Professional Documents
Culture Documents
Staging Socialist Femininity
Staging Socialist Femininity
Editor-in-Chief
Zoran Milutinovic, University College London
Editorial Board
Gordon N. Bardos, Columbia University
Alex Drace-Francis, University of Liverpool
Jasna Dragovic-Soso, Goldsmiths, University of London
Christian Voss, Humboldt University, Berlin
Advisory Board
Marie-Janine Calic, University of Munich
Lenard J. Cohen, Simon Fraser University
Radmila Gorup, Columbia University
Robert M. Hayden, University of Pittsburgh
Robert Hodel, Hamburg University
Anna Krasteva, New Bulgarian University
Galin Tihanov, The University of Manchester
Maria Todorova, University of Illinois
Andrew Wachtel, Northwestern University
VOLUME 1
By
Ana Hofman
LEIDEN • BOSTON
2010
ISSN 1877-6272
ISBN 978 90 04 19179 2
Introduction ......................................................................................... 1
Chapter One
Gender Performance in Southeastern Serbia ............................. 7
Concepts of Femininity in Rural Serbia ....................................... 7
Portraits of the Female Singers ...................................................... 12
Performing Femininity .................................................................... 17
Chapter Two
Village Gatherings: The Politics of Representation ................... 35
Creating the New Folk Culture ...................................................... 35
The Ambiguity of Cultural Policy .................................................. 38
Village Gatherings in the Official Discourses ............................... 45
Village Gatherings in the Personal Narratives ............................. 54
Chapter Three
Repertoire ........................................................................................ 65
Official Music and Local Taste ...................................................... 65
Indirect Intervention in the Repertoire ......................................... 69
Direct Intervention in the Repertoire ............................................ 73
Transgressing Gender Roles? .......................................................... 78
Chapter Four
Singing Exclusion ........................................................................... 85
State Feminism ................................................................................ 85
Gender and Body Politics in Niško Polje ...................................... 89
Overstepping the Boundaries ......................................................... 94
Dangerous Profession ...................................................................... 97
Stage Performance as Performative Negotiation ......................... 100
New Concepts of Identity, Subjectivity and
Self-Representation ...................................................................... 103
The initial idea for this book came from the results of the project
‘Research and Presentation of the Traditional Music and Dance Heritage
of the Niš Area.’ The study was supported by financial aid from the
city of Niš and the Ministry of Culture of the Republic of Serbia. The
first phase of the fieldwork was carried out by a research team from
the Centre for Balkan Music Research in Belgrade, which consisted
of ethnomusicologists and students of ethnomusicology. Systematized
materials were transcribed and resulted in the book, The Vocal Musi-
cal Tradition of the Niš area, published by the Centre for Balkan Music
Research in 2005 (Hofman and Marković 2005). I embarked on my
personal fieldwork one year later, shifting my focus to elderly rural
women, to reflect my fascination with the drastic change in their
lifestyle over the past sixty years. In contrast to the initial project, my
individual fieldwork was carried out in a more informal way. It became
a long-term research project, consisting of many short-term trips over
a period of two years (from February 2005 through to March 2007).
A specific aspect of this fieldwork was the fact that my family lives in
the city of Niš and that relatives, neighbors and family friends strongly
supported my work. They introduced me to their relatives and friends
who were active within the amateur groups from the Niško Polje vil-
lages. In addition, at the time I was working as an Assistant Professor
of Ethnomusicology at the Faculty of Arts at the University of Niš, and
many of my students also contributed to this project by putting me in
touch with their grandparents and their friends.
While collecting the data, I also consulted resources from the Archive
of Yugoslavia, written resources on the Village Gatherings (Susreti sela)
and other state sponsored cultural events that were organized in this
area during the socialist period, using personal archives of the partici-
pants and organizers, local newspapers and magazines. Systematized
documentation and video recordings of Village Gatherings consisted
of just a few recordings of the stage performances made by a local
TV station, participants, and their relatives, which made work on this
project more difficult.
Around ten in the morning, the man from the village office (mesna
kancelarija) called all the women to come immediately. They called us
to go to the Village Gatherings. They told us that when we performed in
Topola, people were amazed since they had not heard such songs before.
The people were completely stunned, and they wanted us to perform
again.
This was how Ilinka Despotović from the village of Trupale near Niš
began her story about the activities of an amateur vocal group. She and
her friends, she said, were known for having the most beautiful voices –
not only in the village, but also in the wider vicinity. She wistfully
recollected their most striking performances and the most enjoyable
tours. During the short breaks in our conversation, she proudly showed
me the photographs of and press clippings about their performances.
One photograph showed six smiling women dressed in folk costumes,
with the obligatory scarf and peasant footwear (opanci), accompanied
by seven men, standing in front of the bus before their trip to Mace-
donia for the Balkan Festival of Folklore Heritage. This was the group
that won the regional competitions in 1988 and 1989 and performed
on the national TV show portraying village life called Znanje imanje.1
Ilinka’s story was a recollection of their most successful performances,
the most beautiful songs, and many unforgettable experiences.
This book presents the stories of women who were active in the
amateur vocal groups in their villages from the beginning of the 1970s
to the mid-1990s. Their stage performances at socialist cultural events,
which were an important element in creating socialist femininity in a
public arena, introduced new patterns of gender representation into
the rural areas of southeastern Serbia. The female singers’ experiences
of socialist gender politics reflect the dynamic relationship between
the official discourse of gender and its everyday performance. Their
accounts subvert the boundaries between the ‘authoritarian socialist
state center’ and ‘local practices,’ transgressing the binaries usually
present in thinking about socialism, such as official/unofficial, public/
1
This show, dedicated to farmers and the rural population in general, was widerly
popular in the former Yugoslavia during 1970s and 1980s. A host village welcomed a
village from another area (usually another Yugoslav Republic).
2
For more on Yugoslavia, see: Duhaček 1993: 135; Milić 1993: 111; Morokvasić
1997: 72; Ramet 1999a: 105; Slapšak 2002: 149; for Czechoslovakia: Havelková 1993:
70; for Romania: Kligman 1998: 26; for Poland: Pine 2002: 103; for Bulgaria: Brunn-
bauer, Taylor 2004: 285; for Eastern Europe in general: Funk 1993: 6; Occhipinti
1996: 14.
3
As Maria Todorova points out, “Do we blame socialism for what it has done, or
for what it has not done?” (Todorova 1993: 31).
4
Newer studies challenge rigid boundaries between the totalitarian socialist state
and citizens and question the monolithic interpretation of socialism, also pointing to
diversity within socialist societies (see Goldman 2002; Crowley and Reid 2002; Haney
2002).
For the concept of subaltern authority, see Michel Lambek 2007: 211.
5
all of whom were born prior to or during World War II (see the list in Appendix 1).
7
Niško Polje is a part of the larger region called the Valley of the Južna Morava
River, with the city of Niš as its administrative center. The vast majority of the villages
(73%) are located in the Niš and Aleksinac valley, while others are part of the moun-
tain and sub-mountain area (Simonović 1995: 163). According to the last census, the
population is ethnically quite uniform with a dominant Serbian population (360,941
citizens) and with the Roma community forming the largest minority (9,224 citizens)
(the Statistical Office of the Republic of Serbia http://webrzs.stat.gov.rs/axd/en/osn.
htm?#books
8
Since I employ qualitative research methodology and a phenomenological
approach, I avoid the term ‘interviewer’ or ‘informant.’ Neither does the term ‘nar-
rator,’ which is usually associated with the oral history method, seem appropriate
because of its static meaning. In my opinion, the term ‘interlocutor’ best describes the
self-reflexive and dialogic research methodology employed in this study.
I have used the oral history method,9 which enabled me to access the
women’s personal stories and their attitudes toward musical activity.
Our conversations did not revolve exclusively around gender issues;
instead, I simply provided them with an opportunity to speak freely
about their lives. By focusing on the life stories of my interlocutors,
I shifted the focus from the performer to the person performing (of a
certain age, gender, and with a political attitude).10 I used the self-
reflexive potential of experience as a key concept in researching the
dynamics between socialist gender politics and its social performance.
However, in employing the phenomenological approach, I do not
argue for the romanticized view of individual experience as true or
self-evident authentic subjective testimony,11 but as a concept shaped
by the discourse in which it is narrated, expressed or conceptualized
(Van Alphen 2004: 107). Therefore, following Scott’s claim that “there
is no individual experience, but subjects who are constituted through
experience” (Scott 1992: 26) and Jeff Titon’s concept of “the study of
people experiencing music’ (Titon 1997: 96), I see women’s subjec-
tivities as created through the discursive processing of their musical
experiences. Their accounts thus illuminate the ways in which socialist
power relations, inclusions and exclusions are perceived from a pres-
ent day, post-socialist perspective12 (Cubitt 2008: 74).
Since autobiographical testimonies contradict the holistic approach,
I do not view the women featured in this study as necessarily repre-
sentative of all Niško Polje rural women: their life stories, which are
different from those of their female neighbors and other women in
their villages, influenced their unique narratives and interpretations of
9
See Thompson 1978 [2000]; Lummis 1987; Douglas, Roberts, and Thompson
1988; Finnegan 1992; Stanley 1992; Ritchie 1995; Bolitho and Hutchison 1998.
10
The method, also called ‘narrative musical ethnography,’ ‘knowing people making
music’ (Titon 1997: 91) or ‘subject-centered musical ethnography’ (Rice 2003: 152)
contests approaches that do not consider the personal background of a performer as
an important element when researching her/his musical activities. Instead, this method
takes the experience of ‘people making music’ as the core of ethnomusicological
method and theory (Cooley and Barz 2008: 14).
11
I do not argue for an essentialist approach to women’s experiences, as suggested
by the concept of women’s oral history and which claims a particular ‘women’s history’
based on women’s specific voices and experiences (Berger Gluck 2002: 3).
12
In the new approaches in memory studies, the emphasis is on the capacity of
personal memories to express the complex nature of social processes and challenge the
authority of dominant narratives in understanding the past (Radstone and Hodgkin,
2007).
13
Although the stage performance was widely explored during socialism, the schol-
ars (ethnomusicologists, folklorists, ethnologists) were primarily concerned with the
question of the value of stage stylizations of the performance, which were assessed
as worthy or less worthy. They analyzed the way in which the process of staging
changed – ‘improved’ or ‘spoilt’ – authentic musical practices (Petrović and Zečević
1981; Zečević 1968; Fulanović-Šošić 1981).
Želim da ste nam svi živi i zdravi I wish you all good life and health,
i veseljaci i mladi i stari. Merry fellows, both old and young.
Ali želim da vam se u kuću But I wish that male children
rađaju muška deca Will be born in your house,
u svako ćošence po jedno detence. In each corner a newborn.
(The drinking song – zdravica, Jelena Mitrović, Malča village)
The organization of family life in Serbian villages was based until the
end of World War II on the institution of a large, extended family,
called kućna zadruga. The authority of fathers and husbands was piv-
otal in this type of family as well as the patrilineal inheritance of all
real estate (Antonijević 1971a: 113). Women occupied a subordinate
position within the family and were under the command of their hus-
bands (or the eldest male in the household) and his kin (Beissinger
2001: 412). These relations of power were expressed through ritualized
norms of behavior such as, for example, table seating (women often
had to remain standing during the meal), or the traditional obligation
of women to kiss the hand of the male head of the family or wash his
legs. Sometimes, they were even transmitted into the sphere of judicial
practices:
For a woman, it was strictly forbidden to cross a man’s path; they would
usually have waited for him to pass (even if he was far away when she
spotted him). However, if she had by any chance committed that offence,
she would have had to go back. Honoring this tradition, the authorities
in Šumadija sometimes punished women who were daring enough to do
that. (Bandić 1980: 324)
However, in the specific kind of age-based hierarchy (elder domi-
nance), the mother-housewife,1 who was subordinate to her husband,
1
Married women in rural society in pre-WWII Serbia played two main social roles:
the role of a mother and that of a housewife.
ality.2 During her period, a woman was forbidden any contact with a
man; she could not touch his personal belongings or speak with him
(especially if the man was going on a trip, doing the first sowing or
tillage).3 Another example of this type of taboo is that while giving
birth, a woman had to sequester herself, so that she would be hidden
from her husband and male members of the household. Very often
she went to the garden or the basement (Đorđević 1938: 94, 95). In
these cases, ‘uncleanliness’ was a signifier for cultural disturbance and
instability.
As Svetlana Slapšak argues, a woman’s body was without doubt the
main symbolic site for ascribing different concepts and accordingly, for
creating narratives and images in most cultures (Slapšak 2002: 152).
Various taboos confirm that the female body was seen as having spe-
cial, magical qualities. Customs described by Serbian ethnologists and
folklorists (Bandić 1997; Đorđević 1984) included the naked female
body as a crucial element for protection from or communication with
the spirits of the dead and natural forces.4 Woman’s hair carried an
important ritual meaning, as a symbol of the life-spirit and magical
power (Zečević 1983: 93; Čajkanović 1994: 143). With the beginning
of puberty, girls started wearing the scarf as a sign of their new social
status.5 For the first public ‘display’ of a young girl at local gatherings,
such as vašari, sabori, preslave (village festivities usually occurring on
religious holidays), she put on new clothes, combed her hair and put
on the scarf. This announced her initiation into the new status of a
marriageable young woman:
2
Sexuality in rural environments presented no danger per se – it was a vital force, a
requisite for the survival of society. Women were considered to be powerful and dan-
gerous beings, and sexual segregation represented a way of controlling that power.
