette Hulick Rueda, Claudia . Huff & Puff; written and illus. by Claudia Rueda. Abrams Appleseed, 2012. 32p. ISBN 978-1-4197-0170-2 $12.95 Ad 3-5 yrs. Rueda presents a slight twist on the three pigs story, as the viewer becomes the wolf, trying to blow down the pigs' houses by blowing through a series of die-cut holes in the pages, while the pigs—here apparently quite inclined to the culinary arts—look on in dismay as their houses fall down around them while they are in the midst of cooking. When we come to the brick house, however, the viewer has to huff and puff twice, the first time trying (unsuccessfully) to blow down the brick house, and the second time to blow out (successfully) the candles on a cake held by the three smiling pigs in the brick house. Rueda's minimal text is crisp and simply patterned: "First pig building a house. First pig inside the house. One wolf huffing and puffing. Huff & Puff. First pig is not happy," thus distilling the story down to its most basic folkloric elements. This works effectively until the final plot turn: Why would the pigs bake a cake for someone who has been knocking down their houses? This lapse in logic will likely bother some justice-minded kids; others will simply enjoy the interactivity of this riff on a familiar tale. Rueda's pen and ink and watercolor illustrations have a similarly minimalist vibe, with thin, black scratchy lines outlining and accenting the pale tints of pinks, browns, golds, and blues of the pigs and their homes, all of which is placed against lots of clean white space. The pages on which the reader is exhorted to "huff & puff " are matched to the corresponding house; the page for blowing down the brick house looks like bricks, for example, while the words "Huff & Puff " appear in block letters above and below the die cut "blowhole." If you can overlook the puzzling ending, this is an artfully done book that may have a variety of school and library uses. Copyright © 2012 The Board of Trustees of the University of Illinois

Marvellous realism and female representation from the Caribbean diaspora

This paper argues that David Chariandy’s Soucouyant and Edwidge Danticat’s “Nineteen Thirty-Seven” utilize marvellous realism as a literary technique when representing Caribbean folkloric elements from the diaspora. With this in mind, this article will begin by pointing out the differences between the terms magical realism and marvellous realism within the Latin American Boom writing of the 1950s. These two literary concepts should not be considered as being synonymous because of the different artistic motivations that condition these kinds of writing. As will be seen, in the two particular cases of the soucouyant and the lougarou, these magical elements serve to revise and rewrite the history of colonial and postcolonial women that were persecuted and discriminated against in their countries of origin due to gender and class prejudices. Thus, Chariandy and Danticat use the supernatural as an allegory for the haunting memories of a whole community. In these diasporic works, magic will vanish in favour of a rational explanation for those phenomena where a series of familial and historical traumas will manifest accordingly. The transformation of marginal women into supernatural figures assists the authors in reinterpreting and abating violence and trauma. Therefore, it is suggested that marvellous realism helps writers who have had similar experiences of diaspora to find a balance between two cultures and two different systems of belief: one based on faith and the other on rationalism.

Man’s Affinity with Nature and Literature

Nature-inspired folktales or folk geotales abound in the world’s folklore and in Persian folklore in particular, due to thought-provoking natural settings and man’s age-old affinity with nature. A folk geotale as a living element of folklore exceeds its role as a mere product of the interplay between nature and culture, reinvigorating the naturality of culture and the culturality of nature. This article provides a case study of an oral geotale, Khal Pirzene, while unfolding the thematic and archetypal layers inherent in the tale and looking at it from the points of view of folklore and geomyth.

The Flora and Fauna of Folklore in African Literature: Myth as a Plot Generator in Flora Nwapa's Efuru and Idu

Myth is one of the elements of folklore which fulfills the crucial function of cultural interpretation and reflection which folklore fulfills in any given society. Myth is an important element of folklore that accounts for the origin of things, and events and try to answer the very important why questions on how several events and phenomenon came into being. This is important in helping a homogeneous set of people accept the realities of their lives; condition and express their perception and outlook to life as well as project those intricate elements that mark and distinguish them from other group of communities. Flora Nwapa is one of the pioneering and leading voices in Nigerian and African literature. She, alongside Achebe through their writings was able to showcase a very important fact that Africans did not hear of culture for the first time from the Europeans. This was made possible by the incorporation of folklore materials along all other cultural artifacts in her novel. Myth is one of these folklore elements in the novel worthy of study and critical attention. This paper studied the importance and significance of myth as a vital ingredient in the creating and shaping of the plot of the stories and how it provided a rich background and deeper interpretation of the two novels under study.

