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Zuzana Profantová, ed. Traditional Culture as a Part of the Cultural 
Heritage of Europe. The Presence and Perspective of Folklore and 
Folkloristics (Etnologické Štúdie 8). Bratislava: Institute of the 
Ethnology of Slovak Academy of Sciences, 2003. 140 pp. ISBN: 80-
89069-09-6. 
 

During the Soviet era, the United States and the Soviet Union, with 
its Soviet Bloc countries, differed in their respective definitions of what 
constituted folklore. In the former communist nations, folklore was 
defined narrowly as oral literature, folk music, and folk dance. In the 
United States, many genres and traditions that were either ignored or 
placed under the domain of ethnography or ethnology in the communist 
bloc countries were categorized as folklore. Examples include, among 
others, studies of material culture, such as pottery, and modern genres, 
such as graffiti, which Berkeley folklorist Alan Dundes dubbed 
“latrinalia.” 

Since the fall of the Soviet Union and the demise of communism, 
Russia and the former Bloc nations have struggled to adapt to changes in 
ideology, in government, in lifestyle, and in worldview. Under the 
influence of globalization and westernization, people and countries have 
been required to change. The old definition of folklore has come under 
scrutiny and has been found to be too narrow to accommodate a global, 
modern, technological age. Lively discussions have ensued regarding 
challenges and definitions.  

In Traditional Culture as a Part of the Cultural Heritage of Europe, 
Zuzana Profantová has edited a compendium of articles that explore the 
challenges that a modern age brings to defining, recording, and archiving 
folklore for posterity. The articles grew out of an October 25, 2002 
conference in Bratislava that was inspired by UNESCO’s “Convention 
on the Protection of the World Cultural and Natural Heritage” (1972). In 
“Past, Present, and Future of the 1989 UNESCO Recommendation on the 
Safeguarding of Folklore in Memory of Lauri Honko,” Vilmos Voigt 
traces the history and political ploys involved in the eventual passing of 
the resolution that was initially written jointly by Lauri Honko of 
Finland, Voigt of Hungary, and Ralph Rinser of the Smithsonian. 
UNESCO folklorists were intent on creating a document on “how to 
conduct and protect fieldwork, archives, publication and dissemination of 
genuine folklore,” how to deal with copyright issues, and how to 
distinguish between folklore, fakelore, and folklorisms (21).  

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Radost Ivanova writes about the modernization of Bulgarian 
folklore (“Processes of Modernization in the Folklore Tradition”), 
Wigdis Espeland writes about Norwegian identity (“Folklore on Stage: 
Identity in Local, National and International Context”), and Ilona Nagy 
explores the influence of the computer on the results of the 2002 
Hungarian elections (“Folklore in Statu Nascendi—Hungarian Election 
2002”).  Most of the twenty articles address Slovakia’s challenges. Hana 
Hlôšková traces the academic development of the study of folklore in 
“Teaching Folkloristics at Universities in Slovakia.” She states that in 
Slovakia folkloristics is a part of ethnology since it addresses the 
evolution of folklore, its performers, content, and form (45). Until 1991 
an education in ethnology was offered only at the Faculty of Arts at 
Comenius University in Bratislava. Folkloristics dealt with oral folklore, 
and folk music studies were a branch of musicology. Hlôšková places 
into historical context the names of great scholars, such as Karel Chotek, 
Piotr Grigorievič Bogatyriov, Jiři Polívka, and Andrej Melicherčik. At 
present, the Department of Ethnology is headed by Milan Leščák. 

Juraj Hamar discusses problems connected with the presentation of 
folklore on stage in “Folklore on Stage in Politics and the Media.” He 
complains that the state no longer sponsors groups on the basis of merit 
as it did earlier, and therefore monetary considerations predominate. This 
leads to a noticeable lowering of artistic level and the replacement of 
traditional groups with groups that have mass appeal. He states that the 
idea that folklore was the puppet of communism is a sad legacy of 
totalitarianism that has led to the discrediting of folklore by the 
intelligentsia (67). Ivan Murín continues the theme in “On the Problem 
of Movement and Dance Analysis in Contemporary Fieldwork Records.” 
Dance has undergone modern transformations, but residues of folk dance 
can be found at weddings, at Maypole dances, and at Shrovetide. Murín 
suggests that computer analysis and virtual modeling are a starting point 
for analyzing dance transformations.  

In “The Heritage of Folk Prose in Modern Fantastic Fiction,” 
Ondrej Herec lends a Jungian interpretation of folk prose and speculative 
fabulation, which encompasses the genres of science fiction, horror, and 
fantasy. He refers to the commercialization of fandom with 
accompanying computer games, TV series, toys, films, and other 
products that have transformed the medium from written word to other 
forms.  

In a study of WWI narratives (“Shifted Focuses? Thematic Studies 
of Oral Narratives in Contemporary Folkloristics”) Gabriela Kiliánová 

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has found that, since the end of the 1960s, WWI stories about the 
experiences of ordinary men and women have disappeared in Slovakia 
and have been replaced with WWII stories. WWI hastened social 
changes, leading, for example, to the emancipation of women. Slovakian 
stereotypes of heaven and hell are explored by Helena Tužinská in 
“Decoupled Cognition. Example of Mental Representations of Heaven 
and Hell.” In her opinion, concepts of heaven are hedonistic, ascetic, or 
ambivalent, and concepts of hell are spiritual or a mix of natural and 
spiritual,l with emphasis on hell as a place of punishment. 

The authors of several articles discuss genre classification and 
changing definitions of familiar terms, such as ethnography, ethnology, 
and folkloristics. (Milan Leščák in Neue Situation und Alte Offene 
Fragen der Folkloristik” and Ingo Schneider in “Folkloristics, 
Volkskunde, European Ethnology in Changing World. Some Remarks on 
Presence and Future of Our Disciplines”). Schneider gives an example of 
Hip Hop as a modern system of meaning, tracing it back to rap. Zuzana 
Galiová states that Slovak folklorists are just beginning to record and 
compile genres, such as urban legends and rumors, and to explore ways 
of analyzing the material. She urges folklorists to begin thinking about 
changes in genre classifications. Dana Bittnerová discusses the 
relationship of written folklore to oral folklore in “Replication of Written 
Texts in Various Genres of Written Folklore.” She covers written 
folklore and its pictorial aspect among young people, the military, and 
among adults (graffiti and internet folklore). In “The Relation of Verbal 
and Technical Forms of Communication” Marija Stanonik focuses on 
how technology has affected communication throughout its various 
stages: phonograph, tape recorder, video technology, and electronic 
media. She concludes that impersonal media messages on the computer 
and cell phone have replaced intimate handwritten messages. 

There are a few misspellings and awkward translations into English, 
apparent even in the titles, but the collection of articles is interesting 
because it highlights the process that folklorists of the former communist 
nations are undergoing in redefining folklore to include new genres. The 
collapse of a totalitarian system, coupled with the advances of a 
technological age, has necessitated an expansion of the old concept of 
“classical” folklore. 

 
Bonnie Marshall 
Meredith, NH