3
It was believed that a woman in menopause (no longer fertile), could not present
any threat to men (Đorđević 1938: 31), which confirms that a woman who was no
longer sexually active lost her ritual power.
4
The best way to prevent or stop epidemics in central Serbia (an area called Resava)
was considered to involve a few old widows (čistih baba) visiting the sick men’s houses
at midnight and taking off their clothes and scarves (Trojanović 1990: 99). In Niško
Polje, there was a practice of having a woman take off her skirt and reveal her genitals
to the clouds to ensure the prevention of downpours (Dragan Todorović, Vukmanovo
village). Also, on the 14th of May, a day called Jeremijindan dedicated to the snake
cult, a naked housewife had to go round the house three times before sunrise, making
rattling sounds using metal utensils.
5
The same ritual meaning had the scarf placed on the bride’s hair during the wed-
ding ritual (sometimes after the wedding, Čajkanović 1994: 151) called ubrađivanje,
zabrađivanje, which announced that the bride had lost her mystical power and was
under the supremacy of her husband (Zečević 1983: 93).
When she dances publicly for the first time, she is considered ready for
marriage. After she finishes the dance, the others congratulate her and
from that moment on she can dance in every dance (kolo). (Zečević
1983: 87)
All of these acts were directed to improve the prospects for a girl’s
marriage arrangement, which was perceived as the most important act
in a woman’s life. Through marriage, the husband became ‘the master
of his wife’ (gospodar svoje žene), a position effected through trade
between the bride and groom’s families before the wedding. Accord-
ing to various written sources, in southeastern Serbia up until the end
of the nineteenth century it was customary for the groom’s father to
pay a large amount of money to the bride’s father, and in this way
to formally ‘buy’ a woman for his son (Antonijević 1971a: 39). The
bride was very often older than the groom, as she was meant to be
‘mature,’ ‘strong’ and ‘capable’ of working hard, both in the fields and
at home:
Valued as sex objects, mothers, and workers, wives were acquired by
the exchange of gifts, labor, and favors between men, which was seen
as a payment for the rights to enjoy and to appropriate the products of
women’s labor, sexuality, and reproductive capacity. (Woodward 1985:
237)
All of the ritual acts included in the wedding ceremony were focused
on the bride as the central figure of the ritual, crucial for the young
couple’s fertility. Introducing a new member (the bride) into the
groom’s domestic cult was realized through a complex structure of
ritual activities performed between the mother-in-law and the bride as
a symbolic passing of household responsibilities from the older to the
younger woman (Zečević 1983: 91). This kind of ritual act, in which
contact between the two women was paramount, confirms the crucial
significance of female reproductiveness in rural society. According to
the Serbian ethnologist Veselin Čajkanović, the mother-in-law was
actually the most important figure in the wedding ritual, as she was
responsible for ensuring the bride’s safe transfer to the new home and
symbolical negotiation between the ancestors from both (bride and
groom’s) cults (Čajkanović 1994: 157).
Since marriage represented the girl’s main initiation into woman-
hood, her sexual innocence was essential: “Virginity (‘a girl untainted
by male hands’ – devojka još neomilovana) and marital fidelity were
highly valued on the scale of morality” (Dvorniković 1990: 341). It
6
Andrei Simić, who conducted field research into Yugoslav families from 1966
through to 1978, observes that relationships between husbands and wives generally
had a sex-segregated nature, especially in those regions that had remained longer
under Ottoman rule (Simić 1983: 74).
7
Women’s stories also confirm that in Niško Polje, the young bride used nick-
names when approaching her husband and his relatives, which was regulated during
the wedding ritual, through a custom called ‘the christening’ (krštavanje). A bride gave
special names to all the new family members: ‘mom’ and ‘dad’ for mother and father-
in-law, ‘dada’ for sister-in-law and ‘bata’ or ‘braca’ for brother-in-law (the nickname
usually used for a sister and brother in Serbian).
8
This claim is supported by the record of some ritual acts the bride performed in
order to avoid her husband’s violent behavior – e.g., if the bride sat on her wedding
dress before the wedding ceremony began, her husband would not beat her (Đorđević
1984: 334).
According to the dress code, unmarried girls wore a flower on the left
side of the head, married women on the right and young brides on
both sides:
A scarf is obligatory; also you have to put flowers on the head. Once you
are married, you have to put a flower on each side of the scarf, because
(it says) you are a young bride. (Ljiljana Cvetković, Gornji Matejevac
village)
Marriage, as demonstrated in much scholarly writings, was seen by my
interlocutors as the most important moment in a woman’s life. Almost
all of the female singers underlined that their marriages were arranged
and that they had barely spoken to their grooms before the wedding.
Ljiljana Cvetković from Matejevac village gave me an account of her
first encounter with her husband-to-be: “You will laugh; I met him
on Thursday and married him on Saturday.” As she went on talk-
ing, I understood that she had no suspicion of her imminent wed-
ding, since her cousin from the neighboring village – the ‘match-maker’
(navodadžija), had negotiated with the family of the potential groom
without the knowledge of Ljiljana’s family. After the two families
agreed on the marriage, Ljiljana went to town to meet the groom. She
was given just a few minutes to talk to him, which was the first and
last time she saw him until the wedding. She ended the story with a
murmur, saying she already had a boyfriend from her village at that
time but that she was obliged to obey her family and marry the chosen
man. Ljiljana’s story further testifies that in Serbian rural society the
primary function of marriage was to make connections not between
two individuals, but between two families (houses or tribes). This was
the reason why families were so engaged in the wedding preparations,
which were seen as a final step in the complex process of ‘familiariza-
tion’ (Bandić 1980: 344).
Another intriguing story about arranged marriages was told to me by
Nadežda Petrović from Hum village. She portrayed her cousin Ranka
as a very free-thinking, headstrong girl who did not want to get mar-
ried. Once her parents had found her an eligible man, they arranged
for the wedding to take place at a church and appointed the registra-
tion day with the village administrators. As soon as Ranka realized
what was happening, she escaped to a neighboring village and missed
the registration. This act, very shameful for her family and unconven-
tional in a rural environment, caused her father to punish her cruelly
and force her into a loveless marriage.
9
The importance of the mother-in-law’s role during the wedding ritual is further
emphasized by the fact that in some Niško Polje villages (Gornji Matejevac, Donja
Vrežina), the bride even slept next to her mother-in-law on the wedding night.
of her life: she did not take off her scarf even in the presence of her
husband.10 Ljiljana Radonjić from Prosek village emphasized that it
was shameful for a woman if men saw her hair, arms or legs. Her
mother-in-law, even though she was seventy-nine, still hid from her
son when she washed her hair. This ritual restriction from being seen
in an undressed state is strongly connected with cultural strategies of
in/visibility of the female body (further discussed in Chapter Four).
As mentioned earlier, virginity was the most important ‘gift’ that
the bride brought to the new household. Female relatives on the
groom’s side (usually the mother-in-law or godmother) were obliged
to remove the bed sheet used on the wedding night in order to verify
the bride’s ‘suitability.’ If everything was in accordance with expecta-
tions, then the bride’s virginity was publicly announced by serving
warmed brandy, and the mother-in-law gave the bride a broom deco-
rated with money to sweep the house. The bride’s purity having been
publicly announced, she went to the village drinking fountain accom-
panied by her mother-in-law and sister-in-law, and sometimes even by
musicians. This was her first public appearance in the community, and
usually all the villagers came out to see her.
On the other hand, if the bride was not ‘proper’ but a ‘broken vessel’
(slomljen čekrk), the brandy was served cold, and she was publicly put
to shame. In the villages of Niško Polje, some very brutal customs were
put into practice when the bride did not turn out to be sexually pure.
The groom’s family could ‘return’ the bride, binding her to a donkey
that would carry her back to her family. For girls who had some pre-
marital sexual experience, it was very difficult to find a husband –
they could only marry elderly men or widowers. Verica Miljković from
Prosek village had problems with her mother-in-law as she (Verica)
found it very stressful having to spend the wedding night sleeping
beside the groom, and they slept “as if we were brother and sister.”
Because of this, her mother-in-law declared her to be ‘improper’ and
did not allow her to go to the village drinking fountain. Then, after the
groom explained what had happened, the wedding ritual continued.
Contrary to Verica’s case, Milunka Đorđević (Jelašnica village) and
Desanka Petrović (Gornja Vrežina village) said that their husbands did
not let their mothers, sisters or godsisters check the bed sheets or ask
them about the bride’s virginity.
10
Another term used for a woman wearing a scarf was zabuljena, which refers to
the term used for an Islamic woman: bula.
11
Similarly a bride was ‘polluted’ for forty days after the wedding.
12
A wife behaving in an immoral way was dealt with severely. The data confirm
that particularly in cities that had experienced lengthy periods of Ottoman influence,
female adultery was punished by cutting off a woman’s nose and ears or pushing her
into the water (river) to drown (Đorđević 1984: 248).
13
Kube is a wood-heated cylinder shaped metal furnace with one stovepipe.
law, let me tell you, my older daughter-in-law didn’t take off my boots,
so you are not obliged to do that anymore. I stay out all night with my
friends and come home late, completely full and drunk and you have to
wait for me – that is not OK.”
Procedures that the bride had to follow after the wedding, such as tak-
ing off her father-in-law and brother-in-law’s shoes, making their beds
or kissing the father-in-law’s hand every morning, provide insight into
the patriarchal hierarchical power relations: “This is a confirmation
of the bride’s subordinate position in relation to her husband and his
family” (Trojanović 1990: 48). On the other hand, some brides were
warmly welcomed into the new household, where they developed
good, close relationships with their spouses and their kin. Milunka
Đorđević from Jelašnica village told me that she had been very content
during her married life: “Yes. I had all complete freedom with him.
We went to Pula many times. Also, we went to Holland three times,
we flew. Then to Germany, we have traveled a lot.”
To summarize the issues discussed in the previous two sections, the
social position of women in Niško Polje was strongly interrelated with
their cultural roles. In general, being female determined the social pur-
pose of women’s existence. The bulk of women’s activities took place
in the sphere of the household, while the governed public sphere was
primarily under the control of men. Women were generally expected
to abandon their personal activities in favor of the family and commu-
nity. Gender norms were constituted in accordance with the socially
dominant position of males, where women were positioned as socially
inferior subjects. In the male-oriented society, cultural forms both
openly and symbolically embodied the domination of women by men
and hierarchical gender relations.
Performing Femininity
The social norms of musical behavior divide songs between boys and
girls, or men and women, which proves that joint singing did not exist in
the past. Depending on the type (men or women), the song is performed
in a particular way. (Petrović R. 1990: 164)
She also presumes that mixed-gender performance is a new phenome-
non (ibid.). Dimitrije Golemović describes how, in Valjevska Kolubara
(an area in western Serbia), the interviewed women refused to sing
the ‘men’s tune’ (mušku ariju), but after a long hesitation, they finally
consented to perform it (Golemović 1997: 125). He asserts that, in this
part of Serbia, certain characteristics of a tune are gendered, e.g., the
refrain i14 is considered to be female while koje is seen as male (ibid.
127). Ankica Petrović, examining the female musical tradition in the
rural areas of the Dinaric area (which encompasses Bosnia, southeast-
ern Croatia, western Serbia and northern Montenegro), classifies two
separate genres of ‘male’ and ‘female’ folk music (Petrović A. 1990: 71).
She also claims that certain features of musical performance, such as a
specific pattern of melodic movement, particularly melismatic tones,
stylistic sighs and exhalations, existed only in female interpretations
(ibid. 72). The researchers generally based their claims on the idea of
the different social position of women and men:
Gender segregation in singing is just one in a row of similar particu-
larities in the relationship between men and women, which they (them-
selves) have been creating through their common history and should be
viewed in that context. (Golemović 1997: 117)
The stories from Niško Polje also revealed that gender segregated per-
formance in the field of vocal practices remains vivid in the memories
of the female singers. The terms ‘men’s songs’ and ‘women’s songs’
were present in the women’s accounts, and were mainly used in their
internal communication or in attempts to categorize parts of the vocal
tradition: “You sing in the women’s tune. After that you shift to the
men’s tune” (Grozdana Đokić, Leskovik village). The phrases ‘men’s
tune’ (muški glas) or ‘men’s song’ (muška pesma) were mentioned in
the female singers’ narratives predominantly in connection with the
custom of sedenjka for songs that largely belong to the short musical
form and the new singing style (further discussed in the last section of
14
This refrain is an exclamation performed on the vocal i – pronounced as [ee] – at
the end of the verse in the very high falsetto register as a specific kind of signal. In
Niško Polje it is called cikanje or rucanje.
this chapter). Another context in which these terms were used involved
music on TV or radio, as Ruža Zdravković from Rujnik village states:
“I sing all of the men’s songs that are actually being sung now.”
Nevertheless, it is important to highlight that such terms were used
in their narratives without clearly distinguishing between these two
categories:
Well, the men’s tune is not like ours, I mean the high tone when we sing
out . . . men’s songs are different, a different tune. Men are different from
women. (Grozdana Zlatković, Vukmanovo village)
The female singers performed the songs they had learned, as I was
told, from their fathers or male relatives, without any awareness of
their belonging to the category of men’s songs.15 Desanka Petrović
from Gornja Vrežina village spoke about the songs she learned from
her father. She explained that people were so delighted by her per-
formance that she sang at all the private parties and celebrations she
attended: “My father taught me. I sang that when I was going with my
father to a slava.”16 Furthermore, in a few villages, certain women were
presented to me as experts on male songs, particularly epic songs and
ballads:17 “Aunt Ljubinka sings these men’s songs, epic songs. Usually
men sing these songs, but you see, women also have a knack” (Dragan
Todorović, Vukmanovo village).
