Vol.2, No 9, 2002 pp. 359 - 360
LEGENDS AND TRADITION,
Radoslav Radenković, PhD, Svrljig, 2000
Published in 2000 as a separate edition, the fifth volume of Cultural Heritage
of Svrljig is titled Legends and Tradition and contains a selection from
the manuscript collection by Radoslav Radenković, PhD.
The book published by Radoslav Radenković, PhD, professor emeritus
of the Faculty of Philosophy in Niš, represents a logical continuation
of his long-lasting activities in collecting and studying the folklore
treasury of the Southeast Serbia. Although his main interest was focused
on almost all the genres of traditional literature (stories, legends and
traditional folk tales, folk lyric and epic poetry, poems and stories for
children), professor Radenković has not neglected the problems pertaining
to the theory and history of litera-ture, as well.
His persistent work on writing down and investigating almost forgotten
traditional in-heritance of the people of South Serbia resulted in voluminous
collections of folk stories, legends and traditional tales. His manuscript
collection contains about 700 items, but pro-fessor Radenković has selected
for this book only the legends and traditional tales re-corded in the area
of Svrljig and its surroundings, as the editorial policy and nature of
the Project "Cultural Heritage of Svrljig" imposed such criteria. Related
information may be found in The Editorial Note in the book.
The material published in this book had been collected for almost thirty
years, so it re-flects the continuity and development of this type of folk
prose. Alongside with professor Radenković's recordings, the collection
contains parts taken from previously published Lapot and Anathema
in Serbs by Sima Trojanović, Mythology, Magic and Customs by Sreten Petrović,
The Principality of Serbia and the Kingdom of Serbia by Milan Dj. Milićević,
On Beliefs and Customs in Svrljig by Aleksa Vasiljević, as well as the
record-ings of A. Vasiljević, D. K. Jovanović and Radivoj Agatonović published
formerly in the journals Delo, Glasnik SUD and Bosanska vila.
The material presented in this book is classified into the following
chapters: Legends about the places in the Svrljig region; Legends
about the places in the immediate envi-ronment of Svrljig; Tradition from
Svrljig and its surroundings; Tradition from wider Svrljig environment
(this chapter is subdivided according to the topics and motives into: On
Prince Lazar; On buried treasure; On lapot).
The book also includes indexes of personal names and places, an index
of narrators, a map of the Svrljig region and numerous observations of
nature, origin and classification of legends and tradition, as well as
valuable data on the material collecting process (work in the field), on
editorial procedures, the influence of social factors upon the changes
in unwritten literature and so on.
In the foreword, the author pointed out basic characteristics of this
type of oral prose, having accepted its classification in legends (of places
and persons) and tradition, where his definition of tradition differs to
a certain extent as compared to other researchers and theoreticians that
have dealt with this kind of literature.
Emphasizing the diversity of thematic and motivational levels of legends
and tradi-tion, R. Radenković has divided legends of places into several
thematic circles "for the sake of easier studying": religious and mythical
legends, legends of places whose names are related to supernatural beings,
legends characteristic of Turkish violence, legends of the defense of maiden
virtue, legends of battles and resistance, legends of enchanted treasure,
legends of persons whose names or adventures had been given to certain
places, legends of romance, humorous legends, etc.
According to the author, such thematic and motivational diversity is
not characteristic of the legends about people "that represent a symbiosis
of the religious, mythical and historical".
The topics, motives and contents of the material gathered in the closer
and wider ter-ritory of Svrljig classify these oral creations into the
international repertoire of topics and motives. The collection contains
the legends of enchanted treasure, miraculous birth, rit-ual killing of
old people, as well as of "the origin of certain things" (How the Mole
Came into Being; A Dog Saved the Wheat; God, Hedgehog and Bee; etc.). All
of them obvi-ously belong to the general national oral-narrative repertoire.
The recordings published in R. Radenković's book Legends and Tradition
illustrate one genre of the traditional literature in the region of Svrljig
and represent a valuable material for various further research to be carried
out by different methodological, critical and scientific approaches.
Danijela Popović