Extra-Medical Elements in Anglo-Saxon Medicine

lfric (writing about ad 1000) decries the use of enchantments and witchcraft in healing; our hope should be in God. Each of the six extant medical texts in Old English contains elements which are not strictly medical, which I refer to as ‘extra’. I concentrate on the differing use of amulets, incantations, rituals and special exotic ingredients in the texts, ranging from the two translations from Latin in the Apuleius Complex, to the compilation in two books which we call Bald's Leechbook, extant in the same mid-tenth-century manuscript as the brief Leechbook III, and finally to the ‘medical commonplace book’ usually called Lacnunga, ‘Remedies’, dating from about ad 1000. The Lacnunga has the most folkloric elements, but also the most intensive use of Christian references, in about a quarter of its remedies. The rest of the texts have fewer ‘extra’ elements, but in different proportions.

The Joke as a Crucial Genre of Folklore: Form, Content and Implications in Our 21st Century

Folklore is the traditional art, literature, knowledge and practice that are disseminated largely through oral communication. It refers to the traditional beliefs, legends and customs current among the common people. It consists of the things that a given set of people traditionally believe, do, know and say; their world view and outlook to life, handed over to them from generation to generation orally, that is through a mouth-tomouth contact. Folklore comprised of proverbs, idioms, folktales, riddles, myths, customs, legends, beliefs, magic, folksongs, charms, spells, incantations among other things found among a homogeneous group of people. From the above, one can easily decipher the absence of joke among the list of items from the oral tradition that make up the folklore family. Joke is one of the genres of folklore in the sense that it shares many of the properties, characteristics and aesthetics that made up all other elements of folklore. Joke reflects the culture, tradition, attitude, ways of life, perceptions, ethics and outlook to life peculiar to a homogeneous group of people. It gives a picture of any society in transition and reflects what a group of people normally do and believe in. through jokes one can learn about various facets of society unknown to one. This study examines and establishes joke as a genre of folklore with a detailed study of the various characteristics, properties and aesthetics of jokes as found in our society. This was done through a random selection of some of the popular jokes in our society. The study in the end established joke as a unique genre of folklore and highlights of the various sociopolitical, cultural, economic and religious implications of these jokes in our society. The paper concludes with the relevance of these jokes in our 21st century and recommends further interest and befitting study among scholars of oral literature on jokes as a crucial element of folklore in society.

Studies Regarding the Evaluation of the Tourist Potential of Oituz Hydrographical Basin - Bacau County

Oituz hydrographical basin belongs to the Eastern Carpathians in the eastern part of them. Its geographical area has a rich natural and human tourism potential, poorly capitalized due to its inadequate assessment, lack of promotion and limited financial resources. The tourism resources are numerous, both natural and anthropic ones. Of the natural resources there were mention the variety of the relief, predominantly mountainous, the quality of the environment, not existing polluting factors, rich flora and fauna, the existence of numerous mineral springs etc. The particularly rich human resources refer to ancient artifacts (a Neolithic settlement a Dacian Dava), a feudal fortress, monuments in memory of the heroes of 1916-1918, places of worship, an ethnographic museum, many elements of ethnography and folklore. For the assessment of the tourism there is used the scoring method taking into account four criteria of evaluation that have in view the natural potential, the human potential, specific tourism infrastructure, technical infrastructure. A scale of closed score 0- 100 points was used each criterion receiving, in order of importance, a number of points. For the natural potential, it was took into consideration that there is a mountainous and sub-mountainous relief, the climate is moderate, rich in aerosols, the hydrographic network Oituz river includes many streams, there are over 30 mineral springs, the flora and fauna are rich. This criterion received 22 points. The anthropic had as strengths the numerous ancient and medieval artifacts, a group of churches with a specific architecture, ethnographic items, etc. The scoring was 22 points. The other two criteria received 12 and 22 points, the significant elements being the presence of the national road DN-11, the five existing boarding houses, a tourist inn and good technical equipment (electricity, mobile coverage, TV). The final evaluation was of 78 points, which places the basin in very high potential category.