Scholars affirm that women were active in the vocal sphere while
men were associated with the playing of instruments:
In the field of music, men are the ones who use the instruments of cul-
ture to produce art, while women produce it naturally, as it were with
the unaided voice. (Coote 1977: 334)
15
Numerous folklorists have discerned instances of women appropriating genres
normally reserved for men with no recognition that they were going beyond their
domain (Young and Turner 1993: 13).
16
Slava, also called krsna slava or krsno ime is a celebration of family patron saint’s
day, celebrated annually by each household separately. It is inherited from father to
son, while married women normally celebrate their husbands’ saint.
17
Epic songs belong to the narrative type of songs, sometimes with over a hundred
verses in ten-syllable lines, usually accompanied on the gusle, a one string chordo-
phone instrument. Ballads are considered a ‘borderline genre’ between epic and lyric
songs, also with a large number of verses (Dević 1970: 35, 36).
They mention that there were some transgressions, but these were seen
as rare exceptions.18 During the course of the research, I found only a
few cases of female instrumentalists mentioned in the literature. They
were not presented as ‘real’ players, but as social subjects who dis-
turbed existent norms and gender hierarchies.19
According to my interlocutors, both girls and boys made seasonal
instruments that belonged to the idiophone type or free aerophone-
type (so-called children’s instruments):
Pištugaljke, on the holiday called Mladenci, you know, in the spring-
time.20 I am a shepherd and I chip off wood and make cuts at some
places and play a whistling song like a train coming to a halt. We were
capable of everything. (Ljiljana Radonjić, Prosek village)
They played a repertoire that was based on the adult repertoire, but,
as the women asserted, this activity ceased for girls at the beginning
of puberty. This practice illustrates that among pre-pubescent boys
and girls, segregation in the field of musical practices did not exist.
However, after childhood, a strong division between male and female
domains became apparent, and women did not have access to instru-
mental performance. In Niško Polje, I did not encounter any well-
known female instrumentalists, nor was I given any account of one.
I heard of only one female gusle-player21 from Malča village, and this
example was given to me as a rare exception to the rule, since playing
was considered to be an exclusively male province. On the other hand,
in all the villages I visited people talked about legendary local bagpipe,
flute (dvojnice, frula, duduk) or accordion players – all male. These
were semi-professionals who learned how to perform from relatives or
older colleagues and usually played at weddings or local celebrations.
Since some of them were well-known in the wider region, they trav-
18
Dimitrije Golemović mentions that the best male singers he met were effeminate
and that the women who played instruments usually appropriated male cultural and
social roles in the society (Golemović 1998: 54).
19
See Antonijević 1971b: 107; Rihtman 1971: 97; Petrović A. 1990: 73; Pettan 2003:
296. As Naila Ceribašić observes, the female instrumentalists often remained invisible
in the scholarly accounts, since these focused on the dominant practices and not on
the alternative ones (Ceribašić 2004: 161).
20
Mladenci is celebrated on 22th March as the day dedicated to young couples
married during the last year. That day was also connected to the snake cult and many
of the ritual acts were performed as protection from a snake – for instance, it was
forbidden to do any needlework on that day.
21
In the Serbian language there is no term for a female instrumentalist (svirač is
a noun of masculine gender, while expressions like sviračica or svirkinja are not in
use).
Lazarice
Lazarice (Lazar’s Day) is a custom that was traceable in all parts of Ser-
bia. As a part of the spring ritual cycle, the lazarice pageant consisted
of six young girls (aged eight to twelve) who walked around the village
on Lazar’s day, also called Vrbica. Lazarice visited every house in the
village, danced and sang the appropriate songs dedicated to household
members and collected gifts (usually eggs). The most important mem-
ber of the group was the lazar, a girl who wore men’s clothes and the
lazarka, her female spouse. Each member of the group had her own
task: four sang and two danced (the lazar and lazarka). As leaders of
the group, the lazar and lazarka usually walked first.
Following the strict rules of the custom, lazarice kept to the same
ritual pattern in every house: the four girls stood divided into two
groups and sang in an antiphonal style, while the lazar and lazarka
danced.
Singers
Dancers
The second pattern was used when the group of girls sang outside the
front door of the house to announce their arrival:
Kraljice
The custom of kraljice (‘Queens’) in the Niško Polje villages was per-
formed regularly until the middle of the last century.22 It had many
elements in common with the observation of lazarice, and the songs
associated with the two customs were often mixed up in the women’s
accounts. The kraljice was performed on St. George’s Day (6th May, in
the Orthodox calendar). In written records, the most common name
was kraljice (in the region of Lužnica it was called kralj). As a ritual
group, kraljice had a strictly defined role for each participant, and con-
sisted of eight ‘mature’ girls, aged between sixteen and twenty-three.
As with the lazarice, each girl in the group had a particular role – there
was a king and a queen, two more girls who danced (“king, queen,
and two dancers; two dance and another two dance across” – kralj,
kraljička i dve igravačke; dve igraju, a dve preigruju) and four girls who
sang (“four of them dance and four sing” – četri šetu, a četri poju). The
king was the central figure in the custom. He led the group, carrying
a banner (barjak), or in some villages a kerchief.
Unlike other areas in southeastern Serbia, where the king was
dressed in men’s clothing, in Niško Polje the girl who played the king
was dressed in the same way as the other girls in the kraljice group
(“everything is the same, only the king carries the banner” – sve je isto,
ženska nošnja, samo što se ukite i to je kralj koji nosi barjak). The king
was responsible for conducting communication with the household
22
Traces of this custom are found in the area of Podunavlje (Bačka and Đerdap),
Posavina (Slavonija, Srem, in the vicinity of Belgrade), Pomoravlje, south and south-
eastern Serbia (Aleksinačko Pomoravlje, Nišava, Lužnica, Leskovačka Morava, Vra-
njsko Pomoravlje) and parts of northeastern Serbia (Homolje, Negotinska and Timočka
Krajina).
members and for choosing the songs that would be performed. The
queen was the main dance-partner of the king during the performance
(“King and queen change places, change in the cross” – Kralj i kraljica
se menjaju, u krs, tako se prominjuju). In some villages the other two
girls who danced with the king and queen were called ‘banner carriers’
(barjaktari). Girls practiced for a few weeks before participating in the
custom. Usually, one older woman taught the girls to sing the kraljica
songs.23
As in the custom of lazarice, the kraljice went around the village
visiting each house. The data confirm that the custom consisted of
ritual phases: walking around the villages, entering the houses, sing-
ing and dancing for the household members and finally, leaving and
saying farewell. A special song accompanied each ritual phase. When
the kraljice began their walk from the king’s house, they sang songs
throughout the village:
23
The photographs used in this study were borrowed from the personal archives
of my interlocutors and from the Cultural Center in the village of Trupale, thanks to
Vukašin Mitić.
Singers
Dancers
In the kraljica dance, the two pairs of dancers (including the king and
queen) constantly switched places. First they sang the song dedicated to
the house or the host. It was the text of these songs that remained most
vivid, and survived in the greatest variety in the women’s memories:
Kralje barjaktare, The King, the Banner carrier,
otvorte mi porte. Open the gate.
(Zagorka Igić, Gornji Matejevac village)
Ovaj kuća bogata, This house is rich,
na nju ima troja vrata. It has three doors.
Prva vrata od dukata, The first door made of ducats,
druga vrata od zlata, The second door made of gold,
a taj treća od šimšira. The third one made of flowers.
(Rusanda Arsić, Donja Vrežina village)
Those songs meant to be performed for other household members
were performed only “if and when the host bids it” (pevalo se isključivo
kada i šta domaćin naredi). Especially numerous were songs with love
themes dedicated to young boys and girls:
Oj, devojko, materina brigo, Hey, the girl, the mother’s care,
sve se brineš, udati se nećeš. You worry that you won’t get married.
Udaćeš se i pokajaćeš se, You will get married and you will be sorry,
steć ćeš svekra, venućeš ko cvećka, You will get a father-in-law,
steć ćeš muža, venućeš ko ruža, You will fade like a flower,
steć ćeš dece, kajati se nećeš. You will get a husband,
You will fade like a rose,
You will have children,
You will not regret thus.
(Ruža Zdravković, Rujnik village)
The songs ‘to bees’ (na pčele) were danced in a different manner: all
the girls danced together in a circle dance (kolo). As the women told
me, this was to prevent the bees from escaping, and to cluster them
for the housewife:24
24
Singing ‘to bees’ was charactetistic of other parts of southeastern Serbia as well
(in the neighboring area of Lužnica and Zaplanje within the custom of lazarica).
Music example 3: Kraljica song ‘on bees,’ Desanka Petrović, Donja Vrežina
village (track 2)
Đurđevdan
Đurđevdan (St. George’s Day or ‘the collecting of herbs and flowers’ –
kad se viju venci) was another custom practiced exclusively by women.
Đurđevdan songs were among the songs most frequently performed by
female singers. This custom was connected with raising farm animals, i
n particular the raising of sheep, a practice often found in the moun-
tain villages of Niško Polje. On the day before St. George’s Day (6th of
May), girls and women went into the hills to gather herbs and flowers.
I received varied information about the ages of the women partici-
pants. In some villages, both girls and married women were included,
in others only girls and newly-married women.
Following the prescribed activities, they left for the hills before
dawn to gather herbs that would be used as stock food on Đurđevdan.
Women sang to announce that the custom was just starting and to
invite other women to join them. I found a few variants of songs
performed on this occasion:
Dizajte se, malo i golemo, Wake up, people,
da vijemo tri venca zelena: To make three wreaths:
prvi venac za to belo stado, The first wreath for the white sheep,
drugi venac za vedro šareno, The second wreath for,
treći venac za domaćina. the colorful copper pot.
And the third one for the householder.
(Ljiljana Cvetković, Gornji Matejevac village)
Mi idemo u goru zelenu, We are going to the hill,
da beremo svakojake travke, To gather the various plants,
ponajviše zdravac merišljavac. The sweet zdravac the most.
(Grozdana Đokić, Leskovik village)
Venče zdravče beru li te mome? Girls, are you gathering the zdravac?
Beru, beru, kako da ne beru, They gather, they gather, of course,
od dve kite tri venca izviše. From two bouquets, they made three
wreaths.
Prvi venac za veliko vedro, The first wreath for the big copper pot,
drugi venac za ranićku ovcu, The second wreath for the first sheep,
treći venac za malo jagnje. And the third one for the small lamb.
The most important part of the custom, in all of its local varieties,
was the sprinkling of water. In some villages, after they had finished
gathering the flowers, the women went to the banks of a local river,
where they made the wreaths for the evening part of the custom. In the
process of making these, the women sprinkled themselves with water
and put wreaths on their heads or around their waists, while trying to
push each other into the river. Women told me that the purpose of
this immersion was to ensure that the sheep produced enough milk. In
some variations of the custom, girls and women danced the kolo across
the river (the village of Rujnik). When they returned to the village they
adorned the houses with wreaths. It was required that one wreath be
put above the main entrance. Usually all the family members washed
their faces using water in which the wreaths had been placed.
The second part of the custom, called Muzigrudva (in some vil-
lages Muzigrud), was practiced individually. In the evening, a woman
milked sheep through the wreaths and usually put a hair comb in the
copper milk pot (bakrač) so that the sheep would give more milk. She
also made the bread (kravajče) especially for this occasion and pre-
pared plants for the sheep to eat.
The women seemed to have fond memories of Đurđevdan. Milunka
Đorđević from the Jelašnica village told me that she had never been
able to sleep the night before Đurđevdan because she wanted to be
ready for the beginning of the custom. She said that for girls, it was
an opportunity to spend time together laughing, singing and enjoying
themselves:
While we are gathering in the village to go to the mountain, we just
laugh and make jokes. As we pass through the village, everybody watches.
(Ljiljana Cvetković, Gornji Matejevac village)
Sedenjke
Sedenjke (‘Spinning bees’ – prela, sedeljke, sedenće in southeastern Ser-
bia) were female gatherings devoted to doing handwork as a kind of
‘female socializing.’25 They were informal parties that were both a form
of work-gathering and a form of entertainment. These gatherings were
not part of the wider annual ritual system, being informal and more
spontaneous. Women usually gathered around a fire, brought their
handwork and spent the time weaving, knitting or doing needlework.
In Niško Polje, sedenjke were organized up until the end of the 1960s,
when following changes in living conditions (primarily electrification
and the appearance of radio and TV), women stopped gathering in this
way. They usually started in the autumn (after the holiday Preobraženje,
18th August) and carried on until the end of winter. Women met in the
evenings at the main crossroads or in front of a house if it was too cold
in a room. There were no strict rules about who could participate –
girls and women of all ages were included. Usually, grandmothers,
mothers or mothers-in-law brought their daughters and daughters-in-
law. At the beginning of the sedenjka, the women performed a song to
announce that the gathering had begun:
25
In Bulgaria the same custom is called sedenki or tlaki (Buchanan 2006: 84).
1
In contrast to the connotation that this term had in the nineteenth century, espe-
cially in relation to romantic nationalism, during the socialist period it was used to
propagate the homogeneity of the people and the ‘undifferentiated’ masses (Buchanan
2006: 35).
2
Professional state KUDs were established in the capitals of each of the six Yugoslav
Republics. The most prominent ensembles in Serbia were KUD Branko Krsmanović,
KUD Žikica Jovanović Španac and KUD Kolo from Belgrade. These top-ranking
ensembles, led by professional choreographers and experts in the field of folk heritage,
were and still are considered to be the ‘folk-ballet’ ensembles (http://www.krsmanovic
.co.yu/files/main_en.php).
