Thirty-three years of Family Transformation (Research - Reactions - Prospects)

The authoress discusses a pre-war survey of the Yugoslav rural family which she carried out during the period of the world-wide economic depression and harsh political coniditions within Yugoslavia. There was much enthusiasm, however, among young people, especially teachers, to help »the village«. As an acknowledged psychologist and scientific writer, and as the wife of a prominent physician, the authoress had a relatively independent position and good opportunities for couritry- -wide research. First students and then teachers approached her with the request to investigate family relations. Without official support or financial funds, large- -scale investigations were carried out which continued for four years and involved nearly 400 interviewers. Most of these were teachers, in a race against time, tried to save a maximum of records about traditional rural life before the rising war tide. When the Second World War broke out, the authoress succeeded in rescuing most of the material and taking it out of occupied Yugoslavia. She brought the material to the United States where she obtained assistance for further work on it. In 1966, the Princeton University Press published The Family in Transition — A Study of 300 Yugoslav Villages which has become a textbook of anthropological and Slavic study departments at American and British universities. In Yugoslavia the study was published by Naprijed, Zagreb in 1964 under the title Porodiva u transformaciji — Studija u 300 jugoslavenskih sela and is now used as a textbook for sociological and anthropological courses at universities. The authoress deals with some of the problems which have emerged since the war, including the improved position of the woman, the worsening position of old people within the family and the community, and the crude material interests which have recently begun to prevail in family relations. In conclusion she suggests shifting the emphasis of family research towards investigations of emotional ties within the family and giving more attention to cultural traditions in individual regions