Mokranjac in the works of his successors - from the citation imitation to the citation polemics

Using the interdisciplinary approach to Stevan Mokranjac’s Garlands [Rukoveti] and his successors in the Serbian choral music after World War II, while simultaneously relying on Dubravka Oraić Tolić’s Theory of Citation (1990), I have continued the work of distinguished scholars in the field of Serbian postwar music and their diverse analytical experiences. Whilst critically evaluating the existing analytical interpretations, in this article I have pointed to the alternative solutions and interpretations of the relevant issues of the organisation of the musical flow of Garlands and related formal types in almost all relevant musicotextual segments. Departing from the problems posed by the phenomena of intertextuality and citational procedures as elaborated by Dubravka Oraić Tolić, in this article I focus on their different embodiments as established in the relation between Stevan Mokranjac’s Garlands and garlands and similar forms of the second half of the 20th century; I also specify analytical methods and their creative application on the analysis of individual choral works. During this process, certain different types of the intertexual communication in the garlands written by members of different generations required more precise definition, i.e. additions and redefining of the existing terminology of the theory of citations, and an introduction of new terms. The selected analysed sample incorporates both the works that nowadays constitute the basis of the choral concert repertoire, and the works which are nowadays mostly neglected and not so attractive to performers and music theorists.Analytical issues discussed in this study have repeatedly pointed to the importance of Stevan Mokranjac’s Garlands as a paradigm for the authors of the second half of the 20th century, and repeated the vitality of his creative contributions to Serbian music. This has, in turn, reinforced the common knowledge on the work of Mokranjac as the fundament for the development of contemporary Serbian music