3
The term Republic referred to the constituent federal unit of Yugoslavia – Repub-
lika.
4
For instance, KUD Kolo, founded in 1948, gave concerts in more than thirty
countries in its first twenty years of work: Switzerland, Austria, United Kingdom,
The Netherlands, Belgium, France, Monaco, Italy, Greece, Turkey, Germany, Soviet
Union, China, Burma, Canada, USA, Israel, Poland, Tunisia, Japan, Australia, Indo-
nesia, India, Egypt, Morocco, Luxembourg, Bulgaria, Ireland, Hungary, Finland etc.
(www.kolo.co.yu).
of all the nations and nationalities of Yugoslavia,5 apart from the local
(national ) repertoire. Practicing each other’s folk songs and dances-
provided a sense of unity and a first-hand experience of multicultur-
ality. The officials particularly insisted on close cooperation between
village and city KUDs among the Yugoslav Republics (Fulanović-Šošić
1981: 268). Through the inclusion of dance and music heritage from
all the Republics, diversity was displayed as a positive aspect of Yugo-
slav society (Laušević 1996: 119). Apart from presenting the equality
of all Yugoslav national cultures, KUD performances were considered
the most ‘artistic’ representation of cultural heritage (Petranović 1988:
319). They represented each nation or ethnic group by its most char-
acteristic folk pieces, creating a highly standardized version of folk
culture. These ‘stylized performances’ were used as the main elements
in the battle against ‘backwardness’ associated with the old forms of
folklore performance. Creating the ‘highest quality of interpretation,’
would, in the opinion of the policy makers, affect the further develop-
ment of folk dances and music (AJ-507, Materials of Commission for
Ideological-Educational Work, 47–165).
On the ground, the policy regarding folk culture was often applied
controversially and changed in accordance with the overall socio-eco-
nomic transformations of Yugoslavia. In the first years after World War
II, the centralized system of party committees supervised all aspects
of social activity: civil organizations, the economy, international rela-
tions, education and culture (Petranović 1988: 72). The state’s Agitprop
services6 were aimed at ‘channeling’ all spontaneous behavior of the
people and sending it in the ‘right direction’ (AJ, Central Commit-
tee of the League of Communists of Yugoslavia, Minutes from the
5
Yugoslavia was a multinational and multiethnic society, consisting of six constitu-
ent nations (Croats, Macedonians, Muslims/Bosniaks, Montenegrins, Serbs and Slo-
venians) and nationalities (Albanians, Bulgarians, Hungarians, Italians, Romanians,
Roma, Slovaks, and Turks). Nations were recognized as full citizens, while nationali-
ties had a highly developed level of minority rights.
6
The Ideological Commission of the Central Committee of the League of Com-
munists of Yugoslavia (Ideološka komisija Centralnog komiteta komunističke partije
Jugoslavije) and the Commission for Education of the Department for Propaganda
and Agitation of the Central Committee of the League of Communists of Yugoslavia
(Komisija za školstvo Uprave za propagandu i agitaciju Centralnog komiteta SKJ) were
called the Agitprop services.
7
Folklore festivals do not have a long history in Serbia. Before World War II there
had been only one event of this kind in Belgrade (that was in 1938, organized by the
Association of Journalists) (Petrović and Zečević 1981: 283).
8
The concept of ‘self-management’ was introduced in the 1950s as a way of reduc-
ing state control over the economy and enabling decision-making by the workers
themselves. Socially owned companies were supervised by worker councils, which
were made up of all employees, who decided on issues concerning division of labor,
general production methods, scheduling, customer care, etc.
Dancing the waltz or other ‘modern’ dances together with folk dances at dance
9
11
It is estimated that in the period from 1949 to 1971, 5.5 million people aban-
doned agricultural work (Puljiz 1989: 24).
against all features of nationalism and all kinds of cultural ‘kitsch’ was
declared,12 as a response to the overall intellectual crises and national
tensions (Đokić 1974: 174). Insistence on the equal treatment of all
national and ethnic cultures, and restraints on competition and all
kinds of ‘social anomalies,’ were intended to prevent further conflicts
between Yugoslav Republics. Party authorities particularly criticized
the intellectual elites for their bourgeois and nationalistic culture-
oriented attitudes, which were recognized as subversive of Yugoslav
multiculturality. They presented the lack of cultural exchange and
the low level of cooperation among the national cultures as the main
problem.13 Cultural cooperation between Yugoslav Republics was pro-
claimed to be beneficial for all national cultures, by insisting on the
plurality of Yugoslav cultural traditions and their interlinkage.
Administrative forms of cultural cooperation, highly formalized and
based on professional contacts between institutions and cultural orga-
nizations, were asserted to be an inadequate model for the multicul-
tural nature of Yugoslav society (Majstorović 1974: 185). The policy
makers claimed a huge gap between the working class and artists (i.e.,
‘cultural producers’). The concept of mass culture was no longer posi-
tioned in opposition to elite culture, but the latter was instead con-
sidered to be part of the mass activities. Thus, emphasis was now on
direct, first-hand experience and cooperation realized through direct
contact between working people and the ‘cultural producers.’ In order
to support more direct cooperation, institutions called SIZs – Samou-
pravne interesne zajednice or Self-Governing Interest Societies were
founded, aimed to mobilize people into taking an active part in deci-
sion-making processes. A new concept of ‘joint work’ (udruženi rad)
was introduced, as an alternative element of social unity and cohesion.
Official narratives propagated the new concept of Yugoslav culture
12
The phenomenon of ‘kitsch’ in the local context included all kinds of artistic
works considered aesthetically impoverished and morally dubious. In the field of
music, the newly-composed folk music – NCFM (novokomponovana narodna muz-
ika) was particularly criticized as kitsch, a musical form of the lowest quality. NCFM
emerged in the mid-1960s in the former Yugoslavia as the genre which combined the
local folk music with Western production and technology. Its emergence is situated
within the process of the migration of the rural population to cities, visible in its aes-
thetic duality which converged in pop culture and the idealization of peasant ‘roots’
(Vidić Rasmussen 1995: 241).
13
During the 1970s and 1980s, the Republics became more and more indepen-
dent and increasingly isolated from each other, which enabled the sub-elites (Republic
elites) to obtain more power (Morokvasić 1997: 70).
14
In the period 1948–1971, the total number of the agricultural population declined
by 26.1 percent, and their proportion in the total population by 33.7 percent (First-
Dilić 1986: 344).
15
In 1978, from the entire budget of the Republic of Serbia’s Cultural Association
(Republička zajednica kulture), only 4 percent was dedicated to rural areas (Ivanišević
1977: 171).
16
The most important and biggest ones were organized on Federal holidays such
as the Celebration of 25th May – Marshal Tito’s Birthday and 29th November – Day
of the Republic.
With the beginning of the 1950s, Niš became the economic, cultural
and educational center of southeastern Serbia. The re-establishment of
the National Theater and National Library and the foundation of the
Symphonic Orchestra in 1952 made for a rather rich cultural life in the
city (Milovanović 1975: 425). Together with the cultural institutions,
the work of the city’s KUDs was revived; these were established within
the newly-founded factories.17 In 1958, the Cultural-Educational Asso-
ciation of the Niš Municipality was founded, while in 1965 the Minis-
try of Education established the University of Niš (ibid. 431, 423).
In the 1960s and 1970s, the policy of industrialization and recruit-
ment of employees for the new factories produced rapid mass migra-
tion from the neighboring villages to the city of Niš. This resulted in
a significant decrease in the agricultural population, from 53.7 per-
cent in 1931 to 7.49 percent in 1981. On the other hand, an increase
in the mixed population – daily migrants or commuters18 – occurred
(Simonović 1995: 83). These people remained active in agriculture
and continued to live with their families in the countryside while
also working in industry. As a result, many of the agricultural house-
holds were transformed into mixed-type households with two kinds
of income (from and beyond agricultural work). The immediate con-
sequence of the rural-urban migrations was that the number of Niš
citizens doubled in the first thirty years after World War II.19 In the
period from 1961 to 1991, several villages became part of the Niš sub-
urban area, while others joined the city (the villages of Donji Komren,
Donja Vrežina, Brzi Brod and Novo Selo). Hence, migrants from poor
17
Such as KUD Stanko Paunović within the Syndicate of the Railway Section and
KUDs of the Mechanical and Tobacco Industry of Niš (Mašinska industrija Niš and
Duvanska industrija Niš).
18
Donna Buchanan uses the term ‘urban villagers’ for the same phenomenon in
Bulgaria (Buchanan 2006: 39).
19
According to the last census from 2002, this area has 381757 inhabitants: in the
city of Niš 250518 and the surrounding areas 131239 (The Statistical Office of the
Republic of Serbia http://webrzs.stat.gov.rs/axd/en/osn.htm?#books).
20
However, people from the rural areas not only migrated to Niš or neighboring
cities, but also to Vojvodina (the northern province of Serbia) or emigrated abroad,
becoming ‘guest workers’ or Gastarbeiters (predominantly in Austria, Germany and
Switzerland).
21
In the same year the Regulation concerning it was also ratified, functioning as
the main official document of this event (see the adapted version of the Constitution
from 1990, appendix 2).
22
The socialist project of ‘modernization’ was particularly directed toward groups
that were associated with ‘backwardness,’ such as peasants and women. Donna Buch-
anan points out that peasants became the backdrop against which ‘progress’ was mea-
sured, at the same time as being its source (Buchanan 2006: 41).
23
The category of ‘genuine’ songs was discursively associated with the ‘authen-
tic’ and ‘pure’ traditional folk music and conceptualized in opposition to the above-
mentioned newly-composed folk music – NCFM, which were perceived as a hybrid
product, folk music appropriated for the mass-market.
24
See the programme of the Gornja and Donja Studena village in appendix 4.
25
As Rudi Supek wrote in his article about amateur activities and public practices
in Yugoslavia during the 1970s, the events focused on village culture were not pro-
moted and propagated in the public sphere. Not only the authorities, but also the
media considered them irrelevant and did not pay enough attention to these types
of activities (Supek 1974: 15). My interlocutors also emphasized that at the regional
reviews, which took place in the city of Niš, the audience consisted mainly of the par-
ticipants’ relatives and villagers, while the urban population was not interested.
26
Marija Bišof, the current secretary of the Serbian KPZ Cultural-Educational Asso-
ciation, states that some leading administrators of this organization during the 1990s
were closely connected to Milošević’s Socialist Party of Serbia.
27
For instance, 7th July, a socialist holiday celebrating the Uprising Day against
Fascistic Occupations (Dan ustanka protiv fašističke okupacije) continued to be cel-
ebrated during Milošević’s regime, and was abolished in 2001.
How did the female singers, other participants and local organizers
perceive Village Gatherings? Talking about the socialist period some-
times triggered contradictory emotions in my interlocutors. Taking
this into account, their stories unveiled the strategies of remember-
ing and reconstructing the past, but also the ways in which current
economic, political and cultural changes have shaped their narratives
of the socialist past. As I mentioned in the Introduction, the women’s
stories about musical experiences during the socialist period contain
the current social climate. In this way, post-socialism entered the focus
of this study as a moment in which memories about the past are con-
structed and narrated, as the interpretative standpoint of people’s per-
sonal accounts.28
Recollecting the past, my interlocutors stated that after World War
II many customs were forbidden by the new authorities. They con-
28
Mojca Ramšak, a Slovenian ethnologist who uses the biographical method in her
research, asserts that personal memories and life stories are crucial for understanding
the way people connect personal experience and an interpretation of the past with
their social environment (Ramšak 2000: 30).
With titovke, it was like that. And just when it should have been done,
they did not allow us. In the municipality, in the villages, they did
not allow us to organize kraljice and mention the word Kralj. And we
changed it so that instead of kraljica we turned the words into Tito,
Tito’s girls. (Rusanda Arsić, Donja Vrežina village)
Moreover, I heard from Vera Đorđević from Brenica village that in the
first few years after World War II, her father was punished and fined
for allowing her to be kraljica. Životka and Zorica Stanković from
Brzi Brod also told me that as young girls still in primary school, they
were flogged by their teacher because they participated in the custom
of lazarice. Kostadin Gocić from Donja Vrežina village was impris-
oned and questioned by the Intelligence service (Uprava državne bez-
bednosti – UDBA) as to why he had participated in the custom of
Krstonoše. Furthermore, local authorities punished disloyal villagers
who practiced customs such as Slava, Orthodox holidays – Mother’s
Day (Materice) and Father’s Day (Oci) or the celebration of the Ortho-
dox New Year (Vasuljica). However, villagers told me that while there
were many punishments for practicing the old customs in the first
few years following World War II, the authorities later became more
lenient, and many people practiced religious holidays, though mainly
in the domestic sphere. On the other hand, new holidays were estab-
lished such as the 1st May – International Worker’s Day, and 29th
November – Day of the Republic or the New Year, with the intention
of replacing existing holidays.29
Replacement of existing community rituals and celebrations by the
new tendency to institutionalize cultural activities was not met with
approval in the villages. Organizers of Village Gatherings emphasized
that in the first few years of holding the event, it was very difficult to
introduce this new way of cultural consumption to villagers. Velibor
Stanković complained that it was a struggle to present new activities to
the villagers: “You know, that was all a difficult struggle, I needed great
patience. That could not be worked out so easily.” Dragan Todorović
29
In the first years following World War II, the establishment of new village holi-
days connected with the revolutionary past, supposed to be substitutes for the old
religious ones, was insisted upon, such as the day of the village, the day of the foun-
dation of the local school, the day of the village’s electrification or the building of a
canal for irrigation (AJ-142, The Report on the Plenary of the Socialist Alliance of
SSRNJ 1959, F-616). There is an interesting data about introducing the new custom
called communist slava, in fact the family’s slava used in the new political context
(Antonijević 1978: 91).