Franz Lehár’s The Merry Widow : Revisiting Pontevedro

Franz Lehár’s The Merry Widow: Revisiting Pontevedro* Jelena Milojković-Djurić Franz Lehár’s operetta Die lustige Witwe (The Merry Widow) premiered in 1905 in Vienna at the famed Theater an der Wien and gradually attained great popularity. The setting of the operetta was a fictional country called Pontevedro, reminiscent of the principality of Montenegro. The libretto portrayed the ethnic otherness as compelling by accentuating the cultural diversity in contrast to the Viennese milieu at large. Yet, the skillfully written libretto, celebrating most of all romance, and the equally effervescent musical score underlined the human bonds of shared aspirations, emotions, and ethical values, fostering acceptance and superseding any superfluous differences. In an oblique way it reflected also an appreciation of the manifest presence of the Slavic population within the multinational Austro-Hungarian Empire. According to the reviewer from the Volksblatt, the premiere achieved a deserved success most of all “thanks to the magnificent music, the intelligent book, and to the excellent production.”1 The operetta starts with the opening ball in the Embassy of Pontevedro. The glittering stage setting was enhanced by the exceptional stylized gold-embroidered ethnic costumes worn by the protagonists Mizzi Gűnther and Louis Treumann. Their presence and engaged musical interpretation was duly noted and eventually attained the admiration of the public and critics alike. For promotional reasons the young composer Franz Lehár was photographed alongside the lead singers Gűnther and Treumann (Fig. 1 following p. 268). This group picture captures the distinctive appearance of the artists as compared to the sleek appearance of the composer, dressed in an elegant suit and sporting the fashionable smooth hairstyle of the day. He is leaning slightly towards the famed artists, as if attesting to his pride in creating real [End Page 259] human beings under a semblance of visual alterity in dress and appearance. The whole production stressed an appreciation for a different, distant tradition. The librettists had considerable knowledge of Montenegro, its history, customs, epic poetry, and the real and mythical figures of Balkan folklore, including the ruling royal dynasty, Petrović-Njegoš. Most of all, the popular figure of the dashing heir apparent, Prince Danilo, alluded to in Treumann’s stage role, provided additional interest to the plot. True to the perception of their roles, both Gűnther and Treumann carefully chose their stage attire, suggestive of traditional Montenegrin costumes. Gűnther chose an embroidered long shirt and a bodice under a graceful sleeveless coat. Her dark, luxurious hair was skillfully turned up and adorned by a small cap. Treumann wore traditional knee-high breeches held by a colorful sash. He sported a Western-style shirt and a tie under a gold-braided vest and sleeveless jacket. His mustache and curly hair were styled with care and he achieved a stunning likeness to the real Prince Danilo. These individual choices pointed to the awareness of another cultural tradition as well as to the studious effort to bring credence to their respective stage roles. Lehár’s melodies provided another link to the distinctly Slavic intonations that he introduced in this masterful score. Lehár was born in 1870 in the historic twin cities of Komarom-Komarno, on the border between Hungary and Slovakia.2 He received his higher musical education in Prague. He entered the Music Academy in 1881 and continued his advanced education until graduation in 1888. His violin teacher was Anton Bennewitz, who was also the rector of the academy. It is remarkable that he was fortunate enough to have among his teachers the world-famous composer Antonin Dvořak. Dvořak taught composition, and it is very likely that his own predilection for exquisite melodic inflection based on folkloric elements influenced his young student. Dvořak appreciated Lehár and praised his early compositions. Later on, Lehár became known to a great extent thanks to his unforgettable arias and skillful orchestration, which at times were reminiscent of Slavic melodic lore. Although the leading cast and the operatic ensemble fully embraced the new operetta, the public was slow in accepting the new production. Revenues continued to be modest. The management of the Theater an der Wien was concerned, and even...

