FOLK SONGS ABOUT THE PELJEŠAC SEAMEN

The author has been publishing several hitherto unknown song from the region of the ex-community of Orebić on the Pelješac peninsula. These environs abound in folk poetry some songs of which the author has already published besides other collectors cited here in the footnote. Orebić, the neighbouring villages and the Pelješac peninsula as a whole, developed its seamanship chiefly from 17th to the end of 19th century. Some families owned sailing ships so that in 1865 in Orebić they founded the Pelješac Maritime Company, which constructed thirtythree transatlantic sailing ships. It is quite natural that in these part — where epic and lyrical folk songs and satirical ones, as well, were very popular — poetry, drawing its materials from seamen’s lives, developed. These songs were composed in their Croatian mother tongue by unindentified versifiers of both sexes, men being most often seamen. They sing about their experiences at sea, seamen’s hardships, separation from their native soil, storms and sea winds. The author collected these songs before the second world war obtaining information either from old women and seamen or copying them from old records. Unfortunately, today they have disappeared altogether due to the rapid dvelopment of this region. As they are important for the study of that period of life, customs, and local speeches the author has recorded them in this work