Nostalgia or Subversion?
As has been pointed out, the discourses of my interlocutors regard-
ing Village Gatherings expressed significant ambivalence. Their stories
acknowledged the present post-socialist reality, showing the dynamics
of sentiments regarding the socialist past – denial of the past, on the
one hand, and nostalgia, on the other: “The grey phase of transition,
as a jump between past and future constructed multiple images of
the past, positive and negative, difficult and improving” (Creed 1999:
224). The distinction between ‘bygone times’ and a current moment
defined as ‘new times’ was particularly apparent in their narratives.
The ‘bygone time’ is remembered as a period of suffering because of
the difficult lifestyle (compared to today’s mechanization and technol-
ogy), but also as a time of harmony, cooperation and unity: “Anger,
resignation and selective nostalgia for the socialist era seem more sig-
nificant in defining the new subjectivities” (Hann 2002: 93).
People glorified village life as idyllic, a time marked by friendship,
togetherness and generally good relationships between people. As
Olga Stanković from Donja Studena village recalled, “We lived differ-
ently at that time. Lots of things happened, my son, lots of things, it
was wonderful.” They particularly emphasized good social relation-
ships, seeing the strong relationships between relatives, neighbors and
among the peasant community in general as the most important ben-
efit of bygone days. In their stories, the past was portrayed as a period
marked by joint singing and dancing, which involved all members
of the community in common social activities. As Životka Stanković
from the same village lamented:
We were walking down the road, walking and singing. People sang. Now
there is no love, children, no sorrow, there is nothing now, no help,
nothing. Now there is only spite.
The Gatherings had a significant position in the villagers’ memories of
the past as a joint activity of all community members. It was presented
to me in a highly positive light, as an event that was extremely benefi-
cial to village development. The villagers emphasized that the Gather-
ings were an excellent opportunity for young people to engage in extra
activities, to learn the old songs, dances and customs, and to meet their
peers from neighboring villages. For older people, it was a good way
to revive memories of the past and have a great time together. These
occasions thus functioned as new ways of socializing and a specific
‘outlet’ in the villagers’ everyday life. According to their stories, they
especially enjoyed traveling with local amateur groups, and participat-
ing in various exhibitions across the former Yugoslavia.30 For instance,
groups from Donja Studena, Komren and Vukmanovo performed at
the Festival of the Folklore Heritage of Serbia in Topola (Sabor naro-
dnog stvaralaštva Srbije), the Folklore Groups Review (Smotra naro-
dnog stvaralaštva izvornih grupa), the International Folklore Festival
in Zagreb (Međunarodna smotra folklora u Zagrebu) and the Balkan
Festival of Folklore Heritage held in Ohrid (Balkanski festival narod-
nog stvaralaštva u Ohridu).
In remembering the Gatherings, my interlocutors particularly
emphasized that people involved in the organization were enthusiasts
who worked for no pay. They recalled how close contacts and even
intimate relationships and marriages arose from these competitions,
and that it was often through joint amateur activities that people who
did not get along gradually overcame conflicts and became friends
again. They expressed disappointment at the disappearance of Village
Gatherings as important events that had provided a sense of unity and
cohesion.
In their minds, although people today have a much better quality
of life, their social relationships have seriously deteriorated: “Young
people have everything but know nothing” (Ilinka Despotović, Tru-
pale village). In contrast to the ‘bygone times’ when people sang and
danced at local community gatherings (‘dancing every Sunday’ – oro
svaku nedelju), people today spent most of their time watching TV,
‘locked’ in their houses. The people I talked to stated that they did not
visit their neighbors and relatives as often as they had done in earlier
times.
In addition, local organizers stated that young people were not
interested in village cultural life. The female singers expressed disap-
30
Mobility had an educational function in socialist ideology: apart from rural-urban
migration for schooling or work, traveling was seen as important for the emancipation
and widening of the villagers’ horizons. According to Stef Jansen, the sense of mobility
is generally present in the memories of the former Yugoslavia. A longing for the ‘big
country’ and free travel is the result of the post-Yugoslav restriction in mobility caused
by war, difficult economic circumstances and visa policy (Jansen 2005: 224).
31
Which in the very etymology of the phrase excludes peasants.
32
It is important to emphasize that the collapse of socialism and the subsequent
breakup of Yugoslavia were not represented by my interlocutors as the major turn-
ing point in their narratives. For them, the most important discursive boundary was
not 1991, the year of the dislocation of the former Yugoslavia, but 1996 (the year of
the first significant political changes at local level since World War II) and 1999 (the
bombing of the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia by NATO forces). This attitude is
probably a result of the feeling among many rural people in southeastern Serbia that
the war was happening far away and that they were not personally involved in it, while
the NATO bombing had a completely different meaning for them and was recognized
as the first ‘real war’ since War World II.
33
This phenomenon of misinterpretation and tension between the state and institu-
tions, on the one hand, and citizens and social actions, on the other, is broadly present
in post-socialist societies (Giordano and Kostova 2002: 89).
not only by informal family festivals and gatherings, but by the state-
supervised spectacles as well. Their accounts contradict the attitude
that all socialist state-sponsored occasions represented artificial forms
of communal activity in rural society, events wholly meaningless to
those who participated in them. In the life stories of my interlocu-
tors, Village Gatherings were recognized instead as a significant part
of their everyday life strategies and were genuinely meaningful, thus
challenging the dominant attitudes about state-sponsored cultural
activities under socialism as imposed and rigid public forms.34
34
Scholarly writing about socialist culture takes the stance that socialist cultural
events were an ‘artificial,’ ‘falsified’ and ‘unnatural’ form of cultural presentation, which
differed very much from ‘real life’ (see Olson 2004: 13; Kaneff 2004: 141; Habeck, 11,
unpublished article). They consider performance in small groups – within informal
settings and among well-known people, and without a strong division between per-
formers and audience – as a ‘natural’ context for traditional musical performance. The
claims that in contrast to the notion of traditional performance as ‘pure,’ ‘spontane-
ous’ and ‘naturally developed,’ the stage performance was considered ‘adapted,’ ‘non-
spontaneous’ and ‘channelized,’ will be particularly discussed in the Conclusion.’
REPERTOIRE
1
The state of the acquired materials on Village Gatherings illustrates that these
kinds of events were perceived as marginal cultural activities. No archive of record-
ings of Village Gatherings exists. As the director of the Archive of Radio-Television
of Serbia, Mileta Kečina, explained to me, these competitions were usually transmitted
live, and the video recordings were temporary.
2
This forms a contrast to other socialist countries such as the Soviet Union, Bul-
garia or Romania, where the rural people were highly involved in the creation of new
folk songs with explicit political content. New texts mainly concerned agricultural
collectivization (see Radulescu 1997: 208; Stere 2003: 85; Olson 2004: 41; Buchanan
2006: 135). In Bulgaria these songs were called ‘songs for the new socialist village’
(Buchanan, ibid. 136).
3
A good illustration of this claim is the song ‘Heroes dance on the ground of
Serbia’ (Igrale se delije na sred zemlje Srbije) written by Milorad Mitrović-Seljančica
during the inter-war period, which was often performed at Village Gatherings even
though it was forbidden by socialist authorities due to its overt national connotations
(Lopušina 1991: 246).
there had been attempts to introduce these kinds of genres into the
main repertoire, but they would not relent. They added that it was very
interesting that after the official program, at a dinner party, the par-
ticipants indulged themselves by singing the newly composed popular
hits. On the other hand, when I asked the village organizers about
NCFM performances, they confirmed that they sometimes included
singers or instrumentalists who performed this kind of genre:
They asked for a ballet group, for example. They also asked for newly-
composed folk songs, and also for modern instruments such as the accor-
dion, synthesizer and so on. (Dragan Todorović, Vukmanovo village)
Contradictions in the statements of the jury members and local orga-
nizers illustrate differences between the ‘official’ and the ‘unofficial’
discourse: the jury members obviously wanted to present the Village
Gatherings to me (as an expert, an ethnomusicologist) as a event that
was dedicated to the preservation of ‘authentic’ musical forms, where
any kind of ‘kitsch’ was unacceptable.
While conforming to the prescribed criteria, every local organizer of
Village Gatherings had to make a decision about the performance that
could bring them a better chance of winning:
As this modern trend came, the program was more and more arranged
in accordance with contemporary requirements to gain the attention of
the audience. (Vukašin Mitić, Trupale village)
Taking into account the competitive nature of the event and the impor-
tant role of the jury, the main aim of local organizers and amateur
group leaders was to create the most striking performance. Amateur
groups practiced for a few months in advance with rehearsals at the
village’s House of Culture or in group members’ houses. They tried to
create a distinctive program for each year. As Jagodinka Mitrović from
Rujnik village confirmed, “We changed the songs anyway, because it
was part of the competition, that you could not sing the same songs
every year.”
Aiming to present an attractive program and get better assessments
at the Gatherings, local organizers employed professional musicians
(instrumentalists, singers), music teachers, choreographers or directors:
We did not have a gusle-player, so we brought in a Montenegrin man
who works here, he is a colleague of mine. Unfortunately, he passed
away. He had a gusle and we brought him to contribute to our program.
But there were people who worked; sometimes we could not do it alone,
if we wanted to produce something of good quality. I am not skilled
enough for that, I can organize a program, but I did not have enough
quality and I am not qualified and knowledgeable enough to do that. But
we engaged people from Niš to do that. Mića Verić was the director of
that program, maybe you have heard of him; he is now the director of
the Puppet Theater. So, for example, we brought choreographers from
Abrašević, Stanka Paunovića and Din. (All city KUDs). (Vukašin Mitić,
Trupale village)
Recently, we began engaging a professor. If I may say it more artificially,
this was not really traditional, but the program demanded such a con-
cept. The professor who prepared recitals came, and for folklore, a man
who teaches dance and who knows about that. Also, a man came for the
plays. (Velibor Stanković, Prosek village)
With this in mind, every village had its ‘stars’ who were widely popu-
lar. Velibor also told me that they had a pumpkin orchestra (orkestar
lejki)4 and an old man, Grandfather Mika, both of whom were real
attractions on stage. The village of Komren and its bagpiper Kostadin
Cvetković, as well as its vocal group Komrenka, were among the most
4
The Lejka is a simple aerophone instrument, made from a pumpkin. This type
of instrument was common all over Serbia, but it is usually not considered a ‘real’
instrument.
songs from her village. For Jagodinka Mitrović, who moved from
the distant village of Kravlje to Rujnik, it was particularly difficult to
sing in a different style, so she had problems when it came to stage
performance:
Here, they have different tunes. Completely different. As if they distort
the tune a little bit. We sing differently. When we went to the Gather-
ings, I could not sing, even if you killed me, I could not.
Mladenka Ristić from Vukamnovo village stressed that older women
taught young ones, but at the same time they learned from each
other. In this way, mixed-generation ensembles, where younger sing-
ers learned old songs from the older ones, enabled the passing down
of the local repertoire. Since practicing customs was no longer a part
of everyday life and there was no possibility of refreshing memory
through practice, performing at Village Gatherings enabled specific
preservation of ‘old’ repertoires. This affected the process of the ‘indi-
vidualization of performance,’ the practice where one woman (usually
a leading singer with the best vocal abilities and the best knowledge of
songs) became the main source for the songs. A particular song was
often considered to be part of the repertoire of that one woman (e.g.
Vera’s song). Almost all the female singers remembered which woman
in the village sang the ‘old songs’ and who continued to sing them after
she had died. This individualization of performance became exemplary
for the ideal performance style, especially to younger performers, and
a pattern to follow when passing the song on. For Zlatković Grozdana
from Vukmanovo village, her cousin Anđa was the main source of the
songs: “Anđa sang these songs. Anđa, and after her Mara, but no one
could sing as Anđa sang them.”
On the other hand, this kind of practice of ‘learning’ the old songs
did not include such a variety of repertoire and left no space for
improvization. Owing to the standardized structure of cultural pre-
sentations at the Gatherings, the musical diversity of local repertoires
was expressed in different tune patterns. Songs were practiced and
performed to fit a required pattern, without the possibility of free
improvization and spontaneity.
Since the songs previously connected to customs were recontextu-
alized by stage performance, women transgressed social taboos con-
nected to certain genres of song, performing them regardless of the
ritual prohibitions that had existed when they were performed within
A B
A B
B C
C D
becoming
C D
E
D E
5
Sometimes the jury even chose the songs and dances that would be performed, in
order to avoid repetition and to make the overall program more attractive.
As has been said, the jury’s demands left little space for adapting and
reworking the songs,6 but in the manner of singing style there were
some interventions. Two-part singing, which was characteristic of the
female performances in this area, underwent the biggest changes. The
characteristic of this singing style is the drone or syllabic drone sing-
ing based on non-metric or parlando-rubato rhythm. It belongs to
the two-part singing practice which, together with heterophony and a
combination of heterophony and drone singing, represented the dom-
inant singing practice in rural areas of southeastern Serbia. The upper
voice sings the melody while the lower voice accompanies on the tonic,
making the intervals of a major or minor second. The accompanying
voice is passive in text articulation and usually pronounces only vow-
els. The melody scope is very narrow (up to a fourth), in a chromatic
and usually non-tempered tonal structure:
6
Unlike in other socialist countries, where the songs were usually arranged for
choir performance (Rice 1994: 176; Olson 2004: 54), the songs performed at Village
Gatherings did not undergo such drastic transformations in performing style.
