Traces of social life in Bećarci from Drežnica

• Main Author: Ćupurdija Branko
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: Institute of Ethnography, SASA, Belgrade 2016-01-01
• Series: Glasnik Etnografskog Instituta SANU
• Subjects: bećarac; singing and dancing manner; social life; Drežnica; Bajmok
• Online Access: http://www.doiserbia.nb.rs/img/doi/0350-0861/2016/0350-08611602405C.pdf
• ISSN: 0350-0861; 2334-8259

Firstly, the identification of folk dances and pair dances of Serbian population on the border between Gorski kotar, Lika, and the Croatian Littoral has been performed. As it turned out, in the period between the two world wars and some fifteen years later this population knew 15 folk dances and 7 pair dances, among which was bećarac. Between 1989 and 2015, 29 bećarac dances were discovered in Drežnica, Bajmok, and Subotica, where many people from Drežnica settled after World War II. Secondly, the information on songs recordings and the names of song tellers, singers and dancers are given here. In addition, certain characteristics of the manner of singing and dancing are indicated here on the descriptive, verbal level, as well as the social oblivion which prevailed upon bećarac in both old and new surroundings and the attempt of its renewal. As it turns out, these songs tell about the physical appearance and habits of a bećar and a bećaruša, their social life (country gatherings, families, taverns), possible tensions and animosities between certain people and poverty of their families. All this is often presented in a cheerful and humorous manner. In this work, primarily because, in a way, ojkan and bećarac function as a system of adjoint dishes, a belief is stated that a systematization of social motifs on which ojkan from Drežnica is based upon could put a new light on the knowledge about bećarac and the social poetics which lies in its foundations.