Two years after the first book “Austro-Hungarian Monarchy in Word and Image: Slovenes 1, Styria, Porabje and Prekmurje, Carinthia” (2016) has been published, is now out also the second book: ...“Austro-Hungarian Monarchy in Word and Image: Slovenes 2”, presenting Kranjska (Carniola) and Primorje (Coastal region). Both books make the whole picture of Slovenes as included in the monumental book series “Die österreichisch-ungarische Monarchie in Wort und Bild” which was projected by the archeduke Rudolf and was published between 1884–1902. Translated are the chapters which discuss life, culture and economy of Slovenes living in Austro-Hungarian monarchy. Prevailing are the ethnographical descriptions of the regions, the presentation of inhabitants and their position in the context of the Austro-Hungarian monarchy and other countries of that time. The authors are of different profiles and interests, and their studies are important sources for Slovenian culture and economy which was up till now too often overlooked.
In this book are published folktales and legends from Porabje / Rába-vidék which were recorded in 1970 by Milko Matičetov on magnetic tapes. The material has been for many decades stored in the ...archive of the Institute of Slovenian Ethnology ZRC SAZU in Ljubljana. It was only with the help of the experts from Porabje, well-versed in these dialects, that it was possible to publish the recordings.Presented are 238 narrative units, transcribed from tapes in a simplified dialectal transcript. All of the texts are also published in the standard Slovenian language. Two narratives are transcribed in the phonetic dialectological transcription. Added is CD with the recordings of 13 folktales in both varieties of Rába dialect (from Apátistvánfalva and Felsoszölnök district). The introductory section includes studies addressing the development of the narrative culture of Slovenes in Porabje, their language and brief history, as well as a presentation of the storytellers who had narrated these folktales and legends to Milko Matičetov. The folktales have been included in the international database, in accordance with the existing scientific international typology, and are therefore available for further comparative research. This book preserves narrative tradition of Slovenes in Rába-vidék, and is of particular importance to young people, who often no longer speak in the vernacular language.
The monograph La religiosità popolare in Val Canale: Il teschio lavato e avvolto nel panno (Popular piety in the Canale Valley: The skull that is washed and wrapped in cloth) is re-writed and updated ...version of Slovenian monograph Ljudska religioznost v Kanalski dolini: O umiti in v prt zaviti lobanji (2014). The book illustrates the festive year of Slovenes in the Canale Valley from the perspective of current ritualistic practices (still in use today). The identifying elements of the Slovenian linguistic community are recognizable in the implementation of various (popular) religious practices by the local population. The author presents the rituals (with selected prayer formulas), described as an integral part of their life by Slovenian-speaking informants - all of whom are indigenous, native people of the Canale Valley - that was described, from the point of view of experts in the fields (e.g. Kuret 1989) as typical of the Slovenian community in general.
The book ('From the Invisible Side of the Sky') talks about the Old Faith religion (Non-Christian faith), Old Faith people as well as about the Old Faith as a way of life which was known to our ...ancestors, before they were Christianized. However, it does not describe something that was alive just a thousand years ago, but it attests life in the 19th and 20th century, here, among us. Pavel Medvešček, half a century ago, managed to win the trust of the Old Faith people in the Soča valley (western Slovenia). He was accepted as their “confessor” and speaker. In doing so, they were led by an awareness that they are the last of their kind and have a unique opportunity to tell the world who they are and how they live in a way that is dying out. In medieval and early modern writings there are descriptions of the Old Faith in Europe, but their authors were Christians, mostly even Christian priests. They were necessarily deficient informed, their story biased, pejorative, mocking, their image of the Old Faith inevitably completely distorted. Through Medvešček as a writer, in the book the Old Faith people themselves talk about themselves. This did not succeed ever before and elsewhere, because they constantly have to hide and to pretend. It is this 'inner voice' which gives the book an incomparable, unique value of utmost importance, especially in an increasingly wilder, globalized world.
The book 'In the moonlight glow. Outlines of mythic characters in the villages of Lokev and Prelože in the context of Slavic mythology' is a rarity on the European scale in the field of pre-Christian ...beliefs. What makes it so valuable is that it is a first-hand record of these beliefs, as they were told to the author by people close to him, grandmothers, grandfathers and villagers, who preserved their old-faith beliefs and rituals until the last century. The book is therefore an inexhaustible source of old- faith practices, beliefs, sacred places and other folklore traditions in the villages Lokev, Prelože and their immediate neighborhood. As such, it is one of the main sources of study in Slavic mythology, as well as in general and monument to the integration of karst-nature and its people.
Focusing on Slovenian mythology the book contains a review of Slovenian mythological, historical, and narrative material. Over 150 supernatural beings are presented, both lexically and according to ...the role that they have in Slovenian folklore. They are classified by type, characteristic, features, and by the message conveyed in their motifs and contents. The material has been analysed in the context of European and some non-European mythological concepts, and the author deals with theory and interpretations as well as the conclusions of domestic and foreign researchers. The book forms new starting points and a classification of supernatural beings within a frame of a number of sources, some of which have been published for the first time in this book.
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