7
Guttural singing style.
8
The record was borrowed from the Phonoarchive of the Department for Ethno-
musicology of the Faculty of Music, University of Belgrade. It contains no data about
either the performers or the ethnographer(s).
The female singers mostly chose to perform songs from the repertoire
of amateur groups which were prepared for the Gatherings as ‘the old-
est’ and ‘the most authentic’ musical heritage. Through these events,
the canonized repertoire itself was created, but the local repertoire was
also updated, which enabled certain songs to stay fresh in the memo-
ries of the female singers.
Music example 12: Duet by Ljiljana and Sava Radonjić, Prosek village (track 6)
9
In contrast, in the Soviet Union, the stage folklore affected gender segregation
in musical performance. As Julia Olson reveals, owing to changes in village practice,
public singing has been associated with women, since their repertoire was considered
authentic and more ‘representative’ in comparison with the men’s repertoire, which
was recognized as ‘national’ (Olson 2004: 51).
10
It is interesting to note that Dragan Todorović avoided performing the refrain i
at the end of the verse (da rucne). He claimed that he was ashamed to perform it, since
this refrain was considered female. His act illustrates that even though the boundar-
ies between the two categories were transgressed, some musical attributes were still
strongly gendered.
11
Women’s appropriation of repertoire which previously belonged to men and vice
versa is noticeable in various societies in the second half of the twentieth century, such
as Kosovo (Pettan 2003), Corsica (Bithell 2003), and Greece (Holst-Warhaft 2003).
In this way men, like women, had the opportunity to expand their
musical activities and perform genres which were usually reserved for
women:
No woman can sing that song, because it is very difficult and specific. It
is a very old song. It was sung by my grandmother to my mother, and
she taught me that song. I have learned it perfectly. I sang that song
at Bemus. (Belgrade Musical Festival). (Dragan Todorović, Vukmanovo
village)
On the other hand, despite contributing to the higher visibility of rural
women in public, the representation of women at Village Gatherings
maintained the construction of gender relations that were based on
a traditional matrix. First, there were no drastic changes in the field
of musical activities: women remained in the field of vocal practice,
performing the ‘women’s songs’. For them, the predominantly male
domains such as playing instruments still remained a non-legitimate
sphere of activity. Data from the mid-1980s on female instrumentalists
does exist, but with reference to school children who learned to play
in music classes or went to music school. They usually performed as
part of school orchestras in the segment of the program reserved for
‘children’s folklore.’
In Jelašnica village, I found one instance of female instrumentalists
being included in a male orchestra. Miodrag Tasić, a local musician
who played several instruments such as different types of flute ( frula,
duduk), the accordion (harmonika) and the lejka, made an ensemble
of eleven lejkas, whose performances represented a special attraction.12
The repertoire mainly consisted of folk dances (kola) but also included
some original compositions (such as the Jelašnički merak dance).
Another attraction of this orchestra was two female lejka players –
Miodrag’s neighbors, who were included not as performers, but as an
entertainment, since they did not actually play, but simply pretended to
do so. He told me that the audience was thrilled by their appearance.
Moreover, despite the official narratives of women’s active partici-
pation in village cultural life, both the leaders of amateur groups and
the main organizers of Village Gatherings were men. Women did
not decide about the songs they performed because the final decision
about the repertoire was usually made by the local organizers. A few
days before their performance at Village Gatherings, women would go
12
Miodrag made lejkas in different sizes, shapes, and tonal structure himself.
13
Naila Ceribašić points to the same practice among Croatian female instrumental-
ists, who were not considered ‘serious’ performers until the middle of the twentieth
century. They were included in orchestras just as a ‘funny’ replacement for the absent
male musician, or played children’s and other ‘non-real’ instruments (Ceribašić 2004:
159). Veronica Doubleday writes about a similar phenomenon in Afghanistan, where
the frame drum, as an instrument played exclusively by women, was considered a
‘non-instrument’ (Doubleday 1999: 125). Sean Williams, in his research into gamelan
degung performances, points out that for the Sudanese, the quality of the music is
diminished when women are included in ensembles (Williams 1998: 79).
SINGING EXCLUSION
State Feminism
1
SKJ founded around two thousand societies at the Federal, Republican, provin-
cial, district, and communal levels in Yugoslavia. In 1961 this organization merged
with the SSRNJ women’s committees, forming the Conference for the Social Activity
of Women (Ramet 1999b: 94).
2
The Committees of Women’s Co-operatives (Komiteti žena zadrugarki) and the
Committees of Rural Women (Komiteti seoskih žena).
3
In 1961, the proportion of illiterate women in Yugoslavia was reduced to 28.8
percent over the age of 10, and 75 percent of those over the age of 35 (Đurić and
Dragičević 1965: 10).
4
In 1988 a very low percentage of women pursued engineering careers – electri-
cal engineering numbered 13.4 percent female professionals, mechanical engineering
10.2 percent as well as physical and biological engineering. 90 percent of women were
students of secondary textile schools, while 84.1 percent were studying to be teachers
and nurses (Massey, Hahn, Sekulić 1995: 363).
5
This refers to Muslim women.
6
Unlike their husbands, women rarely obtained employment in local factories.
Official narratives highlighted that men and women in villages were equal, but it
was also emphasized that female work was still not valued in industry (Stamenković
1975: 6).
7
According to Maria Todorova, rural women’s double burden was deeply embed-
ded in rural life and culture, due to the long tradition of their active participation in
the labor process (Todorova 1993: 33).
8
In 1972, of the total number of 865 Farm Co-operatives, only 0.8 percent were
directed by women and just 5.3 percent of them were members of the co-operative
management councils (First-Dilić 1986: 356).
But the man’s influence on the family farm does not weaken with his
departure: although physically absent, temporarily or long term, the man
remains the head-of-the-family and the head-of-the-farm. (First-Dilić
1986: 353)
Official reports concerning women’s position in rural society also illus-
trate a tension between official narratives and the situation in the field,
where women still existed in an almost slavish subordinate position.9
Results reported in the book Family in Transition: A Study of 300 Yugo-
slav Villages (Erlich 1971) illustrate how rural women remained in a
very difficult position within families, particularly in relation to their
husbands and mothers-in-law. The author highlighted that such women
did not complain about their problems; moreover, they did not express
any demands to change that inferior position (ibid. 227). According to
Somerville, many women, despite having been offered the opportunity
to be equal to men, for a long time expressed negative attitudes toward
their own potential (Somerville 1965: 352). Even though young women
were strongly against ‘old patriarchal norms,’ such as arranged marriage,
they were rarely supported by the wider community or local institutions
(AJ-142, The status of women in villages, materials from 1959–1962,
F-616). To summarize what has been said so far, as less mobile social
subjects, rural women began to receive fresh opportunities (in education
and employment). On the other hand, the improvement of their posi-
tion was by and large symbolic, reflecting an operative quota system for
their participation in leadership roles (Slapšak 2002: 149).
How did the changes in the official gender politics affect the lives of
women in Niško Polje? As has been stated, urbanization and indus-
trialization influenced changes in the structure and functioning of the
family. On the other hand, the practical non-existence of welfare ser-
vices in villages meant that women’s life in rural settings fell further
behind city standards. In Niško Polje, just a few of my interlocutors
started working after World War II, but quit because of the minimal
social support for employed women in rural environments:
9
For example, in 1965, husbands and fathers obstructed the enrolment of rural
girls in high schools, since they did not want them to take any female social role other
than that of housewife (Đurić and Dragičević 1965: 14).
I worked in the company ‘The 22nd December’ for four years and six
months. We sewed in the sewing-factory. I have also worked as a school-
girl. I quit the job a long time ago; I did not have anyone to take care of
my children. (Mladenka Ristić, Vukmanovo village)
Some of them were also active in the Working Co-operatives (Radničke
zadruge) established in villages, within special sections of Women Co-
operatives. However, for a long time after World War II, employment
outside home activities was still considered inappropriate for women.
The women I spoke with remained housewives, but this situation
changed over the generations, and most of their daughters started to
work outside the home. Nonetheless, even some of these had prob-
lems because of ambition in their professional lives: Ljiljana Radonjić
from the village of Prosek told me that her daughter could not get
married in the village because she was working in a company situ-
ated in the city of Niš. The main problem was finding a husband who
would accept her night shift working hours.10 Ljiljana added that her
daughter eventually married a man from Niš, and that they were very
satisfied with their son-in-law.
As established in Chapter One, the female body in rural society
was considered to be a ‘ritual body,’ which had to be under constant
supervision by the authorities (supernatural forces or patriarchal social
norms). It was qualified, unqualified and analyzed as a body suffused
with sexuality, a social body that had to provide the expected fertil-
ity (Foucault 1990: 104). The authority of male ‘disembodiment’ over
female ‘embodiment’ was realized through different sanctions, taboos
and proscriptions, which were part of the cultural practices in rural
environments. The body in socialism was conceptualized in a differ-
ent way, as a classless body, a worker’s body that could erase any
differences between social layers. As many authors point out, cloth-
ing is one of the most extraordinary indicators of social and cultural
change, a communicative device through which the relations of power
are constituted, articulated or negotiated (McCracken 1988: 61). The
politics of dress in socialism played an important part in the gender
politics agenda and in the creation of the ‘new men’ and ‘new women.’
Representation of the body in public discourse was based on unifica-
tion – the sameness of dress codes at schools, factories and other state
institutions, with the intention of bringing rural and urban areas into
10
Interestingly enough, a special meeting dedicated to women’s night-shift work
was organized by the SSRNJ in 1979 (AJ-142, List of the Archive Material of the
SSRNJ).
line (Kligman 1998: 33). A new image of socialist women was cre-
ated through a more urbanized and less differentiated regional dress
style (Somerville 1965: 359). Women’s dress became the epitome of
the modernization of society and their ‘liberation’ and ‘emancipation.’12
In the reports of the SSRNJ, changes in female clothing were presented
as an important indicator of rural development. Changes in the cloth-
ing of younger generations of women who started wearing new tex-
tiles such as buckskin, silk and cotton instead of home-made (woven
materials) were identified as a positive tendency (AJ-142, The status of
women in villages, materials from 1959–1962, F-616). In the socialist
discourse on femininity, a village woman in traditional dress with a
scarf was the epitome of backwardness, a social subject incapable of
making use of the newly established rights and obligations.
The new femininity was created as an amalgam of worker, peasant and soldier
12
13
However, it is important to bear in mind that individual and family differences
caused by a family’s financial status were closely connected to in the level of liberal-
ization.
At the same time, this act contributed to the challenging of the stage
representations of gender and signified a change in the body discourses
and visibility of women as social subjects in rural society.
The socialist body politics thus introduced a new representation of
the female body in the public sphere, at the same time challenging the
cultural meaning of women and the existing gender relations in Niško
Polje: “Relations are often mediated through body, as one of the pri-
mary media in which sociopolitical relations of power are inculcated
and reproduced” (Foucault 1977: 25).
14
It is asserted that only 20 percent of young rural women in Serbia were mem-
bers of KUDs (AJ-142, The status of women in villages, materials from 1959–1962,
F-616).
Polje prove that it was very difficult to find women willing to perform
on stage when these cultural activities were first introduced to their
villages. Dragan Todorović revealed that when he visited each house
in his village of Vukmanovo to ask husbands if they would allow their
wives to sing, he found that husbands were very often resistant to let-
ting their wives perform in public, saying, “Why go there and waste
her time? I did not bring her to my house so that she would doll up for
everyone else. She has to be beautiful only for me.” Women had to ask
for their husbands’ permission for every performance. Generally, they
agreed to let their wives perform when accompanied by male supervi-
sors, but in some cases they insisted on being there too. Therefore, the
female participants at Village Gatherings also had a male chaperone,
who was accountable to their husbands for their safety and proper
behavior. Dragan mentioned that his godmother, who performed on
various occasions over the years, still had to ask her husband for per-
mission to perform, even though she was under his patronage. For
this reason, it was easier for the organizers to persuade their family
members, sisters, cousins or wives, to perform.
What are the possible reasons for considering the stage performance
inappropriate and dangerous? Apart from the above-mentioned gen-
eral resistance to institutionalized cultural activities, it seems that
the local understanding of the public/private distinction was crucial.
Michael Zimbalist Rosaldo developed a theory based on the work of
Meyer Fortes, in which women are always and everywhere identified
within the private sphere, while men are related to the public sphere of
social activities (Zimbalist Rosaldo 1974: 24, Ivanović 2003: 422). This
approach was strongly criticized as unhistorical and feminist theorists
have successfully shown the mistake of assuming that the boundaries
between public and private are stable. Despite the presumption of ‘sep-
arate spheres,’ most social practices and relations are not limited to the
principles associated with one or the other sphere. Scholars emphasize
that historical changes in the ‘content’ of what is officially or conven-
tionally meant by public and private largely affected this discursive
distinction in social theory: “The use of the conceptual vocabulary of
‘public’ and ‘private’ often generates as much confusion as illumina-
tion, not least because different sets of people who employ these con-
cepts mean very different things by them – and sometimes, without
quite realizing it, mean several things at once” (Weintraub and Kumar
1997: 1). Drawing from Susan Gal’s definition of the public/private
distinction as a communicative phenomenon that is a product of a
semiotic process (Gal 1997: 261), I have explored how these categories
were employed in personal discourses of my interlocutors who used
them to demarcate other important ‘official/unofficial’ and ‘visibility/
invisibility’ interrelationships. The notion of the stage/non-stage per-
formance remained closely connected to a public/private distinction
in the light of socialist cultural policy, and the creation of the new
state-supervised village cultural life.15 According to the stories of my
interlocutors, community celebrations and parties associated with the
annual and life cycle, as well as informal festivities were associated
with a different type of publicity and the stage performance was seen
as public activity par excellence, entirely different from other perfor-
mance situations.16 Stage performance at state-organized events, which
occurred in different cultural contexts and where performers were dis-
played outside the local community, was perceived by the villagers in
Niško Polje as a completely new way of practicing culture and seen as
real musical shows.17 Although the performers and audience at such
events mainly belonged to the same social milieu, stage performance
included a strong division between performers and spectators. In ad-
dition, the formal nature of the exhibition embodied in the presence
of a jury and officials added new elements to the performance. The
notion of ‘public’ actually refers to an extension of state control to
activities, spaces and relations considered ‘private.’ Where this is con-
cerned, the idea of performing music restricted to local customs and
internal gatherings in front of a wider public within an institutional
framework was entirely new, and not appropriate, for rural women
social public activities, as presented in Chapter One, were limited.
