Ethnology, Myth and Politics Anthropologizing Croatian Ethnology Progress in European Ethnology Series

The book offers a critical overview of Croatian ethnology written by the most prominent Croatian ethnologist/ anthropologist in the second half of the 20th century - Dunja Rihtman-Augustin (recently deceased). She was the first Croatian ethnologist to break with the long established tradition of diffusionist (culture area) studies of her contemporaries and start to anthropologize Croatian ethnology. This book, compiled and completed by Jasna Capo Zmegac, highlights some crucial remarks with regard to the relationship between ethnology and politics. They are formulated as a series of research questions and problems, including: the role of folk culture as mythomoteur, cannonization of the folk culture, nationalization of the peasants in the 19th century and the role of ethnology. This vividly written text offers an exceptional insight into Croatian ethnological developments in the past century, as well as into crucial ruptures in Croatian society which have had important repercussions on ethnological discipline.

Contents: Between ethnicity and nation; Vuk Karadzic: past and present or on the history of folk culture; The Zadruga between real and imagined order; Antun Radic: peasants into Croats; Distancing ethnology from politics; Ethnology during socialism and after; Ethnology and the ethnomyth; Anthropologizing ethnology; The ethno-anthropologist in his native field: to observe or to witness?; The ICTY in the Hague and anthropological expertise?; Bibliography; Index.

Dunja Rihtman-Augustin, Professor, originally a journalist, was the head of the Institute of Folk Art in Zagreb from 1972-1986 and President of the Croatian Ethnological Society.