THE ROLE OF TRADITIONAL CULTURE IN CONTEMPORARY SOCIETY

The hypothesis advanced in this study is that patterns of traditional culture are present in the contemporary socio-cultural system in Yugoslavia. New socio-anthropological research seems to point towards an impact of traditional culture on behavior of individuals as well as groups, often on unexpected levels. Interesting differences can be observed, for instance, in saving behavior in different constituent republics; private savings in Slovenia and Macedonia are proportionally higher than in other republics or regions. Although saving behavior in Slovenia may be explained by a more advanced level of economic development, it is not the case in Macedonia, which is one of the less developed republics. There exists ethnographic evidence of the fact of greater propensity to money saving in traditional Macedonian culture, even during the Turkish occupation. Or to take another example: an analysis of folk poetry about the sea points to a differentiation of two value orientations — a continental one and a maritime one. The former, characterized by a failure to understand the sea intimately, had a strong impact on the maritime policies of the country between the two wars and after the World War Two. Consequently, Yugoslavia, although a maritime country, lacked, until recently, an effective maritime policy. Other indications of the presence of aspects of traditional culture in contemporary society are analyzed, among others conflicts over pasture land between nomadic herdsmen and local peasants, well-known in the past, occuring each autumn and involving even modern institutions. The topic was debated in the croat parliament in 1968. In this context, attitudes of the contemporary urban society towards traditional culture are indicative. During the last 30 or 35 years the importance attached to traditional culture has varied, ranging from its acceptance during the national war of liberation, which was conducted within the framework of peasant culture, to its negation immediatedly after the war and its gradual revitalization in recent times. An analysis of mass culture, in the second part of the study, is meant to contribute to an understanding of the continuity of traditional culture. The problem of »folklorismus« is also seen as a way of adaptation of rural migrants to the new enviroment and to urban culture (»new« folk songs, folk festivals, revitalization of traditional singing groups — klape). It seems that the most popular television shows (even of foreign production) are those which have the structure of folk tales and riddles, or those written in a specific dialect. To an educated ear or eye, some of the adaptations of traditional folk culture to mass culture appear deviant, unartistic. Therefore, that part of mass culture which is linked with the traditional is approved by the broad audiences and disapproved by the intellectuals, experts or critics. It is for these reasons, in the author\u27s view, that the transformation of the contemporary socio-cultural system cannot be properly understood without socio-anthropological study