15
Marc Garcelon suggests that the division official/unofficial is more appropriate
for understanding everyday life under socialism than public/private (Garcelon 1997:
317).
16
For example, singing to accompany dances at local gatherings such as sabori was
not understood as a musical performance. Dancing and singing at these occasions
was not regarded by the community as real music-making, but primarily as a way of
establishing social ties. These occasions served as meeting places for young people,
providing an opportunity for them to talk and dance together, as a specific way of
initiation of boys and girls into the status of marriageable persons, as discussed in the
first section of Chapter One.
17
In both official discourse and everyday narratives the stage performance was
called ‘public performance’ ( javni nastup), which highlights the specific visibility and
the institutional arrangements associated with it.
Dangerous Profession
18
The distinction between professional and unprofessional performance turned out
to be a common cross-cultural characteristic of women’s performances. The prac-
tice was well-known to many cultures where women’s performances were considered
‘non-musical’ and female-associated genres not ‘real music’ at all (see Susan Auerbach,
Patricia K. Shehan, Hiromi Lorraine Sakata and Karen E. Petersen in Koskoff 1987).
excitement only in the ritual songs they performed for young people.
Only these songs contained love inspiration and that was it. Even these
songs we sang alone in the mountains, when nobody could hear us, with
stock and in the fields. (Vasiljević 1960: x)
I received similar testimony from Milunka Đorđević from the village
of Jelašnica: “At that time we did not sing, that was very shameful”19
(Milunka Đorđević, Jelašnica village). Dragan Todorović from the vil-
lage of Vukmanovo also emphasized that women “sang exclusively
in the field during agrarian work in the ritual practice without their
husbands’ permission.” In some villages of Niško Polje I heard stories
about extremely talented female singers who could not embark on a
professional singing career. They told me that it was not possible for
them to start singing professionally, since their husbands and family
would not approve of this. When I asked why they decided not to try,
given the fact they were gifted, Dragan Todorović answered:
I do not know. People were afraid of that, as they say here, not to go
astray, not to get into trouble. We were introverted people; we were not
in the habit of being outspoken with others. We were placed here and
there was no chance of moving, that was strong patriarchy.
For a long time professional music-making was perceived as a voca-
tion that was inappropriate for women.20 Being musicians was a
hobby, not an occupation, and making a living in that way was not
something a self-respecting villager would do (Buchanan 2006: 147).
The musical vocation in general was strongly identified with the Roma
population who were the main musical performers in Serbia.21 After
the end of World War II, the women who performed in public were
mainly Roma women who usually danced or sang in urban environ-
ments. They were much freer in expressing their musical activities,
19
The concept of female musical shame has been examined by numerous authors
including Susan Auerbach (Auerbach 1987) and Jane Sugarman (Sugarman 1997 and
2003).
20
Women who performed publicly were recognized in many cultures as ‘immoral’
or ‘lustful women,’ equivalent to prostitutes or concubines. Some of them achieved
some level of social dignity as independent women and won social freedom denied
to other women, but in general, they remained on the margins of society (Kapchan
1994: 88).
21
Historical records on the Balkan Roma confirm that as early as Ottoman
times they were registered within the ‘city garrisons’ as ironmongers and musicians
(mehter). Scholars asserted that Roma in Serbia differed by their trade – they were pre-
dominantly ironmongers, potters, horse dealers, bear tamers, and musicians (Zirojević
1976: 73; Gojković 1994: 87).
22
The kafana (a pub, tavern, café) has been a central spot for informal socialization,
networking and entertainment in rural, semi-urban and urban environments. Offering
a specific form of sociability, the kafana is the place where people can eat, listen to
music, dance and generally have a good time in the company of their friends.
23
Lepa Lukić started her career at the beginning of the 1960s.
24
The same was the case with female instrumentalists. Radojka Živković, one of
the first and most highly regarded female accordion players, performed together with
her husband Tihomir.
The female singers’ stories also revealed that villagers viewed their
stage performance as frivolous and shameful, making them targets for
gossip and labeling them as shameless and immoral:
They told us: where are you going, they will make fun of you. Oh, we
suffered her and me. They were gossiping and saying all kinds of things.
Our neighbors did not understand that. (Ilinka Despotović and Sevlija
Stanković, Trupale village)
The story I heard from Ilinka’s husband Milorad precisely illustrates
that attitude toward stage performance. Ilinka was invited to perform
at an event in Macedonia together with her vocal group, and the local
cultural worker asked them to prepare a suitable program. How-
ever, influenced by the neighbors’ comments about the immorality of
women active in amateur groups, her husband did not allow her to
perform. Telling this story, Milorad admitted that he had made a big
mistake and that today he regretted paying too much attention to other
people’s opinion. He told me that he had ruined the opportunity for
his wife to push her career further and perhaps go abroad to perform.
Since women in rural societies usually shared a collective social
identity with their family and kin (Abu-Lughod 1986: 156), the female
singers’ activities were particularly supervised by family members,
whose reactions to their performances varied. In some families they
25
Carol Silverman’s research on female singers’ state ensembles in Bulgaria shows
the same practice of women who sang professionally being considered morally defi-
cient and not respected. Her work reveals that many families did not allow their
daughters to join the state ensembles in the 1950s (Silverman 2004: 220).
Photograph 16: Vocal group from Trupale village, Village Gatherings, 1990
(Ilinka Despotović and Sevlija Stanković are third and fourth from the right)
were well accepted, but many women experienced problems, not only
with their husbands but also with their sons and sons-in-law:
He [my son] did not allow me to sing, he was ashamed, he said: “What
will you do there, you just open your mouths like fools.” He threat-
ened me: “Just show up on stage, you’ll see what will happen!” (Sevlija
Stanković, Trupale village)
It was particularly important not to disgrace a family by performing
in public. As Sevlija said, “They were afraid I would shame myself.”
As a result, many female singers did not feel comfortable enough to
accept the organizers’ invitation to participate. As Mirka Jovanović
from Malča recalled:
Yes, I was young and we were ashamed to go. Four out of five of the
officials from the local authorities came to ask my husband to allow me
to sing. I wanted to participate, but the household was big and it was
different from now.
On the other hand, their stories confirm that they were very proud
when the representatives of the local authorities came to their houses
to insist on their participation in organized cultural activities. Mirka
also precisely describes this ambiguous attitude concerning stage per-
formance: when a local organizer from the House of Culture in her
village of Malča sent her a note to come to the local office, Milka was
very concerned: “I was thinking, why me, why is he asking me?” The
local organizer wanted to know from whom she had learned the old
songs, and then he asked her to participate in the Village Gatherings.
When she returned home, her husband was curious about why the
local authority was interested in his wife, and Milka told me that she
was worried. She had a big house and many obligations, and to her it
was not a good idea to agree to participate in the competition. After
much persuasion, she finally agreed to take part, but they still had to
ask her every succeeding year. She told me very proudly that some-
times even four or five men came to ask her to sing. At some point
Milka wanted to quit, but they were insistent, and she kept on per-
forming. At the end of the story, she told me that singing at Village
Gatherings was a very pleasant experience for her. Now she remem-
bered great times spent in travel, and often talked to her grandchildren
about them: “Well, it was OK for me, too, I had a good time. Traveling
and having fun, we went to Đerdap; I was there for three days.”
After the first years of adjusting, community members became more
tolerant toward the female singers’ stage performance. Women told
me that in time, their husbands grew accustomed to watching them
perform in public:
When they saw that it was all right, all became well. This is not anything
special, they just ask: will they pay you for this? (Ilinka Despotović, Tru-
pale village)
Gradually, as organizers confirmed, women who were ashamed to sing
started joining in by themselves:
I went to the village fountain and a woman asked me: “Dragane, can I
sing? I see that it is very beautiful.” And I said: “Yes, but would your
husband allow it?” And she answered: “I will ask him to let me, but
if he doesn’t, you come and ask him.” There were women whose hus-
bands agreed when they talked to them and everything was OK. (Dragan
Todorović, Vukmanovo village)
Through stage performance, by importing new elements to the usual
social behavior, the female singers challenged the patterns of ‘propri-
ety’ and ‘impropriety’ in the rural area of Niško Polje. The stage, as a
center of public activities, provided an opportunity for them to relo-
cate their activity from the periphery to the center of social events
and to gain power in an officially recognized way. In her performative
theory,26 Butler claims that regulatory practices not only represent gen-
der relations, but constitute it, having two functions – representative
and productive. Through the constant repetition of discursive practices
(sets of meaning already socially established), the gender roles are con-
stituted over again through their performance (Butler 1990: 24). The
female singers’ stage performance represented performative acts of
negotiating the existing gender hierarchies in Niško Polje. The social
aspects of stage performance and particularly its transformational
potential appear crucial in understanding the female singers’ activities
as litmus paper for the new gender politics and political changes. As
‘social actions,’ they opened a possibility for transformation of domi-
nant discourses through the re-enactment and re-experiencing of the
existent gender performance.
Within the framework of Village Gatherings as a display of official
discourse, stage performance became one of the important elements
in the construction of socialist femininity in the rural cultural envi-
ronment. This influenced a shift in the representational discourse of
gender, while at the same time subverting the existing concepts and
producing new discourses on women’s cultural role. Did the female
singers import this ‘new role’ into their personal lives? Did the reality
that they staged become legitimate in their communities? Was the imag-
inary line drawn between performance and the everyday overcome?
26
The notion of the term performative was primarily related to theatrical perfor-
mance. John L. Austin conceptualized this term quite differently and defined it as the
nature and potential of a language, where “to say something is to do something” (Bial
2004: 145). Judith Butler combined these two meanings and established the theory of
performativity, by which gender is not a condition which one has, but a social role
which one performs (Bulter 1990: xxv).
27
As a principal reason for their reluctance to sing, women stated mourning. Many
older women in Niško Polje mourned their close or distant relatives and were very
apprehensive about being overheard singing by their neighbors. In accordance with
traditional norms and beliefs, mourning does not allow expression of any kind of
positive emotion in public, particularly singing and dancing which are considered as
expressions of joy.
Photograph 17: Trupale village vocal group before the trip to Macedonia
Jovanović from Gornji Komren told me that she had won first prize
in three villages. She stressed that she had only one worthy opponent
and that was her neighbor, Vera. Ilinka Despotović from Trupale also
talked about her most serious rival, Marijonka:
There were lots of people, me and Miltana and Nastasija, Marijonka and
Radmila and some woman also, six of us. But she, she was unique, no
one could match her. She sang articulately, every word clear. But as she
sang, every word was understandable.
The competitive nature of the occasion was very important in the cre-
ation of the women’s so-called ‘discourse of competency.’ Even though
their goal certainly was not to come close to official circles,28 as a result
of their extraordinary knowledge of folk songs, the female singers began
to be appreciated by cultural workers and authorities as the embodi-
ment of local culture. Their stage performance altered their social sta-
tus and power, giving them a specific position of musical authority:
“Performing at cultural events, particularly at big ones, the members
28
Competition specific to socialism, according to Verdery, was directed toward
achieving a position closer to the privileged circles (Verdery 1991: 424).
of the group became important persons, and the first known experts,
artists and tourists from their environments” (Ceribašić 2003: 20).
The media also played an important role in the construction of the
new self-identification of the female singers. Their performances were
shown on local and national television, broadcast on radio, or pre-
sented in newspapers. All of them showed me the newspaper clippings,
particularly the ones with their pictures. TV shows were a particularly
significant experience as a source of personal gratification. This public
acknowledgment of their talents at the highest level made them feel
like professionals. Ilinka proudly talked about their performances at
Radio-Television of Belgrade:
In Belgrade we barely danced one kolo. You had to turn over to the audi-
ence and cameras, so we hardly persisted. They pursued us very much;
we danced according to the clock, because they had already prepared
the program. First came the News (Dnevnik), and then the rest. But we
performed first.
As indicated in the Introduction, I have not only examined the ways
in which socialist regulatory practices shaped the new notions of fem-
ininity, but also how the female singers themselves mobilized these
practices in their being and doing. I have drawn on Butler’s theory of
performativity, by which politics and power pre-exist at the level on
which the subject and its activities are constructed.29 She suggests that
the subject is not a base or a product but a category constantly open
to being challenged and re-thought, a place of continuous political
impeachment (Butler 1990: 182). Even though the emerging approaches
criticize Butler’s stance of ‘interiority’ as politically regulated, seeing it
as a very deterministic interpretation of processes of individuation and
socialization,30 for both approaches, subjectivity is an achievement that
29
For Butler, ‘right on subject’ or ‘stable subject’ is a fake concept, as every posi-
tion of the subject is produced by politics itself. She sees gender not as a ‘natural’ or
‘essential’ category, but as cultural performance (Butler 1990: 182).
