Project facts
Presentation
Since 2016, Association Ecomusem Bistra has been working on safeguarding, researching and presenting the cultural (tangible and intangible), natural and spiritual values of the Bistra region, placed in the northwestern part of Croatia.
With aim to preserve and digitaze traditional (oral) culture of Bistra region, Association conducted two projects:
1. “e-Scrapbook: Popularisation and Preservation of Traditional Culture of Bistra” / “e-Spomenar: popularizacija i očuvanje tradicijske kulture Bistre” (2022)
The purpose of the project was to popularise the oral part of the traditional culture of the Bistra region through research of existing records, fieldwork (interviews with local speakers) and production and digital distribution of new audiovisual recordings on the social media channels of the Association. The project is thematically divided, and the central theme of the six videos is the Bistran oral tradition of the Advent and Christmas periods, since the project was implemented in December 2022.
2. “e-Scrapbook 2: Field Research, Preservation and Popularisation of Traditional Culture of Bistra” / “e-Spomenar 2: terensko istraživanje, očuvanje i popularizacija tradicijske kulture Bistre” (2023)
The project was the continuation of the e-Scrapbook project (2022). But, this time the videos were organised according to the narrators and their memories. The topics that were in the focus were focused on the oral literature of Bistra, traditional beliefs of the locals, memories, recollections, knowledge and experiences of narrators about life and traditional customs in Bistra.
Since most of the male and female interlocutors spoke in a local idiom of Bistra, the videos strived to record their speech and make it accessible to a wider audience. Hence all the videos were made in Croatian language.
Impacts & Results
By publishing the video on the YouTube digital platform and on social media such as Facebook, Instagram and TikTok, the projects e-Scrapbook and e-Scrapbook 2 strived to present rich oral literary material, contribute to the popularisation of oral literature and bring oral culture closer to younger generations in an educational way.
In twenty-seven videos produced within the projects, narrations, various oral literary forms and speech of older narrators were recorded, which resulted in a permanent record of the local dialect of Bistra, providing the basis for further research.
Testimonies of the narrators show the continuity of oral tradition.
The educational information contained in the videos provides resources for researchers, teachers and educators, allowing them to use these videos in learning about oral literature and media literacy, among other things.
Through these projects, the Association has made a lasting contribution to the recording, research and popularisation of oral literature of Bistra in the 21st century and to strengthening the visibility of the organisation.
ADDITIONAL INFORMATIONS:
Lina Malek and Dolores Domitrović Miličić, co-authors of the project, published an article about both of the projects in Croatian scientific journal Ethnological Research (No. 29).
The article "Contribution of the Ecomuseum Bistra Association to the Recording and Popularisation of Oral Literature in the 21st Century – Projects e-Scrapbook and e-Scrapbook 2" was peer reviewed and categorized as preliminary communication.
An article in English, which contains more details about the projects, is available here: https://hrcak.srce.hr/325686.