SOME METHODOLOGICAL PROBLEMS OF THE REPEATED ETHNOLOGICAL INVESTIGATIONS OF SERBIAN CULTURE IN KOSSOVO AND METOHIA

Abstract

The Ethnographic Board of the Serbian Academy of Sciences and Arts Social Science Department initiated in 1988 the work on the project “Ethnological and Demographic Investigation of Kossovo”. The author of this contribution has taken part in the reconnaisance research in Serbian villages around Pristina and Lipljan, gathering data on ritual acts concerning critical moments in an individual`s life. During her investigations of short duration there emerged, however, one new and unexpected methodlological problem: namely, some data on customs following the individual`s life cycle are completely absent althouth they were fond 80 years ago (monopgraph by the priest-ethnographer, Dena Debeljković). Taking into consideration all possible reasons for these gaps and changes, the authors upposes that they have neither disappeared of got transfofrmend over an extended period of time (innovation or modernization of customs), nor, contrary to the suggestions proposed by some researchers of Kossovo, they could be explained as the result of population movements and shifts, for these villages are still inhabited by the native Serbian people. The author allows for, in some cases, the phenomenon of “ethnomimiery”, found in these regions already by Jovan Cvijić, and which could still  be practiced today, under the conditions of brutal assaults and various pressure the Serbs are subjected to in these areas (owing to the anti-Serbian policy and giving priority to the Albanian minority). However, the author believes the main cause to be the inadequate methodology of the former ethnographic research as well as, of many contemporary ones, that failed to distinguish between two levels of reality in the traditional culture: the “imagined” and “realized” orders of phenomena, relations and concepts. By citing some methodological positions of foreign researches, the author points out that it is necessary to accept such a differentiation of rality in further ethnological investigations of Kossovo and Metohia, which can no longer be postponed.