30
Following Seyla Benhabib’s argument, the theory of performativity does not offer
a convincing and profound explanation about the capacity of human factors for self-
determination (Benhabib 1995: 108). Criticizing Butler’s politically regulated ‘interior-
ity,’ scholars claim the existence of an ontological subject who is based on ontological
diversity and not ontological unity. For them, being is radically diverse; difference is
the fundamental principle and differing is the ontological assumption. They give cre-
ative potential to interiority to react to impulses from the environment, where every
situation is potentially unique (Bell 2007: 99). Given the limitations of scope in this
chapter, I cannot even attempt to give a review of all the debates on these questions.
artistic form, but an activity not separate from other forms of com-
munal activity and everyday practices. Despite the institutionalization
of musical activities, the amateur ensembles from the region never
aspired to become professionals, nor were members forced to seek a
professional training or to obtain musical education.1 They did not see
stage performance as orchestrated work, but as a form of leisure activ-
ity, involving creativity, entertainment and socialization. Therefore,
these ‘state-controlled’ or ‘folklorized’ activities became part of villag-
ers’ everyday life, transgressing the firm boundaries between official
‘imposed actions,’ on the one hand, and unofficial personal affinities
and individual participation in the cultural activities, on the other.
Another common interpretation is that socialist folk culture was an
ideological category used by the authorities to showcase moderniza-
tion, or “a deceptive façade of a happy and prosperous rural life, which
helped to disguise the poor reality of peasant life” (Kaneff 2004: 141).
Furthermore, it is seen as a prime tool employed in the nation-build-
ing process in socialist societies (particularly in neighboring Romania
and Bulgaria). In Yugoslav multicultural policy, on the other hand,
folk music was not given such a central place. The country’s opening
to the West and the establishment of popular culture production in
the 1950s resulted in a liberalization of the music market in Yugoslavia
in the late 1950s (Vuletić 2008: 862). The presence of popular Western
genres (particularly Anglo-American and Western-European popular
music) and the growth of the Yugoslav record industry made folk
culture much less important for state ideology than in other socialist
countries. Rather than on folklore, which remained marginalized in
the public arena, the multinational Yugoslav identity was built on the
genres of ‘entertainment music’2 and later on Yugoslav rock. Conse-
quently, village shows such as the Village Gatherings were generally
considered marginal in the public arena, which resulted in a lack of
1
For instance, in Bulgaria, rural musicians acquired the status of specialized state
employees, receiving significant state benefits (such as a state salary, housing and
the right to live in a city, along with opportunities for travel), which significantly
improved their economic and social status (Rice 1996: 170).
2
‘Entertainment music’ is a literary translation of the term zabavna muzika, used
for the genre that can be defined as equivalent to pop or pop-rock music.
3
However, it is important to emphasize that this event started during the 1970s,
when cultural policy in Yugoslavia significantly changed, as elaborated in Chapter
Two.
4
As was the case in Romania, Bulgaria, and Stalin’s Soviet Union (see Radulescu
1997: 208; Stere 2003: 85; Olson 2004: 41; Buchanan 2006: 135).
socialisms and their diverse, often dissonant faces, which are neglected
in the one-dimensional interpretations of the socialist state as rigid
and centralized. By showing the intricate interplay of the personal, the
interpersonal and the political in the realm of musical performance, I
hope that this book has achieved that goal and provided a multifaceted
picture of socialism as experienced by my interlocutors.
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Archival Resources
Electronic Resources
I Opšte Odredbe
Član 1
Takmičenje sela Srbije organizuje se sa ciljem da se oceni stanje i
omogući brži razvoj poljoprivrede na selu, stvore bolji životni uslovi,
obogati kulturni život, proizvodnja u nepoljoprivrednim delatnostima,
zdravstvena, komunalna i druga aktivnost poljoprivrednog i seoskog
stanovništva.
Član 2
U Takmičenju sela mogu da učestvuju sva seoska naselja sa teritorije
Republike Srbije.
Akciji doprinose i sve organizacije čija je delatnost usmerena
na razvoj sela (poljoprivredni kombinati, zemljoradničke zadruge,
privatno preduzetništvo, zadružni savezi, privredne komore, proiz-
vodna preduzeća poljoprivrednih mašina i poljoprivrednih proizvoda;
naučne, kulturne, obrazovne, zdravstvene ustanove; sredstva javnog
informisanja).
II Sadržina Takmičenja
Član 3
U okviru aktivnosti na razvijanju poljoprivredne proizvodnje, u
unapređivanju društvenog i životnog standarda na selu u kulturno-
obrazovnoj aktivnosti i zaštiti i unapređivanju čovekove sredine.
Takmičenje sela Srbije organizuje se u opštini, regiji, odnosno okrugu,
pokrajini i Republici.
Sela se takmiče prvenstveno u delatnostima:
Član 4
1. U oblasti poljoprivredne proizvodnje sela će se takmičiti u sledećem:
a. Korišćenje zemljišta
c. Organizovanje zemljoradnika
Član 5
2. U oblasti obrazovanja i vaspitanja, sela će se takmičiti:
Član 6
3. U izgrdanji i uređivanju naselja, sela će se takmičiti:
Član 7
4. U kulturnim aktivnostima sela će se takmičiti:
Član 8
5. U okviru zaštite i unapređenja čovekove sredine sela će se takmičiti:
Član 9
Završne smotre su organizovani oblici iskazivanja i saopštavanja rezu-
ltata postignutih u svim oblastima u jednoj takmičarskoj godini.
U okviru smotri mogu se organizovati razgovori i savetovanja po
pojedinim temama, razne vrste izložbi, dramski programi, literarne
večeri, muzičke i folklorne priredbe, sportske aktivnosti.
Završne smotre organizuju se u opštini, regiji odnosno okrugu,
Pokrajini i Republici.
Program završne smotre utvrđuju odbori Takmičenja sela.
Vreme i mesto održavanja završne smotre Takmičenja sela Srbije
utvrđuje Koordinacioni odbor Takmičenja sela Srbije na osnovu pre-
dloga i uslova koje ponude regioni.
O programu, mestu i vremenu održavanja završnih smotri obave-
štavanju se sredstva javnog informisanja.
IV Priznanja I Nagrade
Član 10
Sela koja su osvojila I, II i III mesto u Republici dobijaju zlatnu, sre-
brnu i bronzanu plaketu sa likom Vuka Stefanovića Karadžića, rad
vajara Nebojše Mitrića.
Pobednik Takmičenja sela Srbije stiče pravo da se kandiduje za
Vukovu nagradu.
Opštinski, odnosno regionalni odbori Takmičenja sela i druge
organizacije dodeljuju određene vrste priznanja selima pobednicima
opština i regija.
Član 11
Prvoplasirana sela na svim nivoima Takmičenja dobijaju nagrade.
Nagrade prvoplasiranim selima u opštini dodeljuju opštinski odbori
Takmičenja sela i druge zainteresovane ogranizacije.
Član 12
Odluka o broju i vrstama nagrada i priznanja za rezultate postignute
u pojedinim oblastima donosi Koordinacioni odbor Takmičenja sela
Srbije na predlog zainteresovanih organizacija.
O vrsti nagrada i priznanja kao i o uslovima sticanja obaveštavaju
se, blagovremeno, regionalni i opštinski odbori.
Pojedinačna priznanja i nagrade dodeljuju se na osnovu odluke
Ocenjivačke komisije.
V Organizacija Takmičenja
Član 13
Opštinsko takmičenje sela je obaveza i uslov za učestvovanje u
Takmičenju sela Srbije.
Član 14
Neposredni nosilac akcije u opštini je Odbor opštinskog takmičenja
sela.
Član 15
Mandat članova Odbora traje četiri godine.
Član 16
Odbor opštinskog takmičenja sela imenuje Ocenjivačku komisiju koja
prati i vrednuje rezultate u jednoj takmičarskoj godini na osnovu
pravilnika o radu ocenjivačke komisije.
Član 17
Ocenjivačka komisija sastavljena od istaknutih kulturnih, prosvetnih
radnika, lekara, agronoma, arhitekata, etnologa, profesora muzike i
javnih radnika broji 5 do 7 članova.
Član 18
Neposredni nosilac akcije Takmičenje sela u opštini je opštinska
kulturno-prosvetna zajednica ili odgovarajuća kulturna organizacija.
Član 19
Selo koje postigne najbolje rezultate, za sveukupnu aktivnost, na
opštinskom takmičenju sela stiče pravo učestvovanja na regionalnom
takmičenju sela.
Član 20
Regionalno takmičenje organizuje Odbor regionalnog takmičenja sela.
Član 21
Ocenjivačka komisija regionalnog takmičenja sela, obilazi sela pobe-
dnike opštinskih takmičenja, upoznaje se sa rezultatima i donosi odluku
o selu pobedniku regiona i pobednicima u pojedinačnim oblastima.
Član 22
Prvoplasirana sela u regionalnim takmičenjima stiču pravo učestvovanja
u Takmičenju sela Srbije.
Član 23
Na završnoj smotri Takmičenja sela Srbije učestvuju sela koja su osvojila
prvo mesto za sveukupnu aktivnost na regionalnom takmičenju sela.
Član 24
Sela koja su stekla pravo učestvovanja na Takmičenju sela Srbije obilazi
Ocenjivačka komisija Takmičenja sela Srbije, upoznaje se sa rezulta-
tima i donosi odluku o pobedniku Takmičenju sela Srbije, kao i odluke
o nagradama za pojedine oblasti.
Član 25
Ocenjivačka komisija radi na osnovu Pravilnika o radu ocenjivačkih
komisija i ovog Pravilnika.
Član 26
Ocenjivačka komisija Takmičenja sela Srbije saopštava odluke i
proglašava pobednika na završnoj smotri.
Član 27
Materijalna sredstva za organizovanje Takmičenja obezbeđuju se
posebnim ugovorima o finansiranju Takmičenja sela koji potpisuju
zainteresovana preduzeća u privredi, ustanove u oblasti kulture, obra-
zovanja, zdravstva i fondovi.
Član 28
Ukupne rezultate akcija i završne smotre u selu, opštini, regionu i
Republici prate i popularišu sredstva javnog informisanja (TV, radio,
štampa).
Član 29
Takmičenje vodi i uputstva za primenu odredaba ovog Pravilnika i
Pravilnika o radu Ocenjivačke komisije daje Koordinacioni odbor
Takmičena sela Srbije.
Član 30
Izmene i dopune ovog Pravilnika donosi Koordinacioni odobor
Takmičenja sela Srbije.
Član 31
Ovaj Pravilnik stupa na snagu narednog dana od donošenja na sednici
Koordinacionog odbora Takmičenja sela Srbije, a primenjivaće se od
15. IV 1991. Godine.
KOORDINACIONI ODBOR
TAKMIČENJA SELA SRBIJE
I Opšte Odredbe
Član 1
Rezultat ukupne aktivnosti sela u jednoj takmičarskoj godini vrednuje
ocenjivačka komisije Takmičenja sela Srbije, odnosno regionalnog i
opštinskog Takmičenja
Član 2
Ocenjivačku komisiju Takmičenja sela Srbije imenuje Koordinacioni
odbor Takmičenja sela Srbije. Ocenjivačku komisiju regionalnog
Takmičenja sela imenuje odbor regionalnog Takmičenja, ocenjivačku
komisiju opštinskog Takmičenja sela imenuje odbor opštinskog
Takmičenja sela.
Član 3
Članovi komisije (republičkog, regionalnog i opštinskog Takmičenja
sela) treba da budu imenovani iz redova kulturnih i javnih radnika,
umetnika, istaknutih radnika iz oblasti obrazovanja, poljoprivrede,
zdravstva, komunalnih delatnosti i sl. Ocenjivačka komisija broji od
5–7 članova. Komisija iz svojih redova bira predsednika komisije.
Član 4
Ocenjivačka komisija vrednuje rezultate određenim brojem bodova.
Komisija donosi jedinstvenu ocenu, a saopštava je predsednik komisije
ili za to ovlašćeno lice na završnoj smotri.
Član 5
Ocenjivačka komisija vrednuje rezultate koje je selo postiglo, sledećim
brojem bodova:
a. Korišćenje zemljišta
c. Organizovanje zemljoradnika
DO 300 BODOVA
Član 6
2. U oblasti obrazovanja i vaspitanja, sela će se takmičiti:
DO 200 BODOVA
Član 7
3. U izgrdanji i uređivanju naselja, sela će se takmičiti:
DO 200 BODOVA
Član 8
4. U kulturnim aktivnostima sela će se takmičiti:
DO 200 BODOVA
Član 8
5. U okviru zaštite i unapređenja čovekove sredine sela će se takmičiti:
DO 200 BODOVA
Član 11
Jednogodišnju aktivnost sela komisija vrednuje na osnovu doku-
mentacije koja se dostavlja članovima komisije i konkretnog uvida u
rezultate.
Ocena komisije je konačna
Član 12
Ovaj Pravilnik usvojen je 8. Aprila 1991. godine na sastanku Koordi-
nacionog odbora Takmičenja sela Srbije, a primenjuje se od 15. Aprila
1991. Godine.
KOORDINACIONI ODBOR
TAKMIČENJA SELA SRBIJE
– Song Đurđevdan
– Children’s dance
– Guitar players
– ‘Entertainment music’ orchestra
– Dance group
– Player on okarina
– Children’s folklore group, dances from Šumadija