engleski

A Hidden Pot of Charm Scholarship: The History of Critical Reflection on Charms in Croatian Folkloristics

There is a long history of recorded verbal charms in Croatian culture before the official institutionalization of ethnology and folkloristics: from medieval Glagolitic codices and manuscripts up to texts recorded during the Croatian National Revival in the 19th century. The first scholarly reflections on the subject appeared in the second part of the 19th century, when the great ethnographic collections were made. Charms were regularly incorporated in the sections concerning folk beliefs and superstitions while scholars themselves were influenced by the ideas of Enlightenment. The landmark publication in Croatian ethnology and folkloristics was Questionnaire for Collecting and Studying Material on Folk Life (1897) by Antun Radić. From that point onward it is possible to trace changes in the scholarly approaches to the subject of charms, charmers and charming. The first decades of the 20th century saw an increased interest in publicizing material from old manuscripts and the methodology was dominated by textual and philological criticism. In the second half of the 20th century charms were recognized as one of the rhetorical genres, along with counting-out rhymes, tongue-twisters, curses, blessings and toasts. This important innovation paved the way for many different methodological approaches: from rhetorical criticism and stylistics to pragmatics. The classical folkloristic approach continued to be fruitful, especially in the research of the folk prayer as a genre which incorporated most of the traditional charm motifs and strategies. Besides offering a historical review, this paper tries to show how Croatian folklorists were influenced by contemporary research on charms in Europe and the United States. Although a reversal of influence did not occur, current charm scholars could benefit from insights into the relatively rich tradition of Croatian research on charms, charmers and charming.

charm ; Croatian folkloristics ; folk belief ; folk prayer ; rhetorical genre

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