Folklore in Mass Media: National Garb, Places of Identity and Fairies in (Post)communist Advertising<br>Folklora v množičnih medijih: narodna noša, krajevne znamenitosti in vile v (post) komunističnem oglaševanju</br>

There are many ways in which folklore elements, motifs and events appear in the mass media. I will try to put forward some examples in Slovenian advertising and analyse the elements of folklore used. The advertisements in question have been made between the 1970’s and the end of the 20th century and for better understanding of the broader social situation in those various times, the political situation is also mentioned. The aim of the article is to show the variety in using the folklore motifs in Slovenian advertising through a longer period of time. The advertisements in a way reflect the social climate in which they were made and the folklore motifs are also used to express a particular agenda. It has to be pointed out that the connections between folklore motifs, advertisements and political agendas are made from the subjective viewpoint of the author.

Slavic folklore: a handbook

Slavic folklore has great cultural significance and international influence. Written for students and general readers, this book offers a brief but thorough introduction to Slavic folklore. Included are explanations of the different types of Slavic folklore, the role of Slavic folklore in literature and popular culture, and the state of criticism and scholarship on this field of interest. The volume provides numerous examples and cites print and electronic sources for further reading. The people of Eastern Europe have a long and rich cultural history. Central to that history are the folktales, traditions, and customs of the region. Some elements of Slavic folklore, such as vampire legends and Easter eggs, are well known, while others are more obscure. And when the Slavs came to America, they brought much of their folklore to the new world, where it continues to flourish today. This book is a short but thorough introduction to Slavic folklore. Written expressly for students and general readers, it systematically overviews Slavic folklore. It discusses the many different types of folklore and summarizes scholarship and research on the subject. It provides a wide range of texts and examples from the Slavic folk tradition and explores the role of Slavic folklore in literature and popular culture. The volume cites numerous print and electronic sources and closes with a glossary and selected, general bibliography. Literature students will enjoy learning about Slavic tales and customs, while students in social studies classes will learn more about the culture of Eastern Europe.

Folk Song versus High Modernism: Stefan Wolpe's Song of Songs Settings in the Context of the ‘New Palestine'

Wolpe's stay in Palestine was marked by deep-seated ambivalence shared with many German emigrés who had come there in the 1930s and been cast back on their Jewishness by the National Socialists. It was only with reservations and reluctance that these assimilated Europeans could accept the Oriental land of the forefathers as their own. The way stations of Wolpe's years in Palestine (1934–1938) can be reconstructed from his correspondence, lectures and diary entries, not to mention concert reviews and the oral reports of his friends and pupils. These sources also shed light on the many and varied reasons for his subsequent departure, which included his quite personal and individual cast of mind, fervid enthusiasm for the socialist idea of the kibbutz, a ruthless final reckoning with the musical establishment and an artistic urge to set himself apart from his colleagues as a ‘professional maximalist’. Historian Sinai Leichter introduced him to Hebrew language and literature and the Jewish tradition. In the Bible he discovered not only a muscular and original language, but texts that timelessly captured his sense of social and political commitment. Wolpe did not limit himself to a naive encounter with the music of the Middle East. Rather, he sought to acquire a practical and theoretical knowledge of it. He made several settings of texts from the Song of Songs. Analysis of ‘Smolo tahat roshi’ illustrates his approach to transforming elements of folklore into modernist material.

Who Murdered Joe Magarac?

In the paper the creation of the mythical hero of the American steel industry Joe magarac is analyzed. The analysis is based on the original text of Owen Francis from 1931 and it endeavors to resolve the quandary of whether this text is of a folklore or fakelore nature. The analysis is multi layered and is comprised from a parallel reading of the Francis text and the folklore elements from the migration country; confronting the meaning of the legend of Joe Magarac with authentic interests of workers in the steel industry and contextualizing the legend inside the social conflicts in the steel industry of Pennsylvania at the meeting point of the XIX and XX century.